CODEX - Action required this month (Oct'04)!

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" Citizens for Healthcare Freedom " <CHF

 

Subject:CODEX - Action required this month (Oct'04)!

Sat, 16 Oct 2004 20:26:13 -0400

 

 

CODEX - Action required this month (Oct'04)!

 

 

------CODEX GENERAL INFO (from www.citizens.org)----------

The safety of vitamins and minerals as nutritional supplements, when

used appropriately and as part of a responsible and integrated

lifestyle approach to health, is well established. We should recall

that the devastation of the world's food supply during World War II

was the major impetus for the U.S. to introduce the recommended

dietary allowances (RDAs) in 1941.

 

Little could we have predicted in 1941 that the RDAs would later help

consumers identify nutrients (including B vitamins) that they want to

consume in order to compensate for the nutritional strip-mining of the

world's food supply by modern industrial processing methods.

 

But the RDAs were—and are—recommended levels for food producers, the

food service sector, supplement manufacturers and consumers to use to

gauge the nutritional value or potential health-optimizing benefits of

specific products—not mandated or legislated levels established to

facilitate international trade, block U.S. products or potentially

inhibit trading nations from competing with the putative

health-enhancing benefits of pharmaceutical drugs.

 

The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for " Food Code " ) Commission would do

well to remember that its core mission is food purity. An early world

leader with this vision, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

convened the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) founding

conference, the U.N. Conference on Food and Agriculture, in Hot

Springs, Virginia, in 1943.

 

The conference called on the new FAO organization to " help governments

consider the formulation and adoption of similar international

standards of [...] purity for all foods " and to " help governments

consider the formulation and adoption of similar international

standards to facilitate and protect the interchange of products

between countries. "

 

FAO's mandate, hence Codex's mandate, was not to " dumb down " the

potency—hence the health-optimizing benefits—of nutritional

supplements throughout the world, but that is unfortunately where the

Commission is headed right now in many respects.

 

Given the strong safety record of nutritional supplements, derived

from a historically nutrient-dense world diet that has been 10,000

years in the making, upper safe levels should be implemented and

regarded the same way as are the U.S. RDAs—as recommendations for

consumers and as required information to be listed by manufacturers

but not as mandated potency limits signed off by national governments

and trade barriers that would block international consumer access to

health-optimizing levels of vitamin and mineral compounds.

 

The overriding standards should be these: purity and truthfulness in

labeling along the lines of USP/NF, NSF and international GMP

standards. Products should state what they contain, contain what they

state, the natural or synthetic sources from where they are derived

and whether these sources are believed to be genetically engineered

(GE or GMO) sources or not.

 

Consumers have the right, and therefore the responsibility, for what

they purchase. National governments and Codex should focus or re-focus

its efforts on truthful labeling and product purity.

 

These issues are certain to be actively debated when the delegates

convene this fall for there are many elements within Codex who hold a

very narrow view as to how supplements should be regulated. Although

vitamins and minerals have been identified as food supplements in the

Codex draft guidelines, many of the delegations represented at Codex

currently have national standards that regulate supplements like

drugs. This provides for an interesting dynamic because those in favor

of higher limits for nutrients are clearly in the minority.

 

As a consequence, it of the utmost importance that consumers,

supplement manufacturers and our chosen representatives work together

to ensure that health freedoms are not lost to national interests that

are totally out of sync with the safety and benefits of dietary

supplements.

 

Once Codex standards and guidelines have been established, these

regulations will be recognized worldwide and will be the accepted norm

in ensuring fair trade practices and protecting consumer health. It is

therefore incumbent up on us to voice our opposition to any guidelines

(or " regulations " ) that would restrict the availability of a wide

array of health-enhancing and innovative supplements.

 

If you concerned about preserving your health freedoms and are worried

that international regulations could severely restrict your access to

supplements, we encourage you to write to Dr. Barbara Schneeman and

also to your elected officials. Tell them that you are opposed to any

international regulations that would impact the status of supplements

as regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education act of

1994 (DSHEA).

 

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, " The price of freedom is eternal

vigilance. " We must always be on guard to ensure our health freedoms

are not taken away.

By James Gormley and Jim Roza

----------------------

See these other sites for more info:

http://ahha.org/codex.htm

http://www.iahf.com

http://www.citizens.org/

 

 

 

 

By Jonathan V. Wright, M.D.

 

You've taken supplements for years. You're out of vitamins C and E.

You go to your natural food store, but you can't find the kind you

want on the shelf. You ask a clerk to find them for you. She says you

can't get your vitamin E as mixed tocopherols (the best natural form)

anymore, and asks if you like your vitamin C in the 100- or

200-milligram size. The 1,000-milligram size, you say.

 

" Where have you been? " she asks. " Asleep since 2004? It's 2007 now!

The types and sizes of vitamins you just asked for have been declared

illegal by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization! "

 

" Wait! " you reply. " This is America! Our president says we're fighting

for American freedom -- and you're telling me that the World Trade

Organization can dictate what size vitamin C I can take, and forbid me

from taking mixed tocopherols? " The sales clerk sighs, and reaches for

a piece of paper. " It's a little complicated, " she says. " A few years

back, the European Commission passed the European Food Supplements

Directive ... " .....(excerpted from Dr Mercola's page)........

 

Want to read more? Go to:

http://www.mercola.com/2004/oct/13/vitamins_minerals.htm

 

Take action now (before Nov 1st) to help prevent this scenario:

 

Ask the U.S. Codex Delegation to protect DSHEA

 

Go here to send a form letter now:

 

http://www.healthactioncenter.com/action/index.asp?step=2 & item=21232

 

(And stay tuned to CHF's Action Alert Page: http://ww

w.citizensforhealthcarefreedom.org/ActionAlert.htm)

 

 

 

Let's write to Dr. Barbara Schneeman at the FDA now! Dr. Schneeman is

one of our key U.S. representatives to Codex. Let's ask her to please

work diligently to ensure that our nation's hard-won health freedoms,

a good example of which is the Dietary Health and Education Act of

1994 (DSHEA), are not only protected here at home but inform every

meeting and decision at Codex. Codex Alimentarius (Latin for " Food

Code " ) was originally created as the United Nations' attempt to

establish international guidelines to " help governments consider the

formulation and adoption of similar international standards of [...]

purity for all foods " To many, this sounds like a good idea. Agreement

on trade, safety and purity would seem beneficial for the world in so

many ways, right? Wrong! Not in the ways Codex is being constructed

now. If accepted as an international standard by the U.S. Codex

Delegation and implemented in the U.S. (called " harmonization " ), our

future access to innovative and health-enhancing dietary supplements

could, in time, be dramatically restricted. Let's let Dr. Schneeman

know that we are confident that she, Dr. Scarbrough, and the entire

U.S. Delegation won't let us down at the Codex conference tables in

Bonn, Rome, Geneva and here in the U.S. (from www.citizens.org)