'Stop Codex' - Rath Protests Plans For Supplements

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The Nutrition Committee of Codex Alimentarius, an international standard-setting body of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, is deliberating harmonized world-wide guidelines for vitamin and mineral supplements in Bonn, Germany this week, starting Monday, 1 November. The proposal goes back ten years and was introduced by the German delegation to the committee. At the time the text seemed extremely restrictive, prompting me to comment in a rather critical way. Since then, the proposal has inched its way through the legislative machinery of the international agency. A major change was to advocate "scientific risk assessment" instead of RDA dosage limits for vitamins and minerals, but detractors say that the rules are a ploy to drastically limit supplement use.

Pro-supplements protest at Codex assembly, Bonn

By far the most vociferous critic is a German medical doctor Matthias Rath who says that vitamins, if used properly in combination with other nutritional elements, could practically wipe out heart disease and prevent a number of other degenerative illnesses. Two British researchers, Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts agree. They argue that vitamin C in high doses could be used to prevent and fight heart disease, infections and even cancer, if only used in proper dosage. They strongly challenge the science behind RDAs, the recommended dietary allowances, which are set at 60 to 90 milligrams a day, depending on what country you live in. Vitamin C in fact strengthens the collagen fibres that make up a good part of our body structure. Collagen also ensures the flexibility of blood vessels and supplying the nutrient in copious amounts is said to have a protective effect.

Dr. Rath has worked closely with Linus Pauling, the double nobel laureate who advocated use of vitamin C in dosages of several grams a day - Pauling died some years ago at age 92. When Rath first discovered that vitamin C could potentially eliminate heart disease, his first trip was to Switzerland, to offer the discovery to Roche, one of the principal producers of vitamin C. He says he was told that the proposal would interfere with drugs being introduced at the time. In fact, statin drugs have become a huge source of revenue for pharmaceutical giants, netting the companies billions of dollars every year. Lipitor, one of these drugs, is an absolute blockbuster drug, but it is plagued with important side effects - muscle pains and in some cases a breakdown of tissue leading to death.

Close to city of Bonn, the former capital of Germany, where the Codex deliberations are hosted by the German government, several hundred of Rath's supporters gathered to protest the proposed limitations on vitamin and mineral availability on the eve of the deliberations. Such protests are almost a fixture that characterizes the yearly meetings as much as the diversity of delegates, who come from every continent.

Charging that pharmaceutical companies profit from the continuation of disease, rather than providing the nutrients needed to prevent health problems, Rath painted a provocative history of big pharma, linking the IG Farben chemical cartel to World War II as well as to more recent armed conflicts.

On Monday, Rath supporters staged a street demonstration sporting colored balloons and angry speeches, calling on several hundred delegates from some 50 countries to abandon plans to control nutritional substances. "Health is a human right" and "Stop Codex" were slogans, chanted outside the conference center, provoking one pharma delegate's reaction: "This man is a criminal. He gives people false hope, making millions in the process. We would love to supply all those vitamins, but the science just does not support what Rath claims. We have studied vitamins and they just don't work in the way we hoped they would."

Certainly there is a clash of opposing philosophies, if not personalities. But we may yet find out who is right - because the Codex guideline, which may pass the Committee today, does mandate a review of vitamin science. Risk assessment will have to examine both sides of the coin, not only the potential dangers but also the claimed benefits. So while finding out whether vitamins are indeed as safe as many consumers and doctors say, we might also find some surprising news about their effectiveness in keeping us healthy.

Stay tuned.

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Here is a report on a protest event organized by Dr. Rath on the eve of the Codex meeting, and the speech given by Dr. Rath on the occasion. Rath does not mince words when it comes to pointing out who is responsible for much of what's wrong in the world today. In a fast-paced and gripping account he traces the history of big pharma's involvement in world events and - ultimately - the current trend of war and erosion of personal freedom.

Health is an inalienable human right
Firm protest in Bonn against Codex plans

On Sunday 31 October the Dr. Rath Health Foundation welcomed an international audience to the large auditorium of Bad Godesburg municipal hall in Bonn. "Stop Codex" was the urgent appeal, with the message: "We say 'No' to the unscrupulous plans of the Codex Alimentarius Commission to prohibit free access to natural remedies and information about them." Since Monday 1 November the Commission has been meeting again in Bonn, under German patronage, to drive forward goals which wholly disregard human needs and rights.

Dr. Matthias Rath left no doubt about who is responsible for the Codex plans: none other than the pharmaceutical cartel, which for countless years has been promising health but spreading illness. The profits of the pharmaceutical investment industry depend on the continued survival and expansion of its markets in patented drugs, genetically modified foods and synthetic food additives - despite the fact that there is an alternative to ineffectual pharmaceutical medicine, embodied in scientifically based, effective natural remedies without side effects, such as Cellular Medicine.

The large audience attending the event at Bad Godesberg municipal hall clearly demonstrated that it was composed of people intent on taking responsibility themselves: responsibility for preventing the pharmaceutical cartel from continuing to turn the human body into a market place for its "business with disease".

Dr. Aleksandra Niedzwiecki, director of the Dr. Rath Research Institute in California, gave information about Cellular Medicine's latest, encouraging research results, highlighting the fact that the strength of this natural approach to medicine lies in its scientific foundation.

Dr. Wong Ang Peng from Malaysia gave a committed and passionate lecture on the successes he has been able to achieve with the help of Cellular Medicine in combating endemic diseases such as high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

Paul Taylor, as British expert on the "Codex Alimentarius", supported Dr. Rath's appeal to protest actively against the Codex plans. He encouraged the audience and people throughout the world to send e-mails and, in particular, letters and faxes to members of the German and European parliaments, and decisively reject plans to prohibit free access to natural remedies. "All of us must act. Just think about it: the life you save might be your own," said Taylor, giving the audience something to ponder.

Adv. Anthony Brink, high court advocate and former magistrate from South Africa, reported on his battle against the pharmaceutical drug business based on AIDS. Expensive, ineffective anti-AIDS drugs are sold there – a medical catastrophe which harms whole generations of socially disadvantaged AIDS patients.

The programme of accompanying events in the municipal hall's foyer met with a very warm response. At the Dr. Rath Health Foundation stand, hundreds of signatures were collected against the Codex Alimentarius plans. Werner Pilniok spoke of the aims of his patient association, which include providing a communication forum for patients harmed by pharmaceutical medicine.

On Monday 1 November a large crowd of people gathered at the Brotfabrik cultural centre in the Beuel district of Bonn, in order to join a protest march with Dr. Rath past the building in which the Codex Commission had on the same day begun its meeting to realise its unscrupulous aims. Banners showed their absolute determination to continue the protest against the plans, regulations and laws being driven forward to protect the global pharmaceutical market. "Stop Codex, free access to natural remedies" declared this group of critics battling for a healthy world. When the protesters reached their destination there were several addresses, in which Dr. Rath, Dr. Niedzwiecki and other committed doctors and members of the Dr. Rath Health Alliance gave their solid vote in favour of free access to vitamins and natural remedies. They appealed to Codex delegates not simply to implement the profit-orientated guidelines of the pharmaceutical cartel, but to listen to their own conscience. For health is an inalienable human right that no one has the right to curtail.

Dr. Rath speech Codex 2004
Responsibility for Health, Peace and Social Justice

We meet here today to raise our voices against one of the greatest crimes in human history: the attempt to deny the right of free access to natural health, the right to health itself.

Global economic interests of a whole branch of industry, the pharmaceutical industry, aim to deprive us of this right. The commercial basis of this branch of industry is the perpetuation and spread of illnesses