The Codex threat to supplement access

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Imagine having to get a Doctor's prescription

for a Vitamin C pill of more than 100mg?

 

Please read this letter from the Aliance for

Natural Health. It is truly getting scary.

 

 

 

It's approaching November and the critically important annual meeting of

the Codex committee on nutrition starts next week. Here, further detail on how

international guidelines affecting food and dietary supplement get thrashed out,

with the view to these guidelines being adopted by as many member nations as

possible, supposedly to ensure that consumers are adequately protected and trade

between nations is facilitated. Sound reasonable? Well, it isn't, and find out

why below.

 

Moving from our usual format, we have devoted this entire eBlast

exclusively to the whole issue of Codex in relation to natural health simply

because we feel there are so many different views being expressed and so much

confusion on the subject. We have tackled this complex issue in layperson's

terms and hope it will be accessible to a wide audience. We do acknowledge that

it is longer than normal, but feel it is imperative that you have this

information at this time.

 

Note: Please forward this eBlast on to anyone you think might be

interested, and if you know of a website that might wish to publish this

article, we are happy for it to be published with due acknowledgment to the

Alliance for Natural Health.

 

From the Germany to the Golden Triangle..

 

After years of meeting in Bonn in Germany, in the country that has defined

ultra-precautionary approaches to nutrition, this coming Codex committee meeting

has been relocated - this time to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand - the heart of

the so-called Golden Triangle. We'll be looking closely at the attendance

statistics and any drop-off in attendance from some of the smaller, notably

African, nations will almost certainly be the result of the increased cost of

getting to the Thailand meeting. This concern was already voiced by a number of

delegates at the end of last November's meeting in Bonn, when the new

destination for the next meeting was announced. Let's not forget that some of

these smaller nations are becoming more and more interested in nutritional

interventions in healthcare given the high cost of pharmaceuticals so they have

an interest in ensuring that Codex guidelines don't neuter all nutrients, to the

point their dosages are so low to be non-therapeutic. One would hope

gerrymandering wasn't part of the reason for the relocation of the meeting.

 

The National Health Federation, the only health freedom interest with

delegate status at Codex, is this year sending a three member, international

delegation comprised of Ingrid Franzon (Sweden), Dr Robert Verkerk (of ANH,

UK-based) and Dr Wong Ang Peng (Malaysia).

 

Confused over the relevance of Codex?

 

Much has been written and said about the significance of Codex guidelines.

The FDA in the USA, and a number of major natural health trade associations,

uphold that Codex will not have any effects on nutrients sold within the US, and

will only affect exports to countries who decide to adopt Codex guidelines, like

Europe and many African and Asian countries. This view has been strengthened by

a number of US legal opinions that have dealt with the question of whether Codex

guidelines are mandatory in the USA.

 

These legal opinions have crucially failed to address the potential

political, economic and social effects of Codex. This is probably because

lawyers are paid to focus on legal matters and they inevitably centre their

opinions on the very specific questions that are asked of them. These past

opinions tend to have been confined to addressing the issue of the mandatory

nature, or otherwise, of Codex guidelines, as well as the potential effect of a

trade dispute brought under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

Unravelling Codex - simply

 

This is not the place to get into the finer details of how Codex or the

WTO works or how, in our considered view, Codex presents a huge threat to the

continued, long-term availability of therapeutic nutrients to consumers all over

the world. But given the mass of sometimes conflicting information on the

internet, we think it's worth looking at some of the simple facts that make up

the worrying picture of Codex in relation to our ability to self-medicate,

self-heal and manage our own health, free - if we should so choose - from the

control of the pharmaceutical industry:

 

a.. Codex guidelines are being applied initially to maximum dosages of

vitamins and minerals but will likely be applied to both ingredients and

dosages of other categories of nutrients in the future, just like the EU Food

Supplements Directive is in the process of doing across the EU

 

b.. Codex guidelines are controlled by the EU more than any other

country because European member states have agreed that they will vote en bloc

behind the unelected European Commission that has been the primary driver of

ultra-restrictive legislation in Europe (this way Europe provides 25 votes,

against one, for example, from the United States)

 

c.. Codex Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements bear

remarkable similarities with the EU Food Supplements Directive, so that, given

the control of the European Commission, Codex guidelines can be seen as a

mechanism which serves to export restrictive EU laws on food/dietary supplements

to the world stage

 

d.. The Codex Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements are

using 'scientific risk assessment' as the means of establishing maximum dosages,

that will ultimately define, internationally, what is regarded as the borderline

between food and medicinal doses. This is not good news given that we have now

demonstrated amply that the form of risk assessment that is being used is deeply

flawed and therefore in many cases massively understates maximum safe dosages.

Although the some of the natural products industry celebrated the move to

'scientific risk assessment' which they saw as a coup over RDA-based maximum

levels, the truth is that this new science has been orientated in such a way to

give results that are not very different, and in some cases less favourable,

than RDA-based approaches

 

e.. Even if trade sanction are not imposed following a trade dispute

through the WTO, the political, economic and social effects of internationally

developed and recognised Codex guidelines are enough to force, in time, the vast

majority of countries to bring their national laws into line with Codex. This is

not something that will happen tomorrow or even next year. The vitamin and

mineral guidelines will not be complete until around 2012 or 2013, so they are

giving us lots of time to adjust to the new regime that will attempt to deprive

us of our right to nutrients which have been systematically depleted from our

normal food supply

Islands, harmonisation and manipulation

 

The United States is widely regarded as the research and development

centre for nutritional medicine. In some people's eyes this is an

over-generalisation, but the importance of the USA's ability to continue to grow

and expand its natural products industry, to help, among other things, to fuel

more research is hard to deny.

 

In the best case scenario, as proposed by the FDA and some of the big

natural products trade bodies like the International Alliance for Dietary

Supplement Associations (IADSA), the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) and

the Natural Products Association (NPA, formerly the National Nutritional Foods

Association [NNFA]), US companies are going to have to handle a two tier system,

where they trade in higher dose, therapeutically-active natural products within

the USA, while they export dumbed-down products to the majority of the rest of

the world that has agreed to become Codex compliant. This idea smacks of an

'island' mentality - it's all very well if your island can exist

self-sufficiently without itself relying on imports - but this is very rarely

the case.

 

In fact, the USA is busy trying to expand its territory for harmonised

trade through a number of trade agreements, such as the Central American Free

Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the

'big one', the anticipated 34 country strong Free Trade Agreement of the

Americas (FTAA), which would become the most powerful trading bloc in the world.

Trading blocs are being developed for the exclusive purpose of making life

easier for big business - to increase bottom lines. Consumer or even

environmental protection is sometimes waved as a secondary purpose, but you'll

find any such claims are nearly always disingenuous. When it comes to the

natural products industry, that little sore that continues to grow and irritate

the much larger and more powerful pharmaceutical industry, you'll find that

consumer protection gets used as the ticket to dumb down effective doses and

types of natural product to such feeble levels, rendering them next to useless.

When lots of countries are involved in a trading bloc, the tendency is to appeal

to the lowest common denominator, so those countries who have long disliked

higher dose, therapeutic natural products can't claim they are being forced to

accept unsafe products which might harm consumers. Simultaneously trading bloc

regulations generally attempt to shift the burden of proof on safety (one of the

biggest costs facing the pharmaceutical industry in getting new drug licenses)

from government on to industry, making it prohibitively expensive for any but

the largest companies to put products on the market. Can you imagine if Walmarts

in the US or Tesco in the UK was told to withdraw all fruit and vegetables from

sale, until such time they could prove they were safe! Trading blocs effectively

force the natural products industry into a pre-market authorisation mechanism,

giving it a regime that has ever increasing similarities with the licensing

regime of the pharmaceutical industry. And who said drugs are safe?

 

This is exactly why the EU, a 25 nation strong trading bloc, is currently

in the process of trying to dumb down the previously higher levels of nutrients

found in countries like the UK, Sweden, Holland and Ireland, to cope with

regulatory mind-sets that have shunned higher dose products for many years, in

particular those in countries like Germany and France. The process is underway

and the USA and other countries are not immune from it!

 

Trading blocs and vital organs

 

Let's look at an analogy. In our analogy let's think of big trading blocs

like the EU, vital components in our existing globalised economy, as vital

organs of the human body, such as the heart, the lungs, the brain, the liver or

the kidneys. In fact, you could argue that the proposed FTAA will be more like

the cardio-vascular system, comprising the heart, lungs and related plumbing,

given its size and diversity. These blocs need to be very well connected to

other parts of the world, or, in our analogy, the body, if they are to survive

and flourish. The cardio-vascular system needs to be connected via the arterial

and venous systems, as well as major parts of the central nervous system, and,

directly or indirectly, to all other major parts of the body. The USA, even as

it currently stands, outside of a trading bloc, is one of the world's most

important trading partners. According it cannot exist as an island. Once it

expands - if citizens in a supposedly democratic society allow this to happen -

this tendency to be part of the rest of the world will be even greater. The USA

is not a tonsil or an appendix that can be extricated from the system without

any real adverse effects. As the USA builds its place in ever-expanding trading

blocs, it becomes ever more important that it places along with WTO, Codex and

other rules created by the 'globalisers'.

 

We hope that this analogy goes some way to help demonstrate why the

economic and political pressures that can be exerted by Codex might be even

mopre important than the legal pressures. These are pressures that the lawyers

who have labelled Codex guidelines as 'harmless' are simply not talking about.

That's because these lawyers inevitably tackle the narrow remit provided to

them, never straying from its literal sense or the question they have been asked

to provide an opinion on, which may have been carefully selected or agreed to

provide the given opinion. The typical question asked is " Are Codex guidelines

mandatory in the USA? " , while you now might appreciate, a question such as " What

are the legal, political or economic risks of Codex guidelines impacting the

nature of the US market once the guidelines are finalised? " might reveal a

rather different answer!

 

Media manipulation

 

But it gets even worse than this. You may have noticed increased press

coverage on safety issues relating to natural health products over the last few

years. In the UK, even the BBC has furnished us with headlines as disconcerting

as " High dose vitamin E death warning " , which followed Miller et al's

meta-analysis or " Vitamins pills do not stop cancer " which carried the

misrepresented story about synthetic beta-carotene and vitamin A or synthetic

vitamin E increasing the risk of premature death by 30% and 10%, respectively.

 

This anti-supplement press is part of a deliberate campaign by

pharmaceutical interests to skew public opinion against natural health products

and self-medication, or frighten people away from complementary health

practitioners while steering them towards orthodox medicine and pharmaceuticals.

Millions are being spent on these campaigns all over the world and the data

being presented is often seriously misrepresented. It seems the general public

are wiser than this as interest in natural health continues to expand and many

are disillusioned with the ethics, results and side effects associated with

pharmaceuticals.

 

Our Executive and Scientific Director, recently gave a presentation

entitled " The CAM Gameshow: Whose evidence is it anyway " which tackled the

thorny subject of scientific evidence at the CAM Expo in London last weekend. If

you wish to download a copy of his PowerPoint presentation, click here (16.5 Mb,

large file warning).

 

We need your help - NOW!

 

We have a detailed strategy which tackles many aspects of Codex and

related risk assessment issues - and given that we are funded only by donations,

we urgently need your help.

 

It will cost us more than £100,000 (c. US$190,000 or ?150,000) this year

just to:

 

a.. Attend Codex and other scientific meetings

b.. Compile and submit major submissions. Click here to see our latest

submission.

c.. Develop and publicise in scientific circles the reasons why

Codex-style, ultra-precautionary, guidelines and regulations are scientifically

irrational and erroneous

d.. Help develop and promote new, scientifically rational models for

risk/benefit assessment of nutrients and other natural health products

e.. Coordination of activities with other health freedom organisations,

including our affiliate partners in the USA, the AAHF / HFF, and the NHF

f.. Continue our legal challenge on the EU Food Supplements Directive

Please DONATE NOW - to help us help you. Without your support we cannot

continue this work.

 

Important note for US citizens: you can make tax deductible donations

marked for the 'European campaign' to the AAHF / HFF.

 

In health - as always.

 

The ANH Team

 

Working on your behalf to protect and promote natural health worldwide,

using good science and good law

 

Alliance for Natural Health

The Atrium, Curtis Road

Dorking, Surrey RH4 1XA

United Kingdom

Tel +44 (0) 1306 646 600

Fax +44 (0) 1306 646 552

Email info

Web www.anhcampaign.org

www.anhfund.org