The panel consisted of 12 people: four of them either consulted for or worked for the food industry; four were public health nutritionists from very small communities--two of them with less than 15,000 people--and they had busy full-time jobs. They didn't come from organizations that had the kinds of institutional resources to support them in their deliberations. A couple of the other members, quite frankly, had very little nutrition science expertise.
I know there were a couple of independent nutrition groups—not our group but others—from Ontario and Quebec that offered recommendations for nominations for the panel, and they were ignored. These were people, I understand, with advanced degrees in nutrition science.
We'll see what comes out of it. I understand it's to be released at the beginning of 2007, but I hope it undergoes more changes.