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Report From the 2003 International Codex Forum and Public Meeting Sponsored by the Dr. Rath Health Foundation

This year's convention of the Codex Commission was held November 3-7, 2003 in Bonn, Germany. For years, this Commission has been trying, in the face of opposition by people in Europe and worldwide, to ban information and health-related messages concerning natural remedies. In addition, the Commission is seeking to reduce the maximum permitted amounts of dietary supplements to levels at which they would no longer be effective.

On November 2, 2003 representatives from 15 countries and almost 1,000 participants spoke out in protest against the planned Codex laws. The Dr. Rath Health Foundation had issued invitations to an international protest event at the Hotel Maritim in Bonn, Germany with the theme “Stop Codex.”

Dr. Matthias Rath's entrance onto the stage was met by an enormous burst of applause. “I would like to return this applause back to you in this room, because without you I would not be here today and without the scientific discovery of Cellular Medicine, without the distribution of the bestseller “Why Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks... But People Do!” there would be no Codex,” Dr. Rath said. It is the breakthrough of Cellular Medicine that represents such a threat to the pharmaceutical industry's billion-dollar market that they don't know what to do, other than to ban the spreading of information about it. All this at the expense of the health of millions of people.”

Only the combined protests of thousands of people from the health movement behind Dr. Matthias Rath have prevented the pharmaceutical industry’s political allies from carrying out their unethical plans over the last seven years. With this event and a widespread information campaign highlighting the real goals of the Codex Commission, these laws, which hold mankind in such contempt, should also be stopped this year. These laws are intended to prevent health statements about vitamin therapies being made available to all people and to reduce the dosage levels of dietary supplements to maximum amounts that are entirely ineffective. For many years, draft bills have been created by Codex under the guise of consumer protection, which are contrary to the will of millions of people around the world.

Dr. Matthias Rath and the Dr. Rath Health Foundation have received massive support in their battle against Codex from international supporters from 15 countries.

Eduardo Luiz Barbosa from
São Paulo, Brazil
attended the Codex meeting as the president of an umbrella organization for Brazilian HIV/AIDS initiatives. There are at present 800 such initiatives in Brazil. As Mr. Barbosa said: “The right of all people to healthcare was enshrined in the constitution, though even today many people have absolutely no access to a doctor or to therapists. With an estimated 800,000 people suffering from AIDS and their meager care with pharmaceutical preparations, the major side effects continue to shock. I believe in the action of alternative natural therapies, since these are less harmful to people and they are based on ethical principles.” For this reason, he rejected the Codex plans. He expressed his gratitude for his invitation to this meeting and called for more freedom of choice for everyone for alternative medicine. He concluded his presentation with a quotation from Mahatma Ghandi: “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed.”

Dr. Wong Ang Peng, chairman of a national association of natural remedies in Malaysia, gave a warm welcome to everyone who had come to Bonn to defend the freedom of natural therapies. Their long history means that people in the Asian countries still have a certain advantage in their familiarity with natural remedies. Traditional Chinese medicine has been part of the day-to-day life for hundreds of years and as yet, there are still no problems in terms of access to natural therapies. “We will fight like tigers for the freedom of vitamins, because if you lose against Codex in Europe, we will soon also lose in Asia,” Dr. Wong Ang Peng said.

Michael D. Ostrolenk came to Bonn from the USA as an envoy of the organization “Citizens for Health.” Although freedom of access to vitamins in the USA has been firmly embodied in law for years, politicians are always fretting at this fundamental right and submitting restrictive draft bills. Michael Ostrolenk has now brought together liberals and conservatives, as well as consumers and manufacturers, in a campaign to fight these draft bills. Above all, he is organizing education work and is, therefore, doing what he can to ensure that bridges are built between various organizations, associations and people.

Trueman Tuck, founder of the health organization “Friends of Freedom” in Canada, informed the participants in Bonn of the current national legislation. As Mr. Tuck explained: “In Canada, you are not allowed to say that an orange contains vitamin C and that this vitamin C protects against disease. This law dates from as long ago as 1920. In Canada, more or less anything that provides a natural cure is, therefore, declared to be medicinal.” For many years, he has stood up for free access to dietary supplements together with a great many people, politicians and organizations in Canada. At the same time, he also defends in court doctors, non-medical practitioners and companies who work with vitamins and have landed in trouble as a result. So far, his greatest success has been a law ensuring free access to vitamins in Canada, which has already passed its second reading in Parliament and which hopefully will soon come into force.

He told the guests at the Codex event about his most important experience from his battle: “Go to your politicians! Tell everyone about the planned legislative changes! We wish you all the very best!”

Dr. Gerhard Koschik from Austria has been using the natural remedies of Cellular Medicine in his practice in Graz for many years. “In the 31 years in which I have been practicing as a doctor, I have not come across anything better than Cellular Medicine. I am proud to be a member of the ever-growing Dr. Rath team. And you too can play a part in this success. Stand up for free access to vitamin therapy! Sign the appeal for a referendum! I'm asking you to do this,” Dr. Koschik said.

Frank Thrier from Switzerland supported the European initiative for free access to vitamins from the point of view of a Swiss citizen.

“We have already made a good start on preparations for the confederate national initiative ‘Free Access to Dietary Supplements’ and we are winning prominent members in a corresponding committee with whom to work,” he said. Thrier added: “I had two particular motives for getting involved in this initiative: my own very good personal experiences with vitamins and the threat of the Swiss Parliament and government adopting all European decrees on the public health system. We do need to change a lot of things for the better, but adopting Euro-regulations that obstruct the use of vitamins would only make everything even worse!”

He called on the many people in the audience: “We want to be an example and an incentive for you – emulate our campaign in your own country!”

Dr. Matthias Rath, in his rousing speech, took a look at the history of Codex and examined the background to the worldwide development of the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, he gave a great many concrete examples as evidence of the success of scientific research into Cellular Medicine.

Dr. Rath invited the 15-year old Christian Rehse onto the stage to talk about his recovery using Cellular Medicine. As an 11-year old, Christian was to have been fitted with a pacemaker. However, by using Cellular Medicine, he is now able once again to lead a perfectly normal life without the need for an operation. ”If the Codex plans had already been adopted four years ago, Christian would not be here today, and he would not be able to pursue his favorite hobby of playing football,” Dr. Rath said. Christian is a living example of the positive consequences of the battle waged so far against Codex.

Ilona Schmidt from Berlin also touched the hearts of the guests at Bonn with her story of ill health. Her brain tumor was cured by means of Cellular Medicine. Her daughter, Manuela, spoke of her family's joy and relief. She called out: “Everyone, spread the news of the success of Cellular Medicine! It's the only way to help people; it's the only way to defy the Codex laws!”

For their unstinting research work at the American research institute in Santa Clara, California, Dr. Rath thanked Director of Research Dr. Aleksandra Niedzwiecki and Dr. Vadim Ivanov, who is in charge of research into cardiovascular disease in women. “There is no greater reward for us scientists and researchers than seeing our research results at work in the living examples of so many patients,” Dr. Niedzwiecki said.

The broad support for Dr. Rath from so many organizations and so many people from all over the world has made this event a great success, and it represents a really important step forward for the establishment of a new global healthcare system.

Update on the 2003 Meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission

The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses (Codex for short) met in Bonn, Germany this year from November 3-7 to advance their proposals to ban information and health-related messages concerning vitamins and minerals. They also considered the reduction of the maximum permitted amounts of essential nutrients to levels at which they would no longer be effective.

Codex has been trying for the last seven years to introduce these banning regulations, but thanks to the combined protests of thousands of people from the health movement behind Dr. Matthias Rath and the Dr. Rath Health Foundation, they have been prevented from carrying out their unethical plans. Codex has been infiltrated by pharmaceutical interests, whose influence extends beyond the official delegations and into some of the so-called natural health freedom organizations who have observer status at the Codex meetings. Some of these organizations were already celebrating victory before the Codex meeting ended based upon flawed analysis of the proceedings. Such claims subsequently proved to be unrealistic, indicating the level of influence that the pharmaceutical interests wield within these organizations.

The Dr. Rath Health Foundation remains one of the few truly independent, natural health-promoting organizations that actively participates in public health policy debates worldwide. It is thus able to provide a clear, objective and accurate analysis of the events at the 2003 Codex meeting.

What happened?

The “Proposed Draft Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements” were advanced to Step 5 of an 8-step process at the 2003 session after a high level of agreement amongst the delegations on most of the sections. Draft proposals can be adopted as full Guidelines at Step 6 in this process, if there is unanimous agreement within the Codex committee. Far from declaring victory, continued vigilance and action is necessary. The fight goes on.

The most significant aspects of the current Codex proposals are as follows:

• The South African delegation's bold attempt to introduce positive support for natural health therapies into the Codex machinery was thwarted by the committee. South Africa proposed that Codex should highlight the role vitamins and minerals play in the prevention of chronic diseases, as laid out in the WHO's report “Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases.” This expert consultation document clearly confirms that nutritional intervention can reduce the incidence of diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure and many other chronic diseases that have reached epidemic proportions worldwide.
  
  Ignoring the recommendations of its own parent body (the WHO), the Codex Committee chose to ignore the South African proposals. The South African delegation has, however, been asked to coordinate a working group that will develop proposals for new and revised nutrient reference values (figures for average daily intake requirements among normal populations - NRVs for short) that may form part of the establishment of the upper safe levels limits. The inclusion of NRVs in this process will be debated again at the next Codex meeting in 2004.

Comment: We should all applaud the excellent work done by South Africa and continue to give their delegation and the other delegations supporting their position all the help and support they need to ensure that the level of scientific knowledge and evidence that goes into the setting of NRVs truly reflects the reality that vitamins, minerals and other natural substances can prevent common diseases as set out in Dr. Rath's declaration at the World Summit in 2002 entitled, “Health For All by the Year 2020.”

• The Codex Committee spent so long arguing about other matters on their agenda that they ran out time to consider the proposals on health claims. This debate has been postponed until next year.

Comment: The extra time that this development offers the health freedom movement to continue the fight against Codex should not be wasted.

• The idea that recommended daily allowances (RDAs) should form the upper limits for vitamin and mineral dosage levels has finally been rejected by the Codex committee.

Comment: A positive move for natural health. RDAs represent merely the minimum daily intake level for vitamins and minerals for the avoidance of deficiency disease problems, and the idea that RDAs should form the upper limits for these nutrients has always been ridiculous.

• The Codex Committee decided that their vitamin and mineral guidelines will apply in jurisdictions that regulate these supplements as foods, while removing the option for national authorities to make a regulatory choice between food and drug law for regulation of these supplements.

Comment: This may indicate that national authorities currently regulating these products as drugs will continue to be able to do so. Countries will not, however, be able to change regulatory approaches for supplements once these guidelines are enacted. Yet another good reason to continue the battle to protect free access to essential vitamins and minerals worldwide.

• The sources of vitamin and minerals to be used in supplementary products should be safe and bio-available forms as laid down by FAO/WHO standards or other recognized international or national standards.

Comment: The possibility that this provision may lead to arbitrary restrictions on the available sources, as was the case with the provisions of the EU's Food Supplements Directive, cannot be discounted.

• The influence of the EU within Codex has grown measurably this year and their delegation is trying forcefully to persuade Codex to adopt the framework for vitamin and mineral regulation, already laid down in Europe, on a worldwide basis.

Comment: The EU will become a full member of Codex in 2004, which makes support for and implementation of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation EU-Referendum more important than ever. The EU will act on behalf of 25 countries at next year's Codex meeting.

• The maximum daily dosage level for vitamins and minerals is to be set by reference to “upper safe levels” established by scientific risk assessment.

Comment: This was the section upon which most of the ‘victory for health freedom' claims were based. At first sight, the abandonment of reference to RDA levels in setting upper limits for vitamins and minerals seems to be a victory. In reality, the proposed terms upon which upper safe limits may be set are wide open to interpretation and manipulation, and could still result in arbitrarily low upper limits that are not much better than RDA levels.

This approach is being pioneered by the Australian delegation, which will probably be asked to chair the committee responsible for setting upper safe limits, if this section is agreed. It is, therefore, important to know that Australia already regulates vitamin and mineral supplements as drugs and not as foods.

There is no scientific justification for any upper limits to be set for vitamin and mineral intake, but if we do have to have them, let them be based on true science and real observed effects. The role of South Africa will be pivotal here.

Conclusions: The influence of the health freedom movement and the work of the South African delegation to Codex have brought about a number of victories for natural health freedom this year. At the same time, while some completely absurd ideas, such as using RDA levels as upper limits have finally been removed, this year's Codex meeting has accelerated the move toward overall proposals that may have a very damaging effect on the availability of essential vitamins and minerals worldwide in the future.

It is, therefore, of paramount importance that all those interested in preventing free access to these vital substances from being compromised remain vigilant and engaged in the fight. The Dr. Rath Health Foundation is leading the continued resistance to Codex plans and calls for a united effort in pursuing the goal of vitamin freedom for all.

We have won some skirmishes, but the main battle goes on!