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What You Can do About Codex, A Threat to Your


Health Freedom

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Educating readers and patients via my twice-weekly newsletter -- so you can take
control of your own health by providing comprehensive, clear and researched
guidance on the best nutrition, medical, emotional therapy and lifestyle choices
to improve and maintain your total health -- is my primary mission and life goal.

Even though I generally believe people take too many supplements in place of
eating the healthiest foods, some are necessary. That said, for one to take
responsibility for his or her own health, I believe Americans must never lose the
right to choose and buy supplements. Although I hope Americans will make the
right decisions, they should never lose the right to choose what's best for them,
and that includes supplements.

Many thanks to Nancy Lee Bentley for her help in crafting the next in a series of
informative pieces I'm featuring on my Web site leading up to the Codex meeting
in July that may decide the supplement issue for many more people besides
Europeans.

Please Note: An incorrect version of this article was released. This is the revised
article with critical corrections and clarifications. We apologize for any
inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.

By Nancy Lee Bentley


Co-Author, Dr. Mercola's Total Health Program

There's a plain and simple fact about your health and health care choices you won't
find covered in any of the mainstream media today: Your health freedom is under
attack!

If you are an E-Healthy News You Can Use subscriber and you are at all concerned
about your and your family's health, you do most, if not all of these things:

You take vitamins, herbs or other supplements.


You try to eat the cleanest, healthiest, foods you can find.
You think all of us should have the right to make our own health choices.

If you follow any or all of these habits, I urge you to keep reading about Codex, a

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What You Can do About Codex, A Threat to Your Health Freedom - A... http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/05/14/codex.aspx

threat to your healthy lifestyle and your ability to access what you need to
maintain it.

Your rights have not been taken away… yet. But, if we don’t all wake up and act now,
our access to nutritional supplements to prevent, treat or cure health problems and
diseases, as well as our access to clean, uncontaminated food, which hasn’t been
genetically modified, treated with hormones, antibiotics, growth stimulants or
irradiation, including organically grown food, -- all the things that Mercola.com has been
telling you to choose -- can ultimately become unavailable to us.

If the pharmaceutical interests have their way, even access to alternative,


complementary, or holistic treatment practices will ultimately be in jeopardy. Don’t
panic, the sky is not falling…yet. But now is the time to become concerned, educate
yourself and take action!

You may be asking yourself, "What is this threat? Where is it coming from? I've never
heard of it!" Keep reading...

What is Codex?

The origin of Codex Alimentarius (CO-DEX' AL-A-MEN-TARE'-Y-US): A stealthy


foreign threat that means:

1. Food rules that are about to be imposed upon you!

2. An international regulation designed to control food trade and food standards


all over the world, created by the United Nations more than 40 years ago.

3. A hidden danger to your health and freedom, masquerading as food safety and
protection, the US Congress is about pass into law, one way or another, unless
we act now!

4. Cancer, Obesity, Diabetes, End of Your Health Choices, Xtra pain, suffering and
even premature death.

Where is it Coming From?

CODEX is part of the World Trade Organization -- what Lori Wallach, author of “Whose
Trade Organization?” calls the multinational corporate country club -- and its insidious,
long-term effort to “harmonize” the world’s food, agriculture and edible health product
standards by 2010. Attempts at “HARMonization” have already made inroads through
back door politics in the European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia. Already, zinc
in Germany costs $54 a bottle and 3-4 days worth of synthetic Vitamin E costs close to
$200!

Vitamins and minerals are the first target, although only the tip of the iceberg. Final
ratification of these restrictive vitamin and mineral standards’ framework, a prelude to
all of the food and health-unfriendly provisions of this multi-headed Hydra, is practically
assured at the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission meeting this July 4-9 in Rome.
Unless we make a very big noise!

The United States is Next!

A consensus of international watchdog groups tracking this issue agree that these
stringent international food rules will most likely be mandated into law here in the US

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What You Can do About Codex, A Threat to Your Health Freedom - A... http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/05/14/codex.aspx

through regional “HARMonization,” once we ratify CAFTA, the Central American Free
Trade Agreement and the more expanded hemispheric Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA).

Identical language contained in the SPS (Sanitary PhytoSanitary Measures) in NAFTA,


GATT, CAFTA and the FTAA, bind us to make Codex standards law domestically, part
of an overall strategy to create a European Union equivalent, called the Western
Atlantic Union (WAU), here in the Western hemisphere.

Even merely being a member of the World Trade Organization guarantees


”HARMonization” of our laws with Codex standards. While most of us may not realize
it, treaty law supersedes domestic law. Bills such as Rep. Dr. Ron Paul’s HJ27,
proposing our withdrawal from the WTO, are currently on the docket, but as long as we
are members of this global management initiative, we are obligated to “HARMonize”
with world standards, facing stiff trade sanctions for noncompliance.

At the same time, there is a concerted, although veiled, effort here in the U.S.
Congress to gut the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), our
remaining legal assurance that food supplements are classified as foods, not drugs.
Despite this seeming safeguard and natural trade industry assurances, DSHEA is still
vulnerable. Canada and other countries already have provisions that make
supplements drugs.

How Can This Possibly be Happening?

So, obviously threats to your health choices are multiple and insidious, like the
tentacles of a giant, health and freedom-snatching octopus. How can this possibly be
happening? Although difficult to believe, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, The truth is
so outrageous, it is almost impossible to believe.

Keep on reading. This truth is one you definitely need to understand and act upon.

What Will Codex Mean?

New England Journal of Medicine studies showed that 40 percent of Americans value
disease prevention and alternative health care so they spend over $13 billion annually
with out-of-pocket (non-insurance) money.

Up until this point, compliance with Codex standards has been voluntary. Yet, that is
only the start of the “Boiling Frog” strategy. First, as you may have heard, allowable
supplements will be reduced to a handful of ultra low-dose, synthetic vitamins and
minerals. Then, incredibly -- without public intervention and outcry -- starting this year in
phases, CODEX will go on to do these things:

Prohibit the use of any natural substance to prevent, treat or cure disease.

Legalize genetically modified organisms (GMOs), mandate antibiotics and


hormones in animal feed.

Hoist allowable pesticides, toxin and drug levels in foods, making organics
inaccessible.

Even eventually prohibit the traditional herbs and medicines indigenous cultures
have used for thousands of years.

CODEX is not just about vitamins and minerals, although this is the most acute issue

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What You Can do About Codex, A Threat to Your Health Freedom - A... http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/05/14/codex.aspx

today. It will negatively impact agriculture and economies too. It’s predicted that if
CAFTA passes, for example, U.S. corn exports to Central America would increase by
10,000 percent in the first year. In the first 10 years after NAFTA went into effect, 1.7
million farmers, who make up the majority of the population there, lost their land.

Who is Behind Codex?

The pharmaceutical, chemical and agribusiness corporations stand to make huge


amounts of money from CODEX. Well-funded, massive disinformation campaigns,
half-truth, half-lie “spin” websites like www.snopes.com, as well as infiltration and
control of trade organizations supposedly designed to protect the health food and
supplement industries, are all smoke-and-mirror tactics of these three “Big” interests.

So, if you have heard of CODEX at all, it may have been from industry or government
or even trade group assurances that it is a hoax, beneficial to you, or even both. Don’t
be misled by the massive disinformation campaign. It’s easy to just go along and rely
on the opinions of so-called “experts”, the government and others, but as a veteran
health advocate who has worked for years, like Dr. Mercola, to champion Natural
Health, I can assure you that this is no time to take anything for granted or allow
yourself to be lulled into complacency.

There is enough smoke about this issue – you will be hearing more about it here and
elsewhere in the coming weeks – to warrant making this a priority to understand, act on
and spread the word.

Who Stands To Gain The Most?

Pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical companies, including the makers of


Vioxx with a litany of 139,000 deaths, just accused by the House Committee on
Government Reform of both withholding the truth and releasing misleading information
about the increase heart attack dangers of this drug five years ago!

CODEX is nothing more than “removing of all competition.” The issue is neither
“safety” nor “protection.” Beware, for “He who protects you completely also OWNS
you completely. i.h.”

Who Stands To Lose The Most?

We do. Our families and ourselves.

If we wait until there are no legal options besides drugs and contaminated foods, and
no nutrients or ways to protect ourselves from pesticides, hormones and foreign genes
in our food, how will we be able to keep our families and ourselves healthy?

What Can I DO?

DON’T WAIT. Start becoming educated and take action against CODEX et.al. NOW.
You can:

Sign up to receive an automatic email list of articles, Web sites and


“disinformation” Web sites, plus more detailed info on the CODEX issue,
including sample letters to fax to Congress protesting CAFTA, our membership in
the WTO and attempts to demolish our health choices, by visiting
codex.nancyleebentley.com.

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What You Can do About Codex, A Threat to Your Health Freedom - A... http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/05/14/codex.aspx

Call into FREE interactive teleconference phone calls on Wednesday and


Thursday evenings at 9:00 p.m. EDT conducted by representatives of the newly
formed Coalition for Health Freedom. (Wed., Thurs., 9 p.m. EDT, Dial:
712-824-4100, press 2 at prompt, then enter Access Code: CODEXNO#
(2633966#) Learn more about this complex issue and what steps you can take to
help protect your health freedom.

Request an informational meeting in your local area. Representatives of the


Food Circle and the new Coalition are now scheduling a city-to-city awareness
and action tour. With a local contact person willing to coordinate, you can request
that your town or city be included as a stop on this action tour at
codex.nancyleebentley.com.

ARE YOU WILLING TO ALLOW UNELECTED FOREIGN INTERESTS TO DICTATE


WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR OWN BODY?

CODEX is not without its vulnerability, and WE CAN STOP IT, BUT NOT WITHOUT
YOUR HELP! Take a proactive stance and let your Congressmen and women know
that permitting any attack on your health freedom will mean that they will NOT be
re-elected to Congress again! Get the word out to ALL of your networks.

Keep your health freedom alive!

Nancy Lee Bentley is a dynamic holistic health expert, chef, nutritional


consultant, teacher, writer and speaker. This Cornell-educated food,
nutrition, and communications professional, whose career spans over 25
years in the commercial and whole foods industry, foodservice, health care
and media, has been called a pioneer in the fields of organic and natural
foods, sustainable food systems and holistic health. Her work has appeared
in national and regional publications, with recognition from Earl Nightingale,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 2000 Notable American Women,
among others.

Related Articles:
The Codex Conundrum and How it Affects Supplements in America

Three Steps and 11 Months to Diffuse the Ticking Time Bomb Threatening
Your Access to Vitamins and Minerals

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