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NATALIA CANCIAN
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – In a collapse of arms with other entities, representatives of the food industry have increased pressure with Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to include its own Alert model on the content of sugar, fat and sodium on product labels.
Today, the new rules that will change the packaging are the subject of discussion at Anvisa. The goal is to help the consumer make healthier choices and create tools to prevent the country from becoming obese, a problem that affects 18.9% of the adult population.
The initial technical report of Anvisa, however, gave a negative opinion to the proposal of the industry, which advocates the inclusion of a kind of "nutritional semaphore" in front of the labels .
Now, Abia (Brazilian Association of Food Industries) insists on putting its own model back on the table. According to the association's managing director, João Dornellas, a new proposal was presented this week.
The model, to which the report has access, retains the format of traffic lights, but contains phrases indicating a high, medium or low sugar, sodium and fat content as well as red, yellow and green colors plus prominent.
Before, the proposal sent to the agency gave less space to colors and used lowercase letters and numbers.
The measure represents a new industry offensive with the aim of reversing Anvisa 's favorable assessment of models similar to those championed by the Pan American Health Organization. and consumer protection entities.
According to these proposals, the label would affix a warning symbol whenever an excess of any of these ingredients is indicated as a risk factor for obesity and overweight. chronic disease. There would therefore be no different signals for low or medium content, just as it occurs at the traffic light.
The argument of pro-consumer entities is that this combination of information could lead to a misinterpretation of the health of a product.
The industry however claims that warning models underestimate the power of consumer decision. "When he is informed, he has the right to make his choices, but this model is based on the premise that he has no autonomy or does not know how to choose," Wilson says. Mello, the president of Abia.
Last week, representatives of the Mercosur countries' industry were in Brasilia and signed a letter in which they defend that any change in the labels is only agreed between Brazil, Argentina , Uruguay and Paraguay.
"Having different legislations in each country will only hinder the process of integration will make foreign trade unrealistic. Do you imagine that every industry has to prepare a type of packaging for each country?" , Explains Mello.
On another front, Abia obtained an injunction that extends until July 24 the end of the term of a public consultation that would end on Tuesday (10).
The argument is that the 45-day delay, which coincides with the truckers' strike and the World Cup, would be insufficient to present studies and discuss the report. It could also jeopardize the technical evidence of the impact of the change, he informs.
Anvisa states that he has already reactivated the consultation, but that he intends to appeal the decision.
For the Idec (Brazilian Institute of Consumer Protection), the industry's attempt to extend the process causes strangeness. "The momentum for the sectors of society to send out their proposals, models of labeling and studies has already been opened and respected. This sort of maneuver is an attempt to postpone the process," said Igor Rodrigues, lawyer at the institute.
By Tuesday, 2,858 people had already submitted suggestions to the process. Of this total, 60% identified themselves as consumers and 18% as health professionals.
Anvisa states that she has not yet finalized the analysis of the contributions. It is expected that a draft proposal based on suggestions will be drafted by the end of the year.
Despite the dispute between the entities, at a given moment, the majority of the participants in the consultation are in agreement: it is necessary to change the labels.
In total, 90% of those who submitted suggestions for consultation reported having great difficulty in identifying the nutritional content of foods based on current information on packaging, according to preliminary statistics of 39; Anvisa.
The agency states that all proposals will be evaluated and taken into account in the final decision and says that the report has made a robust assessment of the international scenario and the available scientific literature.
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