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June 04, 2006
Codex: FDA 'Vetoes' Optimal Nutrition For Health
Just a month ago today, at the Codex Alimentarius Food Labelling Committee meeting in Ottawa, Canada, the US delegate Dr Barbara Schneeman said that no reference should be made to "optimizing nutrition and health" in guidelines that would encourage "adequate information" on food labels.
A Codex Committee meeting - Image by Sepp
The Committee was discussing how the World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health should find expression in the information we find on the labels of foods bought in supermarkets and - increasingly - at organic food shops. A laudable step, to improve our health by telling more on food labels, but alas, the food industry is not keen to put that information where we can actually see it.
Dr Schneeman and her employer, the FDA, were looking after the interests of Big Food and its cousin Big Pharma, when they insisted that optimal nutrition should have no place on food labels or - as transpired later in the same meeting - that even when a food has been genetically modified, such information should not be revealed to consumers.
The labeling of trans fats in foods was also on the committee's agenda, but for some unfathomable reason the committee could not agree on what would be the proper definition of trans fats.
For details of what transpired in the meeting, see the report of Scott Tips of the Natural Health Federation, the only consumer oriented body allowed to speak in these meetings of Codex on food-related issues.
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Codex Alimentarius has a history of dancing to the tune of big industry. The interests of Big Pharma and the AgroFood conglomerates are at the top of the agenda. The recently passed guidelines on food supplements are a step towards limiting that nuisance called optimal nutrition by cutting down available nutrients and dosages to the minimal levels beyond which we normally just lay down and die. So nutrition yes, but not too much!
That seems to also be the view of the German Codex Nutrition Committee Chair Rolf Grossklaus, who, as head of the German Institute for Risk Evaluation, signed off on a report that proposes to limit availability of vitamins and minerals in supplements to what most nutritional health advocates would consider starvation-level dosages. Grossklaus has also famously said in one of the Codex Nutrition Committee meetings that Codex "deals with foods and foods have nothing to do with illness", agreeing with the European Union representative Basil Mathioudakis that illness is best left to medicine to deal with.
That is exactly the attitude - "we don't need prevention by nutrition" - which resulted in nutrition-related chronic diseases becoming such a huge problem globally, that the World Health Organization had to formulate a strategy on diet, physical activity and health. But in these meetings, we see that very strategy being sabotaged in its implementation by countries - in this case the US through their FDA representative - insisting that optimal health has "nothing to do with nutrition"!
Clearly we need some changes in these international committees that are supposed to decide on matters of health. Conflict of interest is certainly at the bottom of this bias towards big pharma and the agro food conglomerates, and perhaps it is time to screen members of these international committees for personal conflicts of interest, as well as increase the distance they are to keep from industry.
If the choice is 'healthy' industry and sick people vs. 'sick' industry and healthy people, I don't think that ultimately many of us would prefer industry profits over our own health. So please someone tell these employees of ours who they are supposed to be working for.
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See also:
The NHF - Codex Reports
Go Find The Truth And It Will Make You Sick
CODEX: WHAT IS IT AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU AND YOUR HEALTH?
Codex is not just about nutritional supplements. In fact, it is the primary political battlefield where the war is being waged about who will regulate and control the global food supply from farm to fork. This 'war' is being waged by an increasingly tangled web of global authorities, big business and financial interests, and, as such, trade and profit are its prime goals – not human health.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday June 4 2006
updated on Monday October 30 2006
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/06/04/codex_fda_vetoes_optimal_nutrition_for_health.htm
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Readers' Comments
The rise of CODEX means subjugation of democracy and the right to information on health for the consumer. In summary CODEX science centres on:-
1. Do not reveal information on genetically modified food, especially all the more in the face of a Russian study that shows its letal effects on rats,
2. Do not tell people about trans fats, or delay it as long as possible, especially now that there is a lot of research and information about the role of trans fats in promoting cardiovascular disease and artery plaques, although chemistry is clear about what trans fats are and what their chemical structure is,
3. Do not provide people with optimal nutrition required for optimal functioning of cells for that ensures health and cuts spending on pharmaceutically prescribed medication which is a phrase for toxic chemicals that are not part of your cells' natural biochemistry. Hence the CODEX proposals to limit availability of vitamins and minerals in supplements to what most nutritional health advocates would consider starvation-level dosages, is seen as dirty strategy supported by men of science.
4. Provide the bear minimum of nutrition through food so that even the middle class will show symptoms of malnutrition and oxidative stress, including fatigue and they become a natural market for synthetic antioxidants that are already being patented. This means a switch from L-form nutrition to D-form chemicals for treatments!
I had already predicted that big business will see to it that people make the shift from health science for optimal nutrition and prevention of disease states or to depend on nutrition to slow down the progress of disease states in favour of synthetic and patentable chemical products. And science illiteracy in congress, among paliamentarians and members of cabinets is the right tool for such a purpose.
5. Do not tell people the basic and fundamental truth on the realtionship between optimal nutrition and how it promotes healthy functioning of cells , tissues and internal organs but tell just the opposite ie:- optimal health has "nothing to do with nutrition"!. And the right person to tell that is , of course the FDA, the official keeper of national health in the US. And over the course of time transform that nasty little lie to "food is toxic". It was unthinkable that the FDA would actually tell the greatest lie on earth but it did it and only manna begotten by amazing grace will save us.
Healthy industry and sick populations may be a miracle of modern economy built through lies and scientific half truths but it reminds me of the article by Kushwant Singh in THE Illustrated Weekly of India titled "Rich Gods, poor people" that observes the wealth of temples in poor societies in India.
If committees run by people with degrees in science are bringing such ruin in the developed countries what are our politicians doing? WELL...to answer that question lets find out by just reflecting for a momment on how the Webster's dictionary came to give one of the meanings to the word "politician" as "man without scruples" and, yes very soon you will realize that it could very well apply to scientists sitting in committees.
So, in the future, if the views of the FDA (as expounded by its representative) are allowed to take root, your child in college or pursuing a tertiary education in food science or health science or clinical nutrition, he or she will be studying that optimal health has nothing to do with nutrition! Blasphemous as it may sound, it is the official stand and it is the official stand of science committees in international forums.
The moral of the story? Corruption has no bounds. With the right amount of money you can corrupt minds, politicians, decisions, policies, scientists, researchers and science itself.
The message for ASIAN countries - watch out for food products imported from developed countries for health is wealth.
BELDEU SINGH
Posted by: Beldeu Singh on June 6, 2006 06:42 AM
FDA's FATTEST WHITE LIE IN 2006
Grossklaus has also famously said in one of the Codex Nutrition Committee meetings that Codex "deals with foods and foods have nothing to do with illness", agreeing with the European Union representative Basil Mathioudakis that illness is best left to medicine to deal with (see article above).
Where did these people get their medical degrees? Well if you have not seen idiots dressed up as experts, just attend CODEX meetings.
First of all, we all know that beri-beri and scurvy and pellagra are caused by either a vitamin deficiency or defiecuency in some factor as in pellagra and in this case, just eat more green vegetables. These "experts" at CODEX would rather, it seems that such conditions of diease be best left to medicine to deal with. What they mean is...take drugs that are not part of your normal cellular biochemistry. Vitamins and other nutritional factors found in food that actually cure or prevent diseases...well these "experts" attending CODEX meetings say is part of food and food has nothing to do with health. Why the hell do they take food at all? Why not they live on the drugs or replace the nutrition provided by food?
So, what then is the definition of nutrition and nutritious foods? Nutrition includes vitamins and other antioxidants, medium chain fatty acids and essential fatty acids and minerals required for cellular function and optimal cellular function that also include the functioning of the Kreb's cycle for aerobic energy. All of these cellular functions can be disturbed or disrupted or shut down by drugs (in high doses or through their long term use) and toxic chemicals. The last time I looked at the Krebs cycle I did not see pharmaceutical drugs as part of it.
Is breast milk food or nutrition of the baby? Has breast feeding nothing to do with illnesses of the infant? What about the need for balanced meals and adequate mineral intake?
On a hot July day, a young and vibrant college football player suddenly makes a great tackle and never gets up.. only to be pronounced dead 5 minutes later. A High School track runner dies after finishing second in a race. The sad truth is 1 out of 50,000 young adults will fall victim to Sudden Death (see Magnesium Deficiency and Sudden Death).
When one sweats, a significant amount of magnesium is lost. Magnesium is the most under-recognized electrolyte disorder in the U.S. Dr. Mildred Seelig, one of the country's leading authorities on magnesium suggests that 80%-90%
of the population is deficient is magnesium.
It is beyond the extent of this article why the public is being denied the truth of the seriousness of magnesium deficiency and sudden death. The amount of medical research could fill a book, but it is unfortunately being ignored.
According to Micheal A. Brodsky M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Medicine and the director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at the University of California... mineral imbalances interfere with the heart's normal nerve function (see Magnesium Deficiency and Sudden Death).
According to Carla Sueta M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and cardiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, "apparently, many doctors still don't realize how important a role this mineral can play in some heart patients."
In fact, most never check the magnesium level. She has shown through her research that magnesium reduced the incidence of several types of ventricular arrhythmia by 53 to 76 percent.
Magnesium deficiency can be induced by the very drugs meant to help heart problems.
Some types of diuretics (water pills) cause the body to excrete both magnesium and potassium, as does digitalis. And magnesium deficiency is often at the bottom of what's called refractory potassium deficiency. The amount of magnesium in the body determines the amount of a particular enzyme that determines the amount of potassium in the body," he explains. So if you are magnesium-deficient, you may in turn be potassium-deficient, and no amount of potassium is going to correct this unless you are also getting enough magnesium (see Magnesium Deficiency and Sudden Death).
So the question for the CODEX EXPERTS is this: Do you treat problems associated to magnesium deficiency with drugs?
The common sense answer is: The best way of insuring enough magnesium is to eat a variety of whole foods,
including whole grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables, preferably food grown on naturally composted soil. The answer lies in food.
There are drugs that deplete coenzyme Q10 from your tissues including the heart where a high level is critical for healthy functioning of the heart. CODEX Experts might want to suggest, going by their stance, that such depletion be addressed by drugs and not food rich in the enzyme or Q10 supplementation.
European Union medical science may be held suspect by the statement they made but the US - through their FDA representative - insisting that optimal health has "nothing to do with nutrition"! gets the CROWN. It is the fattest white lie.
BELDEU SINGH
Posted by: BELDEU SINGH on June 6, 2006 09:30 AM
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