News

5 October 2005

Codex Alimentarius Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements apply in jurisdictions where vitamin and mineral food supplements are regulated as foods (rather than as medicines).

These guidelines have been under development for over a decade, under the auspices of the Codex Committee on Nutrition on Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) which finalised the text in the final step of the Codex procedure in Bonn, Germany during their 1-5 November 2004 conference.

These Guidelines, amid considerable opposition from consumer groups and natural health campaigners, were actually accepted at the 28th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome on 14 July 2005.

Note: One of the most negative and noteworthy aspects of these Guidelines is the setting of maximum daily potencies for vitamin and mineral food supplements after considering upper safe levels based on ‘scientific risk assessment’, and dietary intakes from other food sources.

These Guidelines are likely to set, amongst other things, an internationally recognized borderline between dosages of vitamins and minerals used as foods and those used as medicines.

Unfortunately, so-called “scientific risk assessment” approaches have already been widely agreed upon by various government agencies principally in the US and Europe, and are also supported by major trade associations in the natural products area (e.g. the Council for Responsible Nutrition [CRN] and the National Nutritional Foods Association [NNFA] in the USA, along with the European Federation of Health Product Manufacturers [EHPM] in Europe).

The “scientific risk assessment” approach proposed for Codex parallels that set out in Article 5 of the European Commission’s “Food Supplements Directive,” which has formed the template for international Codex guidelines.

Unless existing, flawed methods of risk assessment for nutrients, which are derived from those used on toxins such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides, are substituted for scientifically rational risk / benefit analysis, unnecessarily low dosage ceilings will be applied which could restrict very large numbers of people from accessing dosages beneficial to health.

An FAO/WHO project, the “FAO/WHO Nutrient Risk Assessment Project” has been established specifically to develop a final form of risk assessment to be agreed for Codex. This project invited consultations in 2004 and the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) made a detailed submission (one of 16) on 13 December 2004. The ANH submission, endorsed by a large number of leading, primarily US clinical nutritionists, doctors and scientists (including Drs Abram Hoffer, Jeff Bland, Julian Whitaker, Jonathan Wright, Steve Levine and others) argues that the risk assessment approaches used to-date by US and EU authorities in relation to nutrients are wholly inappropriate and are indeed flawed.

What can be done?
Despite procedural defects in the Guidelines, which should have rendered them invalid, they have been accepted.

An independent group of professional risk analysis scientists at the HAN Foundation in the Netherlands has been commissioned by the Alliance for Natural Health to develop more appropriate scientific risk assessment methodologies for vitamins, minerals and other micro-nutrients which will be directly applicable to Codex Guidelines, as well as the EU Food Supplements Directive.

In addition, WINHS ally, Dr Robert Verkerk, Executive and Scientific Director of the ANH, is working closely with internationally recognised scientists to review risk / benefit methodologies for nutrients with a view to publishing findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

What YOU Can Do to Help
Help place maximum pressure, which is needed from consumers and united interests in the natural health field, to Codex Alimentarius member Governments (*governments of over 170 countries), as well as apply additional consumer and natural health industry pressure with the European Commission and other European institutions which are ‘driving’ the Guidelines, in order that rational systems for assessment of nutrients are adopted.

And note to American Citizens; With the new Central American Free Trade Agreement, (CAFTA), Codex WILL impact the U.S. availability of high dosage vitamins if nothing is specifically done to stop it.

Additionally, as far as possible, countries should be lobbied to avoid agreeing to trade treaties which would force them to harmonise, through the World Trade Organization, with Codex Guidelines.

Also See http://www.winhs.org/campaign/index.htm for more details on what YOU can do to help!

Our special thanks goes to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH).