Codex and the Titanic's Deck Chairs
CategoriesRearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic is the title of the report of Scott Tips, correspondent of Whole Foods Magazine and representative of the National Health Federation on this year's meeting in Bonn, Germany where, in the first days of November, the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Nutrition and Special Dietary Foods - CCNFSDU - had its yearly conclave.
I have previously reported on this meeting, and have also posted the excellent write-up of Paul Taylor.
The deliberations of the varoius Codex Committees, of which CCNFSDU is only one in about twenty - are a travesty of democratic process, although they are the starting point of international rules to which national laws often have to conform. The various member nations are represented by their health authorities or other officials, the Committee decisions are not voted on but achieved through "consensus", and the resulting rules are often binding for the individual countries, whether voted on by that country's parliament or not. There is a web of international agreements, which makes these rules enforcible through trade sanctions.
To see what is meant by "consensus", read the article by Scott Tips. You see why rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is an apt description of what we are doing. It would seem smarter to work for a radical change of course. Let's avoid the iceberg of pharmaceutical domination that's leading to a general prohibition of prevention by nutrition and get out of the danger zone!
REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC
by Scott Tips January 2004, Whole Foods Magazine
Some observant person once noted “Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.” Well, after attending the recent Codex Alimentarius committee meeting in Bonn, Germany last November, I could see that the professionals were at it again. The beautiful Indian summer weather in Bonn must have lifted their spirits because the professionals spent an energetic week busily greasing the skids to launch their Titanic into the water.
Of course, as you recall, Codex Alimentarius is an international body guided by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and charged with establishing international trade standards for foods. The food standards that it establishes are backed by the power of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which settles trade disputes between nations by ruling upon complaints and then levying punitive fines upon the offending country. The WTO’s rulings have caused countries, including the United States, to change its domestic laws in order to comply with WTO rulings. Within Codex Alimentarius there are various committees that deal with specific food issues. My focus has been on the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, which, among other things, has spent several decades inching forward in its efforts to finalize its Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Supplements. Once completed, however, this document will be the basis by which food-supplement standards will be measured everywhere. And like the Titanic, it is a disaster waiting to happen.
For the fourth year in a row, I was there as a delegate. Thanks once again to the National Health Federation (NHF)(www.thenhf.com), the nonprofit consumer health-freedom organization for whom I obtained Codex observer status beginning with the 2002 meeting, my travel and hotel expenses were covered. I was also very ably assisted on the delegation by Tamara Thérèsa Mosegaard of MayDay and Paul Anthony Taylor from the United Kingdom. Together, we did our best to stem the anti-freedom tide; but, unfortunately, the NHF was the only consistently pro-health freedom voice at the Codex meeting.
As the country host for the Committee meeting, Germany provided both the location and the chairman. It also provided the most attendees. The chairman again this year was the irrepressible Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, who (presumably under some pressure from his superiors, the “High Command”) ran the meeting more efficiently this year than in the previous years of my attendance. It is important to remember that, with almost fifty countries and more than thirty nongovernmental organizations represented, there is no voting at these meetings. Dr. Grossklaus sits at the head table and arbitrates the discussions using a procedure sweetly called “consensus.” When he decides that the subject has been adequately discussed, he then announces what the consensus is and moves on to the next agenda item. Sometimes, rarely actually, there are murmurs of disapproval if Dr. Grossklaus’ decision does not track reality; but most often there are no expressions of disagreement. Either way, consensus is “reached” and the discussion on the next topic starts.
“What The EU Wants, the EU Gets”
Not surprisingly, in finding consensus, this German chairman consistently and unerringly rules in favor of the representative for the European Union (EU). Time after time, I noticed that the Chairman adopted as the consensus decision the very position taken by the EU representative. When Malaysia wanted to change the title of the Guidelines by deleting the word “food,” the EU objected. Dr. Grossklaus agreed with the EU. When South Africa tried to amend the Preamble to the Guidelines to include a statement that vitamins and minerals aid in the prevention of chronic diseases, the EU objected that food and prevention could not go together. Dr. Grossklaus agreed with the EU. When the EU announced that it wanted to make sure that all food supplements (not just vitamins and minerals) would be covered by the Codex restrictions, Dr. Grossklaus agreed to the EU’s proposed wording. When the EU decided that the definition of vitamin and mineral food supplements should be modified by tacking on the words “designed to be taken as small unit quantities,” Dr. Grossklaus agreed. When the United States, with much support from others, wanted to add wording that vitamins and minerals could be from both natural and synthetic sources, the EU objected and asked that the language be placed in brackets, indicating the language was not approved but must run the gauntlet of approval again next year. Dr. Grossklaus put the language in brackets. When the EU and the United States argued on the same side against retaining the RDA upper limits on vitamins, Dr. Grossklaus found consensus with the EU and United States position. Yet, when the EU objected to the United States’ and many other delegates’ (including the NHF’s) position that the Committee should delete the restrictive wording that “When the maximum levels are set, due account should be taken to the reference intake values of vitamins and minerals for the population,” Dr. Grossklaus agreed with the EU and retained the sentence. When various delegations (South Africa, IADSA, and the NHF) objected to language that would require vitamin and mineral supplements to be “named” as “food supplements” and suggested instead alternative wording that would distinguish the need to label the product as a “food supplement” from the actual product name, the EU disagreed. Dr. Grossklaus sided with the EU. When the EU and the United States were again at odds over whether or not the amount of vitamins and minerals contained in a product should be disclosed by the inane and useless European bulk-product system of stating so-much weight of a product yields so-many milligrams or micrograms of vitamins and minerals (leaving the hapless consumer to do the math to figure out how much is in each capsule or tablet) or be disclosed by the more direct American way of stating the milligram and microgram quantity of the vitamins and minerals per capsule or tablet, Dr. Grossklaus once again decided in favor of the EU, although he did permit the American suggested wording to remain in the sentence in the brackets that indicate it must be reviewed again next year.
By this point, I was so disgusted with the Chairman’s pattern of rubber-stamping as “consensus” the EU representative’s opinion, that, when called upon to speak, I told the Chairman that he was just fashioning the Guideline to whatever the EU wanted. “What the EU wants, the EU gets,” I told him and the others, adding that there was no consensus at all in favor of the EU position. I was not surprised, though, to find that no other delegation verbally supported me on this. And Dr. Grossklaus, looking down on the group from his judge’s chair, brushed aside my remarks with an unimpressive “I reject your comment as untrue.” And the charade continued with subsequent EU wording suggestions of course getting Dr. Grossklaus’ fair nod.
At one time, unknowingly contradicting what he would later tell me in rejecting my complaint of favoritism, Dr. Grossklaus justified his favoring of the EU by stating that the EU represented 15 countries, as if that faint logic made any sort of difference. Why was Dr. Grossklaus counting countries that joined together into a federal union? What about the fifty states of the United States? What about China with a far greater population than the EU? Or India ? Perhaps, expanding upon Dr. Grossklaus’ logic, he should weight his decisions instead in favor of the Chinese or Indian positions since they are the most populous countries of all. But, no, Dr. Grossklaus is a citizen of Germany, a member state of the EU. We know where his sympathies lie, as well as where his instructions must come from.
South Africa Shines
True to her word given at the end of the 2002 Committee meeting, South African delegate Antoinette Booyzen introduced at this most recent meeting certain Preamble and other language in an attempt to avoid the restrictive tone of the Guidelines sought by many other delegates. Her proposed amendment to the Preamble of the Guidelines would have had Codex endorsing people to “select a healthy diet and supplement this diet with those nutrients for which the intake from the diet is insufficient to meet the requirements necessary for the prevention of chronic diseases and/or for the promotion of health beyond the demands of preventing micronutrient deficiencies.” Knowing that this wording would be proposed, I had asked Elizabeth Yetley, the head of the U.S. delegation, to support South Africa’s proposed wording; but she declined, saying that it was a losing cause. So, when the matter came up for discussion, only the NHF and the Council for Responsible Nutrition
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