National Health Federation

Codex and Aspartame-NHF Report

Codex and Aspartame-NHF Report

Written by Bill Sardi
Category: Codex
Published: September 2007

NEWSLETTER No. 11 – SEPTEMBER 2007

        For many years now, the National Health Federation has spent enormous man-hours on issues concerning Codex. As the health-freedom voice at Codex, we feel we have an obligation to health-conscious consumers to represent their views and wishes at these meetings and to make sure that the public is informed with our direct, first-hand knowledge of the issues.

Unfortunately, virtually every single week, we see so much misinformation and misunderstanding being generated on the subject that it is difficult for us to counter every bad piece of information. As the saying goes, “A Lie will fly around the World while Truth is still putting on its pants.”

The most recent issue that needs clarification involves the aspartame and food-additive issues and the call for the general public to submit comments to the FDA. It appears that this issue just involves a simple misunderstanding of the process, which misunderstanding can be easily corrected.

In the past, we talked about Codex and the serious threat it posed to health freedom while most others laughed and went about their everyday business. Today, we hear no laughter any more; in fact, the reality of Codex is now known to most in the health-freedom arena. But, unfortunately, Codex misunderstandings still abound. Forgive us if we cannot correct every single one of them.

NHF SUBMITTING COMMENTS TO CODEX COMMITTEE ON FOOD ADDITIVES REGARDING ASPARTAME AND OTHER DANGEROUS ADDITIVES

Many have asked NHF about the recent round of e-mails circulating through the internet telling persons to send in their comments to the Electronic Working Group (EWG) of the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA). The deadline, they have said, is this September 15, 2007. “Hurry,” they urge.

Unfortunately, these urgent requests will get you all stirred up for nothing. First of all, the EWG will only accept comments from governmental members of Codex or from accredited International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) – such as the National Health Federation. They will not accept comments from anyone else. So, if you have written comments and are sending them in, you might as well wad them up and throw them into a waste can for all that the EWG will care.

The National Health Federation is the only health-freedom group with the right to submit comments to this EWG and we are doing just that – rest assured. Moreover, NHF will be attending the next CCFA meeting to be held in April 2008. If you have comments that you wish to have considered for us to make at that meeting, then please direct them to us, care of Scott Tips, our NHF delegation head. (Send comments to Contact-us@thenhf.com.)

On the other hand, the United States delegation (headed by the FDA) to this particular Codex Committee wears two hats: One, the delegation attends the meetings as a member country; and, Two, the U.S. delegation also is the head of the working group. If U.S. citizens want to submit written comments to the FDA for its consideration and possible incorporation into its position taken at these Codex meetings, then they may do so. But there are two catches: (1) Given past experience, it will largely be a waste of time as we have never seen the FDA influenced at Codex by these kinds of comments; and (2) due to a lack of resources, the U.S. delegation itself will not be submitting any written comments to the EWG by the September 15th deadline, as confirmed by NHF’s recent discussion with one of the official FDA delegates to this Codex Committee. This brings us back to the point made above that your best bet for making submissions will be to let us at the NHF know what arguments you think we should make so that they can be incorporated into our NHF position paper.

NHF WILL BE ATTENDING THE UPCOMING CODEX COMMITTEE MEETING IN BAD NEUENAHR, GERMANY FROM NOVEMBER 12-16, 2007

As it has been doing for years now, the National Health Federation will be sending a delegation to the upcoming Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), which will be held in the town of Bad Neuenahr, Germany from November 12-16, 2007. As an accredited Codex INGO, we will be in attendance throughout this meeting, with the right to submit written comments, interact with the other delegates, and speak out at the meeting itself.

This Codex Committee is the one that passed the Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplement Guidelines in November 2004, adopted by the Codex Commission itself in the following year. The arena of concern has since then been focused upon risk assessment and developing the maximum upper limits that will be imposed upon vitamin and mineral supplements.

At present, the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplement Guidelines are not much more than a shell, waiting for the numbers to be plugged into it. That is why these meetings are still vital and we at NHF have noticed that our input has been given serious credence, especially since our input – unlike what is available at present – is actually based upon real science.

Last year’s CCNFSDU meeting was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the NHF sent a three-person delegation to attend. That meeting saw very little time spent in discussion of the issue of risk assessment for food supplements. It is anticipated that this year’s meeting will provide more coverage of that topic, especially with the Working Group holding its session immediately prior to the CCNFSDU meeting in order to deal with this specific issue.

Codex Alimentarius-Global Food Imperialism

Amazingly, the keys to your future health and longevity are held by Codex, an international organization little known to most people. Just ask yourself the following questions:

  • Why has the NHF been watching & attending meetings of this important, food-governing body for more than a decade?
  • Why has the mainstream media been strangely silent about Codex?
  • Why and how are Codex “guidelines” going to exclude high-potency and innovative American supplements from the marketplace?
  • Why do Codex and the words “global harmonization” go hand-in-hand?

Educate and protect your health and the health of those you love. Support the health-freedom cause and understand the Codex agenda in relation to your health by purchasing this newly-released compendium of articles on Codex.

Forget the Evidence — appease your doctor and opt for peace of mind

Do you rely upon cholesterol numbers to determine whether you are at imminent risk to have a heart attack?

Do you rely upon PSA (prostate specific antigen) numbers to tell you if prostate cancer is progressing?

Why is the risk for sudden infant death syndrome (baby crib death) drastically reduced by placing babies on their backs when put to bed?

Do you really believe there is no known cause of autism and that vaccines have nothing to do with autism, as your pediatrician tells you?

Does an alkaline state of the body protect against cancer?

Is tap water safe?

Do you believe vitamin C supplements create nothing more than expensive urine?

What can be done to stave off Alzheimer’s disease, anything?

What should I do if health authorities declare a flu virus that humans have no immunity towards is encircling the globe?

Should my 13-year old daughter undergo vaccination against cervical cancer?

These are just some of the tough questions that I attempt to answer for consumers at my website (www.knowledgeofhealth.com). Here are some short answers:

  • No, cholesterol is not a major cause of heart disease. Calcification is. A half million American incur a sudden-mortal heart attack annually with a low-to-normal cholesterol number. A calcium (Agatston) artery score of zero means your risk for having a heart attack is near zero.
  • PSA is an unreliable marker for prostate cancer (not even used in Great Britain). Sudden Infant Death syndrome (SIDS) is likely caused by a toxic gas in the crib mattresses, which is why the rate of crib death drop when infants are placed to sleep on their backs and why a mattress wrapping program in New Zealand has cut the risk of SIDS by 100%.
  • While modern medicine claims it has no idea what causes autism, the prevailing evidence points to a stealth microbe that usually hides behind another virus or bacterium, resulting in encephalitis. This bacterium resists Pasteurization and can be found in 2.5% of milk cartons in the U.S.
  • The evidence that an alkaline state of the body promotes health and prevents cancer is marginal if not existent. The pH of the blood is automatically controlled within a tight range and if the diet could alter blood pH we would be constantly in the emergency room attempting to regain neutral pH.
  • Tap water is relatively safe, chlorination having eliminated typhoid, cholera and dysentery, but long-term increases the risk for cancer in organs where chlorine pools, the bladder, kidneys and rectum.
  • Vitamin C is water soluble and rapidly is excreted, but repeated doses throughout the day will maintain blood levels 2.5 times greater than a single daily dose. Adding plenty of bioflavonoids to vitamin C (70% of the amount of vitamin C) will slow absorption and raise blood levels.
  • Almost half of 60 year olds have lost a considerable amount of their long-term memory due to aging changes in the brain, and some of the most promising agents to prevent or reverse age-related memory loss are resveratrol, rice bran, lipoic acid, carnitine, folic acid, SAMe and ferulic acid. Drugs for Alzheimer’s disease are worthless and problematic.
  • No flu vaccine will be able to keep up with the rapid mutations of influenza virus and there is no evidence that vaccination programs have reduced mortality rates, which are overstated by the Centers for Disease Control to frighten citizens into getting their annual flu shots. Only 100 million Americans get flu shots every year, another 200 million go unvaccinated, and no epidemic ensues. Vitamin D, elderberry, quercetin, resveratrol, a crushed garlic clove, are the most promising natural remedies against influenza.
  • The human papilloma virus/cervical cancer vaccine has not been proven to prevent cancer in the long run, but does produce antibodies against the two most common strains of the virus. However, folic acid and vitamin C appear to protect against all 16 strains of the virus.

Odds are, most Americans, even advocates of natural health, would not be able to answer these questions accurately. Prevailing misconceptions about healthcare largely emanate from information provided by the most prestigious health care institutions and health authorities.

Most people find it difficult to believe that the primary channels for health information are controlled by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. What you hear on TV is more propaganda than news. The public as if they are sheep to be herded. I hope I’m not just now making you aware of this.

The problem is that the public cannot fathom any of this. A lot of people don’t want to examine the evidence, they only wish to listen to authorities. My suggestion: go to the Mayo Clinic website for truly authoritative answers to your healthcare questions. You can always say “the Mayo Clinic says this is the best way to go………….” You won’t find any of the above answers at the Mayo Clinic website.

The 10 health sites rated (Source: Consumer Union), ordered below by popularity measured by traffic (not by ratings score), are:

1.National Institutes of Health
2. WebMD
3. MSN Health & Fitness
4. About Health
5. MedicineNet.com
6. Yahoo! Health
7. MayoClinic.com
8. RealAge
9. AOL Health
10. Drugs.com

On the internet, websites for the National Institutes of Health, Quackwatch and WebMD dominate the Google rankings. Notice that Quackwatch is positioned at the top of many webpages even though it is a lesser ranked site by traffic.

Which one is correct?

Lost in a sea of websites, how can healthcare consumers sort out the misinformation, myths and urban health legends from the truth? The internet has great promise, given that surveys show many people launch web searches over newly diagnosed health conditions. But it rapidly becomes nothing more than another source of confusion because there are simply too many opinions and recommendations. Which one is correct?

Search on your browser for information about the safe dose for vitamin D. You will be confronted with so much outdated information you are likely to be frightened away from this life-saving vitamin forever. Better safe than sorry, you say to yourself. Stick with the lower doses. Yet an hour in the summer sun at noontime in a skimpy swimsuit will produce 5 times more vitamin D than what health authorities consider the “safe upper limit.” Who is going to erase the outdated information about vitamin D from even trusted sources like the Merck Manual, or the National Institutes of Health?

Appeasement, peace of mind, cover the bases

Many read my opinion about cholesterol, that it is possibly even a ruse imposed upon the public to control birth rates (cholesterol is needed to make sex hormones), and certainly is a cash cow for pharmaceutical companies, and statin drugs have yet to prove they reduce mortality rates. Yet most statin drug users haven’t the gumption to stop taking this liver-toxic medication. Many agonize over whether to listen to their doctor or not regarding a statin drug prescription. Your doctor may truly believe you are at high risk for a mortal heart attack because your total cholesterol is over 240, but there little evidence to back that up. Appease your doctor, take the pills. Some elect to take coenzyme Q10 to counter any potential side effects, but they still misaddressing the primary cause of heart disease, which is calcification of the arteries.

Get your flu shot. There is no evidence this inoculation lowers seasonal death rates from the flu. But, OK, to be safe, get your flu shot. Forget about the evidence. You need peace of mind.

I sat at a dinner table talking to four seniors, in their 80’s, all taking 5 or more prescription drugs, and obviously suffering from side effects. Each one would whisper in my ear how one of the others is losing their memory or is fatigued, or “isn’t their old self anymore.” They had no idea the pills they take every day may be the cause of these symptoms. When I offered them a red wine pill to take with their meal (no alcohol, just the red wine solids), they felt they couldn’t refuse my offer and downed the capsule, but you could tell they were worried something uncomfortable was going to happen. No problem taking pills that unnaturally slow the heart or make them dizzy (beta blockers), attack the liver (statin drugs), or deplete essential nutrients (diuretics). But that red wine pill, they were a bit wary. Needless to say, they all had a glass of red wine with dinner, 12% alcohol content.

Then there are those who are so confused they choose to cover all the bases, taking all the drugs their doctor prescribes, and all the supplements they hear are good for them. It’s an illogical mixture of toxic drugs and vitamin pills that defies explanation. It’s a daily balancing act, taking poisons and then their antidotes.

Expensive vs economical

What prevails in modern medicine is what is expensive. The most lucrative insurance billing codes get the attention of medical practitioners. Simple, inexpensive ways to remedy health problems get closeted.

  • Got a kidney stone? Take IP6 rice bran extract, it will dissolve it right away. If you can find a doctor that recommends this simple remedy, let me know.
  • Hemorrhoids bothering you? Bioflavonoids, citrus peel extract (Diosmin) or horse chestnut extract will serve you well.
  • PSA rising? You are likely headed for a biopsy and then onto prostate surgery, with little evidence any of this prolongs life. Try vitamin D, pumpkin seed oil, IP6 rice bran extract and/or resveratrol.
  • Got angina? Take vitamin C, arginine, lysine, proline, vitamin D, nattokinase, fish oil.
  • Hate those recurrent migraines? Try daily magnesium, flaxseed meal, or cayenne pepper in a pinch. Wrap a headband around your forehead and many frontal headaches disappear within moments (the headband applies pressure and stops spasming blood vessels).
  • Got acne? Before you go to the dermatologist for Accutane (it’s a very dangerous vitamin-like drug), try adding 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal into your morning cereal.

But look, it’s easier to just go to the doctor. Let him/her tell you what you should do. You only pay a $5 co-payment. Your health plan covers the cost of medications, and you only pay $1 per prescription. Dietary supplements are going to cost twenty-five times more.

Copyright 2007 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc207