Codex Alimentarius Adopts New Food Safety Recommendations

By Maëli Astruc for Intellectual Property Watch

A joint United Nations commission on food safety this week has set several new standards on level of lead, arsenic and drugs appearing in food.

The Codex Alimentarius is a joint World Health Organization-Food and Agriculture Organization commission which sets international food safety and quality standards to promote safer and more nutritious food for consumers worldwide, according to a briefing note for media.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission 37th session is taking place in Geneva from 14-18 July.

The commission has adopted new standards on maximum level of lead in infant formula and of arsenic in rice. The commission also recommended restricting the use of certain veterinary drugs in order to prevent residual amount of drugs remaining in meat, milk, eggs of honey, according to the press briefing note.

Codex Alimentarius standards are recommendations to states, and try to be balanced, the commission said.

“We have this principle that is called ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable). What ‘reasonably’ means is that you have to balance how low you can go without having to discard the majority of the food supply. It is a balance between food safety and food security,” Angelika Tritscher, coordinator at the WHO Food Safety Department, told a press briefing today in Geneva.