Posted on 06/20/2005 6:31:52 PM PDT by Jenny Hatch
The U.S. Delegation to Codex has just issued a formal written statement to the Codex Alimentarius Commission that the United States, during the July 4-9, 2005, meeting in Rome, will support compulsory rules created by this international organization directly overruling U.S. law regarding access to vitamins.
The U.S. law that is about to be vanquished is the Dietary Supplement, Health and Education Act of 1994. Codex is a joint venture between the United Nations World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization. (WHO/FAO) The World Trade Organization (WTO) has already stated that it will enforce Codex guidelines as the world standard for trade in dietary supplements. This will mean that gradually, pill-by-pill, our access to the dietary supplements we depend on will disappear.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbull.com ...
While I am concerned about losing my freedoms regarding the right to purchase whatever Vitamins, Herbs, Homeopathics, and alternative medicines I want, I am much more concerned about losing the protections guaranteed by the Constitution being replaced by an international body.
Please use this thread to share any other links related to this topic.
Jenny Hatch Rabid defender of Alternative Healing, and highly suspicious of big Pharma....
I concur
Why do you think this is not being discussed in the Media, even the Blogosphere?
I don't understand.
Jenny
And they can override Congress...how, exactly?
I have as much dislike of the UN as anyone, but headlines like this are just scaremongering.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/vitamins.asp
Snopes says this is an urban legend...fwiw
Well they banned ephedra, then they banned andro, stop them before they ban again.
It matters NOT, whether others 'approve', but there are MANY folks who are staying healthier by taking supplements. MANY, MANY supplements are GOD-given. HE created them BEFORE man found a way to 'imitate' them.
From what I've read, this outrage ALSO extends to the critter world.(dogs, cats, horses, etc)
This is a hoax. How many times is this nonsense going to make a trip around the hysterical world?
I'm not sure if it is scaremongering. I have been trying to get good information about this Codex thing for months, that is why I started this thread. When I read Carolyn Deans piece this evening, I was hoping that by posting it here at Free Republic we could do some searching together.
Here is a clip from another article written by some guy who also made some alarming claims...
CODEX ALIMENTARIS ENDS U.S. SUPPLEMENTS IN JUNE 2005
"By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
March 6, 2005
Working stealthily BIG PHARMA has rapidly pushed their legislative program (Codex Alimentaris) in Europe that will eliminate the free choice Americans now have to purchase vitamins, herbs, minerals, homeopathic remedies, aminoacids and nutritional supplements. This elimination of all competition for the pharmaceutical industry will produce an enormous increase in the already exorbitant profits earned by the pharmaceutical firms. Of even greater significance the lack of free choice to stay well by taking effective nutritional substances will promptly be followed by a sharp increase in illnesses that will only be treated in the future with pharmaceutical drugs.
The new Codex Alimentaris adopted in a secret meeting in Europe in November 2004 is scheduled to take effect in June 2005. Because the United States belongs to the World Trade Organization WTO any changes approved in Europe automatically become law in the United States superceding our own laws (we are no longer a sovereign nation). Failure to comply with these changes institutes lawsuits which can not be won as they are settled in international courts which care nothing about U.S. laws. Incidentally, Europe has been very leery of genetically modified foods because of serious concerns about their safety. By this same WTO mechanism Europe will be forced to accept importation of U.S. GMO foods even if they know they are bad for health."
I have conducted multiple google searches trying to find good information, and it really appears that this is being done very quietly. Please share any links that you are aware of in terms of getting to the truth.
I don't like the title of the article by Carolyn Dean, but when one considers the gestapo techniques of our own FDA in the early nineties as they attempted to shut down the practices of healers who used supplements to cure - I have to believe that similar forces are at work attempting to grasp control of the supplement side of healing.
Jenny
Go to snopes.com. This has been debunked.
some people will believe anything they see on the internet......LOL
Bump for later read
Snopes admits in this part of the analysis that in fact food supplements (which I take in abundance every day) are in fact going to be regulated, and he uses the bogus ephedra story as proof that we moronic consumers need the help of the FDA to sort all of it out...
Here is the quote from the Snopes piece...
"Despite their presence on store shelves, not all dietary supplements are safe for consumers to use, let alone are beneficial to their health. Products can be 100% natural yet deliver a deadly payload, as have some in the past. 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. Under current law, dangerous supplements get onto the market and stay there, with 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 before the Food and Drug Administration was finally able to get it out of the stores.
In 2004, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, almost one in five Americans (19%) reported using a supplement, which means the pool of folks at risk is great. Yet the incentives are there for the dietary supplement industry to keep on doing what it has been doing: in 2002, it reported $18.7 billion in sales. With so much profit at stake, there is little desire on the part of manufacturers to police themselves or their products all that carefully.
It's not just about inherently dangerous substances being sold to the unwary as the latest miracle answer for what ails them even when dietary supplements contain nothing obviously harmful, the current lack of regulation results in improperly manufactured or contaminated products reaching the public. Quality control is missing."
Is Eli Lily underwriting Snopes???
Jenny - passionate about purchasing my supplements without a prescription...
You sure like your name.
The EU is trying to bully supplement manufacturers into providing a dossier about the safety issues (among other things) concerning the single ingredients found in supplements, but according to the director of the National Association of Health Stores, Ralph Pike, it costs about £300,000 to compile an acceptable scientific dossier on any single ingredient.
Vitamins abd Supplements Being Made Illegal
The U.S. is not a member of the EU. Ergo, there is no basis for concern here.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is very real.
If it wasn't true, they wouldn't be allowed to print it.
Would they?
:)
Actually, if you read the snopes assessment, while up front they say it's an urban legend, if you keep reading, you find it's actually true.
"Their sole target was dietary supplements, a class of products that has been unregulated since 1994, when Congress passed legislation that exempted them from federal regulation.
Vitamins and minerals are not under the gun. Dietary supplements are. And no outside regulatory body is behind this move: the proposed legislation is the work of American lawmakers looking to safeguard the public from the unscrupulous and the hazardous. If you take nothing else from this article, take the preceding three sentences. "
IOW they are nullifying the 1994 law. Snopes is actually a leftist organization, so they are trying to suppress this.
"In November 2004, the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) reached agreement on the definitions and regulatory guidelines for the worldwide use of vitamins and minerals in food supplements and will present its "Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements" to the Codex annual meeting in Rome in July 2005 for formal approval. Once approved, countries are expected to consider these new guidelines in developing or modifying their national food laws.
The Codex guidelines form a key reference point in case of international trade disputes in the area of food supplements. That, in a nutshell, is the extent of its teeth. "
Well, at least snopes gave the link to the official website of the Codex:
http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp
They are defining all kinds of standards, which member countries supposed to follow.
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