Talk:Codex Alimentarius
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[edit] Citations sought on oft heard complaints of CA not yet in the 'Controversy' section
- In what way is the CA compulsory? Does the WTO just say "you cannot say you will adhere to our standard, unless you will adhere to the whitelist criteria we set forth" or does the WTO go further and actually want to force countries directly or indirectly to make every product fall under these standards? Will the sanctions only come in effect when a company or country law falsely says it adheres to a standard?
- Where does the CA talk about compulsory bovine growth hormone treatment and antibiotics for cows? While I found recommendations to minimize germs in dairy products (http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/more_info.jsp?id_sta=10087), I cannot find anything about compulsory use of antibiotics or hormones.
- Compulsory irradiation and use of pesticides. Again, I can only find recommendations, not strict rules about use of these measures.
Those fearmongering articles on the CA never cite anything, so lets dig up the specifics on these claims and put them to rest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.171.27.159 (talk) 00:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Banning of supplements
The article says: "The text [of the codex} does not seek to ban supplements, but to subject them to dosage, labeling and composition requirements." This is not entirely accurate. It is important to understand that the Codex Alimentarius is not based on Common Law, wherein that which is not explicitly permitted is not necessarily illegal. The codex is instead based on the Napoleonic Legal Code, wherein "anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden." According to Dr. Rima E. Laibow, M.D, who has studied more than 16,000 pages of the Codex Alimentarius, the "Napoleonic Code allows the banning of natural health options by default."
Also, as stated below, the codex uses the toxicological, rather than the biochemical method for regulation. For instance, Vitamin C would be restricted to a few milligrams per dose. Although this is not technically a ban, this does restrict its usage to a point where it becomes a ban. An average dose of Vitamin C can be about 200 miligrams, but about 1000 mg is what is usually recommended. While I respect the need for NPOV, the true nature of the codex must be explicated.--207.81.87.20 03:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- You understand, of course, that any hint of regulation of dietary supplements results in a hysterical backlash from supplement manufacturers, their affiliates, and their lobbying arm, along the lines of "they're taking away your vitamins!" So if your goal is to claim that the Codex is some sort of Trojan Horse, then the sourcing needs to be solid and it needs to be presented carefully. MastCell Talk 04:35, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
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- Anon 207 is making a point about law. In general, we pass law to declare illegal acts. "Don't cross the street on the red light", "Don't carry a gun"; law defines illegal acts. But all other actions, any action not specified, is legal. Common and criminal law starts with the huge playing field of human interaction and puts up specific barriers, calling out specific illegal acts. But the Codex operates differently. The whole playing field of the Codex is illegal to begin with. There is NO legal action until the Codex specifically says an action is legal. The whole field is one solid, illegal black mass. Then, the Codex lays out a few legal areas; "200 milligrams of Vitamin C (or less) can be manufactured and sold". But 250 milligrams is not specified and is, therefore, illegal. This is a remarkable difference. This difference is very rare, its concept is very different from the law most of us know. Surely it is worth mentioning. Jim Bough 15:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] NPOV?
This looks like an article against the Codex Alimentarius, not like one about it. --199.41.197.19 13:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Seconded. I would edit it myself, but I've no knowledge on the subject. 137.205.148.5 18:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The Codex was indeed controversial at some points, and all the points seem valid. I’d say that the only issue is that they seem to be given a bit too much weight in the piece.
It sure would be controversial if you lived in South America where the expropriation of indigenous knowledge with regard to new medical discoveries was being made profitable by the codex alimentarius involvement in DR-CAFTA monopolizing on the trade of goods and services in Central America. Progress is unsustainable, let’s be smarter than that.
As the first person to call the Codex International Threat to Health Freedom to global attention, I had serious DEATH THREATS for attempting to get congressional oversight on this issue, and witnessed the WHITEWASHING of an oversight hearing on March 20, 2001 that I has pushed for for 5 years. There is no way to have an accurate description of CODEX ALIMENTARIUS without discussing this side of things. Codex is part of a GLOBAL GENOCIDE AGENDA. http://www.nocodexgenocide.com Especially see this Petition for congressional oversight on the FDA's Trilateral Cooperation Charter (With Canada and Mexico)http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/373269232 See this petition in Context by reading this article: http://www.nocodexgenocide.com/page/page/3259061.htm
Previous post is truly paranoid nonsense. Visit the Codex website directly, http://www.codexalimentarius.net, to read about its mission and activities. Codex promotes consumer protection and fair trade in food products. Codex standards are based on science and the input of government experts, industry observers, and consumer organizations. Anyone afraid of Codex is simply afraid of the application of scientific risk assessment to his/her products.
No. "Codex is unscientific because it classifies nutrients as toxins and uses “Risk Assessment” to set ultra low so-called “safe upper limits” for them. Risk Assessment is a branch of Toxicology, the science for assessing toxins. The proper science for assessing nutrients is Biochemistry. Codex does not use Biochemistry."--207.81.87.20 20:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Ho hum. I am old and cynical enough to understand that when someone says something is fair, it's not. "Fair trade" sets off all sorts of alarm bells. ("Fair" to whom?) There must be something to the paranoia... Hmm, the BBC article is pretty revealing. I can understand why people are up in arms about this. I wonder what Linus Pauling would think...
Linus Paulig is rolling in his grave. The Codex is the push of the pharma-cartel to take health decisions out of your hands, and into theirs. They want to limit access to vitamins because deficiency causes disease. Being a multi-billion dollar investment industry, the pharma-cartel profits only when you get sick. They have no interest in you being healthy, only 'treating' your symptoms when you are not. Even so, over 1/2 million people die EACH YEAR from pharmaceutical drug side effects. Some treatment!
More nonsense here. Give us an example of Codex attempting to "limit access" to vitamins (i.e., recognized vitamins with established RDIs). Codex standards, meeting agendas, and discussion documents are all available online at the website referenced above, so you should have no trouble backing up your claims with a link to a relevant Codex document if one exists. If anyone is trying to limit access to vitamin supplements, they're doing a very poor job. They're readily available everywhere.
- I think the concerns of the people who started the npov dispute have been addressed. The controversy is now mentioned and further sources linked. This seems like a decent (if brief) article which doesn't push any particular POV. Psychobabble 09:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
With great respect to the debate's direction thus far, said article still contains all-caps statements, ad-hominem attacks, and emotional mudslings. It seems far from NPOV; however, I don't feel qualified to talk at length on the topic of Codex, and hope that someone who does can help. For example, observe paragraphs 3-4 of ==Scope==: "As unbelievable as it may sound, Dr. Grossklaus actually declared nutrients to be toxins in 1994." Actually, Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) said this first: "All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing a poison" [1]. This is a famous and logically-grounded conclusion assumed by most food scientists - for example, drinking too much water can shut down the renal system, and thus can considered a toxin. Toxicologists don't label substances as "toxins" and "non-toxins"; rather, they painstakingly determine "how much does it take to be harmful?" since everything is potentially harmful in overdose. This seems like a relevant aspect of nutrition standards and labeling, no?
No. "Codex is unscientific because it classifies nutrients as toxins and uses “Risk Assessment” to set ultra low so-called “safe upper limits” for them. Risk Assessment is a branch of Toxicology, the science for assessing toxins. The proper science for assessing nutrients is Biochemistry. Codex does not use Biochemistry." --207.81.87.20 20:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Calling toxicology "junk science" doesn't make it so; if the author of that paragraph could back up that or any of the surrounding claims with at least a reference, it might be valid. As the previous commenter said, all of Codex's standards are up online for review. Dr. Rima Laibow, however, the oft-cited spearhead of its opposition, despite being having earned an MD in psychaitry and being the president of multiple nutrition associations, has no published academic articles in any field (having searched for her in pubmed.org).
- PubMed is certainly incomplete with regard to pre-internet works, at least, and apparently does not cover all aspects of medical knowledge and theory, especially not "alternative medicine". According to Laibow's resume, (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/aboutus/resume.pdf) she has published quite a bit. The level of detail and the fact that it includes many verifiable facts (license numbers etc.) makes me think that she and her resume are legitimate. A brief search for the most recent works listed on her resume (2002 in the Journal of Neurotherapy) shows that a) the J. Neurotherapy is legit, with back issues hosted at upenn.edu, and b) the pubisher of J. Neurotherapy, ISNR, publishes abstracts of Laibow's work (http://www.isnr.org/uploads/Volume%206.pdf). Please don't single-source, I'm sure there's a WP policy against it, and please be careful not to slander people based on incomplete research of their contributions. Tzf 20:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
If this article is to be NPOV by fairly representing multiple views on what is true, then let each view be backed by logical arguments and references, not all-caps drama. There are actually decent arguments against Codex out there, but they could be better represented here than as they currently stand. 69.89.110.40 05:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The edits you mention are clearly inappropriate and snuck in under the radar - I've removed them. I agree with your other points as well. MastCell Talk 05:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I've been doing a bit of work on this article as I thought that it needed tidying up. For example, I've clarified a couple of issues that I thought needed a little further explanation and have added a proper reference section. Whilst working on the article, however, the thought occurred to me that using the 'Understanding the Codex Alimentarius' pages as a source does not conform to the NPOV requirements, in that the publishers of 'Understanding the Codex Alimentarius' - the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - are also the actual financial sponsors of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. In other words, the material contained on the 'Understanding the Codex Alimentarius' pages (which are is also published in book form) constitutes a partisan understanding of Codex, as opposed to a NPOV. As such, I propose that 'Understanding the Codex Alimentarius' (and, for that matter, the link to the official Codex website) should be moved to the 'External links' section. I would also suggest that we try to find some reliable secondary sources, in order to balance out material contained in the article that appears to have come directly from these primary sources. Vitaminman 07:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
- In the absense of any views to the contrary I have now merged the links to the official Codex website and the WHO/FAO's 'Understanding the Codex Alimentarius' pages into the external links section. I've also done a little tidying up of the external links section generally. Vitaminman 09:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
First of all this topic is driving me nuts, ever since I heard of the reclassification of vitamins into toxins something the Canadian government is pre-empting in complience to the gradual steps (I believe Codex is at step 6 of 9 at the moment) and after going to www.codexalimentarius.net I am not happy to discover the amount of impedence that exist so that I cannot discover the truth of the actions of CODEX. Many pdf files in the form of reports/meetings are cut short and this is straight off of the home page! I found an 88 page report that showed about 12 pages. A 12 Page reports showing 4 pages! So i tried to go to the source so to spead by downloading audio tapes from the meetings (I have heard of S. Africa and India being kicked out of meetings for argueing and thought this would be interesting to hear even though I only speak english) and for some reason on ALL the audio files that I tried to download to listen to have...pauses every TWO seconds! I can't even pick up the english that is being spoken because of it. Now, this is just a thought of conspiracy but would it not be easy to manipulate these tapes by cutting and slicing if they have a pause/blurp every TWO seconds? I am definetly going to try to re-download these files through a friends computer this weekend to so if they infact are like that, not just my computer mal-funtioning. but im sure the pdf's that are missing alot of pages will be the same. The site www.CODEXAlimentarius.net seems to be operated by the WHO and FAO. The only research done on vitamins and minerals has come from foods being derived from biotechnology since 1991". http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/biotech.jsp This is very frustrating having somebody controlling my government seeing how many of us are already battling with our governments over rights/legislation/wording of laws and its already been happening without our knowledge. Would someone please help me to find where these "scientific studies" are available to the general public to which the laws are to be based upon?? I have seen proposed upper limits on random unreliable sites but am still searching for FAO and WHO UL's. The current "Guidlines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements" can be downloaded from www.codexalimentarius.net/download/standards/10206/cxg_055e.pdf written as of 2005 (the same time Canada last past legislation the harmonized with the codex in regards to vitamin and mineral supplements...I am gonna stop here and I hope that I didn't butcher the licensed agreement GFDL and copyright infringments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessduff (talk • contribs) 19:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] fact?
It has just been edited to describe "Alliance For Natural Health Website" as "lobbying against Codex Alimentarius." (in External Links.) Is that accurate? Or, is the group lobbying against having certain specific regulations passed within the Codex framework? Perhaps a citation is needed to support this claim. --Coppertwig 01:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Bridging the Great Divide
In the 19:21, 9 February 2007 edit [2] by MastCell mentioned above, the link to the article "Bridging the Great Divide" was deleted. This looks to me like a relevant external link directly to an informative article. Please explain, MastCell, what part of the WP:EL policy applies to this in your opinion. --Coppertwig 01:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Dead link?
The "HealthFreedomUSA" link appears to be dead. --John Nagle 05:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
- It loads for me. Anchoress 04:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] When does Codex Alimentarius become Foodcopeia ...???
Have noticed that some of the standards have not been reviewed and revised for more than 20 years. We can imagine that how many biological bugs and mycotoxins will be stacked on those standards... hah....???? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.64.49.46 (talk) 06:53:56, August 19, 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Controversy
There is growing controversy about this Codex. A google search for "Codex Alimentarius" returns hits that range from the official site to sites titled "Stop Codex". If it becomes law in the USA, almost everything sold in health food stores could only be sold by prescription and most health food stores would go out of business. Chinese medicine uses large amounts of herbs, too. In the guise of "food safety", it could require a medical prescription for garlic and other common herbs. Here is a link about some of the controversy [3]. Why don't we create a "Controversy" section in the article and include one of the hundreds of thousands of links that a google search brings up? Jim Bough 16:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
- The article already covers the controversial aspects of the Codex. It is extremely unlikely to become law in the USA, given the lobbying power exerted by the supplement industry, but if it does (or if there is even a notable proposal that it be enacted in the USA), then at that point we'll cover that. As to the thousands of Google hits, we need to be a bit selective about what we cite, as required by WP:V and WP:RS. This is, after all, an encyclopedia and not a forum to uncritically rehash every jackbooted-federal-agents-are-coming-for-your-vitamins piece of propaganda out there on the Internet. I believe the health freedom movement's objections to the Codex are already discussed in the article. MastCell Talk 17:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
There is not enough information under the controversy about Codex Alimentarius. The site I am referencing for a link provides more in depth details and yes it does have a huge chance of being adopted in this country since our politicians are selling us out piece by piece. People need to know the dangers and this site is on the cutting edge of the truth about the Codex. - UN Owen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unowen7 (talk • contribs) 17:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
It matters not whether CA becomes legal or not in the USA. The act itself is an international one and wiki is not exclusively a USA encyclopedia (see wiki enteries on Common Law and Tort Law for example). Thus, whether or not it take effect in the USA is of no importance and anything relevant to legislation needs to be included. You are also making an assumption that it "will probably not be introduced in the USA.
- The site does not meet the criteria set forth in Wikipedia's guideline on external links. It does not offer reliable and encyclopedic information. It offers nothing reliable and encyclopedic that could not be incorporated into the article if it is improved further. And it contains significant amounts of advertising. If your goal is to insert information opposing Codex, or detailing opposition to Codex, it would be worthwhile to review the policies on verifiability and reliable sources and find adequately sourced information to incorporate into the article, rather than spamming an unencyclopedic external link. MastCell Talk 22:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] POV-section tag
The article's section labeled "controversy", after its first few sentences, lacks anything even approximating the level of rigor I'd like to see in a Wikipedia article. For example, stating that one cannot consume 500mg of Vitamin C were these restrictions in place is patently absurd; you would presumably be able to buy 100mg (or 50mg, or whatever) pills and consume them in whatever quantity you wish. Both the tone and presentation of the "controversy", as it stands, are heavily weighted against the Codex. While it might be reasonable to include these concerns, we need to at least attribute them to WP:RSs and modify them to ensure WP:WEIGHT. Jouster (whisper) 16:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
- There are some good sources there, but also some WP:OR. I'd encourage any effort to cut back the OR and stick more closely to the sources, or to find more reliable sources for the section. MastCell Talk 20:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
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- I've removed the material from this section that contravenes WP:OR and have added a citation needed tag to indicate that a WP:SOURCE is needed concerning the "speculation that Codex Alimentarius is an infringement on human rights." Frankly though, at the current time, I doubt very much that there is a reliable source for this claim. As such, for the time being, it effectively constitutes a POV and contravenes WP:OR. Vitaminman (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
