So is Codex a Threat to Dietary Supplements?

We were recently asked again if the UN agency, Codex Alimentarius (the world food code) was a threat to dietary supplements; was there as deadline after which Codex would prevent us from buying supplements? Here is my answer:

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...if you look up the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, adopted by Codex in 2005, it begins, "Most people who have access to a balanced diet can usually obtain all the nutrients they require from their normal diet. Because foods contain many substances that promote health, people should therefore be encouraged to select a balanced diet from food before considering any vitamin and mineral supplement"

The VMG is at: www.codexalimentarius.net/download/standards/10206/cxg_055e.pdf

When you read the VMG carefully, the prejudices against supplements stated in the very first sentence above are reinforced by a general attitude that treats food supplements as though they were industrial toxins (while elsewhere Codex allows all sorts of real industrial toxins in the food supply).

Codex guidelines are not "law" but they are "presumptive evidence" in WTO disputes. So it is the World Trade Organization that enforces Codex. For Codex to have domestic impact, local law has to be amended to meet the Codex guidelines. In the US, DSHEA still protects us from the full impact of Codex, though the new administration seems to be moving in the direction of "HARMonizing" our laws with Codex, which as long been FDA policy.

I've discussed how countries can opt out of Codex in a YouTube video called the "Codex Two Step" - see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QNg3MD6BxM&

In connection with the "Codex Two Step" Natural Solutions Foundation sponsored our own "nutrient friendly" version of the VMG for countries to adopt, which would not restrict supplementation:

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/action/step3/Revised_VMG.pdf

So while at present there is no specific deadline date when Codex will take away our right to access high quality, high potency nutrition, the inexorable pressure continues through Codex, through the North American Union cooperation agreements among US, Mexico and Canada, and through a number of other threats.

At the end of 2006 the threat was the FDA's anti-CAM draft guidance document that Dr. Ron Paul called "an abuse of FDA power..." We beat this back (it has still not been finalized by FDA) with hundreds of thousands of comments posted on the FDA site before it crashed.

In 2007 the threat was Sen. Kennedy's FDA enabling act, to which was added a "savings clause" protecting DSHEA (dietary supplement) products; we worked to keep that savings language in the final act, when it looked like it might be lost in the congressional conference committee.

Last year, 2008, FDA asked for "comments" on whether that savings clause really restricted their enhanced authority to ban interstate shipments of nutrients, proving the wisdom of persevering -- had we not fought hard to keep the language in the Act, FDA would be moving even faster against nutrition.

During the same year other FDA initiatives threatened further "HARMonization" while the EPA moved toward banning Nano Silver products.

See: Defending Nano Silver:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1773

And then there's NAIS - the national animal identification system and recent efforts to control heritage seeds as well, which some see as parts of a developing regulatory structure that will of necessity restrict access to wholesome nutrition and natural remedies.

We've opposed all these moves and will continue to do so. It isn't just Codex that is a threat to free access to nutrients and natural remedies.

But so are the FDA, the EPA, etc. This year, 2009, needs to be the year when the FDA was divested of its food authority. More about that later...

Ralph Fucetola JD
Natural Solutions Foundation Trustee
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

PS - Since most people in the world do not have "access to a balanced diet" as the VMG pretends to presume, what is the real purpose behind the regulation? Is it not reasonable to presume that it is not a benign purpose? See Dr. Laibow's brilliant expose of the evil intent behind Codex and all such restrictions, "Nutricide" at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmrF9KjlGsc&