Codex Alimentarius Is Not a Medieval Cabal

Codex Alimentarius isn't from antiquity, but it's having a draconian impact on our most basic rights. You need to know what it is and what it's doing.

by Heidi Stevenson

28 November 2010

Codex Alimentarius sounds like a medieval cabal, an ancient dark plot against...well, food. It is a plot and it is about food, but it doesn't date back to antiquity. It goes back only to 1961, when it was formed by a joint effort of the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization under the auspices of the United Nations (UN).

Codex Alimentarius' Purpose

Codex is not a governing body, at least not directly. It does, however, wield enormous power. The rules they set for foods, supplements, and herbs are the ones that the UN, governments the world over, and world agencies promote.

To best understand the purpose and focus of Codex, one need only look to their own General Principles, which state, "The publication of the Codex Alimentarius is intended to guide and promote the elaboration and establishment of definitions and requirements for foods to assist in their harmonization and in doing so to facilitate international trade."⁽¹⁾

The primary focus has nothing to do with health. Its purpose is to ease international trade. This is the key to understanding what's happening. Although the new restrictive rules against vitamins, supplements, and herbs are being sold as being for our health and safety, that is nothing but a marketing spin. The real purpose of Codex Alimentarius is to promote the easing of international trade, termed harmonization, for the benefit of multinational corporations. It's about control of our food and medicinal treatment because they are massive profit centers.

Codex Alimentarius is almost completely controlled—with only one exception, the National Health Federation—by Big Pharma and Agribusiness. Therefore, the trade that Codex attempts to ease has nothing to do with small or home-based businesses. Even medium-sized companies, such as most health food chains, are at risk as Codex rules are implemented. The only beneficiaries of these rules will be Big Pharma, Agribusiness, and by extension, Big Medicine, which will hold the keys to controlling most of the access to products that, until now, have been freely available.

Germany's Example

Germany implemented Codex rules in 2005 and 2006. A German man attempted to purchase an American-made product that contains a combination of activated charcoal, Bentonite clay, Cascara sagrada, Denna leaf, and Lo Han Guo ingredients⁽²⁾. It was seized by customs, and he cannot receive it. The reasons are multiple and based on Codex:

• No herbal product may contain a non-herbal ingredient, so activated charcoal and Bentonite clay are illegal in herbal products.
• No products with a non-European heritage may be sold, so that excludes Lo Han Guo.
• Any product with multiple ingredients must pass extra testing and pay extensive costs to approve each ingredient individually, and then go through pharmaceutical-style tests that demonstrate both the product's efficacy and safety—and all to pharmaceutical drug methodological standards.

This makes it virtually impossible to gain approval for any combination herbal products. Therefore, this product cannot be purchased in Germany today. It is now defined as a drug, and will soon be illegal everywhere in the European Union.

This is happening as the result of a long term, systematic, and gradual effort, and it's happening throughout the world. The methods in each country are different, but the results will be the same: the systematic destruction of rights so basic that no one ever thought to enumerate them along with the right of free speech. Who would ever have imagined that it would be possible for a democratic government to refuse to allow the individual free access to what are, essentially, foods: vitamins, supplements, and herbs? These are things that have been available to anyone who chose to utilize them.

We are about to see the end of health freedom throughout the world. The methods vary, but in most places have been carefully and gradually implemented. It's the boiling frog approach: the idea that, if it's done slowly enough, no matter how egregious, people won't notice. Sadly, for the most part, the strategy has proven effective. There is now very little time left to stop it.

United States' Suppression of Alternative Health

In the United States, government agencies, in particular the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are assuming new powers that were never given to them by legislation. The FDA is declaring that any food for which a health claim is made is magically transformed into a drug.

Walnuts, which have been well studied and documented to benefit heart health, were named a drug because one company made health claims for it⁽³⁾. That same agency has gone on the attack against homeopathy by claiming that Hyland's Teething Tablets, a homeopathic product, is dangerous because it contains Belladonna at—what they calling, but must know are not—potentially dangerous levels, in spite of the fact that it has never tested the product. They have stated, in response to a lawsuit, that you have no right to choose your own food.⁽⁴⁾

The FDA has also taken to military-style operations against farmers who distribute raw milk to people who ask for it⁽⁵⁾ and even against a raw foods membership-only store, where customers were held at gunpoint⁽⁶⁾.

Thailand's Suppression of Herbs and Supplements

Thailand has listed 13 plants as hazardous substances. These include neem, lemongrass, turmeric, and ginger! In true Orwellian fashion, the director-general of the Industrial Works Department, Rachada Singalavaniji, stated, "This is just to protect organic farmers from fake pesticides."⁽⁷⁾

European Union's Suppression of Alternative Health

In the European Union, the attack has been through Directives, which member nations are required to follow.

Germany opted to adhere to Codex Alimentarius rules quickly, implementing them in 2005-2006. At this point, the effects are not too extreme, because citizens are still allowed to obtain banned products if they're available in other EU nations. However, no banned product, or one that has not been approved, may be procured from a non-EU nation unless a doctor's prescription, including the purpose for which the product is to be used, is obtained before the products are ordered.

That is why the product described above, with activated charcoal, Bentonite clay, Cascara sagrada, Senna leaf, and Lo Han Guo ingredients, cannot be purchased. It is not made in the EU, but instead comes from the US. Therefore, customs seized it, and the German citizen has no recourse and no ability to obtain a product that would have been freely available before the draconian Codex laws were implemented.

I am personally aware of a German citizen who ordered Vitamin D in a 500 IU dose from Spain. Customs seized the shipment because that potency—any potency over 200 IUs—is classed as a drug in Germany. Fortunately, because 500 IU is a legal dose in Spain, and Spain is an EU country, customs had to release the shipment. However, after 30 April, that dose will be illegal everywhere in the EU.

Not Science Based

For all the claims of being science-based, the truth is that there is no scientific justification for such absurd limits. The 200 IU limit on Vitamin D is, quite literally, inadequate for good health, and has been implicated in a wide array of diseases, including cancer.

Yet, this is the limit that the US National Institutes of Health has named as the optimal amount of Vitamin D, 200 IUs. The appearance of such an arbitrary, not to mention wrong, figure in both Germany and the US leads to speculation as to where such figures arise. Speculation leaves little question as to the source: Codex Alimentarius.

Loss of Human Rights

Worldwide, natural substances to which we have always had free access are being reclassified as drugs. In the US, a natural herbal product has been removed from the market because it contains Seville oranges, famous as the base of marmalade⁽⁸⁾. In the EU, peppermint has been listed as a controllable medicinal herb⁽⁹⁾. Ginger and garlic are named as hazardous plants in Thailand. Clearly, the goal is not to make people safer, but to eliminate any and all competition for Big Pharma and Agribusiness.

This will separate us from the natural world. Plants are not drugs. Foods are not drugs. Some may be reduced and processed into drugs by artificial means, but at that point they become artificial creations. This draconian process of reaching back to nature and redefining it according to Big Pharma's and Agribusiness's desires is contrary to nature itself. To pull it off requires Orwellian language. Plants are not drugs. Foods and supplements made from foods are not drugs. To suggest that they are would shock George Orwell himself—yet that's exactly what's happening today.

We are at risk of losing access to natural products and natural medicines. We are at risk of losing the right to self-determination in matters of health and diet. If we don't speak out, then these natural rights will soon be gone.

Please, sign the Stop the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive Petition!

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