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The European Union is passing laws which will make it more difficult for us to take care of our own health in a manner we think best. "Consumer protection" is the apparent justification for taking away such "dangerous" things as herbs that have been used for millennia and vitamins or other nutrients that help us ward off disease. Two campaign sites for protecting our health freedom you might want to visit: http://www.alliance-natural-health.org http://www.laleva.cc But trouble is brewing internationally - Europe is not alone. Codex Alimentarius, an international Food Standard Setting Body is after vitamins and minerals, discussing restrictive legislation. Canada, Australia, the USA are all on the same path. Is there an international move (let's avoid the word 'conspiracy') to narrow down our alternative health options? You be the judge.

January 18, 2013

European Union seeks consumer input on organic agriculture

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Environment

Health

Legislation

The European Union on Tuesday took the debate about genetically modified crops to the public with a survey asking citizens to share their thoughts on organic farming, reports Phys.org in a recent article titled EU asks citizens to join debate on GM food

Image credit: americanoverkill.com

The article continues ... The bloc's 500 million consumers are invited to complete an anonymous online questionnaire on the European Commission's Agriculture and Rural Development website (ec.europa.eu/agriculture/consultations/organic/2013_en.htm). The consultation, which ends on April 10, is part of a review of European policy on organic agriculture.

The survey is available in all official EU languages. English is the one linked here, but other languages are available from a drop-down menu at the top of the page.

The Phys.org article, putting emphasis on the GM angle, goes on to say...
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Friday January 18 2013

updated on Thursday January 26 2017

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August 30, 2008

From Avoiding Deficiency to Optimal Health - RDA Focus 'Must Change'

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Health

Legislation

Nutrition is of course what happens when we eat, but there is a very scientific side to nutrition that counts infinitesimal quantities of certain vital substances. Without these vital 'vitamins' and minerals we just can't survive. Our bodies fall ill and refuse to function. Those are serious deficiency diseases like scurvy, a sure killer that comes after weeks and months of little or no vitamin C.

Nothing like an orange just from the tree - Image: Sepp

The quantities of nutrients that allow us to avoid deficiency diseases are called the RDA - recommended dietary allowances and, more recently, RDI or reference daily intakes.

Much research however has shown that RDAs cannot protect against the slow onset of degenerative diseases which have become major killers in our Western societies. It would seem, therefore, that lawmaking should put less emphasis on RDAs and more on a measure of optimal health by nutrition.

Two Dutch scientists, Dr Jaap Hanekamp and Prof Aalt Bast have published an article where they argue for a change in focus of the RDA from avoiding known and certain deficiencies to actually providing the optimal amounts of nutrients for good health.

Wish the European Commission and national health authorities would pay attention.

Here are some excerpts and a link to the article in full.
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Saturday August 30 2008

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August 12, 2008

Codex Alimentarius: Globalizing Food and Health

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Health

Legislation

Codex Alimentarius, a UN World Health Organization initiative charged with working out standards for foods, has come under public criticism for lending its clout to the big industry game of establishing a global food market.

While a global market does not seem bad at first sight, it is a very fragile market. Recent increases in grain prices led to hunger and food riots in poor countries. A global market is an easily controlled market and it is the direct antithesis of food security. The future of a country's food supply should be one of the first considerations when establishing food policy. Yet, Codex and the World Trade Organization give it no thought.

The agenda of global "free trade" is good for multinational companies, but it is less good for local food production. in many of the developing countries, local agriculture has been ruined by cheap imports and those countries have become dependent on imported staples which they now find cost double or triple the price they first paid. Genetically modified organisms and a concentration of seed producers into a near monopoly situation further lock in that control mechanism.

Codex is right in the middle of this through its strategic task of drafting international food laws. When Codex Alimentarius says genetically modified foods or certain chemical additives are ok, it becomes very difficult for any country to prove they are damaging to health, or to simply be cautious on behalf of its population.

In recent years, the issue of Nutrition and Health was taken up by Codex. The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses discussed food supplements and passed a guideline. Unfortunately, like in the case of GM foods and additives, the outcome was less than consumer friendly. In Codex, industry always wins, and in this case, the interests of the pharmaceutical industry to suppress the competing health interventions of cheap nutrition-based remedies and prevention, took a huge step forward.

How Codex works and what happened on the supplements issue is the subject of this article.
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Tuesday August 12 2008

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May 07, 2008

Canada: Bill C-51 threatens natural health products

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Legislation

On April 8th, Canada’s Minister of Health, Tony Clement, introduced Bill C-51 into the House of Commons. If passed, that bill will drastically alter the current Food and Drugs Act, and that will be bad news for many Canadians. According to an article on the Common Ground website, "expectations are that if Federal Bill C-51 is passed, around 75 percent of new applications will most likely fail to meet new requirements."

Canada has traditionally been liberal, favoring availability of nutrient-containing products to people wishing to use vitamins and minerals for their preventive or even curative health needs. But some time in the 90s, a world wide campaign was started to curtail the use of nutritional supplements in health care in favor of pharmaceutical medicines.

The US FDA's intention to limit vitamin dosages to RDA levels was blocked by an overwhelming consumer driven campaign which eventually resulted in liberal legislation, the so-called Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1993/94. In Europe, the early 90s saw the first attempt to pass a food supplements law, which after some delay was issued in 2004 as the Food Supplements Directive. Codex Alimentarius started talking about limiting supplements in 1994. More recently, Australia and New Zealand were supposed to harmonize in the direction of Australia's restrictive model which considers supplements "therapeutic goods" or medicines. New Zealand has successfully resisted so far. In Canada, there was resistance to change and finally a parliamentary committee was charged with finding a way to control supplements.

Shawn Buckley's Common Ground article gives some specifics on what happened before the introduction of the recent bill:

On November 4, 1998, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health tabled its report, titled “Natural Health Products: A New Vision”. The report contained 53 recommendations, all of which were accepted by the Government on March 2, 1999. The first recommendation read that "Health Canada, in conjunction with a new separate Natural Health Products Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) should set out an appropriate definition of natural health products (NHPs) and amend the Food and Drugs Act accordingly." However, for expediency, a regulatory definition was created and implemeted instead of amending the law; Natural Health Products (NHPs) would be considered as drugs under the Food and Drugs Act. In Health Canada's page of Frequently Asked Questions, the following response was given for the question of why the Act was not amended:
"While creating another category distinct from both food and drugs was considered, an amendment at the level of the Act would have been necessary. Due to the timelines and legislative process required for a change of this magnitude, it was decided that natural health products would be considered drugs under the Act, but with a set of regulations specific to NHPs."

In effect, Health Canada is stating that they chose not to implement the direction of the government, but there was a good reason - amending the Act would take a long time and be a lot of work. However, on April 8, 2008, the Minister of Health introduced Bill C-51, An act to amend the Food and Drugs Act. This legislation introduces new definitions, including a new product category called "therapeutic products", a term that encompasses drugs, medical devices and cells used for therapeutic purposes. Despite there being an opportunity to amend the Act, an opportunity to amend definitions in the Act and include a decade-old Government directive to include Natural Health Products as a separate legal category, drafters of the bill chose not to. The question remains: why?

In effect, parliamentary deliberations were held in Canada and the results published, but the recommendations were disregarded. Did they simply not fit the broader agenda which commenced in the early 90s, of doing away with supplements as a competing approach to pharmaceuticals world wide in public health systems?
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday May 7 2008

updated on Friday June 26 2009

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