Codex Alimentarius To Approve 'Vitamin Guidelines'

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The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) will be meeing here in Rome for a week-long conclave from 4 to 9 July, and one of the agenda points is the final approval of new world-wide vitamin guidelines that are expected to restrict availability of nutrient-containing supplements to consumers the world over. The text of the guidelines was finalized last November in Germany, by the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. I will be reporting from the CAC meeting, attending as part of a delegation of the National Health Federation, one of the very few voices that argue the side of consumer freedom of choice inside the meetings, albeit without a vote.

These types of international regulation are elaborated without public input and even without the consent of national parliaments of the participating countries.

Each country entrusts its vote, which will eventually determine national laws as well, to one person, the head of the national Codex delegation. And Codex delegations are typically headed by relatively low level administrative employees of national health ministries. So we are having what amounts to international laws being developed over the heads of and without input from national legislative authorities, let alone the public that will face the consequences. Democratic procedure has been officially abolished in the name of globalizing the economy and "removing barriers to trade".

As reported in Food Navigator: New Codex guidelines on vitamins, minerals no longer guaranteed  20/06/2005 - "A handful of countries are threatening the adoption next month of new world standards on how to set maximum levels of vitamins and minerals, reports Dominique Patton."
My comment: It appears that the supplement industry associations, especially IADSA, see the Codex process as a game with only two alternative outcomes: Either RDA dosages for supplements or safety-based dosages. Of course they prefer the safety base. No consideration seems to have been given to the fact that safety of vitamins and minerals, if assessed by standards that have been developed for toxic substances, is going to be little better than RDA dosages. Perhaps the German "safety evaluation" of vitamins and minerals should be a grim reminder of what can happen if safety is over-zealously protected...

Investigative journalist Peter Byrne introduces his article The Fate of Vitamins with the following words:

A low-profile organization created by the United Nations is about to ban global trade of many essential nutrients - and there may be nothing you can do to stop it.

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Peter Byrne, according to his own site, has an uncanny ability to mine reportable nuggets of graft and corruption out of mountains of government and corporate records — not to mention human sources. He knows how to get inside the soul of self-serving systems — be they created by left-wingers, neocons, or non-ideologically-inspired criminals — and find the facts.

At first I was a bit skeptical about that characterization, but after reading the article, I tend to agree.

Byrne takes us behind the smoke-screens into a world of corporate globalization. International agencies which closely co-operate with big pharma and big food are well on the way to carving up a potentially lucrative health and foods market and turning it over to its "rightful owners", the big global players. While not catching all of the technical details of this complex matter, the insights and the "big picture" he paints are worth reading even for those who think they have a pretty good understanding of what is going on. Here is his article:

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The Fate of Vitamins

A low-profile organization created by the United Nations is about to ban global trade of many essential nutrients—and there may be nothing you can do to stop it

By Peter Byrne

If you use vitamin and mineral supplements for health, you might want to fly over to Rome, Italy and crash the July 4-9 meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a little-known international body that wields immense power over the global food market. Should the Codex Commission approve the Draft Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Supplements on its agenda, 300 of the 420 basic vitamin and mineral products commonly used by European consumers will be banned from manufacture and trade inside the European Community.

The ban will seriously impact the export business of U.S.-based supplement companies and could eventually result in similar product restrictions being implemented here. The Codex story has received almost no attention in the corporate press and media; although badly garbled versions of the tale zing about in cyberspace, confusing many readers with conspiracy-laden mixtures of fact and fantasy. Which is not to blame the authors of these emails, since the Codex Alimentarius (Latin for "food code") Commission is so pathologically bureaucratic that its real intentions, and the probable consequences of its actions, are difficult to discern when wading through thousands of pages of jargon in its public reports. For example, it is not true that over-the-counter vitamins and minerals will be banned in the United States after August 2005...

Read the rest of the article here

Other related articles:

News with Views: KISS YOUR VITAMINS GOODBYE!
By Dr. Carolyn Dean - June 19, 2005

The Vitamin Police Are Suiting Up
by Gary North (on www.lewrockwell.ocm)

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org

WorldNetDaily
Your dietary supplements: Under attack again

Why organized medicine wants to outlaw nutrition and turn healers into criminals
How about some truth for a change about the Food Supplements Directive in the European Union? The proponents of this directive say that it's about protecting patients from all these dangerous vitamins, minerals, supplements, plant extracts and antioxidants that are so dangerous for people. They say, "We're going to keep you safe!"

Snopes.com says that this is all smoke and mirrors. The Codex Threat is an urban legend and we shouldn't worry about it. See the article by Barbara "vitaminimized" Mikkelson - Vitamin See

Donna Cinelli takes Snopes to task for their sloppy evaluation of the facts. I found Donna's letter on the Alternative Medicine Forum.

Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 15:00:01 -0400
From: NeverSurrender@...
Subject: Snopes is saying CODEX is a hoax!

Dear Ms. Mikkelson:

It was with a great degree of upset, anger, and frustration that I read your posting on Snopes regarding the CODEX issue as a hoax.

I sincerely hope that Snopes and you are simply misinformed and you will correct your flawed analysis of the CODEX issue. It is NOT. On the other hand, it could be that you are acting on behalf of certain interest groups, which I hope is not the case. The truth will come out depending on how you respond to this and other emails that if you are not getting now are surely coming soon.

I take issue with many points you argue, but most important is your claim that CODEX has no power to force its will on any nation. "Codex standards are voluntary, which means if the U.S. doesn't adopt them, they will not govern the regulation of vitamins, minerals, or dietary supplements in the USA." THIS IS NOT TRUE!!

The US signed the SPS and TBT Agreements, which are subsections of GATT. Codex standards and guidelines were voluntary up until the Uruguay Round of GATT, which created the WTO that has enforcement power via a new international court that doesn't follow our rules of evidence- the Dispute Settlement Body. The WTO has put the mechanisms in place to override any national law that interferes with multinational corporate profits, and that is why Congressman Ron Paul tried to remove us from the WTO in 2000 via House Joint Resolution 90.

Several WTO rulings have gone against US law, forcing Congress to change our law under threat of cross sector trade sanctions against broad sectors of our economy, the most recent and publicized of these was the situation regarding our steel industry and tariffs. If they can force the US to change policy over such a vital national interest as our steel industry, the dietary and herbal supplement industry will be easy.

Next is your claim that "this is another case of an issue that is now largely moot due to outdated information. Back in 2003, two versions of a bill that proposed the regulation of dietary supplements (S. 722, the "Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003," and H.R. 3377, the "Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act") were introduced to Congress. Neither of these bills was ever voted upon, much less passed. They both expired with the end of the 108th Congress in 2004 and have not been reintroduced to the currently sitting 109th Congress."

If you had bothered to do some research and verification of your information, you would have discovered that both Sen. Durbin's and Sen. Davis's offices have indicated that they fully intend to reintroduce both bills, with slight changes, under new bill numbers, sometime in this new congress. Both of these members of Congress are currently re-writing these bills with the full intention of reintroducing them under new numbers. W