Herbs / Vitamins / Drugs / Supplements

Your Freedom of Choice in Health Care May Be at Risk

There may be a threat to your access to vitamins and minerals looming on the horizon. It’s called the Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations regulation purporting to set international standards for nutritional supplements. I don’t want to “cry wolf”, but there may be some very disturbing developments on the horizon with regard to supplements. I will attempt to summarize the information for you in this post; however, this subject is broad and the opinions many. I recommend you check out the web links listed at the end of this article and reach your own decision. You may have heard of the Codex Alimentarius before, since it’s been around for a while. It is a U.N. project and essentially establishes a world-wide food law governing not only food purity, but vitamins and minerals, as well. The intent is to make the Codex Alimentarius Commission “The” final authority on all matters related to health and nutrition. The Commission was established by and works in coordination with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been in existence since 1962. Enforcement of its provisions falls under the purview of the World Trade Organization (WTO) via international trade sanctions. Some of the Codex provisions include setting a maximum “safe” limit for vitamins and minerals in nutritional supplements. This regulation has been in the works for many years and it is set to go into effect this summer. I have seen two different dates — June and August of 2005. In most cases, this will mean no vitamins with potencies higher than RDA (ie, 1.2 mg vitamin B1, 33 mg vitamin C, etc.) And, certain items will simply be illegal — CoQ10, digestive enzymes, mixed tocopherol vitamin E, to name some of the most important ones. It also prohibits anyone from sharing information about the health benefits of nutritional supplementation or foods. Any written guidance would have to be “vetted” through a centralized Commission Approval procedure! All of my nutrition reports and newsletters will immediately become illegal! The pharmaceutical industry has been able to convince certain nations (and only nations can vote) that there is no health benefit from vitamins and they do not prevent disease. I have been trying to get some hard information from a variety of sources to attempt to assess how serious a problem this will be for natural health care and I cannot get ANY hard information. I simply get a variety of conflicting stories and empty assurances. I have called my local congressman’s office — they know nothing about it. I called the Los Angeles office of the FDA, their public information office — she knew nothing about it. I talked to one of my largest nutrition suppliers — they assured me their attorneys said it was “no threat.” In mid-March, I heard back from the FDA public information officer. She sent me the information from the FDA web site (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html). The information states that there will be no impact on the availability of vitamins and minerals in the U.S. However, there are several issues that are not addressed. First of all, many of the raw materials are produced overseas. CoQ10, for example is produced in Japan, which owns the patent. In addition, many amino acids are produced in Japan. We have already seen an impact in the pricing of CoQ10. I called Metagenics and they do, indeed, obtain their raw product from Japan. The other major concern to me is that the FDA web site does not address the issue of dissemination of health information by practitioners, such as myself. One of the reasons I have trouble accepting these assurances is that I am noticing disturbing news articles in the American press. If you have been following the news with regard to Vitamin E, you know that the March 16, 2005 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association contains an article claiming that vitamin E increases the risk of death from heart failure and has no health benefits whatsoever. Of course, the product used was “natural source vitamin E,” which means purified d-alpha tocopherol, since 90%+ of vitamin E on the shelves is d-alpha tocopherol. (See my earlier post for an analysis of this controversy.) And, do you remember the flap a few years ago that vitamin C causes genetic damage? Again, experiments done in the test tube, not in a human being. Unfortunately, the Codex Commission depends upon research funded at large universities (mostly by drug companies), and we have already seen, in just these 2 examples, how research can be manipulated to give the desired result. I believe we are being conditioned to accept that vitamins are not good for us and access to them should, therefore, be limited. The question becomes: What can you do?

    1. Increase awareness of the Codex. Tell everyone you know that an unelected and unreachable international organization wants to govern your access to health information.
    2. Share your opinions about this matter with your elected representatives in Congress. Remember: be original, be specific and be constructive. Congresspeople get thousands of pieces of mail. (To find the appropriate e-mail addresses, go to http://www.webslingerz.com/ jhoffman/congress-email.html)

I urge you to do your own research and take the actions you deem appropriate. I will admit that I am frightened by what is happening; but, I can’t make decisions for you. Each of us must evaluate the information for ourselves and take the action we are comfortable with.

LINKS: (COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR BROWSER) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html http://www.webslingerz.com/ jhoffman/congress-email.html http://organicconsumers.org/politics/supplements32705.cfm The CODEX conspiracy … has rapidly pushed their legislative program (Codex Alimentaris) in Europe that will … CODEX drastically restricts vitamins, minerals, herbs and other … LP: CODEX ALIMENTARIS ENDS US SUPPLEMENTS IN JUNE 2005 Liberty Post: CODEX ALIMENTARIS ENDS US SUPPLEMENTS IN JUNE 2005. … choice Americans now have to purchase vitamins, herbs, minerals, homeopathic remedies, … Re: Prescriptions For US All Vitamins/Supplements In June … … Synopsis: Codex Alimentaris Ends US Supplements In June 2005 … they will also take money from the people who peddle vitamins/nutritional supplements. … LookSmart’s Furl – The watxe Archive … Dr. James Howenstine — Codex Alimentaris Ends US Supplements in June 2005… now have to purchase vitamins, herbs, minerals, homeopathic remedies, … http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/health_movement_against_codex/ http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/w9114e/W9114e00.htm http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/members.jsp?lang=EN http://www.hfn-usa.com/articles/codex-pr.html http://www.newswithviews.com http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb218763.php. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb218383.php. http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=practitioners http://thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm (THIS ARTICLE IS PARTICULARLY ENLIGHTENING) A new link I discovered May 1st, which tries to give an overview and contains many of the materials cited above: http://www.lostartsmedia.com/thingscodex.html It may be a bit extreme, since at this point, no one really knows for sure. But, it does contain the text of the Codex regarding vitamins.

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