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Upcoming Committee Meetings

The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) will hold its 43th Session in Miami, Florida, December 5-9. The main agenda items for this session are:

• Proposed draft Guidelines on the Application of General Principles of Food Hygiene to the Control of Viruses in Food;
• Proposed draft revision of the Principles for the Establishment and Application of Microbiological Criteria for Foods;
• Proposed draft Guidelines for the Control of Specific Zoonotic Parasites in Meat: Trichinella spiralis and Cysticercus bovis;
• Proposed draft Annex on Melons to the Codex of Hygienic Practices for Fresh Fruit and Vegetables; and
• A discussion paper on the review of the risk analysis principles and procedures applied by CCFH.

Two working groups will meet on December 4: (1) establishing CCFH work priorities; and (2) application of General Principles of Food Hygiene to the control of viruses in foods.

Outreach

Members of the U.S. Codex Office and the U.S. Delegation to CCFH will make presentations at a Food Safety and Trade Conference in Miami, December 2-3, sponsored by the Inter-American Institute on Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA).

Working Groups

Australia will lead an electronic working group, working in English, to consider the FAO/WHO Report Review of existing daily vitamin and mineral intake reference values which was discussed at the 33rd Session of the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU - meeting in Germany, Nov 16-20) and posted on the Codex website at ftp://ftp.fao.org/codex/ccnfsdu33/NRVreport.xls. The eWG will develop recommendations for nutrient reference values for vitamins and minerals for the general population older than 36 months. Individuals in the United States interested in contributing to the eWG should send their name, official title, and email address to the U.S. Codex Office (USCodex@fsis.usda.gov). Codex Members and Observers interested in participating in this eWG to provide the name(s), official title and e-mail address of their representatives to the Australian Codex Contact Point at codex.contact@daff.gov.au by December 15, 2011.

Request for Comments

Task Force on Animal Feeding invites governments and interested international organizations to comment on the proposed Draft Prioritized list of Hazards in Feed and the Proposed Draft Guidelines on the Application of Risk Assessment for Feed. This invitation is the second request for comments for these documents. Comments are due to Switzerland, the host country, on January 15, 2012. Both documents are available for review on our companion page: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/international-affairs/us-codex-alimentarius/committees-and-task-forces/ad-hoc-intergovernmental-task-forces/animal-feeding/ct_index. Individuals in the United States interested in contributing should send their comments to the U.S. Codex Office (USCodex@fsis.usda.gov). Codex Members and Observers interested in commenting individually should send their comments to the Task Force chair at secretariatTFAF@blw.admin.ch with a copy to the Codex Secretariat codex@fao.org.

Committee on Food Labeling requests comments on the draft definition of Nutrient Reference Values for inclusion in the Guidelines on Nutrition Labeling (CAC/GL2-1985). This document is available for review on our companion page: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/international-affairs/us-codex-alimentarius/committees-and-task-forces/general-subject-committees/codex-committee-on-food-labelling/ct_index. Individuals in the United States interested in contributing should send their comments to the U.S. Codex Office (USCodex@fsis.usda.gov). Codex Members and Observers interested in commenting individually should send their comments to the Committee chair at codex_canada@hc-sc.gc.ca with a copy to the Codex Secretariat codex@fao.org by January 31, 2012.

Other News

JEFCA: The 75th Meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) met in Rome, Italy, November 8-17. The report of that meeting is available on line at the following websites:

• FAO: http://www.fao.org/food/food-safety-quality/home-page/en/
• WHO: http://www.who.int/foodsafety/chem/jecfa/summaries/Summary75.pdf

Codex Newsletter: The 6th Edition of the Codex Alimentarius Newsletter is now available online at http://www.codexalimentarius.org/about-codex/newsletter/en/. This newsletter is compiled and published by the Codex Secretariat.