Background to the Codex Alimentarius Commission

There is much misinformation about Codex Alimentarius on the internet so we have endeavoured to check our sources of information to bring you the most correct data possible. If you have any specific questions or queries you can contact us directly here.

Codex has as many as 27 active committees meeting on an annual basis. While it is possible the commissions' initial intentions may have been altruistic, it has become clear that Codex has been over taken by corporate interests - particularly the pharmaceutical, pesticide, biotechnology and chemical industries.

Erosion of National Sovereignty

Codex guidelines and standards are automatically implemented by the General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs (GATT) of the WHO and become binding for all international trade among GATT signatory countries. Therefore Codex compliance is essentially mandatory for all member nations. Any non Codex compliant nation could face huge economic repercussions.

Where applicable, the WTO uses Codex texts as a reference point for resolving international trade disputes where issues pertinent to Codex – such as health and sanitary measures – are at stake, and WTO members are legally obliged to abide by its rulings. Trade disputes could result in a ruling against New Zealand legislation requiring a change in domestic laws.  It's possible Codex guidelines and standards would supersede domestic laws, similar to the US Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, should they be allowed to advance their agenda.

Non compliant countries would face difficulty in trading with Codex complaint countries as those countries would essential need to make sure their products comply with Codex guidelines in order to import them.

EXAMPLE:  Europe pay annual fines to the WTO for refusing to import beef and dairy products derived from cattle fed genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH). They have been paying annual fines of $117 million to the US and $11 million to Canada each year because Codex says that rbGH-containing meat is safe - so any country that poses a barrier to trade suffers at the hands of the WTO which in this case has imposed fines on Europe from the USA and Canada. The annual fines continue annually.

Codex Use Junk Science to Declare that “Nutrients are Toxins”

The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) has two committees which impact nutrition. One of them is the “Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses” (CCNFSDU). The host government for this committee is the Federal Republic of Germany.

Dr. Rath of the Rath Foundation makes noteworthy observation that Germany became host country for Codex Committee on Nutrition in 1995 when Helmut Kohl was Chancellor, and he notes that Kohl got his start as a lobbyist for BASF (The German chemical company). He notes that Kohl was put into power by electoral votes controlled by Pharma.

This committee is chaired by the Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, a German physician who believes that nutrition has no role in health. This is the “head hauncho” for Codex nutritional policy, and he has stated that “nutrition is not relevant to health”.

In 1994 Dr. Grossklaus has also instituted the use of toxicology (Risk Assessment) to prevent nutrients from having any therapeutic impact on humans who take supplements in the name of "Public Safety". The science of toxicology or Risk Assessment is the current method for assessing pharmaceutical drugs and is absurd to apply to nutrients.

While Risk Assessment is a legitimate science (it is a branch of toxicology), it is the wrong science for assessing nutrients. In fact in this context, it is actually junk science. Biochemistry, the science of life processes, is the correct science for assessing nutrients. Codex Alimentarius treats nutrients as toxins. Nutrients are not toxins - they are essential for life.

Dr Grossklaus has a Risk Assessment Company in Germany called the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). Here in New Zealand we call that a “conflict of interest”.  He is also a bureaucrat in the BgVV - Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitlichen Verbraucherschutz Und Veterinärmedizin (German institute for consumer health protection and veterinary medicine). Grossklaus wants to limit vitamin and mineral levels.

Codex Permits Low Doses of Vitamins and Minerals in Supplements

Codex is made up of hundred of standards and guidelines including the Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements Guidelines  (VMG) adopted by the commission in July 2005.  The VMG is provides a framework for the development of global restrictions on the manufacture and sale of dietary supplements containing vitamins and minerals. 

Ultimately it is expected to permit only ultra low doses of vitamins and minerals making clinically effective nutrients illegal. VMG restrict dosages of vitamins and minerals by using the Risk Assessment (toxicology) company to assess nutrients.  (e.g., the maximum potencies for Vitamin C and niacin would be expected to be as low as 225 mgs and 17 mgs, respectively). 

The text of the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements supports the mandatory application of the Guidelines within the jurisdictions of its member States of which New Zealand is one.  Specifically, the Guidelines states in its Paragraph 1.2 that "These Guidelines do apply in those jurisdictions where products defined in 2.1 [i.e., vitamin-and-mineral food supplements] are regulated as foods." (emphasis added). Because New Zealand is one of those jurisdictions that regulates dietary supplements as a food, the Guidelines will and do apply.

The “science” of these Codex levels is far more political than scientific yet compliance with these guidelines is becoming mandatory and will be established politically once these guidelines are fully implemented. Whilst this process is expected to take several more years, the slower it is, the less alarmed people will be. That’s probably the logic of the architects of Codex Alimentarius.

The VMG Denies that dietary supplements can benefit normal, healthy people;

• Incorrectly defines dietary supplements as only those vitamins and minerals that the body cannot manufacture itself;
  
• Restricts the upper-limit amounts of vitamins and minerals, particularly by referring to currently-crude and archaic medical beliefs about nutrients;
  
• Restricts the dissemination of the physiological benefits of dietary supplements for consumers.

The National Health Federation had argued the guidelines should be re-considered, because they are contravening Codex's own procedural rules:

"1. The guidelines do not state what purpose they serve, although that is required by Codex rules adopted as recently as a year previously, but well before the November 2004 Nutrition Committee meeting that finalized the text.

2. There is no clear definition as to what vitamins and minerals are covered by these guidelines. Although supplements "should contain vitamins, provitamins and minerals recognized by FAO and WHO", according to the text, there is actually no publication of the FAO or WHO that provides lists of recognized vitamins, provitamins and minerals.

3. Certain countries are exempted from the application of the guidelines. Those countries that consider vitamins and other nutrients should be regulated as drugs are exempted. This means harmonization of different national laws, the goal of all Codex activity, is not being forwarded by the guidelines.

While the guidelines ask for restrictions on supplements in the comparatively liberal countries, the really backwards view of "nutrition is really medicine and any of those nutritional supplements are drugs" is acknowledged as being quite acceptable. Indeed, one of the amendments to the guidelines was Australia's demand to emphasize that "These Guidelines apply only in those jurisdictions where products ... are regulated as foods".

The VMG guidelines are currently being systematically applied throughout the world already in  countries like Germany, Sweden, Norway and Canada where you can not get vitamin C in the health stores in dosages higher than 225mg.  In New Zealand our Vitamin C supplements contain anything from 500mg to 1,000 mgs per dose.  Australia is already "accidentally" Codex compliant through its regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
Countries currently in active defense (that we know of at writing of this page) against the ridiculous guidelines are The United States, The United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Codex's VMG is based in the Napoleonic Code, not Common Law. That means anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden.  Under Common Law, we hold that anything not explicitly forbidden is permitted. The difference is health freedom rather than health tyranny. Codex Alimentarius would be able to ban therapeutic grade supplements by default.

Codex Uses The Propaganda of Consumer Protection

Contrary to the propaganda, Codex Alimentarius has nothing to do with consumer protection. Codex is about the economic ambitions of multi-national corporations, in particular, the pharmaceutical industry and toxic chemical industry.

Using their multi billion-dollar marketing budgets, these industries have launched a massive media propaganda campaign to paint Codex Alimentarius as a benevolent tool of “consumer protection”, as well as to negatively taint the image of natural health options and mislead people to fear them as “dangerous”, so they will take drugs (which really are dangerous). Natural health products have an amazing safety record and are remarkably effective, especially when compared to pharmaceutical drugs.

The current direction of Codex is unfortunately driven by an elitist mentality that thinks it knows what is best for consumer health and protection. Unfortunately, such a mindset comes from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s kind of "brave new world" thinking that elevated central planners into a form of "God on Earth."  That kind of out-dated thinking has caused more misery, death and disease than can possibly be imagined.

Codex: Serious Threat to Health and Health Freedom

If Codex Alimentarius guidelines are implemented in New Zealand, therapeutic dosages of vitamins and minerals (and all other nutrients soon to follow) will become unavailable because they will literally become illegal.  Here’s how it would work, in a nut-shell:

Due to the junk science use of Risk Assessment (toxicology), and a junk research propaganda war, we call media science, a false belief is being engineered saying that “nutritional supplements are dangerous to people’s health”.

Using this false belief generates calls to “protect” people from these “toxic” nutrients. After the calls come the bills (Therapeutic Goods & Medicines Bill") to set ultra low permissible dosages and ban high potency formulas and individual ingredients.

Only intentionally ineffective, ultra low dose supplements would be legal, with or without a prescription, on the VMG list. If enough people do not take action, we can expect to watch nutritional supplement manufacturers and, thus health food stores, to go out of business, in a domino effect. The only player left standing would be Big Pharma.

Therapeutic grade vitamins, minerals, and amino acids would be eliminated from the marketplace (although a few low-dose supplements would be allowed by Codex, as a symbolic measure to avoid suspicion about their ulterior motive).

Natural health professionals would lose the tools of their trade (nutritional supplements) and health conscious people would be unable to choose natural health options for health promotion and disease treatment.

And that is, in a nutshell, how Codex Alimentarius is poised to make Natural and Nutritional Medicine (NNM) disappear from the legal health world and go underground.

Watch the Movie "We Become Silent"
narrated by Dame Judy Dench and featuring Mel Gibson.

Codex Serves Economic Interests of Big Pharma

More and more people are turning to natural health products globally. The “wellness” trend is a major trend in today’s society. It is a billion dollar industry and steadily growing.  The more natural health products people use, the fewer drugs they buy. The pharmaceutical industry, which is part of the “Sickness Industry”, fears the inevitable shift toward natural health care especially as the death toll of people taking legally prescribed drugs continues to rise to well over a half a million every year globally.  At those figures it's a slow genocide!

A rough global estimate puts natural product use by consumers at around 40% of the population of developed nations - and this statistic is growing.  In New Zealand it's estimated at 60% of the population.  When the TGA came into effect it was estimated that 40% of young people would go to a health food store for natural products before going to a doctor.  This gave rise to Pharmacies beginning to stock natural products as well as drugs.  To survive!  All this is eating away and Big Pharma's profits.  You won't be surprised to note that the largest Pharmaceutical Companies like Bayer & Roche, are German.

Instead of accepting the will of the people and rethinking the future of the pharmaceutical industry, the industry has decided upon an unethical course of action: the use of deception and deceit to eliminate natural health products completely.

The phrase Big Pharma is often used to refer to companies with revenue in excess of $3 billion, and/or R&D expenditure in excess of $500 million, and represents the first 30 or so companies in this list. Codex Alimentarius is a shrewd vehicle for protecting the pharmaceutical industry from the loss of income it stands to suffer due to the inevitable growth of natural healthcare.

New Zealand's Health Freedom Under Codex Threat

New Zealand has been under significant legislative attack with the Labour led Government in power. We already had the Medicines Act of 1981 which forbids natural products from claiming they can aid in or treat diseases.  It also forbids access to information and research about particular natural substances as they pertain to natural products. 

We have, for now, halted the draconian "Anti-Vitamin Bill" (Therapeutic Goods & Medicines Bill).  Prior to the 2008 election, the Labour led Governments' new Public Health Bill, which if enacted, would make it mandatory for you to accept treatment and vaccination from officials (it is not specifically stated who - could be the local vet or a bureaucrat) in the event of an epidemic.  The legislation is so badly written and contrary it states you have the right to refuse vaccination but if you resist for two long and do not obey the rules (set by whom it is unclear), you will breaking the law and may be sent to jail as a common criminal for exercising your health freedom right of refusal. 

Good News

Codex are feeling the pinch.  At the beginning of the November 2005 annual meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU),  Dr. Grossklaus announced that the CCNFSDU must improve its public image and he requested permission of the Committee to allow it to be videotaped for a promotional film. 

There is now a global movement to reform Codex to truly represent the interests of consumers it was first set out to represent.  Join the movement by joining Health Freedom action alert group.

Codex Alimentarius in Conclusion

The objective of the pro-Codex Alimentarius multi nationals is to “boil the frog slowly” so that we do not wake up to it in time to avoid Codex world domination.

History has shown that the safest food products do not come from a top-down driven, controlled-market economy where an elitist select few decide what is "best" for all of us.  Rather, the safest and healthiest individuals are those who are free to choose for themselves what is best for their health. 

The best way to ensure such progress and advancing health is to keep the planners and bureaucrats from straitjacketing dietary supplements with medievalist thinking and restrictions.

Misinformation

Please take the time to review the points that correct much of the misinformation being disseminated on the internet about Codex Alimentarius by reading here.