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At the end of 2006 the threat was the FDA's anti-CAM draft guidance document that Dr.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&

Codex Commission Meets... Dr. Laibow Reports... US to chair Codex! Codex Consensus Collapsing?

Our intrepid co-trustees in the Natural Solutions Foundation are attending the annual Codex Alimentarius (World Health Code) Commission meeting in Geneva, and they are exposing the machinations of the "Bigs" -- Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Chema, Big Medica... Big Govt...

You can read Dr. Laibow's reports on her Health Freedom Blog at www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

But, you can also see hard-hitting video reports from the Codex meeting hall.

These can be found at: http://youtube.com/naturalsolutions

And also more directly at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=726

Is Codex changing its rules in a futile attempt to "get around" our Codex Two Step process, that allows nations to avoid the worst Codex regulations?

Now that the US is holding the Chair of the Codex Commission for the next three years, what can we expect?

Dr. Rima sees the carefully constructed Codex "consensus" - enforced by dictatorial chairpersons - breaking down, allowing the informal alliance of Health Conscious Nations an opportunity to make Codes adhere to its original mission.

That mission is stated on the Codex web site:

"The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations."

In the opinion of this blogger, once safety is assured, market processes should, with truthful and not misleading labeling, lead to improved implementation of the Codex mission.

And, see also part of the Natural Solution: the Valley of the Moon Eco Community Demonstration Project

Rima's Video on the project: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gyjTU3IwU6c


Exciting Times!

Ralph Fucetola JD
NSF Trustee
www.naturalsolutionsfoundation.org
www.globalhealthfreedom.org
www.organics4u.org
www.naturalsolutionsmarketplace.org

Codex, Food and Freedom

Here's a copy of a comment I posted on ProgressiveU.com:

"Thanks for posting the link to Natural Solutions Foundation. -- www.healthfreedomusa.org - our educational foundation seeks to expose the Codex process and its threats to health freedom. My two co-trustees of the Foundation, Dr. Rima E. Laibow, MD and Maj. Gen. Bert Stubblebine (US Army, ret.) were in Africa last week for a Codex workshop on GM food labels. There, the Coalition of Health Conscious Nations that we've helped energize resisted US efforts to prevent honest GM labeling of foods. Last year, even before the recent Scientific American article on the dangers of fluoride, we were able to keep that toxin out of healthy baby formulas.

So, it is possible to engage with Codex and get some results; usually, however, Codex goes along with the illegal US agenda of degrading organic standards, allowing toxins, irradiation and genetically modified ingredients, while restricting nutrients and natural remedies.

We've developed an alternative to Codex's evil Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, which seeks to treat nutrients as though they were industrial toxins or drugs. We call it the Codex 2 Step and you can see a short video of me explaining it on the HealthFreedomUAS.org web site. In short, Codex Guidelines are advisory only, under its Statute. Codex Guidelines are enforced through the WTO which considers them "presumptive evidence" of the standards for international trade. However, if a country adopts its own differing guideline and a national statute under it, that country comes to the WTO without any presumptions and must be judged on the science that backs its law, not Codex. We've drafted a model alternative Vitamin and Mineral Guideline that is friendly toward nutrients and natural remedies and a model Dietary Supplement Law, based on our US DSHEA law, with adjustments to finally make it nutrient and remedy friendly (for example, we incorporate Dr. Ron Paul's Health Freedom Restoration Act (HR 2117) language in it.

You can read more about all that at our site, but most importantly, please sign up for our eAlert System. We've shown we can generate over 100,000 messages to Congress and FDA anytime needed; that's why last year's FDA "enabling act" (where Congress decided to deal with FDA abuses of power by giving FDA more power to abuse...) included language protecting DSHEA products.

Please join today; alone we are just "voices in the wilderness" of cyberspace; together we are growing powerful netroots! www.healthfreedomusa.org

Ralph Fucetola JD
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/"