ANH e blast

[Guest guest]

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:

 

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

 

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 )

 

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

 

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

 

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:

 

Attend Codex and other scientific meetings

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

submission.

Develop and publicise in scientific circles the reasons why Codex-

style, ultra-precautionary, guidelines and regulations are

scientifically irrational and erroneous

Help develop and promote new, scientifically rational models for

risk/benefit assessment of nutrients and other natural health

products

Coordination of activities with other health freedom organisations,

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

the NHF

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