Disinformation: "Codex is Consumer Protection"

You will hear that Codex Alimentarius is about consumer protection (for example on the official Codex web site). This is not true. Codex Alimentarius is not about consumer protection at all.

 

Council for Responsible Nutrition Supports Treating Nutrients as Toxins

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) is a trade organization that spreads the false notion of Codex Alimentarius as "consumer protection" in various press releases and announcements. CRN claims that the science of Risk Assessment, when applied to nutrients, will "protect" consumers. This is an unscientific stance.

How did "nutrients are toxins" become a positive statement, especially by an organization that positions itself as a defender of nutrition and the Wellness Industry? The answer can be found in the membership list of CRN, where many pharmaceutical companies are found (including Bayer®, BASF®, Wyeth®, and Monsanto®).

Deceptive Language Makes it Sound Scientific

CRN publishes a lot of material to make us believe that Codex is the greatest thing ever for the protection of our health.

See, for example, a press release published by CRN titled "Consumers to Benefit as U.N. Body Successfully Moves Scientifically-Grounded Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Guidelines to Final Steps", dated November 2, 2004. This press release trumpets the so-called "consumer protection" benefits of Codex Alimentarius as follows:

"Building upon a cooperative dialog established at last year's session in Bonn, government and industry delegates from around the world achieved a consensus on the utilization of a science-based approach to the establishment of the upper limits for vitamin and mineral supplementation..."

"... the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline is a major breakthrough in international cooperation, fully in line with European Union developments and science-based implementation of the European Food Supplements Directive."

Codex Alimentarius Is Not "Science-based"

The mantra of Codex is "science-based". Any time Codex wants to do something, they maintain that it is "science based" and therefore must be correct. The language of CRN is deceptive: "science-based" here means simply "use of Risk Assessment", which is indeed science, but the wrong science for assessing nutrients. We believe CRN knows this but is intentionally deceiving its readers, most of whom will simply accept something if it is said to be "science-based".

In fact, most people, including the nutritional supplement companies, network marketing companies, and other industry groups that CRN represents, have never even heard of Risk Assessment. Due to this ignorance about what Risk Assessment actually is, and that it is not the proper science for assessing nutrients, few would question it when CRN says that Codex is "science-based".

It sure sounds scientific.

CRN Used to Be For Health Freedom

CRN was a gallant organization in the 1990s when it fought hard for DSHEA, the vital pro-health freedom law that classifies nutrients as foods (which, by definition, can have no upper limit set on their use). It now represents membership from the pharmaceutical industry, bioengineering, chemical and agrizbiz industries which swells its ranks. Multi-national corporations such as Bayer^®, BASF^®, Monsanto^®, Wyeth^®, Archer Daniels Midland^®, Eastman Chemical^®, Kemen^® are all part of the CRN multinational membership roll. They make drugs, pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified foods, and a host of petrochemical derivatives. These members of CRN profit from drugs and chemicals, not natural nutritional products, which challenge their profit bases. Codex serves their agenda, not the agenda of the wellness industry. Hence, CRN's smoke screen of Codex "consumer protection" makes distressingly good sense from the perspective of industry, which is CRN's perspective, too.

Abusing the Name of Science

Mark LeDoux, chairman of CRN's International Trade and Market Development Committee (ITMDC) said:

"The hallmark of this decision [application of RA to nutrients] is evidenced by the development of a scientific collaboration to create a framework for Risk Assessment of nutrients and related substances, under the aegis of the FAO and WHO. We will finally have a quantitative reference guideline that can be used by all countries."

Once you know that the "scientific collaboration" Mr .LeDoux talks about is the definition of nutrients as toxins, it certainly puts things into perspective: CRN is working to further the corporate Codex agenda and Mr. LeDoux's words serve that agenda very well.

CRN Hails Flawed European Version of Codex

Natural Solutions Foundation, the organization I am proud to serve as Medical Director, notes that CRN draws a strong parallel between the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (which stands to eliminate nutritional vitamins and minerals) and the fact that the VMG is:

"fully in line with EU developments and science-based implementation of the European Food Supplements Directive (EFSD)."

In contrast, the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA - who are running their own disinformation campaign) and the FDA say that Codex has nothing to do with the EFSD.

Who is right, NNFA/FDA or CRN?

CRN is right on this one. The European Food Supplements Directive, which restricts nutrient dosages so low as to constitute biochemical insanity (pdf), is "the future [nutritional] face of Codex" according to Rolf Grossklaus, MD, the anti-nutrition Chairman of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU).

And Codex would be our future, too, because of provisions in the WTO SPSA and TBTA (pdf) (which the US has signed) if we do not take action to prevent it from destroying freedom of choice in health matters.

Whose Side is CRN on: DSHEA or Codex?

CRN has openly declared that it believes nutrients should be treated as toxins by using Risk Assessment (a branch of the science of toxicology) to prevent their doses from "impacting" people who take them.

CRN supports setting "safe" upper limits on nutrient dosages in violation of the law that it worked so hard to pass a decade ago, before the shift in CRN membership from wellness industry to sickness industry members.

Remember, the US nutritional supplements law, DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act), states that nutritional supplements are foods and, as such, can have no safe upper limits. In constrast, the Codex Alimentarius Vitamin and Mineral Guideline would set upper limits for nutritional supplements, and as such, it would violate DSHEA, which is an American law.

Just which standard is CRN supporting? One standard (DSHEA), guaranteed by U.S. law, says that supplements are food. The other one, servicing the economic ambitions of the multinationals who make inconceivable amounts of money from sick crops, sick animals, sick crops and sick people, is the one that we are facing through Codex Alimentarius. This is the standard that is arrogantly claiming that nutrients are toxins and that we need to be "protected" from them.

DSHEA and Codex are diametrically opposed. CRN cannot support both DSHEA and Codex at the same time. It has to be one or the other? Which is it?

CRN supports Codex Alimentarius. And it wants you and I to believe that Codex Alimentarius will be "good" for us. Nonsense.

CRN Infiltrated by Pharmaceutical Industry

Why would a group called "Council for Responsible Nutrition" spread dangerous and unscientific disinformation saying Codex VMG provides consumers with protection from "dangerous nutrient levels"?

Because, although it was once a leader in the consumer protection movement and fought hard for DSHEA, its membership, and hence its objectives, have changed since 1994. Companies like Bayer^®, BASF^®, Monsanto^®, Wyeth^®, Archer Daniels Midland^®, Eastman Chemical^®, Kemen^® and the like do not have the same interest you do at heart. Unfortunately.

Since the 1990s, these corporations have infiltrated the ranks of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. Its helpful-sounding name has been usurped for use by its newer members. When CRN speaks about Codex, it is not really speaking out on behalf of nutrition and the wellness industry - it is speaking out for the economic ambitions of the pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, and industrial farming industries.

Mark LeDoux is the chairman of CRN's International Trade and Market Development Committee (ITMDC). He says CRN supports Codex over DSHEA. Of course it does. One look at its membership, board (pdf), and unscientific stance on the use of Risk Assessment to assess nutrients, tells the story.