Disinformation: “Codex is Urban Legend”

[Guest guest]

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=181

>> And link to the Say No to Forced Vaccines Item,

>> http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27275.

>>

>>>

>>> Stop Codex Alimentarius and Protect Health Freedom!

>>>

>>> And link to the Say No to Forced Vaccines Item,

>>> http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27275.

>>>

>>>

>>> The otherwise well-respected urban legends site snopes.com

>>> <http://www.snopes.com/> features an article called “Vitamin See”

>>> (the reason for this strange name remains unclear to me). In it, the

>>> author, Barbara Mikkelson, claims to “debunk” the notion that Codex

>>> represents a danger to nutrient access and health freedom. She also

>>> makes the incorrect claim that nutrients are dangerous and that we

>>> must be protected from them.

>>>

>>> Ms. Mikkelson quotes an Internet article by Dr. Wallace G. Heath

>>> which makes several accurate, and some inaccurate, statements about

>>> Codex Alimentarius. Instead of giving us research on which

>>> statements are accurate and which are not, Ms. Mikkelson article on

>>> snopes.com suddenly diverges from the statements of Dr. Heath to a

>>> lambasting of natural supplements, by through numerous unsupported,

>>> factually incorrect statements.

>>>

>>> This page seeks to bring to light the factual errors of Ms.

>>> Mikkelson’s article.

>>>

>>>

>>> Unsupported Attacks on Nutritional Supplements

>>>

>>> Mikkelson says absurd things about supplements such as,

>>>

>>> * /“Despite their presence on store shelves, not all dietary

>>> supplements are safe for consumers to use, let alone are

>>> beneficial to their health.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: which dietary supplements are unsafe for

>>> consumers to use and which are not beneficial to their health?]*

>>> * /“Products can be 100% natural yet deliver a deadly payload,

>>> as have some in the past.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: which products that are 100% natural deliver a

>>> " deadly payload " and what incidents is she discussing?]*

>>> * /“Lacking regulation of such ingestibles, there is no

>>> protection afforded consumers and authoritative-looking labels

>>> are no guarantee that what is being vended in those bottles

>>> they envelop is not harmful.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: all supplements made and marketed in the United

>>> States are regulated by the FDA]*

>>> * /“Under current law, dangerous supplements get onto the market

>>> and stay there.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: dangerous supplements are removed promptly,

>>> unlike dangerous drugs]*

>>> * /“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.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: the causal relationship of ephedra to any death,

>>> stroke, etc., has not only never been established, but has

>>> been thrown out by a Federal Court since it was totally

>>> unsubstantiated by either science or clinical experience.]*

>>> * /“In 2004, according to the National Center for Complementary

>>> and Alternative Medicine, almost one in five Americans

>>> reported using a supplement, which means the pool of folks at

>>> risk is great.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: the U.S. Government examined all reported cases

>>> of ephedra related deaths and found no association between the

>>> substance and the deaths. Ms. Mikkelson chooses to ignore this

>>> fact]*

>>>

>>>

>>> Federal Judge Does Not Agree With Ms. Mikkelson

>>>

>>> Ephedra did not cause “upwards of 150 deaths before the Food and

>>> Drug Administration was finally able to get it out of the stores”

>>> and not even the most fervent ephedra foe has claimed any such

>>> thing! 150 is a totally arbitrary figure produced by Ms. Mikkelson,

>>> and there is no verification for it.

>>>

>>> In fact, on April 13, 2005, a Federal Judge reversed

>>> <http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._Federal_Judge_overturns_ephedra_ban>

>>> the FDA ban on ephedra, noting that the ban had violated both the

>>> will of the American People and the intent of Congress in the 1994

>>> /Dietary Supplements Health Education Act/ (which classifies

>>> nutrients and herbs as food and, as such, permits them to be sold as

>>> foods for personal choice).

>>>

>>> In addition, the Judge, Tina Campbell, stated that the FDA had used

>>> “tobacco science” in attempting to establish ephedra’s toxicity from

>>> data which were not applicable and did not make any sense. Somehow,

>>> this fact not make it in the snopes.com article.

>>>

>>>

>>> Which is Safer – Drugs or Nutritional Supplements?

>>>

>>> Ms. Mikkelson leaves out the fact that supplements have a safety

>>> record so strong that it is an embarrassmen to the pharmaceutical

>>> industry. The products of the pharmaceutical industry have been

>>> documented <http://mercola.com/2000/jul/30/doctors_death.htm> to

>>> kill a minimum of 106,000 Americans each year when used properly and

>>> about 200,000 Americans per year when you count the numbers of

>>> people killed by medical error! The same year that this figure was

>>> published (1998), there were “only” 43,400 deaths due to car

>>> accidents in America. *So in America, the land of the automobile,

>>> with millions in use everyday, pharmaceutical drugs are deadlier

>>> than cars!*

>>>

>>> Ms. Mikkelson has her facts backwards when she accuses nutritional

>>> supplements of putting people “at risk”.

>>>

>>>

>>> Painting All Supplements As Harmful

>>>

>>> Ms. Mikkelson supports the unscientific notion that all supplements

>>> are bad, that undermining DSHEA is good, and that none of this

>>> relates to Codex Alimentarius (so why then is this in her article on

>>> Codex?). In reality, it is domestic law (i.e. DSHEA) that protects

>>> us from Codex, and if that law is weakened or nullified, there is no

>>> barrier to domestic Codex implementation.

>>>

>>> Despite her unsupported claims that those who take supplements are

>>> “at risk”, that undermining DSHEA would be good for the country and

>>> that the FDA needs more help to regulate these “dangerous”

>>> supplements, the risk of supplements is fictional and a diversion

>>> from the subject at hand: the question of whether Codex Alimentarius

>>> would eliminate our access to nutritional supplements or not.

>>>

>>>

>>> Making Codex Alimentarius Sound Harmless

>>>

>>> Ms. Mikkelson seems to be inferring that Codex Alimentarius is

>>> merely a “reference point” with countries having the “option” to

>>> “voluntarily” choose their own level of involvement.

>>>

>>> The truth is that the Codex guidelines serve as the standards which

>>> international dispute resolution uses in order to allow a

>>> complaining nation to impose the trade sanctions of its choice on

>>> the offending country, if the offending country is not adhering to

>>> the standards of Codex Alimentarius in its domestic law.

>>>

>>> This means that countries can “sue” each other for not complying

>>> with Codex, and it is to be expected that large corporations from

>>> one country would use Codex to force other countries into

>>> submission. As you can see, *in contrast to what Ms. Mikkelson

>>> proclaims, Codex is far more than merely a “reference point”!*

>>>

>>> Furthermore, in addition to the threat of sanctions, because of the

>>> WTO’s “Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement”

>>> <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsagr_e.htm> and the

>>> “Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement”

>>> <http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/eol/e/wto03/wto3_8.htm>

>>> the members of the WTO must bring their domestic laws into

>>> conformity with Codex standards. This is a very important fact about

>>> Codex. But it is completely ommitted from the snopes.com article.

>>> One has to wonder just whose interests Ms. Mikkelson is serving.

>>>

>>> This article uses classic disinformation techniques: slander of

>>> natural supplements and distraction, false information (such as the

>>> false, arbitrary “150 deaths” for ephedra), to give the reader a

>>> picture that distorts reality. After reading most of the way through

>>> the snopes.com article, an uninformed reader would probably conclude

>>> that “there is no Codex problem” and that “vitamins and minerals are

>>> dangerous, anyway, and need regulation”. Both conclusions are

>>> patently false.

>>>

>>>

>>> Spuriously Dismissing The Codex-Concerned

>>>

>>> Then Ms. Mikkelson throws in some really interesting (and

>>> inaccurate) information in an attempt to dismiss those of us who are

>>> concerned about Codex Alimentarius:

>>>

>>> * /“The e-mailed exhortation to rise up against Codex claims

>>> that commission’s guidelines regarding dietary supplements

>>> “will over ride U.S. law…”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: this is a technicality. The guidelines will not

>>> " override " U.S. law -- the Sanitary and Phytosanitary

>>> Agreement and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, which

>>> are part of the WTO Agreements, can override U.S. law

>>> according to legal analysts].*

>>> * /“… that’s just plain wrong. United States law governs trade

>>> within the United States.”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: No, actually, it is right. U.S. law, especially

>>> the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2, states that

>>> treaty law trumps domestic law. Thus, the Sanitary and

>>> Phytosanitary Agreement, which is part of treaty agreements

>>> and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, would trump

>>> domestic law as well.]*

>>> * /“Codex standards come into play only when American

>>> manufacturers of dietary supplements look to vend them on the

>>> international market…”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: this is factually wrong although it is widely

>>> stated, see below.]*

>>> * /“… and even then only when the other nations involved have

>>> incorporated Codex guidelines into their food laws”/

>>> *[Dr. Laibow: this, too, is factually inaccurate since all

>>> member nations of the WTO are bound by Codex whether or not

>>> they have " incorporated Codex guidelines into their food

>>> laws " , whatever that means.]*

>>>

>>>

>>> Snopes Article is an Urban Legend

>>>

>>> One would expect snopes.com to honor its stated purpose of bringing

>>> fact, whenever there are facts, to urban legends. But instead,

>>> through Ms. Mikkelson’s article, snopes.com is creating an urban

>>> legend of its own: the urban legend that Codex Alimentarius is an

>>> urban legend.

>>>

>>> /DID YOU KNOW:/

>>>

>>> *The Natural Solutions Foundation inaugurated the International

>>> Decade of Nutrition in September 2006* to use what we currently know

>>> about nutrition and agriculture to eliminate world hunger and

>>> preventable disease and to demonstrate the massive impact and effect

>>> of nutrition on personal and national physical and health and

>>> overall economic well-being all over the world. Using simple

>>> strategies we can eliminate world hunger and promote optimal world

>>> health and health-promoting nutritional strategies while avoiding

>>> World Trade Organization (WTO) trade sanctions and correcting the

>>> dangers Codex could have imposed.

>>>