Update: Results of Codex Alimentarius Meetings 2012, In Frankfurt, Germany

Codex Alimentarius is One Big Football Game 

Kat Carroll, Contributor
Activist Post

Codex Alimentarius is a UN-sponsored concept and organization, which – under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – creates food standards and guidelines used in international trade. In 1994, the World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) with actual trade-sanction power to enforce Codex and other standards and guidelines. Not surprisingly, Codex took on an entirely new importance.

Now nearly 300 of us – Country delegates and International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs) – were involved in Germany this December in a playoff where inches of dry but crucial script would gain the yardage of victory or bitter defeat. This was the 34th session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), alias “Malnutrition Meeting,” in frigid Bad Soden, Germany the first week of December 2012, where the National Health Federation sought to make its own gains and preserve our health freedoms.

In this innocuous meeting room at the Ramada Inn, play by play, line by line, either the “ball” is moving forward, backward, or it’s being passed or kicked into oblivion without regard to any real goal in a last-ditch effort to get rid of it before being tackled.

In this case, for the majority of the represented World, ‘tackled’ was a voluntary fumble, “When is it break time? Let’s just agree with the provided wording and get a cup of coffee.” You have to realize the World doesn’t often enjoy what the United States takes completely for granted, in this case, safe, high-quality supplements in abundance.

In a worst case scenario, Codex is rigged and we merely delay the inevitable passage of their ultimate will. It takes a skillful operator – in this case Dr. Pia Noble (what a misnomer…) – who can lead the room and in clearly balanced opposition somehow convince or cow the country delegates into believing there is actually consensus. That’s how Codex operates: by consensus. We don’t vote unless pushed. The World must agree, must cooperate…however, what I witnessed at this session of the CCNFSDU was clearly, in legal terms, “leading” and manipulating the room to the wishes of three strong forces: the U.S., Australia, and, of course, Chairwoman Dr. Pia (anything but) Noble.

At Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Food Code”), the plays are read, line by line, and debated on by a World that doesn’t necessarily even accept certain principles in their daily life – like taking supplements. As a Nutritional Therapist, this was my meeting. I had to be there. Thankfully a few staunch supporters made sure that happened.

In the case of this particular Codex meeting held in Bad Soden, the ball was in jeopardy of being punted into oblivion when we hit the discussion of Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs). Was there anyone out of the nearly 300 delegates who really cared at all about the issues that will impact you when you go to the health-food store this coming year? This was my second Codex meeting and I could see clearly that the paragraphs dedicated to the discussion of our NRVs were in danger of being accepted as written and set into stone around the World, all in favor of just getting to the coffee break, and I mean that literally.

You have to understand, United States citizens enjoy unprecedented access to supplements with values that actually have the power to prevent disease or heal ill health – the rest of the world either does not use supplements, believing they are toxic – like drugs – or the nutrient reference values (RDAs) are so low that multiple bottles would have to be purchased at great expense to create the impact that one good U.S. bottle creates, or they simply don’t have them because no one could afford them when their healthcare system provides “free” drugs as an alternative.

I saw the low reference values firsthand in Germany. We went into a health-food store and I could hardly find the vitamin/mineral section. I had to ask. When I did find the one small shelf, the highest values for Vitamin D3 were 400 IUs. I take 25,000 IUs daily…talk about breaking the bank. No wonder the World, represented in the form of country delegates, was anxious to get to the free coffee, sweet rolls, etc. at the break. Their countries cannot afford what seems to them to be nonsense, so they mentally have moved on and disregarded any pro-vitamin/mineral argument. This is not their World. In fact, if the National Health Federation were not present at this crucial meeting on setting Nutrient Reference Values, I can guarantee you that your World would never be the same again. Once lowered, do you really think NRVs would ever stand the chance of somehow going through Codex’s 8-step process to rise again?

From a Nutritional Therapist’s standpoint, several of the nutrients that were placed on Codex’s sacrificial altar were methylation factors. B6, B12, Folic Acid…If we don’t methylate well, we can develop opportunistic diseases. Cancer…heart attack that occurs when Homocysteine elevates…Some, like calcium, which Codex wished to elevate out of proportion to stabilizing magnesium, and when taken out of balance, creates disease as well by mineralizing in soft tissue like blood vessels instead of the bone and teeth. So, at this point I’m thinking, “Is Codex out to kill us?”

So many of the final decisions made by Codex equal ill health for the World. It means both Big Pharma and the so-called “health” care system profits, while we grow ill and die. It is no secret that depopulation is one aspect of the World’s agenda. “Dr. Henry Kissinger himself wrote: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World.” Apparently America is the new ‘third World.’

If you ever needed an advocate for your health and your health freedom, it is now. Now is the time to have your wishes and your Voice represented at Codex. Is it any wonder that Codex is not letting any more health-freedom organizations into the elite representation? The National Health Federation (NHF) is the ONLY health-freedom organization that has the power to speak out and, believe me, we do and we have – frequently. We have also submitted comments to the Electronic Working Groups that often meet in cyberspace before the meetings, and we also have the power to propose correction of the final report. Do you know how many delegates stick around for the tedious, line-by-line reading of the final report? Many are long gone, mistakenly trusting that the work they performed for the World will actually be represented accurately in the final report. NHF stays … to the bitter end. Hours of rehashing what we have spent the week working toward, defending our documented statements, defending the truth that too-often gets somehow skewed, omitted, or somehow rendered opaque.

NHF came to this meeting to promote and defend healthier Nutrient Reference Values. The attack by Australia and others on these particular NRVs, from my professional standpoint, is designed to take out a large number of the population at least in the U.S. where we have access to supplements with values that are currently at least approaching sufficiency and where we have the incomes generally to support their purchase.

What was so incredibly ironic about this meeting was the emphasis on malnutrition in the World. It actually sparked a growing interest in me about the integrity of infant formulas. They are including transfats and contaminants in infant formula! When we learn that in France, for example, breast feeding is neither popular nor widely practiced, it pays to defend the integrity of infant formulas! But the trajectory of the morning – 3 hours before NRVs were even approached – was on ‘growing up milk,’ which Elizabeth Streken (an INGO representative of the International Baby Formula Action Network) said was a market ploy to get mothers to feel guilty if they didn’t keep bottle feeding babies way past time… At any rate, the discrepancy and complete disconnect in regards to the NRVs was that supposedly Codex was there to prevent malnutrition in the World, yet here they were, the very last ones in favor of optimal nutrition for infants. Instead, Codex was lowering our already malnutrition-promoting, low NRVs, which are set to prevent the very last-ditch disease processes before death instead of promoting optimum nutrition and vibrant, disease-resistant health.

So, these two themes predominated: (1) Get through the tedious drivel and get me to the coffee and donut cart; and (2) The incongruous ‘Yes, we are all for stopping malnutrition … let’s lower the values in the supplements, shall we?” And then let us not forget the overarching theme by Mme. Chair – “not so terribly Noble, Pia”— “What I Decide, Will Be.”

The National Health Federation has been in existence long before any other health-freedom organization was even a ‘gleam in the father’s eye.’ We are the granddaddy of them all. We’ve employed a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for more than 50 years. We alone hold the distinction of being the only health-freedom organization able to speak at Codex. So, do you see now how important this ability is? Not only can we speak; but, as mentioned above, we can submit written comments and arguments – and we did, three times – on the NRV issue alone prior to the meeting in Germany (twice as part of the electronic working group hosted by the ultimate opposition: Australia, and once directly to the Committee).

Do I feel fortunate to be on the team of the most powerful health-freedom organization at Codex? I feel incredibly humbled. For one who had little political interest or influence in the past, I am now thrust into the heart of the action where policy is set for the World. It is not only quite humbling but it carries an enormous responsibility to carry the wishes and desires of those whom NHF speaks for and represents to the seat of power. And we do so faithfully time and again.

The lives that are impacted are not only our own but those of our children and grandchildren. Our family’s health is at stake. In the final analysis, if we lose our health, we have lost. It is all we have besides the faith that sustains us and keeps us seeking the path of Light in the growing darkness of the World. The Codex meeting on nutrition was anything but. It was about some elite marketers seeking to manipulate the World – guilting them into keeping children on formulas when they needed to embrace a solid diet – real ‘growing up’ food. It was about government regulators lowering key nutrients and raising others that would ensure that our health would deteriorate. It masqueraded in the guise of compassion and the oft-said mantra “consumer protection,” yet all the while was undermining our health by chipping away at the very foundations in the name of control and ill health.

We at NHF spoke for you. At the end of the day, I approached the dais where Dr. Pia Noble held court. I asked her for 5 minutes at the next meeting to explain the science behind our commitment to NRVs. She grimaced, rolled her eyes, disregarded me completely in the most disrespectful way possible for one woman to address another, and then deferred to the Secretariat. The answer was – you guessed it – NO. “It might create further discussion….” Codex is a body that is supposed to elevate your health, not suppress it. But who speaks for you there? The National Health Federation. That’s the real WHO.

Kat Carroll, NTP is the Associate Editor of Health Freedom News, National Health Federation

This article first appeared at The Sleuth Journal

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