Codex Update

Who Needs Healthy Food When We Can Eat Cash? Codex Update


Scott Tips, JD
Activist Post

The hazy, smoggy skies over Beijing during these March days are emblematic of the Codex meetings
that the National Health Federation (NHF) has been attending for many
days here in China. The Sun only shimmers as a strange, pale orange
globe, casting an ethereal, almost futuristic Bladerunner look to
the cityscape while city residents glide silently past with white face
masks and we Codex delegates and staff work inside overheated rooms on
international food-additive standards. Given what has transpired, the
setting seems appropriate.

Throughout the week of March 18-22, 2013, the Codex Committee on Food
Additives (CCFA) met at the Asia Hotel in Beijing, China, chaired by Dr.
Junshi Chen of the China National Center for Food Safety Risk
Assessment, to consider hundreds of food additives, some of which are
innocuous, even healthful, others of which are most decidedly toxic. The
problem is that many of the Codex delegates cannot discern the
difference between the two, the haziness of their thinking working in
some sort of bizarre parallel to the opaque weather outdoors.

As the only consumer group present at this meeting,
and the working group that preceded it, the NHF offered a unique
perspective on what its members consider healthful and what it does not.
To us, aluminum-containing food additives and aspartame
are self-evidently toxic and should be removed from the food supply.
However, to the trade organizations here, and their foot servants in too
many of the regulatory agencies that sit in as the country-member Codex
delegates here, such food additives are simply vehicles of
manufacturing convenience and health be damned. In fact, I rather
suspect that had these same businesses been manufacturing leaden
drinking vessels during the heyday of the Roman Empire, then they would
have similarly defended such vessels' use as vital and indispensable
tools of commerce, no matter that the users were slowly being poisoned
by the deadly, leaching lead.

Ubiquitous, Dangerous Aluminum

Scientists have known that aluminum is toxic since at least 1911. Even
the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
Dr. Harvey Wiley, admitted, in his 1929 book History of Crime against the Food Laws,
that "From the earliest days of food regulation, the use of alum
[aluminum sulphate] in foods has been condemned. It is universally
acknowledged as a poison in all countries. If the Bureau of Chemistry
had been permitted to enforce the law ... no food product in the country
would have any trace of ... any aluminum or saccharin." Dr. Wiley was
the major force behind the first pure food law in the United States, but
he resigned in disgust because the laws were not being enforced. To
this date, aluminum has never been tested for safety by the FDA.

Aluminum is a known neurotoxin, easily crossing the blood-brain barrier,
and it interferes with ATP enzymes, which carry out the important
function of energy transfer among brain cells. Aluminum worsens the
effects of other toxins, such as pesticides, herbicides, mercury,
cadmium, fluoride, lead, and glutamate. It also detaches highly
oxidizing iron in the bloodstream from its protective carrier
transferrin. This greatly increases the toxicity of iron and is at least
one of the mechanisms by which aluminum is toxic to the brain. Warnings
about the toxic effects of aluminum could, and do, fill volumes.

Aluminum
ammonium sulfate, aluminum silicate, calcium aluminum silicate, sodium
aluminum phosphates, and sodium aluminosilicate are the food additives
that Codex was reviewing this session. They can be found in practically
as many foods as you can imagine: vegetables, soybean paste, crackers,
pastas and noodles, bagels, English muffins, pita bread, bread and
baking mixes, chewing gum, milk and cream powder, processed cheeses,
flours, batters for fish and poultry, dairy-based drinks such as eggnog,
beverage whiteners, dried-whey products, salt, seasonings and
condiments, soup and broth mixes, and sauces. And do not think that you
can always look at labels and see them disclosed there because often the
aluminum compound is hidden within a particular product identity.

The Working Group

One of the things you learn early on at Codex meetings is the importance
of the various ad-hoc working groups that the Codex Committees form
from time to time to deal with specific food topics. These working
groups either take the form of "electronic" Working Groups (eWGs) or
"physical" Working Groups (pWGs). In the same way that the Codex
Committees perform the grunt work for the parent Codex Alimentarius
Commission, the working groups perform the dirty work for the
Committees. If a delegate wants to have an impact at Codex, it is
important to start at the bottom of the food chain and work one's way
upward.

At the Physical Working Group (as opposed to the Electronic Working
Group) on the Codex General Standard for Food Additives (GSFA) that met
on Friday, March 15-16th, and which was chaired by Mr. Paul Honigfort (a
Consumer Safety Officer with the FDA), the NHF and the European Union
repeatedly and harshly criticized aluminum-containing food additives and
called for their removal. At various times the delegations of Iran,
Japan, Brazil, and even China helped us by joining us in that call. But,
we were opposed by the usual Codex suspects, the ones whom you would
really think knew better – the delegations of Australia, the United
States and Canada – and their handlers, those front organizations that
masquerade as trade organizations, such as the International Food
Additives Council (IFAC). Playing tag-team with IFAC on this issue was
the International Council of Grocery Manufacturers Associations (ICGMA),
another industry apologist for keeping aluminum in food additives.

In dishing out scorching criticism of aluminum and its proponents, NHF
came under return fire from Australia, IFAC, and the Working Group
Chairman! The arrogance of Australia was particularly notable since
Australia seems to always be on the wrong side of the health issues at
all Codex meetings. What's up with that? Is it ignorance or is Australia
simply the point man for the United States on all of these issues? To
my memory, Australia has never met an unhealthy Codex standard that it
did not love. And "in your face" discussions by Katherine Carroll (a
member of the NHF delegation) with Australia only confirmed Australia's
intransigence and lack of interest in health.

As the delegations tangled and argued over the aluminum food additives,
the essence of the debate was not over the danger of the additives but
over the need of the industry for aluminum in producing its foods and
drinks. Supported by Australia, IFAC, along with its sidekick ICGMA,
cried out constantly that the "Industry" just could not make its
products without aluminum food additives. Their members' spraying
equipment "might overheat and catch fire," IFAC lamented. When NHF
suggested that this was a not a genuine issue and that the industry has
enough clever engineers to easily innovate its way out of this "problem"
and create non-overheating equipment, NHF was sharply rebuked by the
Chairman for suggesting that IFAC might not be telling the truth. Yet,
really, in a World full of engineers, how long would it take to fashion a
solution to the spraying-equipment fires, if any, that IFAC
successfully interjected as a reason to keep some aluminum food
additives? Monkeys in a zoo could solve this problem. Or, maybe not – if
they had consumed too much aluminum.

At one point, the ICGMA representative stated that the aluminum food
additive was the "best" for the job. Speaking immediately next, I
started out with the retort that "'Best' obviously did not include any
consideration of health. It only included consideration of what was best
to manufacture the product." It would seem that for these food-additive
companies, whatever is best for them must be best for the rest of us.
Which is sort of like saying that if you kick someone enough times for
you to feel good, then it must be good for the victim too.

Scott Tips, President of NHF, speaking for the consumer

Still, by the end of the first day and after I had
spoken out some two dozen times, the success of the EU and NHF could be
tallied by the numerous uses of aluminum food additives that the Working
Group would suggest be discontinued to the full Committee meeting.
Although there were also many food-additive uses that still remained –
no thanks to the interventions of voluble Australia, the U.S., Canada,
IFAC, and ICGMA – they were at greatly reduced levels, usually cut in
half or more. So, progress was made; and most delegates agreed that
Codex's goal was the eventual elimination of all aluminum food
additives.

On the issue of aspartame as a food additive, which was the subject of a
Conference Room Document (CRD 12) drafted by the Federation, neither
the working group nor the full Committee had the time to debate this
additive and the can was kicked down the road, to be considered at next
year's meeting.

With minor adjustments of no real import, the overall recommendations of
the working group were accepted by the full Committee and referred up
to the Codex Commission.

The Opposition

It
seemed self-evident that the main country delegations pushing aluminum
additives had received their marching orders from industry. The real
key, then, was industry itself, represented as it was at Codex by trade
groups that, in some cases, might be more properly called front groups
for big players like Monsanto and DuPont. They seemed to be calling the
shots, but who is really behind them?

Dr. Joseph Mercola, in particular, recently and very helpfully wrote,
"'m making public IFAC's list of officers and board members as of
2011. It wasn't easy to find this list, primarily because IFAC isn't a
regular 501(c)(3). In fact, it isn't a 501(c)(3) at all. Actually, it's a
501(c)(6) – an IRS classification for nonprofit "commercially oriented"
organizations such as football leagues, chambers of commerce and,
apparently, groups like IFAC.

Once you know its non-profit classification, you can find its 990 forms –
which all non-profits must file, complete with lists of officers and
directors. I obtained IFAC's 990s for the years 2004-2011. And there I
learned the truth. Except for two, who I couldn't find any information
at all on, all of IFAC's officers and directors are linked to processed
foods and additives in some way, with at least six of them having direct
or business links to Monsanto and/or DuPont. That's right. Six of
IFAC's governing board members are linked to the largest GMO producers
in the world."

And in looking at the large IFAC delegation, one can see names linked
with Solae LLC (which used to be known as DuPont Protein Technologies),
Innophos Inc. (leading producer of phosphates), Ashland China (BigAg),
and the Kellen company (which manages so many of these front groups).
The paw prints of these anti-health companies is all over the industry
trade group INGOs at Codex, just as they are over certain Codex
delegations. The NHF was the only consumer group present at the CCFA
meeting – the David against these Goliaths.

Speech in Moscow

Scott Tips shaking hands with the Chairman after the speeches in Moscow

Still, the National Health Federation has gained enough
respect over its many years at Codex, and after so many vocal battles
with Chairmen, Chairwomen, and other delegations in arguing for health
and health freedom, that while at the CCFA meeting in Beijing, I was
asked by the Chairman of the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Food
(CCCF) to give a speech for NHF on behalf of all consumers worldwide on
the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Codex. The
speech was to be given in Moscow, Russia on April 10th during a special
session of the meeting. I accepted.

That acceptance, though, meant flying back through California, New
Jersey, and France, and then on to Moscow in time for the meeting and
speech. Stubborn snow, carefully scooped up off the streets and
sidewalks into neat piles, slowly melting in the sun, greeted me as I
arrived there. I prepared my speech during the trip and while there in
Moscow, and on that clear Wednesday day, presented it.

There were seven speakers in all, four country delegations, the NHF for
consumers, and then two industry speakers, in that order. Sitting at the
head table before more than 200 delegates, I was right next to the
podium, and speakers as they each spoke in turn. I could see them up
close and they all spoke well, using PowerPoint, and about their
country/industry's involvement in Codex.

When it was my turn to speak, I spoke instead, without PowerPoint, about
my experiences in arguing against melamine at my first CCCF meeting;
about the essence of Codex being to protect the consumer by ensuring
access to a healthy diet; about consumers being suspicious of Codex and
its cozy relationship with industry; about the ease with which
regulators can get caught up in "standard making" and forget the human
faces and costs behind these rules and standards; about "science based" evidence being
nothing more than a word that can be twisted and used in the wrong way
as it was once used against Galileo; about "old errors being more
popular than new truths"; about us all being consumers with families and
lives, and that it is important for us to always remember that there
are real people, real human faces, affected by the decisions made at
Codex; and about the delegates' duty to them.

It was not the firebrand, head-clubbing speech that some there had
feared I would make (or that others not there had hoped I would make),
but it was spoken to win hearts and not smash them. Seemingly, the
message was received. Perhaps in time it will even be acted upon.

[i]Scott Tips, JD is a California-licensed attorney, legal columnist and president and general counselor for the National Health Federation.
He specializes in food-and-drug law and trademark law, but also engages
in business litigation, general business law, and nonprofit
organizations, with an international clientele.

Source:-
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/04/who-needs-healthy-food-when-we-can-eat.html