Why We Shouldn't Let Extremists in the Food Rights Movement Deter Our Involvement and Curiosity

I recently discovered this five part lecture given by Rima E. Laibow MD about the Codex Alimentarius here: 

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=the+codex+alimentarius+is&um...

As a brief background, this is  HealthFreedom.org's crash course on this codex:  

Codex Alimentarius was founded in 1962 by the UN to establish international free trade foods. It is jointly administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through annual and regional meetings.

Codex pertains to every bite - and kind of - food traded internationally and allows high doses of pesticides, veterinary drugs, synthetic hormones, contaminants, artificial sweeteners, and other dangerous compounds and processes (like mandated irradiation of food) while it forbids health claims for food. 

This is my reaction to a her lecture and do this codex:

Yes, the good doctor is definitely worked up, an I suspect that it is for good reason. She has been up against a lot of resistance to what she believes is solid science which disputes the views that support the current stance of the EU.   The EU, or European Union, may ultimately end up determining what food guidelines we as US citizens, may have to harmonize with.  It is hard to say how extreme things may become.   I have been reading the documents found on the codex alimentarius website here:

http://www.codexalimentarius.net/search/advancedsearch.do#,

and have begun to realize just how much is left up to interpretation.

The question is, who is doing the interpretation and for whose benefit? The Codex Alimentarius’ documents specify that members of the WTO will be the people who ultimately decide what is considered scientific evidence and what is not. They will be the people who decide which studies or risk assessments are used and which will not be used in determining the rules we may wind up having to abide by. (Their 'risk assessment' approach is troubling because it immediately categorizes supplements as toxins that need to be risk assessed in a similar fashion to how pesticides, pollution levels and other potentially dangerous practices are evaluated.)

Who are these people on the WTO and how did they get chosen? Whose interests do they serve? Why would a trade organization decide health issues? Of what concern is it to them?  Answers to these questions are relevant because they may begin to paint a picture of what is really going on. In Thrive NY, for example, we talk about transparancy. This transparancy is important because we need to be able to trust one another. Transparancy is extremely important when it comes to how we scrutinize the people who make decisions that have the potential to directly affect our welfare, our right to health information and our access to regenerative resources.

So far, from other articles that I have been reading such the following here:

http://www.anhcampaign.org/news/codex-misinformation-creates-public-conf...,

here: http://www.iahf.com/index3.html,

and here: http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/consumer_alert_051005.htm, 

what we risk is losing our sovereignty as a nation of people who currently are allowed to make our own rules about food, agriculture, and availability of supplements and nutritional information without having to harmonize to the rules of other countries (especially for reasons of trade rather than health.)

The trouble really lies in what is on the approved list and what is not.

[Background: The Directive on food supplements (2002/46/EC); was adopted in June 2002. It establishes a positive list of vitamins and minerals approved for use in food supplements as well as rules on labelling to better inform consumers source:  http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/916&format...)]

If something is not on the approved list, then it will be, by default, illegal to sell or trade. Who decides this and what is that decision based on?   As an example, what if bee pollen or any of its derivatives are not on the list of approved foods, will bee farmers be told they can no longer sell these products? There are many questions we should seek answers to and have the right to have answered clearly and truthfully. That being said, it shouldn't end there. These decisions need to be questioned and measured against all of the scientific and empirical evidence that has been documented by scientists all over the world, rather than being based on a few studies that may or may not be scientifically sound and relevant. We must also question and we definitely have a right to know the truth about who these rules are benefiting most, the pharmaceutical companies or the public or whomever.

As Americans and as consumers, I believe we should have a right to complete control over our own welfare.   In addition, we should also have access to all the scientific and empirically derived health information that is currently available, and most importantly we should maintain the supreme right to our own self-determination.  The risk to our welfare lies in the enforcement of requirements for harmonization of trade rules that may not be in our best interest nor serve our best interest as individuals and as consumers.

Within the codex itself, you will not find specific guidelines about what vitamins one can take or what would be considered 'organic' or not organic, but rather, general rules regarding harmonization and how governments must comply to standards that have been set by the WTO.

How will these decisions be made?  Risk assessment is the approach for everything from 

-    what can be used in making compost (diseased animals, for example as is being proposed in Canada: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/161114/catastrophic_mortality_compo... certain studies claim there is no risk, who performed and paid for these studies),

-    what organic fertilizer can be made out of (such as toxic sludge: read Toxic Sludge is Good For You by John Stauber: http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-You-Relations/dp/1567510604., who sponsored those studies and who benefits from their conclusions?)

-    to whether genetically modified foods are safe for the environment and safe for human consumption, They do not even consider the devastating social and economic impact of their GM guidelines. (See: http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2026-GM-crops-are-no...)

Who are these guidelines mostly benefiting?

I think it would be prudent for us to pay close attention to how these standards are being set, upon which criteria are they based, and who's science is backing up the decisions that will determine what we must harmonize to. That is where all the interpretation lies and where all the risk of losing our rights to choose lie. I believe in the freedom to health information and the freedom to choose how we deal with our own health, whether it be how we treat illness or how we maintain and regenerate ourselves using food and nutrition.

Many people would love to see this whole issue broad brushed as sensationalism and extremist.  That is why I believe there are too few journalists covering the issue and why it is being left up to the activists to discuss.  Activists have a way of making things sound extreme and emotional.   However, if we fall into the trap of simply labeling this issue as extreme and thus dismissing it, we risk losing our rights as citizens of a sovereign nation to rule over ourselves, (create our own laws locally) rather than being governed by a central world organization that has the power to sanction us if we do not comply with their dictates.

Canada has already begun implementation..  Here is Canada's announcement of their preliminary implementation of the codex alimentarius standards: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/intactivit/codex/index-eng.php.

These issues (regarding the Codex Alimentarius and the EU guidelines)
are relevant and important issues that we should follow carefully. 
Decisions made on our behalf but not by us, have the potential to affect us adversely. We do not have to allow that to happen.  In fact, we should not allow that to happen. 
How many of us would welcome the dumbing down of our organic standards for example, now that the government has implemented the USDA Organic guidelines? (Which means that this standard is now being controlled by our government.)   We may also be at risk of losing the right to therapeutic doses of nutrients and other supplements.   We may also lose our right to know if our food is genetically engineered or not because knowing might adversely affect trade.

On a personal note, as someone who has recovered from a debilitating illness pretty much on my own because my doctors said that there was nothing that they could do to help me, I know for a fact that food alone didn't cut it. I used a combination of unprocessed, organic food (with organic standards that did not include toxic sludge as fertilizer and didn't include compost from diseased animals, as Canada is now proposing to use.)   in addition to fresh juices and many different supplements. With diligent research and much determination, I was able to recover. If I hadn't had access to freely available health information or to the foods and supplements that I did have access to, I am not sure what the outcome would have been.

My personal struggle and journey coupled with my apparent success so far, has served to strengthen my resolve that health freedom for everyone is crucial. Yes, we need to make sure that we control unscrupulous marketers, absolutely. We also need to ensure that what is on the label is accurate information and is a true description of what is inside the package.  In addition both processed and unprocessed goods should be contaminant free.  However, these concerns has always been the case for prepared foods (which supplements are considered to be at the moment.) and we do not need harmonization rules with the rest of the world to protect ourselves in that respect.

There are numerous studies that dispute the findings that back up the current proposed guidelines the EU has come up with. Health freedom is a real issue, and what is extreme are the laws against our right to it. Here is one example of a level-headed report that narrows down some of my concerns and what the potential risks of harmonization are without sounding extreme: http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/berlin02_hass.html.

This is a complex issue and extremists should not deter our curiosity
about how we might end up being affected if we do nothing and it definitely should not keep us from getting involved.  It is our civic duty to participate and we owe it to ourselves and to our families to do so.

-Salma