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Food and Nutrition Bulletin (Incorporating and continuing the PAG Bulletin)
The PAG Bulletin was first issued in October 1957 as News Bulletin of the FAD/WHO/UNICEF High Protein Food Programme. This programme of research on, and development of, protein foods was organized world-wide by FAO, WHO, and UNICEF and was guided in an important way by the Protein Advisory Group. The Bulletin assisted intercommunication among specialists engaged in this programme in different parts of the world and helped in providing information and advice to all co-operating scientists. News Bulletin, No. 2, appeared nearly two years later, in July 1959. News Bulletin, Nos. 3 to 6, appeared in March 1964, August 1964, April 1965, and April 1966 and were issued under the title Protein Advisory Group News Bulletin. The name PAG Bulletin was used for the first time when No. 7 was issued in October 1967. All of these bulletins were mimeographed editions.
The eighth to twelfth numbers in 1969, 1970,1971, and 1972 were camera-printed from typed mechanicals. From 1972, the PAG Bulletin was issued regularly four times a year with No. 13 designated Vol. II, No. 1. It became necessary to publish the Bulletin in French and Spanish in addition to English and from Vol. IV (1974) the publication was issued in the three languages. The Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) very generously provided financial assistance to meet the additional costs. The print order, containing about forty-six pages per issue, gradually increased from 1,500 in 1972 to 7,500 (including English, French, and Spanish) in 1977. The last issue, Vol. VII, No. 3-4 was published in December 1977.
During the early years the PAG Bulletin actively promoted exchange of information about "protein-rich" food mixtures, protein-food production, nutrition evaluation, food safety, acceptability, dietrary tolerance, and food marketing, as well as news of relevant activities of international agencies, particularly FAO, WHO, and UNICEF. Gradually the scope of the information disseminated was widened and the Bulletin reported on the numerous technical activities of the PAG and its working groups Technical working papers and review documents prepared for meetings, and the meeting reports themselves, were published along with the PAG statements and guidelines. With the enlargement of the terms of reference of the Protein-Calorie Advisory Group of the United Nations system in the early 1970, the articles and reports included in the Bulletin were such as to promote an exchange of information on the world malnutrition problem, including the socio-economic considerations, trends in food supply and consumption, and national and international initiatives and priorities in dealing with these problems.
The successors to the PAG-the ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition (SCN) set up in 1977, and the Advisory Group on Nutrition (AGN)-decided not to undertake a publication of this sort. On the other hand, a large number of people throughout the world have found the PAG Bulletin useful, and it has been an effective means of conveying information to them. Because the United Nations University World Hunger Programme is already sponsoring technical working groups on various problems within its specific priority areas and must, in any event, establish some means of disseminating the contents of working papers, the conclusions reached at its various meetings, and news of its other activities, the UN University Council has authorized the World Hunger Programme to establish the Food and Nutrition Bulletin which is similar in purpose to the PAG Bulletin. (Discussion of this proposal took place in June 1976, at which time the termination of the PAG in its present form had already been proposed by its sponsors and approved in principle by the ACC, although the proposal had not Yet been presented to ECOSOC.)
The possibility of the UN University maintaining continuity of its proposed publication-Food and Nutrition Bulletin-with the PAG Bulletin was formally considered at the meeting of the ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition, and was approved. It was recommended that the proposed publication, Food and Nutrition Bulletin of the World Hunger Programme of the UN University, carry a statement on the inside front cover that it is integrating the former PAG Bulletin and that it is being published in co-operation with the UN ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition.