Sifting for salt strategies from the Sodium Working Group.

It appears that Health Canada’s Sodium Working Group, which was appointed two years ago to craft a national strategy to reduce Canadian salt consumption, is bogged down with matters of process and disagreements over what, if anything, should be done to limit sodium consumption. But cochairs Hasan Hutchinson and Mary L’Abbe say they can’t comment about whether the group is in disarray because of internal conflicts, or about what they think the group has achieved to date, until they get a green light from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Privy Council Office. “The questions will have to be submitted to PCO [Privy Council Office] via Health Canada for approval and to formulate the answers,” says Hutchinson, director general of Nutrition Policy and Promotion for Health Canada. Meanwhile, Health Canada spokesperson Phillipe Laroche insisted in an email that the group is fine-tuning “a Canadian approach to dietary sodium reduction, including targets, an education/awareness strategy and a research agenda for consideration by the SWG [Sodium Working Group] this fall.” That’s hardly progress, says Dr. Peter Magner, associated professor of medicine and head of the division of nephrology at the Ottawa Hospital and University of Ottawa in Ontario. “I would have hoped that there would be some concrete steps rather than just having two years later decided on a process that will start to be unveiled.” “It actually sounds like it’s still the pussy-footing around 18 months later. We should move quickly to start. It would be nice to see some public announcement of guidelines and targets and timelines. That’s what one would like to ask of them: Where are their targets? Where are their timelines? And then what are the mechanisms you’re going to use to achieve them,” he adds. Former Federal Health Minister Tony Clement established the working group in 2007, touting it as a “major step in helping Canadians improve their health,” particularly in the reduction of cardiovascular diseases. Blood Pressure Canada estimates that the average Canadian consumes roughly 3500 mg of sodium per day (much more than the recommended 1200 mg). Yet, two years later, little has emerged from the working group. One member privately says it is “at loggerheads. We’re at a total impasse.” But Blaise Ouattara, technical director of the Canadian Meat Council, who attended a Sept. 11 session in which the working group updated industry stakeholders about what it has learned and what other countries are doing to reduce dietary sodium, says such differences of opinion aren’t unusual.