Codex: “A Disaster Waiting to Happen”

[Guest guest]

This article I believe reflects the prevaling opinion of health

advocates. As I said, the CODEX meeting is THIS WEEK. NOW IS THE

TIME TO ACT. There are several posts in this group from myself, and

others about what we can do.

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Codex: " A Disaster Waiting to Happen "

HYPERLINK " http://www.redflagsweekly.com/ " http://www.redflagsweekly.com/

Codex: " A Disaster Waiting to Happen "

 

By Red Flags Columnist, Judith Hall

 

Politics can be pretty boring until you're threatened personally.

 

Right now, your freedom to make natural health choices is in real

danger. The threat has been quietly building, step by step, for

several years. The last act of this drama will take place in Rome from

July 4 to 9 at a meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, when

new worldwide guidelines for dietary supplements will be formally

ratified and finalized. New rules are already voluntarily in place in

Australia, Denmark, Norway, and Germany, where supplements are

regulated as drugs.

 

What is Codex? It was created in 1963 by two bodies of the United

Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health

Organization, to oversee food safety. What Codex ratifies will have

worldwide impact due to globalization and interlocking treaties the

World Trade Organization, the NAFTA and GATT agreements. Ironically,

all this is called " harmonization. " Any nation including the United

States and Canada which doesn't conform is liable to trade sanctions

that could be crippling to its economy. So the final curtain of this

dark drama will be nation after nation bowing to the new regulations

rather than risk losing megabucks. After all, the dietary supplement

industry is small change only $18 billion per year in the U.S. Not

worth fighting for.

 

Who's the Dark Force?

 

The industry behind this wants to suppress and control dietary or

" food " supplements by declaring them a) dangerous, b) not really

useful and c) needing regulations that will treat them like drugs. Can

you imagine who this might be? Here are some clues. It doesn't want

and won't tolerate competition. This super-powerful, super-profitable

industry pulls the strings of government regulators, buys off

researchers, mind-conditions doctors, and has more lobbyists on

Capitol Hill than any other. The industry doesn't allow even the

federal government to negotiate with it for fairer market prices. It

sells pills and, therefore, would like to see you chronically unwell

so its profits can soar.

 

Many critics of the drug industry's `uber-alles' status predict that

the giant pharmaceuticals actually want to take over supplements. It's

likely that they will end up selling the very substances they have

worked so hard to disparage and destroy. But because of the approach

being taken by the recent European Food Supplements Directive and

Codex minimizing the recommended daily levels the low-quality,

high-priced products they end up producing won't provide potency we need.

 

The industry has done this by attacking the safety of food

supplements, by lowering " safe " upper limits on the basis of

" scientific " assessment ignoring the research that doesn't suit their

purpose. Their limits are well below the therapeutic range, below the

daily dosages used safely by people for decades. They have fashioned a

restricted list to suit their ideology.

 

How about prices? In Canada, according to health expert Gary Null, the

amino acid, L-carnitine, which used to sell for $14 per 100 capsules,

is now available only by prescription for $120 to $190. That pretty

well symbolizes the trend we are facing.

 

Back to Codex. The pharmaceutical industry wields a big stick in

Europe, where many giant companies are located. Since the Codex

impetus appears to come from Europe, Americans who depend on

supplements for health may feel protected by a law called the Dietary

Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, which makes the

manufacturer responsible for ensuring that the product is safe before

it is marketed. Unfortunately, DSHEA can be challenged as a " technical

barrier to trade. " Further, there are increasing signals that DSHEA is

vulnerable to being amended tampered with by legislators.

 

As for Canada, health-freedom advocate Chris Gupta warns that Health

Canada is " bull " on Codex, and is promoting " bogus science and

illusory choice. " The interlocking treaties mean that all countries

must comply, no matter what (see HYPERLINK

" http://www.newmediaexplorer.org " www.newmediaexplorer.org).

 

Dr. William Campell Douglas reports on-line on The Doctors' Medical

Library (medical-library.net) that of the delegates sent to the Codex

Commission's meetings, 90 percent represented giant pharmaceutical

corporations. Doesn't that reveal who's pulling the strings?

Furthermore, the U.S. has only one vote at these meetings, and in the

past and at present, that person is from the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA). As we all know, the FDA is inclined to favour

drug companies who pay them for doing trials, and is very much against

dietary supplements, which they regard as dangerous. They think

natural, time-tested, life-essential nutrients should be subject to

rigorous, unaffordable safety analyses just like synthetic medications

or chemical toxins in the environment.

 

Is anyone fighting these restrictions in Europe? Yes, the United

Kingdom-based Alliance for Natural Health, which challenged the

restrictive European Union Directive at the European Court of Justice

in Luxembourg. Opposing verbal submissions were made by the powers

that be: the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the

European Parliament. Results are pending. But already in the U.K.,

some 300 of 420 vitamins and minerals now sold will be banned as of

August 1.

 

To add to the alphabet soup, there is also FTAA Free Trade Area of

the Americas. This would enforce more global " harmonization " of laws

and regulations. It's still to be ratified, and is backed by the Bush

administration. But opposition is building on the state level. In

Utah, the state legislature has passed a resolution opposing this

move. `Stop the FTAA' committees are trying to do the same thing in

Indiana, Arizona, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Montana. Sometimes,

the only way to bypass an unwanted federal mandate is at the state

level, as California found out last year by creating and passing its

own Stem Cell initiative.

 

Won't Orange Juice Solve My Problems?

 

Too many people will shrug off this impending threat, thinking: " Oh

well, I can always get vitamin C from orange juice and whatever else I

need by eating the right foods. "

 

Nope, sorry. Farm soils have become so depleted from overuse and so

saturated with chemicals that the foods we eat do not contain anywhere

near the nutritional value they should. And on top of that, most

people don't eat enough fresh produce anyway, instead relying on

over-processed products, fast foods and take-out. Furthermore, much

seafood has dangerous levels of mercury and most red meat and poultry

contain growth hormones. The conclusion: we need dietary supplements

far more than most of us now realize. And they must be high quality

with efficient absorption capabilities.

 

About that vitamin C, did you know that through some fluke of

evolution, the human body doesn't make vitamin C? Animal bodies do,

but not human. So we need this vitamin, which is crucial for the

health of the heart. We can't rely on juice manufacturers. Nor can we

rely on the small amount in cheap multivitamins; we need more vitamin

C daily for optimal health. Consumer advocate and health journalist

Bill Sardi says more than 90 percent of Americans don't take the

amount of vitamin C (300 to 2,000 mg) shown to prevent cataracts or

even (500 mg) to reduce blood pressure. The best diet with five daily

servings of fruits and vegetables offers about 200 to 250 mgs.

 

Sardi also points out that research has found as many as 80 percent of

Americans are deficient in magnesium, possibly leading to the sudden

heart attack deaths that number 340,000 cases annually.

 

When it comes to vitamins and minerals, the public needs to know what

potency they ought to have and exactly what ailments these nutrients

can help. But Codex regulations will prohibit dissemination of

health-related information about natural products for prevention and

treatment of illnesses.

 

Do the people behind Codex care about anything beyond the sacred

bottom line? They should. But chances are they're not aware of the key

importance of many nutrients in spite of the rapidly expanding

scientific knowledge on the subject.

 

As for the media, many are controlled by huge conglomerates for which

pharmaceutical advertising is too precious a cash cow. The media is

quick to publish whatever they are fed by " medical " sources, and have

no compunctions about bashing vitamins or herbs based on some outdated

study or skewed analysis. What if they found out about CoQ10? Now

there's a story.

 

Coenzyme Q10, or ubiquinone as it is also called, is found in the body

but we need a lot more. It is vital for the heart muscle and low

levels have been found in patients with some forms of cancer. But this

vitamin-like substance is depleted by guess what the top-selling

statin drugs used to treat high cholesterol. The savvy consumer

already knows that. But John Q. Public has no idea, and when lower

guidelines for cholesterol levels are issued, doctors will

automatically prescribe more statins, resulting in more CoQ10

depletion in millions of patients. The side effects of this depletion

are muscle weakness and pain, fatigue and memory loss, to name a few.

If only the media would reveal that the pharmaceuticals know all about

this, and one giant drug company even patented a statin/CoQ10

combination years ago, but has refused to market it.

 

Add to this mix the aging population. The elderly have a greater need

for nutritional supplements. Their bodies have become less efficient

at processing and absorbing vital nutrients. A 2001 news release from

the Dietary Supplement Information Bureau cites an important

statistic: as many as 40 percent of the elderly in America are

afflicted with nutritional deficiencies. " Conditions such as

Alzheimer's disease, declines in memory, decreased immunity to illness

and other maladies, once viewed as normal signs of aging, now have

been linked to deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. "

 

The problem is compounded by the fact that adults 65 and older are

given too many medications, a condition known as " polypharmacy. "

Research studies have found that many are inappropriate, leading to

" adverse drug events " such as depression, falls, immobility, and hip

fractures (see Hanlon J.T. et al, " Adverse drug events in high risk

older outpatients, J Am Geriatr Soc. 1997; 45: 945-948). This same

study showed that 30 percent of hospital admissions in the elderly may

be linked to the toxic effects of drugs or other drug-related

problems. To top it off, drugs, as we have seen with CoQ10, can

deplete certain essential nutrients. And all synthetic drugs affect

the system in one way or another – that's how they mask or suppress

symptoms.

 

For now, we all need to wake up and recognize the ominous threat posed

by the meeting July 4 to 9 in Rome. And keep in mind that it's all

about the giant pharmaceuticals taking over, and for the sake of their

megabucks, hoping consumers remain unwell, ever in need of the next

synthetic drug. As Dr. Matthias Rath points out: Why should they find

a cure for a disease? It would mean the collapse of billions in profits.

 

What Thomas Jefferson said centuries ago has very special resonance

now: If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what

medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as

are souls under tyranny.

 

SOURCES

HYPERLINK " http://www.iahf.com/ " www.iahf.com

 

HYPERLINK " http://www.laleva.org/ " www.laleva.org

 

HYPERLINK " http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/ "

www.alliance-natural-health.org

 

HYPERLINK " http://www.lef.org/ " www.lef.org

 

HYPERLINK " http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org "

www4.dr-rath-foundation.org

 

HYPERLINK " http://www.ahha.org/ " www.ahha.org