Codex Alimentarius: Worldwide Restrictions on Nutritional Supplements

U.N. Seeks to Limit Levels of Vitamins and Minerals in Proposed International Guidelines

Codex Alimentarius (Latin for "Food Code") is the United Nation’s proposed set of international guidelines for nutritional supplements, food handling, production, and trade which is now gradually being ratified in countries around the world, starting in the European Union (EU). The official line is that some "harmonization" on safety, trade, manufacture, and distribution would help the world in so many ways, but a stormy sea of controversy lies below the surface.

The concern is that the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines are creating maximum upper limits on the amount of vitamins and minerals that can be present in nutritional supplements for consumers all around the world. Anything other than an extremely low, non-therapeutic amount of each material is to be regulated as a drug.

Under Codex, it would require a doctor's prescription to obtain supplements that we're now able to buy freely off the shelf in health food stores and online. Access would become expensive and highly inconvenient. This would affect health-conscious consumers worldwide, many of whom depend on therapeutic use of vitamins and minerals for their very survival.

Much information is circulating about Codex and it is understandable that there is confusion, because Codex is an international issue with great complexity. The organization of Codex is 45 years old and has many formal Committees working on setting guidelines for countries to follow when they ship food products between international countries. Codex is a joint project of the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and if it succeeds, 182 member countries are to be affected.

Health freedom is now being impacted by Codex in some countries. Sadly, after years of deliberation, they passed Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines in 2005 that say that for products being traded between countries, "maximum upper limits shall be set" for vitamin and mineral amounts per daily portion of consumption as recommended by the manufacturer.

Currently, there are no maximum upper limits in the United States for vitamins and minerals because of the hard-won victories in our Congress years ago. But other countries do not have the same freedoms or share these views of vitamins and minerals.

The new guidelines are for international trade and do not directly change our own internal U.S. laws. But the guidelines do show that the global community views vitamins and minerals as drug-like substances to be afraid of, unlike our view in the United States of seeing them as nutrients and safe for the public.

The new guidelines will force countries to abide by the upper limits to amounts of nutrients to when Codex completes the setting of the limits. Many meetings are now taking place to work on setting the limits, and health freedom advocates are attending the meetings to encourage the committee to request that the scientific team avoid using the toxic drug risk/benefit analysis, but rather to use the food safety analysis.

A leading health freedom organization that has NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) status at Codex and thus is able to speak at meetings is the National Health Federation (NHF). NHF is working on our behalf to give input to the committee and attend the Codex meetings on a regular basis.

There is concern by health freedom advocates that the global attitude will be used to convince lawmakers in the U.S. to change the U.S. laws for vitamins and minerals. There is also a concern that since most countries in Codex are also members of the World Trade Organization, which requires their member countries to abide by international safety guidelines, that the WTO might attempt to enforce the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines. This concern comes from the fact that complying with Codex has always been voluntary and the guidelines were simply recommended. But now the WTO is pointing to Codex as one of the international guidelines for food safety, and WTO has an enforcement and dispute resolution arm.

One way to take action about Codex is to contact your U.S. congressmen and senators and tell them that you do not want maximum upper limits to be set on vitamins and minerals either in the U.S. or around the world. Also, protest that the FDA misrepresented us by supporting the Codex guidelines at international meetings. Tell your representatives that you want to make sure that DSHEA is vigorously protected here in the U.S. and that you expect to continue to have access to any kind of dietary supplement that you wish at any potency and level of dosage.

In Codex Alimentarius, we are facing a pharmaceutical control agenda, as well as a genocide agenda. We are witnessing the end of America as a nation-state right now, and with these changes, NONE of our domestic laws or civil rights are secure. All of our laws and institutions of government are subject to "harmonization" to international standards.

What You Should Do

If you live in the U.S., it is urgent that you contact your congressman and request that he or she co-sponsor a concurrent resolution to direct U.S. delegates to Codex to not remain silent and not promote policies that are more restrictive than existing U.S. laws. They must act to ensure that our laws are never superseded by international Codex guidelines.

A convenient letter template is available for your use here. It is important that as many of us as possible take action by printing, signing and mailing this letter to your elected representative in Washington. This letter IS making a difference!

For a quick online reference to find out the name and address of your U.S. congressman, click here.

Codex Alimentarius: Worldwide Restrictions on Nutritional Supplements

What You Should Do

Further Reading