The Codex restrictions ensure that the quantity and quality of supplements that can be imported by the European market from America will diminish. But in the U.S. there is a government-corporate propaganda campaign dedicated to assuring American consumers and small supplement producers that they are in no danger of ending up like their European counterparts. Large companies such as Herbalife International say that anyone who suggests that Americans will lose access to supplements is plying "misinformation." The company goes so far as to tell its international network of distributors that corporate HQ represents them at Codex meetings, and they will be told when, if ever, to open their mouths. In July 2003, the Consumers Union hailed the scientific risk assessment standards of Codex. American Herbal Products is slightly more perspicacious. This trade association recognizes that the WTO can, at least in theory, push the Codex standards upon Americans.

Why Is There Confusion About Codex?

One of the reasons that U.S. trade associations and consumers are confused about Codex—and why pro-Codex lobbyists, such as the FDA and the CRN, can dismiss the legitimate concerns of consumers as conspiracy theories—is because, due to the complexity of the bureaucracy at work, people have conflated the Codex Guidelines (which has no positive list, nor an upper dose limit, yet) and the EU directive (which does have a positive list, but no upper dose limit, yet). Reading the FDA's or CRN member's barrage of disclaimers about the negative impact of Codex upon the U.S., one is struck by the shared mantra that compliance with Codex is "voluntary," when, in truth, non-compliance may result in trade sanctions or expulsion from the WTO. Another popular phrase that pops up in the campaign, "science-based risk assessment," sounds nice until you realize it is a technique more aptly applied to arsenic or cyclamates, than to Vitamin E, which has known benefits (as well as some risk if used improperly).

The fact that too much of a good thing can cause harm has been blown out of proportion by Codex proponents. For instance, a study of the effects of Vitamin E upon smokers and cancer victims has been widely publicized as "proving" that the vitamin has no positive effect on health (and may result in death); whereas dozens of unpublicized, scientifically-superior studies show that Vitamin E has many benefits (and that the negative study was deeply flawed). Or take the case of the amino acid, L-tryptophane, demonized a few years back after a genetically-engineered batch manufactured in Japan was fatally contaminated. Instead of questioning the efficacy of genetic engineering as a manufacturing strategy, or the wisdom of replacing natural substances with synthetic, proprietary goop, the pharmaceutical-regulatory establishment attacked L-tryptophane in all of its forms, many of which are beneficial. Underlying all the public relations blather, and reams of subjectivized, financially compromised studies, is the fact that world trade in food supplements is being restricted and transformed for the worse under the guise of eliminating trade restrictions and promoting health.

Enter the WTO

Contrary to rumor, Vitamin C will not be banned in the U.S. in August. But some forms of it will be banned in the EU; and a similar ban could eventually appear in the U.S., although that event is not inevitable. On the other hand, it will be much more difficult for ordinary consumers to stop this eventuality than it was for them to affect DSHEA, which was transformed by consumer pressure from a restrictive measure into its opposite. In fact, the very existence of DSHEA is used by Codex proponents as "proof" that the U.S. is protected against Codex, because DSHEA is "less restrictive" than Codex and the EU directive. That is hollow reassurance.

DSHEA is a malleable act of Congress, subject to constituent pressure. The implementing force of Codex—the WTO—is based upon an international treaty to which the United States is a party. And the WTO does not care a fig for people's health concerns. It is designed to manipulate the formation and deformation of trade barriers in favor of the strongest monopolists.

Here is how it works. The WTO derives its power to regulate international trade through treaties. In the age of the political, cultural, and economic dominance of multinational corporations, it acts as a kind of clearing house, or court of last resort, to settle trade disputes short of war. In theory, the WTO is concerned that no country favor its own exports by placing "unfair" restrictions upon competing imports.

Run by and for the interests of large industrial and financial enterprises, the WTO views "harmonization" of food standards as promoting "free trade." Unfortunately, free trade as conceptualized and actualized by the dominant WTO members (United States, European Union, Japan) is not about leveling the playing field so that small producers or underdeveloped countries can compete with the big guys. It is about ensuring that the most powerful corporations can continue to grow, eating up the small fish and expanding into new markets in both industrialized and industrializing economies. It is about maximizing the extraction of profit for stock-holders, as opposed to maximizing the health or economic well-being of a population.

To that end, WTO members have agreed to abide by the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT), which mandate that no country will impose unfair barriers to trade, and that they will work to harmonize regulations that affect trade by abiding by international standards, or face trade sanctions. In theory, this could mean that the United States, by allowing the internal sale of substances and supplement doses that are disallowed in Europe is, in effect, imposing a barrier to the "free trade" of EU supplements, since consumers are less likely to buy products that are diluted by Codex restrictions. And the FDA, which is clearly controlled by the pharmaceutical and agribusiness sector, is in the process of harmonizing the internal market, partly through the scientific auspices of the IOM, in a way that parallels the EU Community and Codex processes. From the perspective of the WTO, it is not harmonious to have one relatively unrestricted supplement market, governed by DSHEA, surrounded by a more restricted world market bound under Codex. Since it is, when all is said and done, in the interests of the WTO movers and shakers to carve up the food supplement market amongst themselves, while excluding small producers, it is likely that the movement to mirror the Codex restrictions in America will continue. And should that fail, the SPS and TBT treaties ensure that legal actions can be mounted by European governments at the WTO level to compel the U.S. to toe the Codex line, or pay the price of non-compliance.

(It is important to note that food and food supplements are only one area of commerce that the WTO and the United Nations are attempting to harmonize. Ultimately, world trade will increasingly fall under the spell of monopoly as commodities become uniformly regulated in conformance with the Neoliberal economic doctrine [the so-called "Washington Consensus"] that currently prevails in the White House, at the United Nations Security Council, and inside the WTO.)

The Irony of the Situation

The ultimate irony, some might say horror, of the situation is highlighted by looking at a joint report by the FAO/WHO issued in 2003, Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Disease. This impeccably researched, enormously valuable study—performed by other arms of the same organizations that administer Codex—finds that the health of Third World populations is being destroyed by importing the First World diet, which is heavy in saturated fats, trans fats, unrefined carbohydrates and sugar, meat and dairy, while lacking in vegetables, fruits, and dietary fiber. This unhealthy diet, says the FAO/WHO, is spreading around the globe "like an infectious disease."

Without mentioning Codex, the report implicitly damns the commission's methods and its guidelines for vitamins and minerals. For example, the report notes that "[Food] guidelines should try to ensure that the overall benefit of recommendations to the majority of the population substantially outweigh any potential adverse effects on selected subgroups." In other words, upper dosage limits for supplements should be set to benefit the population as a whole, not calculated, say, on the potential for excessive intake of Vitamin A to harm a fetus.

"Population nutrient goals recommended by FAO/WHO [should be] tailored to local or national diets and populations [to] reverse or reduce impact of unfavorable dietary changes occurred over the past century [and in] developing countries recently." Of course, the WTO is not about to base trade rules on health issues. Rather, with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Third World markets are being inundated with fast and processed foodstuffs, even as their trade balances are undermined by the importation of meat, dairy, sugar and refined grain. In short, the natural economies serving billions of people are being turned to dust by transnational agribusiness, which, in taking over local food industries and promoting bad diet, cause the need for vitamin and mineral supplements to increase at the very moment that the population's ability to access natural pharmacopeias is being curtailed by Codex's profit-maximization scheme. The rise of diet-related chronic disease is good business for biotech corporations such as Cargill that sell food and food ingredients while positioning themselves to market cancer cures, cardiovascular drugs, and dietary food supplements.

Regarding upper dosage limits for supplements, the FAO/WHO report observes, "Seldom is there a single 'best value' [instead] there is often a range of population averages consistent with maintenance of health … the recommended dietary/nutrition practice should modify the attributable risk of the undesirable exposure in that population." In other words, national-level regulations can best serve the needs of national populations. And responsible labeling practices protect consumers by informing them about the dangers of over-dosing.

The FAO/WHO study advises eating fruits and vegetables, shying away from red meat, saturated fat, and refined sugar, while exercising regularly, and avoiding television. It promotes the use of vitamins and minerals (including substances excluded from the EU directive's positive list) for fighting cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and the other ills that come from eating nutrient-stripped, flavor-added "food." Which brings us back to the opening sentence of the Codex Guidelines: "Most people who have access to a balanced diet can usually obtain all the nutrients they require from their normal diet."

Conclusion

Clearly, most people, even in America, do not have access to a balanced diet and the nutrients they require. Supplements are one way of alleviating the symptoms of a globalizing problem that can only be solved by an epochal transformation of the planet's political economy. It is not just irresponsible for the Codex Commission to throttle the global market in food and food supplements when 2.8 billion people are forced to live on less than two dollars a day; it is malign.

But even in the world's most over-consuming society, corporate domination of the food and drug supply is wreaking havoc. As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and elsewhere, food-borne diseases contribute to approximately 76 million illnesses, 323,000 hospitalizations, and 5,200 deaths in the United States alone each year, while properly prescribed and administered prescription and over the counter drugs are estimated to cause annually 2.2 million serious adverse events, and some 106,000 deaths in the United States—while "regulators" sit by idly. The normal use of vitamins and minerals, on the other hand, is not a death sentence.