Snopes is saying CODEX is a hoax!

[Guest guest]

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moot due to outdated information.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. When they are reintroduced, we will not be

able to take either one lightly.

 

Next, you also state " Under current law, dangerous supplements get onto the

market and stay there, with serious physical harm resulting among those who use

them, as was the case with ephedra, which caused strokes, heart attacks, and

upwards of 150 deaths before the Food and Drug Administration was finally able

to get it out of the stores. "

 

These statements are false and are not backed up by any solid evidence. Again,

if you had taken the time to research and verify this statement you would have

seen by referring to http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/medical_injury_law.pdf

that the risk of ingesting prescription drugs, the risk of dying from a bee

sting, the risk of being hit by lightening, the risk of dying from ingestion of

food in common form, are all higher than any risk posed by use of vitamins and

other dietary supplements. This is a GROSS misstatement and one that needs to

be corrected.

 

You go on to talk about problems with tryptophan and ephedra. The problems with

tryptophan were caused by the contamination of one producer in Japan, but

instead of sanctioning that company until the problems were corrected, the FDA

jumped on the issue with much misinformation and banned all tryptophan products,

while also making an effort to demonize the entire supplement industry.

Similarly, the ephedra issue was exaggerated to the point of being a total lie,

because any honest examination of the data gathered by the National Association

of Poison Control Centers will indicate that there are very serious problems

associated with deaths caused by Ephedrine, but there have been very few and

minor problems caused by ephedra. Meanwhile, the FDA allows dangerous drugs such

as celebrex and vioxx on the market, which have proven deadly side effects for

thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. There are no dangerous

dietary supplements, only dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. These are just two

examples of the " witch hunt mentality " that is already present in the FDA who

acts more like a trade association for the pharmaceutical corporations because

there is a revolving door between their employees and the drug companies. Public

record will easily reveal that.

 

You also support your arguments by stating that supplement sales totaled $18.7

billion in 2002.

 

This is a trivial amount compared to pharmaceutical sales that totaled $430.3

billion in 2002. Whom do you think has the power and motivation to bring

dietary supplements and vitamins into the realm of prescription drugs?

Statistics regarding the rise in prices of supplements in countries that have

adopted the CODEX " guidelines " show why the pharmaceutical companies are in

favor of CODEX and why it's adoption would detrimentally impact the health of US

citizens.

 

The drug company backed proposals call for the following:

 

1.) No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc., can be sold for prophylactic

(preventative) or therapeutic reasons.

 

2.) Natural remedies can be sold as food but they must not exceed the potency

(dosage) levels set by the commission. This means that consumer access to

dietary supplements will be limited to the RDA dosage as a maximum limit for

vitamins (vitamin C - 60 mg, vitamin E - 15 mg, etc.). Supplements without an

RDA (e.g. coenzyme Q10) would be illegal to sell because they would all become

drugs.

3.) Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating

the escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that

allows a nation to set its own standards. This applies to all member countries

of the U.N. Any nation that does not accept and apply these new standards will

be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating the potential

for crippling entire sectors of the nation's economy.

4.) All new supplements would be banned unless they went through the Codex

approval process.

CODEX now applies to Norway and Germany, among others, where zinc tablets rose

from $4 per bottle to $52. Echinacea (an ancient immune-enhancement herb) rose

from $14 to $153 (both examples are now allowed by prescription only). They are

now " drugs " . Vitamin C above 200 mg, niacin above 32 mg, and vitamin B6 above 4

mg - all are banned over-the-counter and considered as drugs. No amino acids

(arginine, lysine, carnitine, etc. (these are essential amino acids!), essential

fatty acids (omegas 3, 6, 9, etc.), or other essential supplements such as DMEA,

DHEA, CoQ10, MSM, beta-carotene, etc. are allowed.

 

According to Dr. Matthias Rath, researcher and author who discovered a

correlation between vitamin C deficiency and heart disease, the three drug

companies pushing so hard for the German proposal - Hoechst, Bayer and BASF -

are also manufacturers of heart drugs. Here you can clearly see the connection

to drug company interests as there are many inexpensive natural products that

promote health, which is at odds with their highly profitable companies which

need diseases to " treat " with dangerous drugs. Obviously, with the health

supplement and vitamin competition gone, nothing will stop their profits.

 

By the way, these are the three drug companies formed when the Nuremberg War

Trials disbanded IG Farben, manufacturer of the poison gas used in Nazi

concentration camps. Although IG Farben may have been disbanded, none of its

directors were ever penalized for their actions during the war. They simply

divided what remained from the company and split into three separate entities.

 

These three Nazi-originated German drug companies have stated their main purpose

as being to " ...create a set of international standards to guide the world's

growing food industry and to protect the health of consumers. " If you really

believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

 

Snopes has just done the public a serious disservice with their misinformation,

creating confusion, and misleading Americans.

 

Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating the

escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that

allows a nation to set its own standards. This applies to all member countries

of the U.N. Any nation that does not accept and apply these new standards will

be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating the potential

for crippling entire sectors of the nation's economy.

 

 

We cannot protect our supplement laws in the USA unless we can kill ratification

of the global trade standard for vitamins and minerals which stands to be

ratified at the Codex meeting in Rome between July 4-9th 2005 or withdraw from

the WTO.

 

My interest in this matter is not purely altruistic. I have personally

experienced some " miraculous " cures through natural remedies and natural

medicine, not the least of which was a complete remission of extremely

debilitating endometriosis through the administration of homeopathic products. I

continue to manage my everyday health and the health of my family with dietary

supplements. I just recovered from what could have been a very debilitating

influenza with the use of Echinacea, goldenseal, and germanium 132. I had very

mild symptoms for 3 days as compared to others I know who had severe symptoms,

contracted secondary infections, and had illnesses that lasted from 10 days to 2

weeks. I have animals that consistently far exceed their natural life spans by

as much as 50% and live that life with the vigor and health of animals half

their age. So you see my interest is very personal and I am very committed to

stopping CODEX.

 

I would very much appreciate a response from you to this letter. I will gladly

provide you with source material I used in this letter and any other additional

credible source material you may need or request.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Donna Cinelli