Codex Alimentarius

Emily Dale wrote in on the Blog (Congress Meets its Match) asking about Codex Alimenatrius - what did I know. I knew that it smacked of scare talk and was without substance. So today I thought I would follow that up. Here's what happened:

050330We1224. Called Congressman Taylor's office 202.225.6401. Talked with aide about Codex Alimentarius. He says he is familiar with issue and that it is very complicated. He agrees that as far as he knows, the Codex Alimentarius will go into effect in June, requiring the FDA to approve all vitamins and supplements, then a medical doctor will be required to examine a patient and prescribe supplements - if “necessary”, then the supplements will have to be purchased from pharmaceutical companies. He also said HB 1146 had been introduced this session, just before Easter recess, and if it passed the House, and was introduced in and passed the Senate, and was signed by the President, then it would “restore soverignty to the United States” concerning this matter. He said he had no idea how Congressman Taylor stood in relation to this issue, but that it was a “very complex issue”. My own experience in the past has been that when people in Washington say something is “very complicated”, that means that there are a lot of special interests involved.
050330We1238. Senator Dole’s Office 202.22426342, Was connected to a "specialist" - not in. got Voice Mail - left message with him including my phone number & email.
050330We1246. Senator Burr’s Office. 202-224-3154. Knew nothing about it. After I mentioned HB 1146, he checked it out and found out that it was introduced by Ron Paul (R) Texas, on March 8. HB 1146 is titled “End membership of United States in the United Nations” - in other words, the United States would withdraw from the UN.
Other information - there must be many more, but information is slow today.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Codex_Alimentarius/index.asp

http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/w9114e/W9114e00.htm

http://www.sumeria.net/health/hpb-codex.html

"In October, 1996, Codex met in Bonn, Germany, to make radical changes in the rules governing dietary supplements for member nations. The proposals of greatest concern were those made by the German delegation ("Proposed Draft Guidelines for Dietary Supplements"), which is being sponsored by Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.
The drug company backed proposals call for the following:
1. No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc., can be sold for prophylactic (preventative) or therapeutic reasons.
2. Natural remedies can be sold as food but they must not exceed the potency (dosage) levels set by the commission. This means that consumer access to dietary supplements will be limited to the RDA dosage as a maximum limit for vitamins (vitamin C - 60 mg, vitamin E - 15 mg, etc.). Supplements without an RDA (e.g. coenzyme Q10) would be illegal to sell because they would all become drugs.
3. Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating the escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that allows a nation to set its own standards. This applies to all member countries of the U.N. Any nation that does not accept and apply these new standards will be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating the potential for crippling entire sectors of the nation's economy.
4. All new supplements would be banned unless they went through the Codex approval process.
Five steps have already been taken in the Codex process over the past few years. Remember Canadian Bill C-7 which was passed eventually in Canada as C-8? The similarity of the process, the secrecy, and the wording between the Codex proposals and the Canadian laws is uncanny.
Voting in favour of adopting the German proposal has been overwhelming (16 for and 2 against in the most recent vote). The Codex process is now at "Step Five" - formalization and debate concerning the specific features. In two years, Codex could jump from step 5 to step 8 to finalize these restrictions. The Codex proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany, where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, Vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an echinacea tincture which is being sold there as an OTC drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs. Only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores, or pharmacies.
I understand that step five has been completed and the process is now at step nine.