Nutrition on the Internet

Citation

Stephen Fallows, D. (2000), "Nutrition on the Internet", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 30 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2000.01730aag.001

Nutrition on the Internet

The last article in this series ended with a promise of a review of some of the materials available on the European Union's Web sites. This is the first of two linked articles that fulfil that promise.

The European Union places a wide variety of materials onto its Web sites and the two linked articles can only refer to a few selected items; however, it is intended that these will be illustrative of the range available. The wide range of EU materials can be broadly divided as follows:

1. 1.

   Items of legislation such as new regulations and directives.

2. 2.

   Descriptions of EU systems and procedures.

3. 3.

   Agendas and minutes of meetings.

4. 4.

   Notices.

5. 5.

   Opinions.

6. 6.

   Reports.

This article addresses the first four of the above categories. A second article, in the next issue of Nutrition & Food Science will focus on the fifth and sixth; each will refer to a number of important food-related documents prepared within the EU systems.

All EU materials are held on Web sites with URLs that begin http://europa.eu.int/

Three main Web sites are referred to in this article:

1. 1.

   The European Commission site - the URL includes .../comm/... This is subdivided by reference to the relevant directorate-general; most nutrition and food matters are dealt with by DG24 which has the remit for consumer affairs. Matters relevant to agriculture are dealt with by DG6. The URL for documents indicates the relevant directorate-general.

2. 2.

   The European Parliament site - the URL includes .../europarl/...

3. 3.

   The European legislation site - the URL includes .../eur-lex/...

Since the EU is an international organisation with different Member States using different languages, the various Web sites are multilingual; the language "code" in the URL has been explained previously (see Nutrition on the Internet article in No. 4/1999 of Nutrition & Food Science).

Legislation

Within the European Union, legislation is mostly presented in the form of regulations and directives. The key difference between the two forms is as follows:

1. 1.

   Regulations apply directly. That is, once agreed through the appropriate decision-making process this legislation comes into force on the date stated and does not require additional national interpretation. An example of an EU regulation is that which establishes procedures for the control of novel foods including those produced by genetic modification.

2. 2.

   Directives need national implementation. That is each EU Member State must utilise its own national legislative processes to interpret and implement the directive. In the context of food legislation, for the UK this will require the creation of (or amendment of existing) national regulations made under the Food Safety Act 1990 and its Northern Ireland equivalent. Examples of directives include controls on food labelling, food additives and foods for particular nutritional purposes.

As a general "rule of thumb", the closer to the consumer the legislation applies the greater the likelihood that a directive is used rather than a regulation and conversely the nearer to primary production (agriculture) the greater the likelihood that a regulation is used.

Regulations and directives are each formally published on two occasions - as a proposal and once finally agreed. There may be many months between the introduction of a proposal and final agreement as each measure is considered by national officials, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Formal publication is in the Official Journal of the European Communities - this is published on a daily basis as two series referred to as "C" (for communication) and "L" (for legislation). Proposals appear in the "C" series whilst the "L" series contains the agreed legislation.

The official journal is available on the Internet as well as in traditional print format - however, each issue is only available for a period of two months. Thus the Internet version is very useful for keeping up-to-date but of no use whatsoever for tracing back issues. (It is claimed that back issues are available on the EUDOR database - however, it has proved impossible for me to access this using two separate routes to the Internet.)

The URL for the official journal is http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/oj/index.html

Accessing the above URL leads to a calendar showing the most recent months - dates for which issues are available are highlighted in yellow. Clicking on the date leads to a screen showing the issues published on that day, clicking on the issue leads to a exact copy of the contents page for the issue, clicking on the page number leads to an exact copy of the item selected. This site uses the convention that items that the user has not accessed are indicated in blue type whilst those which have been seen are given black type.

There are food-related items in the official journal almost every day - however, most of the items deal with the minutiae of agricultural support rather than on food controls of wider interest.

Descriptions of certain EU systems and procedures

In the context of nutrition, and food matters more generally, perhaps the most important consideration here is the systems and procedures through which the European Commission gains scientific advice on matters relating to food. This system is organised as follows:

1. 1.

   Eight subject specific committees provide advice on matters that fall within their competence. These are listed below:

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Food.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Veterinary Public Health.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Plants.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-food Products.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Medicinal Products and Medical Devices.

   • •

     Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment.

2. 2.

   The Scientific Steering Committee includes within its membership the chairs of all the above committees. This body provides an overarching consideration of those matters that could be considered to be within the remit of more than one of the subject committees. Matters relating to BSE and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are considered by this committee.

A nine-page review of the various DG24 Scientific Advisory Committees provides brief summaries of the work of the above committees

The URL is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg29/health/sc/report98_en.html

The most important committee with respect to food is the Scientific Committee on Food; two documents available on the Internet describe its work:

1. 1.

   The first is a single page description of the SCF origins, functions and membership. The URL is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/scf/background_en.html

2. 2.

   The second provides a detailed summary of the SCF work between 1974 and 1997. The URL is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/scf/reports_en.html

The current system of scientific advice was established in 1997 with a three-year mandate (1998-2000) and a recent memorandum from the European Commission has initiated a mid-term review of activities. Three eminent members of its scientific committees have been set three tasks:

1. 1.

   To reflect on the purposes of the EU scientific advice system.

2. 2.

   To examine the current methods for generation of scientific advice and to provide options and recommendations for improvement.

3. 3.

   To present options and recommendations for the future organisation of scientific advice.

It was intended that the group would report in November 1999. The report will be available on the Commission Web site.

Information on this review is available at the following URL: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/future_en.html

Agenda and minutes of meetings

European Commission Scientific Committees

For each meeting of the above-mentioned scientific committees the agenda is published on the Internet. However, agendas are presented in a somewhat "untidy" manner with the latest merely being tagged on to the front of a document containing all previous agendas in reverse order.

The two key committees with respect to most food issues are the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) and the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC).

The agendas of the SCF can be found at the following URL: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/scf/agenda_en.html

The agendas of the SSC can be found at the following URL: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/ssc/agenda_en.html

Although the above are the predominant committees with respect to nutrition and food matters, it should be noted that a number of the other Scientific Committees cover matters of importance in this area.

Since the EU uses a logical system for the URLs of materials on its Web sites it is a straightforward matter to "crack the code" and determine the URLs for the other committees. The URL always includes the part .../health/sc/... which denotes a scientific committee concerned with a health matter. The next part of the URL distinguishes which scientific committee; from the above it can seen that .../scf/... denotes the Scientific Committee on Food while .../ssc/... denotes Scientific Steering Committee. The codes for the other Scientific Committees are as in Table I.

The minutes of all committee meetings are also available on the Internet and generally appear six to eight weeks after a meeting has taken place.

The general style of the URL for committee minutes is given by this example from the 16-17 September 1999 meeting of the Scientific Steering Committee: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/sc/ssc/out63_en.html

The various outputs from the committees (including minutes) are presented in numbered series - hence in the above URL .../out63_en... represents the 63rd item from this committee. European Parliament

The European Parliament scrutinises and makes recommendations for revisions to new legislation relating to food and other matters. Broadly speaking, the European Parliament considers new legislation on two occasions between formal proposal (OJ - C, see above) and the final decision (by the Council of Ministers on all but the most technical matters) (OJ - L, see above).

The European Parliament site is extensive and includes access to summaries of debates as well as a wide range of other documentation. The Web site is not easy to navigate through because of a mix of complexity and specialist vocabulary. Furthermore, there are occasions where the multilingual nature of the site (it is available in each of the EU's 11 official languages) gets a little confused where instructions appear in the incorrect language - on at least one occasion I was offered the option "Conexión con el acta".

There are opportunities to search using keywords - the search results yield materials that are current (for example reports from European Parliament committees on legislation presently under consideration). A search using the key word "food" at the end of October 1999 identified three items of proposed legislation involving the EP committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy; the links were to committee reports on:

1. 1.

   dietary food products;

2. 2.

   food and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation;

3. 3.

   labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs (ingredients of alcoholic beverages).

The general access URL for the European Parliament is: http://www.europarl.eu.int/index/en/default.htm

Notices

One important group of notices comprises the Information Notices issued primarily for the benefit of the media. The RAPID database provides, as its name suggests, a quick summary of events, discussions, speeches and similar materials within hours of these taking place.

The RAPID database can be accessed at the following URL: http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/spp/rapid.html

Access is, theoretically, through use of a registered username and password - however, the opening screen advises users that the word "guest" is acceptable for both username and password.

The database can be searched by date - useful for following up events reported in other media - particularly so when a "story" is emerging as a consequence of events (such as the publication of key recommendations from an advisory committee).

Other press notices are available from the Press Website. For example, a June 1999 statement on the European Commission measures taken in respect of dioxin contamination of certain animal feeds in Belgium can be accessed at the following URL: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/library/press/press35_en.html

Concluding remarks

A second article on this subject will focus on EU Opinions and Reports and will be published in the next issue of Nutrition & Food Science.

Readers should note that taken together the two articles will cover much of the range of food related materials but will only provide a few examples from the masses of material available from EU Web sites.

If you have identified a Web site likely to be of interest to readers of Nutrition & Food Science please contact the author of this series of articles as follows: by e-mail to stephen.fallows@luton.ac.uk; by fax to 01234 766926 or 01582 743237; by post to the University of Luton.

Dr Stephen FallowsUniversity of Luton