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ALIMENTARY TRASTORS Law 26.396 Determine the prevention and control of eating disorders of national interest.

The Senate and Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation assembled in Congress, etc. sanction with force of Law:

ARTICLE 1 The prevention and control of eating disorders, which will include the investigation of their causal agents, the diagnosis and treatment of associated diseases, comprehensive assistance and rehabilitation, including that of their derived pathologies, and measures to prevent their spread, are of national interest. ARTICLE 2 Focus on eating disorders, for the purposes of this law, obesity, bulimia and nervous anorexia, and the other diseases that the regulation determines, related to inadequate forms of food intake. Article 3 Please refer to the National Programme for the Prevention and Control of Food Disorders within the Ministry of Health, which will aim to:

(a) To provide information campaigns on eating disorders, including:

1. On the characteristics of them and their consequences;

2. On their clinical, nutritional, psychological and social aspects and the appropriate and inappropriate forms of their treatment;

3. On the right and promotion of health, and on the rights of the consumer;

(b) Decrease morbidity associated with these diseases;

(c) Formulate standards for evaluation and control against eating disorders;

(d) To promote the development of research activities;

(e) Promote, especially among children and adolescents, healthy nutritional behaviours;

(f) Promote in the community spaces of reflection and education to contain those who suffer from these diseases;

(g) Propose actions aimed at eliminating discrimination and stigmatization in the labour, educational and/or social spheres, against the suffering of eating disorders;

(h) Promote the participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the actions envisaged by this programme;

(i) Promote and coordinate with the provincial authorities and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires the implementation of similar programs at the local level;

(j) Develop outreach, television, radial and graphical activities aimed at the general population and at risk groups in particular to raise awareness of the health risks caused by unchecked diets and to educate the population about healthy eating habits that are appropriate to each stage of growth.

ARTICLE 4 The Ministry of Health, as the enforcement authority of this Act, shall coordinate actions within the Federal Health Council with other jurisdictions in order to ensure the implementation of this Act.

The enforcement authority will have the necessary measures to ensure that at least UN (1) specialized food disorders operate in each jurisdiction.

ARTICLE 5o Include eating disorders in the National Epidemiological Surveillance System .SINAVE., or in which, in the future, it corresponds. ARTICLE 6 The Ministry of Health will coordinate with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development:

(a) The incorporation of Nutritional Food Education (EAN) into the education system at all levels, as well as measures that promote physical activity and avoid sedentarism, and the promotion of a healthy school environment.

(b) Training of educators, social workers, health workers and other community operators to train suitable agents for:

1. Contribute to the training, development and updating of basic knowledge on food issues.

2. To properly detect situations of vulnerability and promote actions and strategies to address them through appropriate guidance and/or referral.

(c) Conducting workshops and meetings to raise awareness among parents about the prevention of eating disorders, and the dangers of unhealthy lifestyles.

ARTICLE 7 The Ministry of Health will host events, seminars, workshops, conferences, contests and/or broadcasting programmes, which will contribute to the knowledge of the problems associated with the different eating disorders, and forms of prevention. ARTICLE 8 The Ministry of Health, in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development, will develop food standards to ensure that school eaters and national food plans ensure the nutritional aspects of the target population, with special emphasis on correcting nutrient deficiencies or excesses, in response to the particularities of local food culture. Article 9 The kiosks and other food-expendium establishments within school establishments should offer products that integrate a healthy and varied diet, and should be properly displayed. ARTICLE 10. The application authority should take measures to ensure that advertisements, and fashion designers, do not use extreme thinness as a symbol of health and/or beauty, and offer a more plural picture of young people, particularly women. ARTICLE 11. Publicity and/or promotion, through any means of diffusion, of foods with high caloric content and poor in essential nutrients, must contain the legend " Excessive consumption is harmful to health." ARTICLE 12. The publication or dissemination in the media of diets or methods of weight loss that do not conjure up the endorsement of a doctor and/or licensed in nutrition is prohibited. ARTICLE 13. The Ministry of Health may require the person responsible for the publicized or promoted food product, the technical check of the assertions made in the same, on the quality, origin, purity, conservation, nutritional properties and benefit of the use of the published products. ARTICLE 14. Publicity advertisements in mass media of products for weight loss should be directed, exclusively to those of VEINTIUN (21) years of age, and should also be starred by older persons. ARTICLE 15. They are incorporated into the Compulsory Medical Program, the coverage of the comprehensive treatment of food disorders according to the specifications given by the application authority. ARTICLE 16. The coverage to be provided by all social works and associations of social works of the National System included in Law No. 23.660, recurrent of the redistribution fund of Law No. 23.661, other social works and organisms that make their times created or governed by national laws, and companies or entities that provide prepaid medical services, as set out in Law No. 24.754, shall include the necessary medical treatments, including nutritional, surgical, ARTICLE 17. Providers of goods or services for the general public may not, in the light of the requirement of an obese person, be denied to provide the requested good or service, under conditions established by the Executive Branch.

Such refusal shall be regarded as a discriminatory act in the terms of Act No. 23.592.

ARTICLE 18. The Executive Branch shall have the necessary measures to ensure that educational and health facilities within its jurisdiction are provided with the appropriate facilities and facilities for the use and assistance of persons with obesity. It will also manage to the provincial governments and that of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, the adoption of norms of similar nature. ARTICLE 19. All medical, public and private care institutions should have a statistical record of patients with eating disorders and related chronic diseases. To this end, the application authority shall make the collection and registration forms.

The implementing authority will periodically develop an epidemiological health map and a report on actions carried out at the national level and in conjunction with the provincial authorities. Progress and research on disease will also be reported at the official level or with official fellowships.

ARTICLE 20. The Executive Power will have the necessary measures to ensure that the containers in which edible products are commercialized for human consumption that have between their fat inputs miltrans fonts carry in letter and place sufficiently visible the legend: 000The consumption of αtrans fat is harmful to the health. ARTICLE 21. Please inform the Executive Branch of the adoption of the provisions of a sanctioning nature in the face of the failure to comply with this Act, taking into account the seriousness of the absence and the reiteration of this law.

Such sanctions shall apply without prejudice to the civil or criminal liability that may be appropriate.

ARTICLE 22. Invite the provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires to dictate norms of equal nature to those provided for in the present, within the scope of their respective jurisdictions. ARTICLE 23. Contact the Executive.

IN THE SESSION OF THE ARGENTINE CONGRESS, IN GOOD AIRES, TO THE TRECE DAYS OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST YEAR DOS MIL OCHO. # 26,396 EL JULY C. C. COBOS. EDUARDO A. FELLNER. . Enrique Hidalgo. . Juan H. Estrada.

ALIMENTARY TRASTORS Decree 1395/2008

Note articles 5, 11, 20 and 21 of Act No. 26,396. Promulgation.

Bs. As., 2/9/2008

VISTO the Bill registered under No. 26,396, sanctioned by the HONORABLE CONGRESS OF NATION on 13 August 2008, and

CONSIDERING:

That the above-mentioned Bill declares the prevention and control of food disorders of national interest, which will include the investigation of its causal agents, the diagnosis and treatment of associated diseases, comprehensive assistance and rehabilitation, including that of its derived pathologies, and measures to prevent its spread.

It is also determined that it should be understood by eating disorders, obesity, bulimia and nervous anorexia, and the other diseases that the regulation determines, related to inadequate forms of food intake.

That, on the other hand, the National Programme for the Prevention and Control of Food Disorders is created within the Ministry of Health, and the objectives of the Programme are discussed.

That Article 5 of the Bill includes eating disorders in the National Epidemiological Surveillance System .SINAVE., or in which, in the future, it corresponds.

That SINAVE is aimed at the early detection and monitoring of outbreaks or epidemiological modalities of diseases that involve a risk to the population and that therefore require immediate intervention for its control, being also, by such characteristics, mandatory notification.

That the food disorders and associated diseases mentioned in the sanctioned rule do not meet this criterion, since it addresses reasons related to the magnitude, severity of damage, vulnerability, social impact, international health regime and international commitments.

That therefore, eating disorders do not constitute an epidemiological modality of which, according to the criteria indicated, they must be included in SINAVE.

Accordingly, article 5 of the Bill registered under No. 23,696 should be noted.

Article 11 of the Bill states that advertising and/or promotion, through any means of dissemination, of foods with high caloric content and poor in essential nutrients, should contain the legend " Excessive consumption is harmful to health."

That the classification of "essential nutrients" is unclear and has no scientific sustenance.

It is difficult to find examples of a food that alone meets the requirements of high caloric content and poor in essential nutrients. There is no value or threshold that classifies a food as "evaluated or low energy value", each food provides a certain amount of calories per serving, and according to the daily energy needs can be consumed more or less portions of that food.

That, from a strictly normative point of view, the Argentine Food Code (CAA) states in its article 221: "In the advertising that is carried out by any means, the definition, composition and denomination of the product established by this Code shall be respected."

That, by labeling certain foods with the phrase "Excessive consumption is harmful to health", the MERCOSUR regulations on food labelling would be modified ( GMC Resolutions No. 26/03, 44/03, 46/03, 47/03).

That, under the above considerations, it is appropriate to observe article 11 of the Bill registered under No. 26,396.

That Article 20 of the Bill states that the Executive Power will have the necessary measures to ensure that the containers in which edible products are commercialized for human consumption that have between their fat inputs "trans" carry in letter and place sufficiently visible the legend: "The consumption of fat "trans" is harmful to health".

That the Argentine Food Code contains the sanitary, brothological and commercial identification of food for human consumption, harmonized according to the modifications incorporated as a result of the internalization of standards emanated from MERCOSUR.

That, in this sense, it must be taken into account that Chapter V of the CAA incorporated, through the Joint Resolution ex SPRyRS 149/05 and SAGPyA 683/05, the MERCOSUR Technical Regulation for Packaging Food Rotulation . GMC Resolution 26/03 y and the MERCOSUR Technical Regulation on Nutritional Food Rotulation . GMColution.

It is also appropriate to take into account the Joint Resolution ex SPRyRS 150/05 and SAGPyA 684/05, which incorporated into the said Code the "MeRCOSUR Technical Regulation of Food Portions Packaging to the Purposes of Nutritional Rotulation" ReResolution GMC 47/03..

If it is deemed necessary to update or modify any aspect of the Argentine Food Code, Article 6 (b) of Decree No. 815/99 empowers the National Food Commission to propose the updating of the same recommendation by making such modifications as may be necessary to keep it in line with the progress made in the matter, taking as a reference the international standards and the agreements concluded in MERCOSUR.

That, on the other hand, the rules of labelling applicable to food, by which the Argentine Food Code was updated, are MERCOSUR standards incorporated by States parties into their legal systems ( GMC Resolutions No. 26/03, 46/03 and 47/03), and therefore it is not possible to modify the regulations without the agreement of those States Parties.

That, in view of the concern generated by the effects of lifestyle and diet that contributed to the high incidence of overweight, obesity and cardiovascular disease, the MERCOSUR countries developed the aforementioned Resolutions that were, as already expressed, incorporated into the Argentine Food Code by Joint Resolutions ex SPRyRS 149/2005 and SAGPyA 683/2005 and ex SPRyRS

That, by virtue of this, it is difficult to note the potential conflict that would exist between the drafting of article 20 of the Draft Law and the Argentine Food Code, harmonized according to the rules emanating from MERCOSUR.

Accordingly, it is appropriate to observe article 20 of the Bill registered under No. 26,396.

Article 21 of the Bill empowers the Executive Branch to issue the provisions of a sanctioning nature in the face of non-compliance with the rule, taking into account the seriousness of the absence and the reiteration thereof.

That, in this regard, Marienhoff argues that the delegated regulations "These are the ones that issue the Executive Power by virtue of an attribution or empowerment that expressly confers upon it by the Legislative Power." He also notes that "...to the issue of delegated regulations it must be restricted or limited, for the benefit of public liberties; and that "they must be limited to developing basic principles contained in the law that the delegation does. Such regulations have a double limit: one immediate, which is the law of reference, another mediate, which is the Constitution, whose principles, in the interest of delegated matter and the extension of the delegation, must be respected by the delegate. " (Treaty of Administrative Law, Volume I, p. 267).

Which, moreover, adds that "the SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE DE LA NATION accepts that the delegated regulation may be issued in our country, without this injuring any text or principle of constitutional order. But the validity of these regulations is subject to certain conditions: the normative powers granted to the executive branch must be within a certain and expressly determined sphere. Ultimately, with reference to punitive matter (police law), he further circumscribed the scope of delegated decrees" (Treaty of Administrative Law, Volume I, p. 269).

On the other hand, it expresses that "...the act that the Executive issues as a result of this legislative delegation, since it integrates the respective law, is part of the characters of the law; consequently, such an act could be prosecuted by the same means by which it could be the law that it integrates (verbly, it could be tagged as unconstitutional, if such a vice exists). If the law of the delegation refers to an indelible faculty de, for example, creating taxes or setting up crimes, etc. y, and the Executive issues an act creating taxes or setting up crimes, both the law that contains that delegation, and the act of the Executive that gave it course, can be objected to unconstitutional." (Treaty of Administrative Law, Volume I, p. 274).

That, "in issuing a regulation, the executive body must respect the so-called "reservation of the law", in whose merit it must refrain from staging on matters reserved for the competence of the legislator. In that order of ideas, it could not establish taxes, set up crimes and establish penalties..." (Treaty of Administrative Law Volume I p. 282).

In addition, he points out that "the administrative, national or provincial authorities, whatever their hierarchy or rank, lack the empire to set up or create contraventional figures or faults. Such a configuration or creation must be, indefectably, the work of the legislator: the executive branch ). and for more reason its subordinates ). will only be able to regulate that law, for the purposes of its execution or compliance, but always taking care not to alter its spirit" (Treaty of Administrative Law Volume IV p. 560).

That, in the case of "Mouviel, Raúl Oscar and others" (Fallos CSJN 237:626) has expressed: "...it is one of the most precious guarantees enshrined in the Constitution that no inhabitant of the Nation can be punished without prior judgment based on the law prior to the fact of the process" (Fallos 136:200); that "all in our civil organization can be punished without prior judgment" (Fallos 136:200). The rights and obligations of the inhabitants as well as the penalties of any kind, exist only under legislative sanctions and the executive branch cannot create them or the judiciary to apply them if the law establishes them is lacking" (Fallos 178:355); and that "the setting up of a crime, however slight it is, as well as its repression, is a matter that makes the essence of the legislative branch and escapes from the orbit of the executive powers. No one is obliged to do what the law does not command or deprive of what it does not prohibit (art. 19 of the CN). Hence the need for a law to handle or prohibit one thing is born, so that a person may incur in fault for having acted or omitted to work in a certain sense. At the same time, it is necessary that there be a legal sanction that represses the contravention so that the person must be convicted of such an act (art. 18 of the CN). These two fundamental and correlative principles in the criminal order impose the need for the legislature to establish the conditions in which a fault occurs and the sanction that corresponds to it, since the executive branch can only regulate the law, providing for its execution, but always taking care not to alter its meaning" (Fallos 191:245).

"That according to this doctrine, the "previous law" of the constitutional guarantee cited and the principle "nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege", indissolubly demands the double precision by the law of the punishable facts and the penalties to apply, without prejudice to the legislator leaving to the executive organs the regulation of the specific circumstances or conditions of the repressed actions and the amounts of the penalties within a minimum and maximum. In the republican representative system of government adopted by the Constitution, which is fundamentally supported by the principle of the division of powers, the legislator cannot simply delegate to the executive branch or in administrative divisions the complete configuration of the crimes or the free choice of the penalties, as this would matter the delegation of powers that are essentially indelible. Nor is it lawful for the executive branch, on the basis of the statutory powers granted by article 99, paragraph 2 of the CN, to replace the legislator and, on the basis of the alleged regulatory procedure, to issue the previous law that requires the constitutional guarantee of article 18 of the CN".

That, in the same sense, the PROCURATION OF THE THIRD OF NATION has been pronounced in Views 244:833: "This Treasury Procuration has already pointed out before now the improcedence of translating criminally punishable behaviours through administrative rules, in merit to the flagrant violation of Article 18 of the National Constitution (v. Dictamenes 188:85).

Accordingly, it is appropriate to observe article 21 of the Bill registered under No. 26,396.

That the proposed measure does not alter the spirit or unity of the Draft Law sanctioned by the HONORABLE CONGRESS OF NATION.

That the present is dictated in the use of the powers conferred on the NATIONAL EXECUTIVE POWER by Article 80 of the NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.

Therefore,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE ARGENTINA NATION IN GENERAL AGREEMENT OF MINISTERS

RIGHT:

Article 1 Artículo Note articles 5, 11, 20 and 21 of the Bill registered under No. 26,396. Art. 2o o With the salvedades set out in the preceding article, please amend, and refer to the National Law Bill registered under No. 26,396. Art. 3o o Note the Permanent Bicameral Commission of the HONORABLE CONGRESS OF NATION. Art. 4o — Communicate, publish, give to the NATIONAL DIRECTION OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION and archvese. . KIRCHNER FERNANDEZ. . Sergio T. Massa. Aníbal F. Randazzo. . Jorge E. Taiana. . Carlos R. Fernández. . Julio M. De Vido. Aníbal D. Fernández. . Carlos A. Tomada. . Alicia M. Kirchner. . María G. Ocaña. . Juan C. Tedesco.