IAHF Webmaster: Codex Emergency, Breaking News, Whats New, All Countries, What to Do
IAHF List:
First- Take a look at this article found on the Nutraingredients website, then below it see IAHF's response, and what to do. The vitamin trade associations are lying to their memberships and consumers on the Codex issue, and their spin is both outrageous, and dangerous because its putting so many people into a COMA.
This article was just called to our attention by a health food store owner on the IAHF list.
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.aspn=59466&m=1niu418&c=robtsdbdhqffudz
Codex won't affect US law, say associations
18/04/2005 - Industry assocations are seeking to dispel myths that the impending Codex Alimentarius international guidelines for vitamin and mineral food supplements, expected to be adopted in July, will force a change in US law to bring regulation of dietary supplements in line with Europe, writes Jess Halliday.
The American Herbal Products Association (APHA) published a document last week to address concerns from its members and consumers that access to supplements containing vitamins, minerals and herbs will be affected by the guidelines.
All 165 Codex member countries will be required to allow the import of vitamin and mineral supplements that meet the new guidelines, it said.
But since US law on dietary supplements (the 1994 Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act, or DSHEA) is less restrictive than the guidelines, logic dictates that imports which meeting the guidelines' requirements will also meet those of DHSEA.
However countries whose laws are more restrictive than the guidelines will have to relax their regulations for incoming trade.
The flip-side of the guidelines, as John Hathcock, VP scientific & international affairs at the Council For Responsible Nutrition (CRN), explained to NutraIngredients-USA.com, is that other Codex countries could reject US products that do not meet the regulatory standards of the guidelines.
Whilst the regulations will not force them to reject such products, Hathcock noted that a country is unlikely to be more lenient on foreign imports than it is on products produced domestically.
He added that whilst the primary purpose of Codex is to "protect exporters against whimsical importers," a country's government could choose to use Codex as a national policy if it so wished. This option is most likely to be exercised by countries which do not have large budgets to develop their own.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was set up in 1963 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization to develop guidelines that protect consumer health and ensure fair trade practices. It has adopted almost 250 standards covering different aspects of the food industry to date.
The Draft Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements were first proposed in 1993 and are currently at step 8 of the Codex process, the final stage prior to adoption.
The discussions surrounding the new guidelines coincides with industry concern over the 2002 food supplements directive, due to come into force in August.
Earlier this month Advocate General Geelhoed of the European Court of Justice ruled that the directive, which would limit vitamin and mineral supplements to an approved list and see hundreds of widely-used ingredients withdrawn as of August 2005, infringes basic principles of European law and should be rewritten.
The opinion was given after two parallel cases brought by trade associations (the Health Food Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Health Stores) and a consumer health campaign group, the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), argued that the directive infringes EU constitutional law and basic principles of free trade.
Although not legally binding, in the majority of cases the Advocate General's opinion reflects that of the senior judge in the final ruling, which is expected in July.
Mark LeDoux, chairman of CRN's international trade and market development committee, said that the ruling "means that the Draft Standard for Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
is substantively vindicated, and any effort to amend this draft standard at the upcoming Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting in July would not only violate Codex's fundamental tenets, it would run counter to what the European Union's own jurists
opined."
In urging CRN members to support the Codex guidelines, Hathcock called them "consistent with sound scientific principles, public policy and now, developing EU law."
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IAHF RESPONSE & BELOW IT- WHAT TO DO:
The argument the trade associations are making is that Codex "only affects US exports, it won't have any impact on domestic US law."
They're saying that a trade dispute would not be initiated against us because our law is so much more flexible that it would not block other countries (manufacturing to Codex standards) from being able to export products to the US. (The triggering mechanism for a trade dispute would have to be the FDA blocking a foreign manufacturer from exporting a supplement product to the USA.)
The problem with this assertion is that no one has ever conducted a test case against DSHEA to see how it might hold up in the event of a WTO Trade Dispute which could be launched against us if a foreign product containing an ingredient that was not grandfathered in with passage of DSHEA were blocked from coming in.
DSHEA contains a grandfather clause which blocks the use of NDIs (New Dietary Ingredients) that were not in use following the date of enactment of DSHEA unless the manufacturer notifies the FDA at least 75 days in advance of selling the product with evidence of a history of safe use under conditions discussed in labelling and provides the FDA with documentation to back up this contention
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/dshea.html#sec8
The industry has never conducted such a Test Case, and cannot assume that a foreign manufacturer wouldn't be blocked from exporting a product to the USA on this basis. If this DID happen, a trade dispute could ensue, and there is no telling what might happen within the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body especially given that this rigged international court does not follow US rules of evidence and that every decision it has rendered has gone against the public health.
Also, the industries line of thinking totally ignores the reality of Globalization, and the fact that the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) threatens to harmonize all the laws in our hemisphere as a huge expansion of NAFTA.
They're ignoring the fact that NAFTA contains Sanitary Phytosanitary Measures Language "SPS" which is identical to that found in the WTO, and that this language forces countries to harmonize their laws to Codex standards which the WTO upholds. Expansion of NAFTA throughout the hemisphere via the FTAA would broaden and deepen its impact as member states are subsumed into a hemispheric version of the EU, spawned by creation of the FTAA.
According to a March 22, 2005 white paper by attorney Justin J. Prochnow, "of
particular relevance to this discussion is Article 3 of the SPS Agreement, which
reads: To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as
possible, Members shall [emphasis ours] base their [food safety] measures on
international standards, guidelines or recommendations." According to
Prochnow, "These provisions, with the use of the term 'shall,' effectively make
the 'voluntary' Codex guidelines MANDATORY for Member Nations of the WTO,"
including the U.S.
The WTO writes: "Before theentry into force of the WTO, international standards, guidelines,recommendations and other advisory texts could be adopted by governments ona voluntary basis. Although these norms remain voluntary, a new status hasbeen conferred on them by the SPS [emphasis ours] [Agreement on theApplication of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures]. A WTO Member countryadopting such norms is presumed to be in full compliance with the SPSAgreement."
On October 11, 1995, the FDA stated, referring to anearlier notice, that "it is the intent of this policy to enable the FDA to "increase itsefforts to harmonize its regulatory requirements with those of foreigngovernments." In the October 1995 notice, the FDA asked the following question:"If the agency concludes that it is appropriate to propose to revise its regulationsto accommodate consideration of Codex standards, FDA plans to [
] outlinespecific revisions." According to attorney Justin J. Prochnow, these 1995statements, "are not akin to [currently] mandated FDA policy."
In 2005, the FDA wrote the following, however: "Failure to reach a consistent,harmonized set of laws, regulations and standards within the free tradeagreements and the World Trade Organization Agreements can result inconsiderable economic repercussions."
WHY ARE THE TRADE ASSOCIATIONS LYING TO THEIR MEMBERS &
WHAT MUST WE DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES?
Recently I had a lengthy conversation with Michael McGuffin, Exec Dir of the American Herbal Products Assn (AHPA) about Codex. He was very matter of fact in saying "We want one size fits all regulations for the world. We don't want to have to manufacture different products for different countries with different labels."
When asked why all the trade associations opposes the ANH lawsuit to stop the EU Food Supplements Directive from imposing a restrictive list of allowed ingredients on manufacturers his response was that "On balance, the EU Food Supplements Directive helps more consumers than it hurts because even though we'd have to reformulate (water down) products for sale in the UK, Ireland, Holland and Sweden, consumers throughout the rest of Europe would have access to more products, and higher potencies (legally that is) than they do now."
When queried as to whether or not he was concerned about the fact that the EU FSD threatened to slam the door on black market products currently flooding in to the rest of Europe via the UK and Dutch gateways, he had no response.... because he COULDN'T respond without looking bad.
When queried as to whether or not he wasn't concerned about the threatened negative impact the EU FSD could have on Codex and on causing its scope to be expanded in the future, he stated that Codex "could not come to the USA."
When queried as to whether or not he realized that the Safe Upper Levels promulgated by the National Academy of Sciences (and which aren't so far removed from currently allowed US potencies) were only a STARTING POINT for Codex "risk assessment", and that the second tier required ADDITIONAL watering down to the point where allowable potencies were in some cases lower than the RDAs, and that only the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment had taken this to its full completion, he had nothing to say. (See http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_145.doc
Clearly McGuffin has bought into a lie promulgated by Randy Dennin, Chair of IADSA and former Pfizer employee who chairs NNFA's International Committee. Clearly he is being manipulated by his most powerful members who take the view that they're large enough to whether any storm, and all they care about is knocking off smaller competitors and they don't care what they're allowed to sell.
WHAT TO DO:
The biggest threat to ushering in harmonization will be if Congress passes CAFTA (in May) and following that, FTAA.
PLEASE: Go to the following 2 websites and send the form letters to both to your Senators and Congressman opposing CAFTA and FTAA:
http://www.stoptheftaa.org/cafta/index.html
http://action.citizen.org/pc/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=6064681
These two organizations cover the whole political spectrum between them so its good to send both form letters. Its even BETTER to write your OWN letter to congress because one personal letter is worth NUMEROUS emails.
A LETTER I SENT (Please modify to suit your self)
To the Honorable _______________
Dear Senator_______________,
I oppose CAFTA and the FTAA because it would expand NAFTA throughout our hemisphere, setting us up for the creation of a hemispheric wide version of the European Union which would destroy our national sovereignty.
Along with concern about the destruction of jobs, and the damage this would do to our economy, I don't want to be governed by people far away from my country and don't want to see our nation's laws, especially the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 forcibly harmonized to absurdly restrictive international Codex standards due to international obligations we have under the SPS Agreement.
CONSIDER THIS INFORMATION RELATIVE TO MY CONCERNS:
According to a March 22, 2005 white paper by attorney Justin J. Prochnow, "of
particular relevance to this discussion is Article 3 of the SPS Agreement, which
reads: To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as
possible, Members shall [emphasis ours] base their [food safety] measures on
international standards, guidelines or recommendations." According to
Prochnow, "These provisions, with the use of the term 'shall,' effectively make
the 'voluntary' Codex guidelines MANDATORY for Member Nations of the WTO,"
including the U.S.
The WTO writes: "Before theentry into force of the WTO, international standards, guidelines,recommendations and other advisory texts could be adopted by governments ona voluntary basis. Although these norms remain voluntary, a new status hasbeen conferred on them by the SPS [emphasis ours] [Agreement on theApplication of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures]. A WTO Member countryadopting such norms is presumed to be in full compliance with the SPSAgreement."
On October 11, 1995, the FDA stated, referring to anearlier notice, that "it is the intent of this policy to enable the FDA to "increase itsefforts to harmonize its regulatory requirements with those of foreigngovernments." In the October 1995 notice, the FDA asked the following question:"If the agency concludes that it is appropriate to propose to revise its regulationsto accommodate consideration of Codex standards, FDA plans to [
] outlinespecific revisions." According to attorney Justin J. Prochnow, these 1995statements, "are not akin to [currently] mandated FDA policy."
In 2005, the FDA wrote the following, however: "Failure to reach a consistent,harmonized set of laws, regulations and standards within the free tradeagreements and the World Trade Organization Agreements can result inconsiderable economic repercussions."
The FDA and the vitamin trade associations have told you that Codex is a "non issue."
They are not telling the truth. In May or June when the vote is held on CAFTA, vote NO.
Ditto when the vote is held on FTAA.
In the UK, the ruling Labor Party totally ignored over a million vitamin consumers who'd signed petitions opposing harmonization of UK vitamin law to restrictive EU standards, telling them "We don't care how many people signed your petition, we're members of the EU, and we're harmonizing to EU law whether you like it or not."
We don't want to see anything like this ever happen in America, but it will unless you oppose CAFTA and FTAA. Please let me know how you intend to vote, and let me know your reaction to my specific concerns.
With Serious Concern,
(Signed)
(Printed name, address, city, state, zip)
Please FORWARD this WIDELY and urge everyone you know to TAKE ACTION
I am going to Washington DC at the end of this week to participate in an activists conference on the Codex issue and to do lobbying, with additional lobbying trips planned before the CAFTA vote takes place. Donations are badly needed, see address below. See the DVD "Push Back from Codex Cliff" http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf
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