[Mad Mammoth]

I want to debate, so get some proof, beyond snopes, beyond quackwatch....
Some proof that come August 1st we are not going to have a vitamin gestapo in America.

You insipid twit.

You and your like-minded conspiracy freaks want 'proof'?

No problem. Read it for yourself, right from the federal government itself:

Q - Why won't these Guidelines restrict U.S. consumers' access to vitamin and mineral supplements?

Some consumers mistakenly believe that if Codex should adopt guidelines on vitamin and mineral food supplements that are more restrictive than DSHEA, the U.S. would be required to automatically change its laws and regulations to comply with the international standard. Some consumers have expressed concerns that the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its trade dispute settlement panels may place pressure on the U.S. to change its laws because of international trade agreements such as the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), which references Codex as the international organization for food safety standards.

We see no basis for these concerns. First, the DSHEA covers a much broader range of dietary supplements than the vitamin and mineral supplements that are the subject of the Codex Guidelines. Moreover, for supplements covered by these Guidelines, we note the following:

The SPS Agreement does not require a country to adopt any international standard. Rather, the SPS Agreement provides that members may base their Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures either on international standards, guidelines or recommendations, where they exist, or may establish measures that result in a higher level of protection if there is a scientific justification, or if a country determines it to be appropriate in accord with provisions of the SPS Agreement (SPS Agreement, Article 3(1) and (3)).

WTO and WTO dispute panels do not have the power to change U.S. law. If a WTO decision in response to a dispute settlement panel is adverse to the U.S., only Congress and the Administration can decide whether to implement the panel recommendation, and, if so, how to implement it.

For dietary supplements, it is unlikely that another country will accuse the U.S. of imposing a trade barrier for the importation of supplement products into the U.S. marketplace because the U.S. laws and regulations are generally broader in scope and less restrictive than the international standard.

However, other countries with more restrictive laws and regulations for dietary supplement products than the U.S. may create trade barriers to the importation of products manufactured by the U.S. dietary supplement industry. Thus, the U.S. government's involvement in the setting of international standards can help minimize the potential of trade barriers to U.S products in international trade.

Further, there is no basis for the concern that the Codex Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements would require dietary supplements be sold as prescription drugs in the United States. First, there is nothing in the Guidelines that suggests that supplements be sold as drugs requiring a prescription. Second, U.S. regulatory agencies are bound by the laws established by Congress, not by Codex standards. Third, because of our generally less restrictive standards, it is unlikely that the trade dispute would be brought against the U.S.

In summary, U.S. consumers' access to a broad array of dietary supplements under DSHEA would not be changed in any way by Codex's adoption of guidelines on vitamin and mineral food supplements.

----------------------------------------------------

Don't believe it? Here's the URL:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html#restrict

That still isn't enough Jen-Jen?

Have I got a deal for you.

Since you seem to believe this conspiratorial horsesh*t about Vitamins being banned, made prescription drugs, whatever, I'll make a wager with you:

IF, by the end of this current year (December 31, 2005), there is a 'Vitamin Gestapo' in America (nice hyperbole by the way), I will personally pay you the sum of $1000.00 in U.S. currency, OR if you can't stand the thought of taking my hard earned cash, I will make an equivalent donation to the charitable organization of your choice. However in order for this wager to be valid, YOU must agree to reciprocate in the event that I am proven right (that all of this nonsense about Codex, DSHEA, Vitamins, etc., is nothing but paranoia), that YOU will pay ME the sum of $1000.00 in U.S. currency OR (should I so elect) make the equivalent donation to the charity or organization of MY choice (hint: Jim Robinson? Prepare for a cash infusion at the end of the year, LOL).

So there you have it baby, now spit them vitamins outta your mouth, put your MONEY where that mouth is, and we'll see how this all turns out in only 178 days.

Now if you have the courage of your conspiracy, err, convictions, you should be more than willing to step right up and take my money.

Or, you could slither away and STFU (S-ilence T-his F-oolish U-ndertaking).

[cue Foghorn Leghorn voice] Ah say, ah say, ahma WAITIN to heah yo response!

[Jenny Hatch]

That still isn't enough Jen-Jen?



Nope, I want your deal in blood, hand written by you, sent express mail, and then I will burn it over the body of a dead cat in the light of the full moon while I harvest red raspberry leaves to make tea for my next pregnancy.

You have to quote bibbidi bobbidi boo while you write this deal with the blood dripping from your fingers...


Look you joker, the government doesn't have one speck of respectability in this matter, they are bought and paid for by the very people you are protecting with your words.

Just quit the joking and wait and see, OK? Fact is the vitamin gestapo is alive and well...

Check out what happened over the past two years in Australia...

http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/codex-sickness.htm

"The CODEX They Tell You Isn’t Real

The public constantly sends me information asking me to comment on it. Recently a flurry of official information updates have landed on my desk from the Complementary Healthcare Council (CHC). The updates have been so widely disseminated to groups and individuals that I thought there must be someone on round the clock duty. Interestingly I have seen almost identical information originating from trade and front organizations in other countries.

In essence, the official CHC “tech update” alleges: CODEX is only about food and not about supplements. The public is being ill informed about CODEX and confused by persons on the internet with “alarmist views” who “do not fully understand how Codex works”. It says the only Codex representative Australia has is from the fisheries department and he doesn’t make decisions about supplements, (only fish). And no one in Australia is sitting on any Codex committee doing anything to do with vitamins and supplements. Only about food. Nothing about supplements… (29 ) In an extra warning in bold letters the CHC urges all members to be cautious of CODEX information from the internet and other forums, claiming it may be “inaccurate” , “alarmist” and “ill informed”.

I read the two page “article” and immediately suffered a bad case of deja`vue. It sounded so much like Raymond Khoury’s article I could have sworn it was written by one and the same person and merely recycled - possibly not surprising since both Ms. Johanson and Mr. Khoury sit on the same TGA committees.



AUSSIES Deep in CODEX

For many years now a few lucky Australians have been sent on a yearly trip to participate in the WHO CODEX committee in Europe. They are sent by their government, which officially denies Codex exists in the context of supplements. In November 2003 an Australian delegation landed in Bonn, Germany. The three day CODEX meeting was to be hosted by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Inside the stark German Government building the 25th session was being convened of the “CODEX COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION AND FOODS FOR SPECIAL DIETARY USES” by the authoritarian President and Chairman Herr Rolf Grossklaus. (There was no one from the Aussie fisheries department present in the Australian delegation.) The session was well attended by 225 delegates and advisors representing 48 member countries, including Australia and representatives from 29 organisations and trans-national corporations.

Herr Toepner from the German Federal Ministry opened the meeting with a short speech reminding the delegates of the purpose of the Codex committee; “to protect the health of consumers, to ensure ‘fair trade practices’ and the committee’s important responsibilities under the WTO”. (WTO is the global trade police ensuring trade barriers fall and local competition is leveled so that global corporations can take over national markets, in the name of “world class regulatory standards” and “fair trade practices”.)

Herr Toepner apparently stressed the same message given to the delegates at TGA/FSANZ head quarters, for they made an heroic effort to further the agenda of supplement restriction at the CODEX meeting. The CODEX committee Chairman was well pleased with their work. The funereal looking Herr Grossklaus gratefully accepted the Australian proposal to apply a “risk” analysis to nutritional supplements. The committee once again expressed its appreciation to the; “Delegation of Australia for its work in this important area and agreed that a ‘risk-based approach’ should be followed for the establishment of upper limits for nutrients,” as stated the 2003 CODEX minutes report. That meant the Committee was currently working on placing a restriction on world wide supplement consumers. The Australian delegation agreed with the Chairman that the next 2004 Codex “session should be kept informed of the progress achieved by WHO in order to facilitate its further work on vitamins and minerals.” (Author’s translation of meaning of this is in footnote 33)

Moreover, the CODEX observer from the Council for Responsible Nutrition agreed wholeheartedly - Probably much to the approval of its members Bayer, BASF, Monsanto and of course, Wyeth. (The Australian chapter of the CRN merged with Ms Johansen’s CHC in 1999)

Among the CODEX participants that year, there were at least eleven multinational food and pharmaceutical companies including of course, Nestle and Roche. However, three delegations alone were from Wyeth.

The 2003 CODEX must have been considered such a success that the Australian delegate, Ms. Janine Lewis, Principal nutritionist, returned with another delegate the following year, Ms. Jane Allen, Senior nutritionist. Both are employees of the Food standards Australia and New Zealand FSANZ, a TGA related department which has joint committees with the TGA. The two departments share personnel, resources and curiously similar agendas. Interestingly, Val Johanson, formerly of CHC states in her bio that she; “held positions in the Australian Public Service as head of food standards at Federal level and she also established the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s surveillance unit, which she headed for almost four years. Positions currently held include; member of the Complementary Medicines Evaluation Committee, Chair of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code Council, Head of the International Herbal Regulatory Task Force of the International Alliance of Dietary Supplement Associations”.

There is much confusion deliberately generated by the regulator and its corporate partners to obscure the real agendas. Is Australia’s participation in CODEX about food or supplements? (therapeutic goods). The answer is both. This is what a law link had to say about the legal interface between foods and supplements after the changes to the Therapeutic Goods Act that was rammed through after Pan. “Food can now be a therapeutic good. The TGA is now able to designate food items as therapeutic goods. Previously, prescribed foods were not classified as therapeutic goods. Now, where a food product prescribed under the Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code is designated by TGA as having therapeutic properties, the TGA may declare the product to be a therapeutic good, and therefore as subject to regulation under the Act.” (30) That includes vitamins and supplements which the TGA Act regards as medicines and drugs under the title of therapeutic goods.

The TGA has this to say about food being classed as medicine; “products which may fit within the definition of either a food or a medicine [supplements] are referred to a joint TGA/FOOD STANDARDS Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) committee which recommends whether the goods should be regulated as a therapeutic good or as food. This means TGA/FSANZ sends delegates to CODEX to get their orders about supplement regulations from overseas.



Conclusion

There is no more point to denying it. Australia is participating in CODEX. But that is not all that has occurred. Starting with Pan in 2003 the TGA and its trans-national pharmaceutical corporation allies waged a hostile take over of the Australian supplement industry. Later that year the Australian government signed a treaty that enabled the TGA and the pharmaceutical corporations to form what amounts to an offshore corporation. This would keep the voters at arms’ length and put the monstrous new “Agency” into the direct international jurisdiction of the WHO/WTO and CODEX. As a final blow Australian voters were not even privy to a new TGA amendment bill 2005 that caters to the needs of the drug corporations. All this because a trade war is raging. Bad news about drug deaths is getting out. Drug companies need to take over supplement market to offset their financial losses. The cost of this desperate corporate last stand is Democracy and Health Freedom. Why consent to that? When you can do something about it.

Australians and New Zealanders who value their lives, health and freedom can join into Eve Hillary’s Health Freedom – CODEX campaign and choose an option from the two pages of easy health freedom suggested initiatives. OR they can create their own initiatives. Everybody can do something to restore Health and Freedom for all. See you in the winner’s circle."

As I have said in the several threads I have started on this topic, I am more concerned about American freedom and sovereignty than I am of any overly controling body keeping me away from my supplements.

Forget the blood pact....I guess I'll just slither away now....nice imagery. Was that a personal attack or somthin?

Jenny