IAHF Response to Whole Foods Market's Contention That Codex is a Non Issue

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Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:58:07 +0100

 

" IAHF.COM " <jham

 

 

 

 

IAHF Response to Whole Foods Market's Contention That Codex

is a " Non Issue "

 

IAHF Webmaster: Breaking News, Whats New, Codex, EU FSD, What to Do,

America, All Countries

 

IAHF List: Yesterday I had a conversation with Joe Dickson from the

corporate office of Whole Foods, a huge chain of supermarket sized health

food stores which are members of NNFA. You can see the statement

(below) which Whole Foods has been sending out to concerned vitamin

consumers

on the Codex issue-- and IAHF's response to it.

 

As you can see, Whole Foods has been echoing the NNFA " party line "

(which is that Codex is a " non issue " that " does not threaten to

impact US

domestic law " .

 

You can see IAHF's response to Whole Foods below. I am hoping to have a

follow up conversation about this on Monday with Joe Dickson, who I

might add is a very polite person who I think might come around if he

takes the time to examine this information carefully. Please don't

call him

yourself. Let me handle that on monday.

 

Please print out this email, and hand carry it to health food store

owners and managers all over America and the World, especially to

franchises of Whole Foods. Together, we can break through the spin of

Sidley,

Austin, Brown and Wood LLP. It amazes me that members of NNFA feel

comfortable with this lawfirm as their trade associations legal counsel

given the huge number of pharma clients the firm has. This is a total

conflict of interest.http://www.sidley.com/practice/group.asp?groupid=25

 

Unless enough people assist IAHF in urging store owners and managers to

examine this closely, an extremely restrictive global trade standard

for vitamins and minerals will be ratified in July at Codex, and nations

world wide will be forced to harmonize their laws....

We must create the awareness necessary to

 

A) Sue the FDA to block ratification of Codex vitamin standard.

B) Conduct a global PR campaign against ratification of Codex vitamin

standard.

C) Remove the USA from the WTO & the UN.

 

Joe Dickson

Quality & Assurance Dept.

Whole Foods Market Corporate Office

550 Bowie Street / Austin, TX 78703 / 512-542-0392

 

 

Please see my response below to this mssg which Whole Foods is emailing

to vitamin consumers requesting assistance from Whole Foods regarding

Codex.

My response is a follow up to the conversation we had yesterday (Friday

2/11) You should be aware that on November 18, 2004 an Emergency Health

Freedom Meeting was held at the ACAM alternative medical conference in

San Diego to address this issue, and that it was emceed by Jonathan V.

Wright, MD. See the DVD of this meeting on streaming video at

http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf

 

WHOLE FOODS MSSG TO CONSUMERS Re CODEX

 

" Thank you very much for your message. Whole Foods Market has closely

followed the activities of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods

for Special Dietary Uses, the body which regulates the marketing of

dietary supplements in the European Union.

 

However, dietary supplement sales in the US are regulated by the

provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA)

of

1994. The application of the CODEX (EU) standards to the US market

would

require the repeal of DSHEA through an act of Congress. While these

changes may take place in Europe in 2005, they will not affect the US

supplement market.

 

Whole Foods Market, along with the industry groups with which we are

affiliated, continues to closely monitor the US dietary supplement

market. We will always work to ensure that safe and effective dietary

supplements are available to our customers.

 

Lourdes Zarate

Whole Foods Market / National Marketing and Communications

550 Bowie Street / Austin, TX 78703 / 512-542-0392 "

 

 

Hi Joe-

 

I appreciate your willingness to enter into a dialogue with me about

Codex.

 

I am copying this email to three attorneys who share my concerns:

Scott Tips, Legal Director, The National Health Federation

Ralph Fucetola, http://www.vitaminlawyer.com and

David Hinde, Legal Director of the Alliance for Natural Health (UK)

 

On March 17, 1997 acting FDA Commissioner Michael A. Friedman stated

the following in a speech before the Senate Labor Committee " FDA plans

to amend its regulations and procedures for consideration of standards

adopted by Codex. This action is being taken to provide for the

systematic review of Codex standards in order to enhance consumer

protection,

promote international harmonization, and fulfill the United States

obligations under international agreements. " FDA/CFSAN Federal

Register 62

FR 36243 July 7, 1997 http://www.fda.gov/ola/1997/319.html

 

Lets start with something I think we can both probably agree on:

I'm sure you would agree that the Institute of Medicine at the National

Academy of Sciences has recently called for the repealment of DSHEA.

That they have done this is a matter of public record:

 

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=news & ID=131

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/01/14/alternative.medicine.ap/index.html

 

The IOM produced a 327 page report calling for Congress to " revisit

DSHEA " and to put the burden of proof on safety back on manufacturers.

The report urges Congress to require supplement manufacturers to be

required to meet the same burden of proof for being allowed to market

their products and to make claims about them that pharmaceutical

manufacturers have to make. AHPA has charged that the IOM Report is

seriously

flawed:

http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=11446 & zoneid=2

 

 

This attack on DSHEA in not happening in a vacuum, but to be seen

clearly must be viewed in the global context of widespread pharma

attacks on

our industry via the EU Food Supplement Directive & Codex, especially

given that Codex will ratify a global trade standard for vitamins and

minerals between July 4-9, 2005 in Rome unless opposition occurs. As

things stand now, the FDA is doing nothing to oppose ratification of a

Codex vitamin standard- indeed, they're pushing hard to make it as

restrictive as possible so they can get via harmonization what they

haven't

been able to get through legislation on US soil.

 

FDA EMPLOYEE IS " ON LOAN " FROM FDA TO WHO WHERE SHE IS IN CHARGE OF

FILLING IN THE BLANKS ON ALLOWABLE POTENCY LEVELS OF VITAMINS &

MINERALS AT CODEX-

 

See

http://www.who.int/ipcs/highlights/nutrientraproject/en/

 

Christine Lewis-Taylor is currently " on loan " from the FDA to the World

Health Organization where she is leading their " risk assessment

project " for vitamins and minerals.

 

What Taylor (and the US FDA) are doing is that they're " filling in the

blanks " on allowable potency levels at CODEX, utilizing ONLY the

opinions of pharma shills primarily from 3 groups considered by the World

Trade Association to be " the experts " on the safety of vitamins.

 

Those 3 groups are the IOM at National Academy of Sciences, the UK's so

called " Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals (consultants to their

Food Standards Agency) and the EU's Scientific Committee on Food.) There

is zero transparency in how Taylor is selecting the dozen applicants for

the " Nutrient Risk Assessment Workshop " that she'll be holding in

Europe in May. WHO will not divulge the names or CVs of any of the

people on

the selection panel, but there is no reason to expect any scientific

honesty or objectivity from this FDA Dietician when it comes time to fill

in the blanks....

 

NNFA would have its members believe that a " great victory " has been won

at Codex because a move to base potency levels on RDAs was scrapped in

favor of basing them on " scientific risk assessment " . The question is:

is what they're calling scientific ACTUALLY scientific- and is it

really noticably better than RDAs?

 

Prominent orthomolecular physician Alan Gaby MD has analyzed the junk

science of the UKs " Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals " (which is

similar to the junk science coming out of NAS, the Nordic Ministries

Council, the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, and the EU's

Scientific Committee on Food- and he's pronounced it pseudoscience-

see his

article

" Safe Upper Levels for Nutritional Supplements- One Giant Step

Backward " JOM Vol.18 3rd & 4th Quarter 2003 #s 3 & 4

http://www.iahf.com/20040127.html

 

 

DO THREE INTERLOCKING EVENTS IN NOVEMBER SIGNAL THE END OF HEALTH

FREEDOM?

See

http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/THREE_INTERLOCKING_EVENTS.mht

 

Here is an excerpt from this article which explodes the contention of

NNFA's attorneys that Codex " can't impact US law "

 

" Incredibly, several apparently well meaning lawyers with no experience

in WTO/Codex law or politics have touted the notion recently that it

doesn't matter what happens at Codex, since no nation is bound in its

domestic law to what happens at Codex unless that nation files a

notification and acceptance of Codex standards or guidelines with the

Codex

Alimentarius Commission. While even to suggest such a thing in the

post WTO

world seems like the height of folly, nevertheless, these positions,

however off the cuff and/or misquoted, have gained a certain traction

within portions of the dietary supplement industry and alternative health

community in North America.

 

Fortunately amid all this bad news coming out of Bonn and Paris, there

is at least an end to this absurd folly. Let us be clear here, with the

acceptance and ratification of the results of the Uruguay Round in 1995

that formally created the WTO and introduced both the SPS and TBT into

international trade law, it is absolutely irrelevant whether a WTO

member country formally accepts a Codex standard or guideline or not. The

member country is bound by whatever legal interpretation of a Codex

standard or guideline the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body's Appellate panel

applies to that standard or guideline. This is, in effect, exactly what

the WTO's representative had told CCGP prior to last week`s meeting.

So, on November 10th, a number of key players came to the CCGP meeting in

Paris with the express idea of ending the obsolete reporting procedures

to Codex once and for all. " These acceptance procedures have never

worked. Countries ignored them, " US delegation chief Dr. Edward

Scarborough

told members of the US delegation at a pre-session meeting. " The

appellate bodies of the WTO have said quite clearly that whether we, at

Codex, vote for or against notification within Codex has no bearing on

enforceability, " European Union delegate Henri Belveze told the GP

meeting.

 

So, in the end, the delegates at this year's meeting of the Codex

Committee on General Principles agreed without dissent to recommend the

total abolition of both the Codex notification and acceptance procedures.

Hopefully this long overdue decision will end the mistaken perception

that Codex standards and guidelines have to be individually accepted by

WTO member countries in order to become binding upon them. "

 

 

I'm going to stop with this. I'd appreciate it if you would please

review this information which I would like to discuss with you on a

conference call with Scott Tips, JD; Ralph Fucetola, JD and with David

Hinde

(Solicitor) (UK).

 

John C. Hammell, President

International Advocates for Health Freedom

556 Boundary Bay Rd.

Point Roberts, WA 98281 USA

http://www.iahf.com

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World

For Health Freedom,

John C. Hammell, President

International Advocates for Health Freedom

556 Boundary Bay Road

Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA

http://www.iahf.com

jham

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World

 

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