CODEX Daily Update
Rome Italy
July 14, 2005
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Pro-Illness forces are pushing hard to consolidate their gains at CODEX last week when the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG) was passed without any dissenting voices. Stepping back for a moment, where are we?
1. The Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG) was ratified by CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission (CAC) on July 4 (!) in Rome. This means that “Risk Assessment”, a process by which toxins are evaluated and you are protected from them, is the ‘gold standard’ of nutritional evaluation for this body. It also means that developing nations are being urged to adopt this standard and the ones that will follow it as their domestic standards legislating starvation and chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and neurodegenerative diseases according to international sources like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The WHO and FAO are the parent organizations for CODEX and fund it from their own budgets. Stay tuned on the budget issue: it could turn out to be a great help to us.
2. The European Court of Justice, the European Union’s equivalent of our Supreme Court decided virtually every question in the challenge to the CODEX look-alike European Food Supplements Directive (EFSD) in favor of the EFSD except for a partial shift in the responsibility of the burden of proof onto the shoulders of the regulators in showing that a nutrient is dangerous and the allowance of natural sources for permitted nutrients (but still at ultra low doses). Otherwise, that round went to the pro-illness forces.
3. In preparation for the end of the dossier submission period on July 12, during which manufactures of nutrients could apply for an exemption (a “derogation”) from the EFSD ban (at least until the last day of December, 2009 when all derogations end) 500 dossiers were submitted. The UK supplied some of the costs to manufacturers since the costs were enormous and many small firms could not afford them. During the period when these dossiers are being processed, the product under consideration may not be banned. This will have the effect of softening the August 1 impact of EFSD-controlled dietary supplements. EFSD has been noted by the court, however, to be in the process of enacting similar restrictions for all other types of supplements even though they are only dealing with vitamins and minerals at this point.
3. US CODEX Policy supported the ratification of them dangerous pro-illness measure despite the fact that US law precludes us from harmonizing with international standards which violate US law. The VMG violates two US laws (DSHEA and Title 19, USC 3512) so we cannot harmonize with it legally. Stay tuned on that one since as long as DSHEA is intact this one can turn out to be very useful for us as well.
4. The WHO and FAO commissioned a report to evaluate CODEX. The consultants made 20 recommendations. No. 18 suggested that CODEX decide if it has a relationship with nutrition and, if so, what that relationship is. (in those words, no less!). The Chairman of the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission did not permit discussion of this recommendation despite WHO’s bringing it up. The next day, at the end of the concluding session of the CAC’s deliberations, WHO noted that CAC has not made a contribution to world health [!] and demanded that CAC become involved in the WHO Global Strategy for health which involves diet, nutrition and exercise. WHO stated that CAC would need to change the mandate of the two committees that deal with nutrition (CODEX Committee on Food Labeling and CODEX Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses) or create a new entity, a Task Force on Nutrition. Stay tuned on this issue since it could be of immense help to us!
5. Susan Davis (D-CA) introduced HR 3156 into the US House of Representatives which would give the FDA Secretary the authority to remove any nutrient (excluding Vitamins and Minerals, see CODEX VMG) from the market if there is the slightest risk to taking it even if there has been no harm caused by the nutrient. This bill would also set up an Adverse Event reporting requirement for nutrients but not for drugs, of course. The person who reports the suspected adverse event has the responsibility to investigate it within 15 days so the quality and consistency of any reporting would be highly irregular and questionable and, if suspected of being involved in any risk at all, the FDA can remove the substance from the market with no further process.
In addition, the manufacturers of supplements are required to carry out costly and burdensome post market studies to determine if there is any risk to their products. If there might be, Risk Assessment techniques from the science of toxicology, the substance gets removed from the market without regard to the benefit of the nutrient. So we gut DSHEA, the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act which classifies nutrients and herbs as foods and guarantees that we can select them for ourselves to use as we like. “Hello HR 3156, bye bye DSHEA”. Poof! Just like that.
Note that HR 3156 (which was co sponsored by Waxman of CA and Dingell of MI, by the way) takes care of the matter of our support of the CODEX VMG is illegal: it changes US law so that DSHEA no longer presents a problem. What a good idea if you make drugs. If, however, you value your health and freedom, you need to consider what failing to raise your electronic voice will mean to your future and your family’s.
Please visit our site so that you can send the new letter to Congress to every member of your delegation and take the rest of the 6 Easy Steps if you have not already done so. Then put a link to our site on your emails and your site and ask everyone you contact to take action.
Do you know why DSHEA was passed unanimously in 1994 by assent of Congress? For one reason and one reason only: enough people made it clear with millions of letters to enough Congressmen and women that this was a major issue for them that not one single Congressman or woman dared to stand against that tide of opinion. Not one, despite whatever payoffs from any corporate interest they might have been involved in. Not one member of Congress dared defy the will of the (voting) people.
We are right back there 11 years later. We did it before, we can do it again.
The Natural Solutions Foundation is in the process of organizing our voices through Congressional impact, through the Internet, through radio, through powerful collaborations domestically and internationally. But, in the end, it is our collective voices that will move Congress to protect your health freedom.
I mentioned that the WHO and FAO are very unhappy with the anti-nutrition stance of CODEX.
Part of our strategy is to support this unhappiness and bring the US DSHEA concept to the world bodies and nations for adoption as the international standard. Strong support of DSHEA here in the US will make this task easier. Embedding DSHEA in international policy will, in turn, help protect it here from the next assault on health freedom (and it will come again and again and again, we can almost be sure!) There is simply too much money to be made in drugs to imagine that the pharmaceutical industry will give up this time any more than they gave up when we won in 1994 and DSHEA was passed by unanimous Congressional assent.
So what is good for us (DSHEA) is good for the world and what is good for the world is also very good for us.
Now is the time. Oppose HR 3156 and all of the look alikes which will be coming out of the Congressional wood work. Oh, and you can expect an intensified negative slant in the press about the “dangers” of nutrients, herbs and supplements. Read the article on CODEX disinformation and just change the terms and you’ll have the picture.
Can we win? Absolutely! Can we afford to be smug and self-satisfied? Absolutely not!
Yours in Health and Freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
