The Natural Health Products Industry. Finished?

The move is on worldwide to severely limit or completely restrict our access to vitamin supplements and natural health products.  I don't know about you but having to obtain a prescription from my physician for the vital supplements I now buy over the counter, or having some of them taken off the market completely due to "safety" concerns by patriarchal bureaucrats on behalf of Big Pharma is abhorent and unacceptable!

The global process of "harmonization", read control, taking place relentlessly below the public radar, under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, and driven by the Codex Alimentarius rules has now spread from Europe to Canada and the USA.  Both the E.P.A in the USA and Health Canada are preparing for compliance over the next few years.  The only beneficiaries that I can see from the upcoming draconian measures are the drug companies and bureaucratic infrastructures around the globe.

As these measures are slowly implemented, small production companies will fold, prices will rise to the point where it becomes cost prohibitive for many, such as older people on fixed incomes and single mom's on social assitance, to obtain these vital supplements.  Our governments will again attempt to treat us like children unable to make sane choices for ourselves!

All of this is occuring against a backdrop of spiraling deaths (98,000-140,000 a year in the USA) caused by both legal or illegal use of prescription pharmaceutical drugs, drug interactions, and physician errors.

From the Center for Disease Control:

"Unintentional drug poisoning mortality rates increased substantially in the United States during 1999--2004. Previous studies, using multiple cause-of-death data, have indicated that the trend described in this report can be attributed primarily to increasing numbers of deaths associated with prescription opioid analgesics (e.g., oxycodone) and secondarily to increasing numbers of overdoses of cocaine and prescription psychotherapeutic drugs (e.g., sedatives), and cannot be attributed to heroin, methamphetamines, or other illegal drugs (3,5)."  For the rest of this report go to: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm#tab1 

This brings up the question of how many deaths can be attributed to health supplements as a comparison. All I could find on the matter, other than questionable Meta-Analysis (teasing new findings out of miriad old studies of sometimes unrelated matters) was a figure of 40 deaths a year in the USA directly attributable to the consumption of medicinal herbs.  Interesting to note that Ephedra falls into the herbal category!

In a current article on the Common Ground website titled, "Health Canada’s Gambling With Our Health"  Joseph Roberts notes: "It seems that the interests behind the push in Canada parallels the bigger push in the US and other wealthy countries where major profits are made by drug companies." And this from Ben Banky in the same article, "This is an urgent message to all Canadians who use natural health products, such as vitamins and supplements. Your future access to many of these products is in danger of being severely curtailed and possibly eliminated within the next two years." http://commonground.ca/iss/0705190/cg190_health.shtml 

Both in the USA and Canada, as well as all WTO member countries globally, these moves to shift many supplements from their current designation as "foods" to a new category of "drugs" is driven by an appointed international bureaucratic body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, and its "guidlines" described in Wikipedia as: "The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for "food code" or "food book") is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations relating to foods, food production and food safety under the aegis of consumer protection. These texts are developed and maintained by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a body that was established in 1963 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Commission's main aims are stated as being to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the international food trade. The Codex Alimentarius is recognized by the World Trade Organization as an international reference point for the resolution of disputes concerning food safety and consumer protection.

The problem with the "guidlines" created by this group of mysterious bureaucrats, drawn from government, corporations and industry, is once established they are administered globally by the WTO, and once accepted by this body must be applied by all WTO signatory states, under penalty of other states commencing trade disputes and sanctions against those who do not comply.  This is based on the "Free" Trade and Globalization supporters ubiquitous homily of a "level playing field".  Can you say regulations?

From the website, http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/codex-alimentarius.html this quote:

"REAL GOALS OF CODEX
This is to bring about international 'harmonization.' While global harmony sounds benign, is that the real purpose of this plan? While the stated goal of Codex is to establish unilateral regulations for dietary supplements in every country, the actual goal is to outlaw health products and information on vitamins and dietary supplements, except those under their direct control. These regulations would supersede United States domestic laws without the American people's voice or vote in the matter."

The control of health supplements is a very complex international issue, which should really be one of personal choice and responsibility.  As we all know, legislators worldwide, receiving direction from international mega-corporations, cannot be trusted to be acting in our best interests.  All citizens who believe in democracy and the principle of personal primacy in decisions around our bodies and personal health would do well to educate and mobilize themselves in the face of this quiet yet gargantuan onslaught on our right to choose!

There is much more information on this subject available than I can bring to the discussion here, and it is only the click of your mouse away.