Seeing Thru Spin of Citizens for Health and The Natural Solutions Foundation on the CODEX Vitamin Issue
Citizens for Health” and “Natural Solutions Foundation” are controlled opposition groups on the Codex issue. We believe the true purpose of these groups is to assist the pharma-dominated vitamin trade associations by recommending grassroots actions that appear plausible on the surface to the poorly informed, but which upon close inspection fail to hold up to careful scrutiny.
We believe these groups are attempting to intentionally divert grassroots attention from the strategy of IAHF and allied organizations. In a nutshell, its mission is to:
A) Con people into believing that we can change Codex AT Codex (despite the fact that we have zero political influence over the unelected bureaucrats from the FDA and its international equivalents that serve as delegates at these highly rigged meetings.) and
B) Con people into believing that countries that adopt “Model Legislation” patterned after the US Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act would be “protected” in the event of a WTO Trade Dispute Ruling against them. (James Turner, Esq., who originated this plan has failed to explain any viable legal mechanism to support his contention that this could work. * See IAHF’s detailed analysis of CFH and NSF’s “LEGAL SUMMARY” below.
C) Con people into believing that they’re “fighting back” by signing a petition to US Codex Manager Ed Scarbrough (an unelected bureaucrat at the USDA who has never attempted to rein in FDA officials who’ve served as US Delegates at CODEX (even when their actions have gone directly against US law.)
Even when Scarbrough and the US Codex Delegates have obviously IGNORED this petition at recent Codex meetings, Citizens for Health and the Natural Solutions Foundation would still have us believe that signing it and sending it into Scarbrough are a viable means of “fighting back.”
D) Con people into believing that there is “no connection” between sovereignty destroying trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, and Codex in an obvious effort to keep people from exercising the political leverage that we DO have with CONGRESS (but which we DON’T have with unelected Codex bureaucrats from the world’s FDA’s.) Citizens for Health and now also the “Natural Solutions Foundation” have a long history of doing spin against true grassroots anti-Codex campaigns.
These groups are making ZERO EFFORT to alert the public to the dire need to oppose clear efforts to destroy America and to force us into a planned North American Union.
Its clear that their TRUE MOTIVE is to support the agenda of the large pharmaceutical companies that are controlling the vitamin trade associations from the top-down which WANT CODEX, which WANT one size fits all regulations for the planet. In this section, we explore this and also explore the gross conflicts of interest inherent in these organizations which have very close ties with such pharma-dominated vitamin trade associations as CRN, and NNFA.
IAHF ANALYSIS OF CFH & NSF’s DECEPTIVE “LEGAL SUMMARY”- (IAHF’s COMMENTS ARE IN SQUARE BRACKETS PRECEDED BY ASTERISKS)
LEGAL SUMMARY WTO/CODEX/VITAMIN & MINERAL GUIDELINES | (located at healthfreedomusa.org/downloads/index.shtml under “Legal Summary”)
Question #1: Is a nation obligated by international or any other law to adopt the Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements finalized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome on July 4th, 2005?
Answer #1: NO.
***[IAHF Note: Very misleading conclusion. The US has entered into an open-ended process. Codex ratified a FRAMEWORK for the regulation of vitamins and minerals on July 4th, 2005. They did not begin the process of filling in the blanks on allowable potencies until the November CCNFSDU meeting in Bonn, Germany, and haven’t finished doing this yet.
These highly controversial “safe upper limits” are being set by the parent body to Codex- the World Health Organization. Moreover, Article 3 of the SPS Agreement clearly obligates harmonization to Codex:
Article 3 states: “To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, members shall base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines, or recommendations.” The WTO has adopted the Codex Guidelines as their worldwide standards. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsagr_e.htmThis can evolve into ever-increasing entanglements due to legal and economic pressure. The U.S. government may or may not wish to harmonize, but it can now be FORCED to. This contradicts the Natural Solutions Foundation, Citizens for Health, the FDA, USTR, and all of the Pharma Dominated Vitamin Trade Associations]
Question # 2: Is a nation permitted by international and other laws to adopt laws regulating dietary supplements, including vitamin and mineral supplements, such as the Model International Dietary Supplement Act based on the Natural Solutions Foundation endorsed Guidelines for the Use of Food Supplement Trade in the Effort to End World Hunger and Promote the WHO/FAO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Exercise and Health?
Answer #2: Yes.
**** [ IAHF Note: Additional misleading information which presumes that their “Answer #1 is accurate. As we’ve seen above, it is not. Here is additional evidence: At http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html FDA says “WTO and its dispute settlement panels do not have the power to change US law. If a WTO decision in response to a dispute settlement panel is averse to the US, only Congress and the Administration can decide whether to implement the panel recommendation and if so, how to implement it.”
This is only technically true. The reality is that the WTO has ruled against the USA in 42 out of 48 cases, including EVERY case impacting our environmental and public health laws (Testimony of Lori Wallach, JD, Director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen before the House Ways & Means Committee May 17,05 http://www.citizen.org/documents/Wallach%205.17.2005.pdf
The US so far has complied in EVERY CASE including tax law. http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst012102.htm
Recently a WTO tribunal outlawed Utah’s ban on gambling, http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2166opening the door to millions of dollars in penalties against all states with anti-gambling restrictions. Given that as of April 3, 2006, the US has not met the WTO’s deadline for compliance in this matter, the US is now subject to trade sanctions: http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1346
Our undeniable reality is in 42 out of 48 cases the WTO has ruled against the USA in dispute panels, (including EVERY case involving environmental or public health laws). Given the total non-transparency of these panels and the fact that they don’t follow US rules of evidence, given that the WTO has never given a private citizen standing to appear before a Dispute panel to provide testimony, given that the WTO has even made unfair, unethical rulings against STATE laws, on what BELIEVABLE, FACTUAL BASIS do the Natural Solutions Foundation & Citizens for Health continue to maintain that a nation adopting the “International Dietary Supplement Act” model legislation would be exempt from the imposition of WTO trade sanctions?
Question #3: Does a nation face international trade sanctions by the World Trade Organization because it has adopted the International Dietary Supplement Act endorsed by the Natural Solutions Foundation?
Answer #3: No.
Overview: The Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements finalized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission on July 4, 2005, are a non-binding recommendation to the governments of the world. No nation is obligated to adopt them or to adopt laws that implement them. They are a loose framework to be considered, along with any and all other available dietary supplement information, by any country intending to adopt laws and or regulations governing vitamin and mineral food supplements.
Any vitamin and mineral food supplement product that complies with the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements meets the requirements for importation into any country that adopts the Model International Dietary Supplement Act, attached to this summary, as its domestic law. The Model Act is drawn to include Codex compliant supplement products. All countries that freely adopt the Model Act can freely trade among themselves.
If one country attempts to stop the shipment of a vitamin and/or mineral product across its borders based on the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements it creates the conditions for the exporting country to bring a trade complaint against it under the World Trade Organization rules. Those rules require the trade dispute to be settled on sound scientific justification. Sound nutritional science supports the revised guidelines and the Model International Supplement Act.
**** [IAHF Note: Despite being challenged repeatedly by Scott Tips, JD, Legal Counsel to the National Health Federation, James Turner, the source of Laibow’s information here, has not been able to substantiate this assertion and has failed to explain the supposed legal mechanism by which a country would supposedly be WTO compliant if they adopted anything BUT Codex “guidelines”.
As discussed in IAHF comments above, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement process is anything BUT scientific. It does not adhere to US rules of evidence and is inherently biased. There is nothing to prevent conflicts of interest from occurring in the selection of attorneys sitting on the panel, indeed, they have occurred many times. Moreover, the WTO’s dispute settlement panel meets in secret, there is no transparency in their deliberations. The reality is that the WTO has ruled against the USA in 42 out of 48 cases, including EVERY case impacting our environmental and public health laws (Testimony of Lori Wallach, JD, Director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen before the House Ways & Means Committee May 17,05 http://www.citizen.org/documents/Wallach%205.17.2005.pdf
The US so far has complied in EVERY CASE including tax law. http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst012102.htm
Recently a WTO tribunal outlawed Utah’s ban on gambling, http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2166opening the door to millions of dollars in penalties against all states with anti-gambling restrictions. Given that as of April 3, 2006, the US has not met the WTO’s deadline for compliance in this matter, the US is now subject to trade sanctions: http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1346 ]
Narrative:
1. The Natural Solutions Foundation endorsed Revised Guideline are WTO compliant.
**** [ IAHF Note: As proven above, this is FALSE.]
2. Under international trading rules Countries are free to adopt domestic laws that allow a more robust trade in vitamins, minerals and other dietary supplements than laws based on Codex Guidelines would permit (For example the US Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act.)
**** [IAHF Note: As proven above, this is FALSE.]
3. A domestic market can allow products that the Codex guideline would allow other countries to prohibit and still be WTO compliant.
*****[IAHF Note: As proven above, this is FALSE.]
4. If every country adopted the Model Law then none of them would need to be domestically compliant with the Codex guideline but all could trade freely under WTO rules.
*****[IAHF Note: As proven above, this is false. James Turner has never responded to questions about this from Scott Tips, JD of NHF. He has never proven any supposed legal mechanism to substantiate this assertion which is demonstrated above to be based on demonstrably false statements.
5. To the extent that countries adopt national legislation that tracks the Codex guideline, such as the Model International Law, rather than the Codex guideline an increasing number of DSHEA- like supporting trading partners emerges in a system of trading countries that, at a minimum among themselves, is totally WTO compliant. Since their laws are based on sound nutritional science they are compliant with WTO rules.
*****[IAHF Note: Nothing provided by NSF or CFH proves this assertion, however, an abundance of evidence exists to prove that the WTO Dispute Settlement panels are unscientific, aren’t government by US rules of evidence, are biased, and there’s nothing to prevent conflicts of interest in the selection of attorneys to sit on these panels. Indeed- the facts show that the WTO has ruled against the USA in 42 out of 48 cases, including EVERY case impacting our environmental and public health laws (Testimony of Lori Wallach, JD, Director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen before the House Ways & Means Committee May 17,05 http://www.citizen.org/documents/Wallach%205.17.2005.pdf
The US so far has complied in EVERY CASE including tax law. http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst012102.htm
Recently a WTO tribunal outlawed Utah’s ban on gambling, http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2166opening the door to millions of dollars in penalties against all states with anti-gambling restrictions. Given that as of April 3, 2006, the US has not met the WTO’s deadline for compliance in this matter, the US is now subject to trade sanctions: http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1346 ]
6. Nutritional Science rather than toxic chemical science is a sound scientific basis upon which to rest domestic and international trade regulations of dietary supplements.
***** [IAHF Note: We agree that nutritional science rather than toxic chemical science is a sound scientific basis upon which to rest domestic and international trade regulations of dietary supplements, however, this has no bearing on how the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body operates. Above we provide a huge body of evidence to indicate that it is a biased, star chamber proceeding whose decisions are based far more on the economic expediency of those who control it rather than on sound science.]
7. The Revised Guidelines and Model International Law rest on the premise that is proper for individual health and well-being, national economic and health policy, and robust international trade for individual consumers to have access to them the widest possible choice of dietary supplements.
***** [IAHF Note: IAHF agrees with NSF’s premise, however, IAHF notes that this wishful thinking is not consistent with the political reality of any nation that is a member of the WTO given the harsh reality of how its Dispute Settlement Panels operate.]
8. The Revised Guideline and Model International Law support more effectively than the Codex guideline does the significant role that dietary supplements can play in helping end world hunger and promote world health.
******[IAHF Note: That is true, but so what? The World Health Organization has never been interested in ending world hunger or in promoting world health- when they claim this as a goal it’s obviously nothing but SPIN. An abundance of evidence exists to indicate that theirs is a genocide agenda- a systematic effort to curb global population growth. All we have do to see the truth of this is to see how FDA’s Christine Lewis Taylor selected the applicants for a workshop on “Nutrient Risk Assessment” when tasked by the WHO with spearheading the process by which they’re generating acceptable “Safe Upper Levels” for vitamins and minerals. Taylor excluded all applicants from amongst the ranks of orthomolecular physicians and scientists who believe in the use of nutrients for PREVENTIVE purposes. WHO is making no effort to take into account the BENEFITS of vitamins and minerals- they’re looking ONLY at supposed “risks.”
Natural Solutions Foundation’s Conclusion
Toxic science that undermines the nutritional health of individual users of dietary supplements is not scientifically supported as the standard upon which dietary supplement regulation can be based. Therefore a toxic science-based dietary supplement regulatory system does not provide the required legal basis under WTO rules for blocking international trade in dietary supplements.
IAHF COMMENTS on National Solutions Foundation & Citizens For Health “CONCLUSION”
The purpose of NSF’s & CFH’s spin is to deceive vitamin consumers into thinking it is possible to stop Codex AT CODEX, but we’ve clearly shown here that it is NOT possible to.
IAHF believes the purpose of this spin is to divert people from taking steps to defend US Sovereignty in order to stop CODEX from being imposed on us via regional harmonization- the most LIKELY way it would be thrust upon us.
Since when has the WTO been concerned with scientific honesty? The Natural Solutions Foundation and Citizens for Health cannot supply us with any evidence that the WTO’s highly biased Dispute Settlement Panels have EVER based their decision-making on sound science.
Lori Wallach, JD, Director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen, however, has testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that the WTO has ruled against the USA in 42 out of 48 cases, including EVERY case impacting our environmental and public health laws (Testimony of Lori Wallach, JD, Director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen before the House Ways & Means Committee May 17,05 http://www.citizen.org/documents/Wallach%205.17.2005.pdf
The US so far has complied in EVERY CASE including tax law. http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst012102.htm
Recently a WTO tribunal outlawed Utah’s ban on gambling, http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2166 opening the door to millions of dollars in penalties against all states with anti-gambling restrictions. Given that as of April 3, 2006, the US has not met the WTO’s deadline for compliance in this matter, the US is now subject to trade sanctions: http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1346
Our undeniable reality is in 42 out of 48 cases the WTO has ruled against the USA in dispute panels, (including EVERY case involving environmental or public health laws). Given the total non-transparency of these panels and the fact that they don’t follow US rules of evidence, given that the WTO has never given a private citizen standing to appear before a Dispute panel to provide testimony, given that the WTO has even made unfair, unethical rulings against STATE laws, on what BELIEVABLE, FACTUAL BASIS do the Natural Solutions Foundation & Citizens for Health continue to maintain that a nation adopting the “International Dietary Supplement Act” model legislation would be exempt from the imposition of WTO trade sanctions?
NSF & CFH’s spin is intended to create cognitive dissonance so that vitamin consumers will believe it is possible to stop Codex AT CODEX. This spin is intended to ASSIST the pharma-dominated vitamin trade associations by NOT encouraging consumers to pressure Congress into holding an OVERSIGHT HEARING on the FDA’s Illegal Trilateral Cooperation Charter with Canada and Mexico. This FDA move is part of an effort to force the USA into a planned North American Union.
The biggest vitamin companies which dominate the vitamin trade associations all WANT harmonization to Canadian law because it would create an extra set of red tape via so-called “Drug Identification Numbers” and “Site Licensing Requirements” which do NOTHING to protect consumers, but which only the largest companies can afford.
In this high stakes game, it is in the best interests of the Pharma Dominated Vitamin Trade Associations that the grassroots not take action in opposed to Codex which threatens their desire to have one set of harmonized dietary supplement regulations for the planet.
For this reason, CFH and NSF were created to attempt to DIVERT the grassroots AWAY from the message of IAHF and allied organizations.
