Day 25: July 6, 2006

Today was another special day for the Natural Solutions Foundation. Dr. Mosha, the Chair of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, apparently violated CAC procedure to go back and revisit a section of the report of the most recent Codex Alimentarius Executive Committee which took place just before the current CAC meeting. Now, ordinarily, procedural rules are absolutely sacrosanct. They are observed scrupulously (unless of course they are inconvenient, as for example, when the Chair of a Committee or the CAC itself tells a member nation which has called for a vote “Codex does not vote anymore” although the procedural manual says “…each member of the Commission shall have one vote.” (CAC Procedural Manual, Rules of procedure, Rule VII, 1., page 12) and “…any Member of the Commission may request a roll-call vote, in which case the vote of each Member shall be recorded” (CAC Procedural Manual, Rules of procedure, Rule VII, 4., page 12).

In Codex, when an agenda item is complete, it is completed. So it was a huge surprise and, in its way, a rather significant honor or sorts when, have finished the entire work of the CAC meeting today, Dr. Claude Mosha, the CAC Chair, made an exception for us, the Natural Solutions Foundation.

Although the adoption of the report of the Codex Executive Committee (June 28-July 1, 2006) had taken place on the very first day of the CAC meeting, Dr. Mosha though that the status of the Natural Solutions Foundation was so important that he asked the CAC Members, as the last item of business, just before the close of this year’s CAC, to turn back to the report of the Executive Committee, Alinorm 06/29/3A, to regard together Item 109. It reads, in full,

109. The Executive Committee recommended to the Directors-General of FAO and WHO to reject the application for observer status from the Natural Solutions Foundation on the ground that the applicant did not meet the requirement of section 3 (e) of the Principles. Moreover one Member pointed out that the organization did not fulfill other criteria set out in section 3 of the Principles, especially with regard to the confidentiality of members.”

How nice of him! Yes, Section 3 (e) says that an organization has to have been functioning internationally for at least 3 years and we have not and yes, we refused to reveal the names of our “members” because we are not a membership organization and the identities of our donors are confidential. But the Procedural Manual also says, “The Directors-General of FAO and WHO may, upon the advice of the Executive Committee, grant observer status to Organizations not meeting this requirement if it is clear from their application that they would make a significant contribution to advancing the purposes of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.” (CAC Procedural Manual, Guidelines of IGO Cooperation, 3., page 36).

We are flattered that Dr. Moshe took such pains to mention us and look forward to developments under his second term of CAC Chairmanship (to which he was elected without opposition yesterday.) I wonder if his special mention of the Natural Solutions Foundation had anything at all to do with the press release we put out yesterday mentioning another special event which he orchestrated by stopping one of our sponsored Delegates from attending the CAC: Codex Chairman Seeks to Thwart Natural Solutions Foundation Pro-Health Codex Initiative (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/7/prweb406560.htm) .

Perhaps, or perhaps not. We will probably never know.

Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD