Re: Vitamins to be banned worldwide????

[Guest guest]

On 7/5/05, gayle12345678 <gayle123456789@...> wrote:

> From: Millions of Health Freedom Fighters - Newsletter

> Subject: Vitamins to be Banned Worldwide...

>

Also see:

http://www.iahf.com/

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

http://www.citizens.org//priorities/codex/romeupdate.cfm

" READ THE LATEST ON CODEX FROM ROME "

http://news./news?tmpl=story & u=/prweb/20050705/bs_prweb/prweb257882_2

" 10,000+ Worldwide See " WE BECOME SILENT " In Less Than 48 Hours — This

New Film by P. Exposes Imminent Dangers Posed by CAFTA,

Code "

Naomi

[Guest guest]

I looked this up on snopes.com lastnight and it said it was NOT true. I didn't

read the whole thing and I think at the bottom it talked about something in

1993. So maybe they tried then.

??

Kris

Vitamins to be banned worldwide????

On 7/5/05, gayle12345678 <gayle123456789@...> wrote:

> From: Millions of Health Freedom Fighters - Newsletter

> Subject: Vitamins to be Banned Worldwide...

>

Also see:

http://www.iahf.com/

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

http://www.citizens.org//priorities/codex/romeupdate.cfm

" READ THE LATEST ON CODEX FROM ROME "

http://news./news?tmpl=story & u=/prweb/20050705/bs_prweb/prweb257882_2

" 10,000+ Worldwide See " WE BECOME SILENT " In Less Than 48 Hours ¯ This

New Film by P. Exposes Imminent Dangers Posed by CAFTA,

Code "

Naomi

[Guest guest]

Re: Vitamins to be banned worldwide????

I looked this up on snopes.com lastnight and it said it was NOT true. I

didn't read the whole thing and I think at the bottom it talked about

something in 1993. So maybe they tried then.

??

Kris

Vitamins to be banned worldwide????

=============

Kris,

Snopes is a mess of misinformation. I don't trust them one bit.

Nenah

[Guest guest]

On 7/7/05, e Sheehan <e.Sheehan@...> wrote:

> I looked this up on snopes.com lastnight and it said it was NOT true. I

didn't read the whole thing and I think at the bottom it talked about something

in 1993. So maybe they tried then.

>

> ??

Hi Kris,

Yeah, I've heard about snopes' take on Codex. I look them up and

forward their articles for a number of things, like when I get

*another* e-mail about a missing child, but in this case, I think

they're off. The whole problem is that the U.S. is a member of the

WTO, and other countries can sanction us through this organization for

non-compliance (IIRC, there was some altercation with our steel

exports).

Here's a good article written by someone with a background in law,

which is a good thing because there's a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo in

Codex:

" Who Says Whatever Happens at Codex Does Not Affect US Law and Why Do

They Say It? "

http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm

A journalist looks back to help you look forward

by Suzanne , J.D.

Copyright © 2005 The Law Loft

I was struck recently by an article appearing in the NNFA Today

magazine, Volume 18, No.11 entitled " International Products Regulation

Q & A: What Affect do They Really Have on the U.S.? " While some parts of

the article were good, a number of the questions and answers struck a

discordant note including the following:

" However, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture official, the

United States has never changed its laws or regulations to conform to

any standards or guidelines adopted at Codex. He noted further that the

United States does not, as a matter of practice, officially accept,

accept in part, accept free distribution, or accept standards or

guidelines adopted by the Codex Commission. Therefore, it doesn't appear

that any changes to U.S. law or regulations would likely occur as a

result of any adoption by the Commission of the vitamin and food

supplement guidelines. " [emphasis added]

It was the therefore that really bothered me. If NNFA asked that unnamed

bureaucrat about acceptance of guidelines, then it really asked the

wrong question. The U.S. generally doesn't accept Codex guidelines nor

do other countries. The Codex Secretariat hasn't received a notice of

acceptance in the last 10 years. The better question is whether Codex

standards and guidelines act as a template or containment within which

countries must then write their laws and regulations or face enormous

political and legal pressure. To this latter question the answer is

clearly yes — write laws within the acceptable field set forth by the

applicable Codex standard or guideline or be prepared to accept the

consequences, including the risk of cross-sector trade sanctions if you

don't.

Why are Codex guidelines and standards a containment, a template, within

which nations must then operate or face a host of nasty consequences?

Partly because since the creation of the World Trade Organization and

its internal operating agreements, every member nation knows that its

laws and regulations can become the object of a WTO ruling and the

object of political pressure to harmonize. Back in 1997, I watched as

the realization dawned on Codex delegates that they had entered into a

new era of food law harmoninzation.Too late to cry now was the essence

of the message delivered to them by the counsel from WTO.

A few months later, I was dining in Washington with another group of

food regulators fresh with the kind of know-it-all arrogance that

strikes people who have been around the block at Codex once or twice,

and I said: " You know, it's really fascinating to watch how regulations

that affect us here at home start out at international meetings. "

" No, they don't, " intoned a voice from the other end of the table. " They

start with decisions by industry. I was at a trade meeting where a new

form of packaging was unveiled. Not too long thereafter, the same idea

was presented at Codex. That's the way things are done now. And you

would do it that way too. Why run around from country to country seeking

the regulations you want when you can do it all in one shot at Codex? "

The speaker, whom I have paraphrased, was a bureaucrat from the

Department of Agriculture.

Was he right? Is Codex the place where the templates for new world-wide

regulations are written after business interests have agreed to them?

Through all the years of meetings I have attended since, the answer has

come through loud and clear. Yes, he was right, but the pathways can be

complex. It works like this: big business and bureaucrats get together

and agree on how to write new international regulations in private

meetings. When they agree, their agreements then surface as working

projects, draft guidelines, or proposals at Codex. In some cases the

pathway is very, very clear. In others it is not. In the dietary

supplements case, a series of meetings were held by business and

bureaucrats who agreed on some issues, went forward on those at Codex,

and then agreed on others now contained in the draft guideline on

vitamin and mineral supplements now at Step 8.

The real key to how things work at Codex is contained in the phrase in

Article 1 of the Statutes of the Codex Alimentarius Commission where it

says: the purpose is - " ( promoting the coordination of all food

standards work undertaken by international governmental and non

governmental organizations; " What is so significant about this phrase

are the words promoting the coordination of ... international

governmental and non governmental ... What that means in the real world

is taking the work of international industrial lobbying groups and then

cloaking that work with legitimacy and now real binding legal and

political force by feeding their agreements through Codex, an

international governmental entity. The more jaded among you will say,

'Well, how is that any different from the way things have worked in

Washington for decades?' The answer is it is different because decisions

are made by bureaucrats and the actions are offshore. With a truly

domestic piece of legislation you have a chance of overcoming industrial

pressure with grassroots pressure on the people you elected. With an

international guideline, by the time it's done you have almost no chance

to win. You can't bring pressure to bear in all the right places. The

real damage was done long ago and long before you felt it.

Would some bureaucrat in Washington deliberately mislead anybody? You bet.

Again and again in a variety of contexts, I have heard bureaucrats tell

unwary consumers and reporters tall tales filled with half truths. At

the end of a meeting in Washington last Fall, a Washington-based

attendee slipped me his card and said " If you ever get a straight answer

out of these folks let me know. "

When I started to catch on to the game myself, I began changing the way

I prepared for meetings and the way I asked questions. I hunted for

evidence of these meetings and premised my questions accordingly. The

results were startling. Bureaucrats knew months, sometimes years ahead,

what was going to happen next, and they told me. I knew, for example,

over two years ago that the German risk assessment for vitamins and

minerals was being built — long before others 'discovered' it in January.

But they do still try to con you even if you know the game. More

recently in Europe an EU bureaucrat I was interviewing said, " Of course,

it is different for the FDA. They can't regulate food supplements the

way we do because of DSHEA. "

" Did someone tell you that? " I replied. " You have been misinformed.

DSHEA contains a huge escape clause 'substantial or unreasonable risk of

.... ' " I didn't get to finish my sentence. He did it for me, ' ... of

illness or injury.' " You could drive a whole herd of camels through that

language. Do you know any bureaucrat who wouldn't? " I said. A huge grin

covered his face like a Cheshire cat smile. I had caught him and he knew it.

Why aren't they telling the truth and the whole truth? Because it is a

truth they do not want you to hear.

No one in this game internationally or in Washington wants you to know

that the upcoming Codex guideline will circumscribe what Congress does.

It's a little game they all play now — decide offshore what to do, write

a standard or guideline, tell the elected representatives: find a

problem at home, launch a PR campaign, pretend you are writing new

legislation to fix the problem.

Indeed, the concept of gamesmanship is now so imbedded in the

bureaucratic mind that it is hard to shake out even when half truths

won't work. I saw another real life demonstration of this mentality when

a consultant told a room full of bureaucrats, " Half truths won't work

here. They know what you are doing. " The assembled bureaucrats reacted

by suggesting that yet another study on how to 'disinform' the public

needed to be done. A meeting organizer expressed disappointment that I

was there to witness this. " We thought nobody from the press would come.

We had buried the notice so deep in our website, " he commented.

What are they really doing? Building blocks for global regulations

through 'consensus.'

The name of the game here is convergence and harmonization, to build

regulations and laws in each country that fit together with those

written in other countries and at places like Codex so that trade (with

a hugely expanded definition of trade) moves seamlessly. The mantra of

the hour is 'approved once, accepted everywhere.'

Can this be overcome? Is it too late? No, not if just the right steps

are taken right now. Otherwise, we can all look forward to a harder

fight with less chance of success in Washington in the future.

Copyright © 2005, The Law Loft. All rights reserved. No extract, portion

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