“What good is a man’s knowledge unless it prompts him to prevent the pain of others as if it were his own pain?”
Thirukural (Verse 513)
This quote was sent to us by the Indian Professor we are going to visit in when we leave Geneva following the Codex meeting which ends tomorrow. We will be talking to the media and to various professional groups and will keep you posted. But the quote is wonderful so I wanted to share it with you.
Quick but important note: end of the day, Delegates are scurrying away and one says, “I have to go because I don’t want to be late for the US Cocktail Party.” So I walked over to Dr. Scarbrough, the US Delegate and Codex Contact Point and said, “Hi, Dr. Scarbrough. I am surprised you did not invite us to the party. Don’t you love us anymore?” He gave me a rather flat look (perhaps it was just 3 days of gruelling work). Anyway, he fished out an invitation and handed it to me. I thanked him and we had a few moments of chit chat about what hotel theUS delegates were in and where the party was. We did not go because we had other plans for the evening. But while we were chit chatting I asked him why Dr. Schneeman had stated that the US “Could not accept ‘Optimal Health’ as a Codex goal at CCFL last May.” He said, “Well, I don’t know what you meant by your words ‘Optimal Health’ “. I pointed out that they were not my words: they were South Africa’s words and he terminated the conversation with the phrase, “Oh. Well!”
Yes, indeed, “Oh. Well!” If optimal health is not the goal of the US in Codex, it will just have to be the rallying cry of the health coalition there. Oh. Well! Indeed. The world need to be well and the Global Stratagy has a role to play in helping it to be well. Oh. Well!
Codex report (brief since following yesterday’s post you probably have a pretty clear idea of what the nitty-gritty is like!
After telling us that we would have to “race through Agenda items 8-10” so we would have time for item 11 (which contains the Global Strategy) we learned something really important:
Codex is in significant financial trouble. It does not have enough money to do everything that it needs to do. “If governments want to see the smooth operation of Codex they will have to make contributions.” Therefore (listen up: this is really important) “for the first time it is possible for parties other than governments to donate money for food safety programs to FAO” Hmmmmmmmm….. That’s an invitation for …… You fill in the blank.
“Money is required for staffing of Codex Secretariat and for other ways to implement [Codex’s] measurable, achievable goals to document for ourselves how well we are doing in doing the work to which we are all dedicated.”
Finland noted the serious problems about the availability of scientific advice for this supposedly [Science Based] standards setting body because of deep concern about Codex’s serious financial problems. The Finnish Delegate went on to say “WHO is not making enough of a financial contribution. In this regard we welcome the newly established Global Initiative on Food Safety and wait for the results.” (This is where non governmental organizations can give money!!!)
You know what? If I had a whole bunch of money I would put it into Codex and FAO ‘food safety programs’ and make quite a change in the way Codex functions.
Another interesting aspect of today’s discussion had to do with defining “consensus”. Codex consistently has refused to do that despite the fact that it claims to make its decisions on the basis of consensus, whatever that might mean. In fact, Chairmen have been heard (by us) to (inaccurately) tell Delegates who were interested in voting on something that Codex no longer votes because all decisions are made by consensus. So knowing what consensus is would seem to be pretty important, right? Right. So important that Codex makes sure that “Consensus” sits on constantly shifting sand which it can push into whatever configuration it desires. It is a well known control tactic: don’t tell people the rules and constantly refer to the fact that you are making your decisions on the basis of those rules.
Right now as I observe it, “consensus” can mean any one of 4 things:
1. We all agree with something well enough to live with it.
2. Everyone has been heard from ONE TIME. This is pretty easy to arrange as the Chair or the Secretary have control over the button that allows a Delegate to use their microphone and be heard. Only if a delegate shouts out and creates a huge fuss can they change this one.
3. There is no sustained opposition. This is easy for the Chair or the Secretary to achieve for the same reason. And only if countries are exercised enough to be very rude do they find a way over this one.
4. The Chairman declares consensus has been reached no matter what. Only a sustained and well-orchestrated outcry will overcome this one but we have seen it done.
Countries repeatedly asked for clarification which was not given.
Then it was lunch time and we made outstanding contacts with three new countries who were very, very interested in what we had to say. In fact, they each invited us to come to their capital cities to meet with their decision makers. Clearly, we will get to as many of them as we can.
Lunch: excellent contact with Benin, Uganda, brief contact with India who invited us to come visit her in New Delhi the week after next to discuss these issues further after we presented her with our materials.
Global Strategy
We had caught up with the clock so it looked like we would actually get time to discuss the Global Strategy. We made sure that 11 new countries that we had not yet had extensive discussions about this problem with received materials on their desks when they came back from lunch. Each packet contained South Africa’s 11 pro-health points and a discussion about why they represented such an important option for each country and for Codex itself and a pair of cards from the General Stubblebine and me. On the top card was written a brief message which said “The Natural Solutions Foundation hopes that you will consider supporting South Africa’s Pro-Health Global Strategy Implementation Initiative.” Every single one of those countries later sought us out and thanked us for the information and for our activities in the service of health! That made us feel pretty good!
So what happened?
Item: Implementation of the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.
The WHO presented information on the item and. Dennise Cochino (sp?)
repeated the history:
July 2005:
1. WHO and FAO directed Codex to implement the GS.
2. 28th CAC asked WHO and FAO to prepare a letter to facilitate GS implementation.
3. CAC further requested that such document go to CCNFSDU and CCFL and agreed to consider the suggestions of all these process parts in this session.
WHO stated “…however, we considered that the GS was a relatively new initiative and that time was needed for the member states to consider it. So the discussion paper CAC 29 LIM 6 presents the action taken so far based on the following understandings:
We thought that we had to seek information from the member states early on and wanted to build on the work already taking place within Codex and we created an electronic forum. It was established in February 2006 placing a series of questions for the members to answer before the Who/Codex membership.
All Codex National Points of Contact were informed. We accepted comments through April 27. Summary of comments all the comments and of the discussion at CCNFSDU and CCFL were submitted in the LIM document. (This document buried everything that South Africa said under a ton of bureaucratic banality so that it was literally impossible to tell what had been proposed by South Africa either on the eForum or in the CCFL meeting.)
The report went on to say “WHO and FAO would like to accept a delay in presenting the final paper but we believe that this process is very adequate and agree that WHO and FAO facilitate a circular letter and submit again to CCNFSDU and CCFL at next sessions and the results be submitted to the 30th session of CAC.”
[In other words, do nothing which is more of same until next year and for who-knows-how-many years after that. This is the same WHO, by the way that issued a Workshop on the Application of Risk Assessment to Nutrients which defines a nutrient-related adverse event as “any change in any biomarker”. As we see it, there are pro health forces in the WHO and others. This report came from the others.]
The Chair called for comments noting, “The paper and presentation are very clear… and the commission is being asked to endorse the recommendations submitted which will allow the CAC to
1. Accept a year’s delay in the process.
2. During that time, WHO and FAO will complete an “action document” and disseminate it to the member states by circular letter.
3. CCNFSDU and CCFL will discuss the GS [again – or, in the case of CCNFSDU, not] and their comments will be considered
4. Views and recommendations of this committee will be provided to next year’s CAC.
The Chair waited a moment, said, “I see no flags so the recommendations are endorsed.”
“Next item….”
THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WANTED, BUT IT IS GREAT NEWS NONE THE LESS: WE HAVE AN ENTIRE YEAR TO MAKE OUR PRO-HEALTH POSITION IN SUPPORT OF SOUTH AFRICA’S 11 POINTS KNOWN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD COMMUNITY. AND SO WE SHALL.
To be continued!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
