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"The International Decade of Nutrition" was recently
inaugurated by the Natural Solutions Foundation, not-for-profit health
and health freedom advocacy organization, dedicated to a worldwide
effort to end world hunger and promote world health. The Natural Solutions
Foundation's goal is the global end of the diseases associated
with under-nutrition. The social and human costs of these diseases
currently account for nearly 90% of all deaths worldwide. The non-communicable
diseases (NCD) of under-nutrition include cancers, cardiovascular disease,
stroke, diabetes, obesity, plus infectious diseases like tuberculosis,
hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS.
To make high-potency nutrients available throughout the world, the Foundation
advocates making the 1994 US Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA)
the global standard for nutrients. DSHEA, a unique pro-health US law, treats
nutrients (e.g., dietary supplements, herbs and homeopathic formulations) as
foods. As foods, no upper limits can be imposed on their use. Nutrients are
safe and effective and have important clinical impact in preventing, mitigating,
treating, and curing the diseases of under-nutrition.
More than 190 million Americans use nutrients regularly. Most countries, however,
either restrict dietary supplements or do not have a tradition of wide-ranging
access to the high-quality supplements that could eliminate the chronic degenerative
and infectious diseases that kill hundreds of millions each year. The International
Decade of Nutrition will bring DSHEA and its health benefits to the developing
countries of the world to counter the pro-illness impact of standards and guidelines
of Codex.
DSHEA was passed because consumer outrage exploded when the US Congress moved
to remove consumer access to nutritional supplements. Bowing to public furor
and demand, Congress passed DSHEA by unanimous Congressional consent. DSHEA
allows US consumers to take a wide variety of supplements in a vast array of
forms. Americans use dietary supplements, herbs, and homeopathic preparations
for health promotion, disease prevention, and the treatment of nutrition-related
diseases, including NCDs. By making DSHEA the global standard, these deadly
diseases could also be eliminated from the lives of most of the world's
population.
The single greatest impediment to this advance is the Codex Alimentarius Commission
(CAC, or Codex). The restrictive Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG,
ratified July 4, 2005, Rome) treats vitamins and minerals as toxins whose upper
limits must be determined by "risk assessment" (RA), a technique
used in toxicology to determine the highest dose of a poison that can be given
to a human being without any discernible impact. The VMG limits upper doses
of nutrients to levels that do not exceed those found in unprocessed food.
Since ubiquitous and specific toxins increase the need for nutrients, this
short-sighted and dangerous Codex text both mandates and institutionalizes
deadly levels of under-nutrition. At the same time, Codex employs a double
standard that favors corporate interests by permitting extraordinarily high
health-adverse levels of dangerous toxins like pesticides, veterinary drugs,
synthetic growth hormones, heavy metals, preservatives, and food additives.
Many of Codex's more than 5,000 standards and guidelines degrade the
integrity of the food supply and health. The Natural Solutions Foundation and
Citizen's Codex Working Group has crafted a comprehensive strategy that
allows nations to protect their people from toxins and under-nutrition while
avoiding World Trade Organization (WTO) trade sanctions. This procedure, the "Codex
2-Step," can be applied by pro-health countries to any of the damaging
or dangerous standards and guidelines promulgated by Codex. Once a country
has adopted a revised and more scientifically valid standard or guideline than
that required within a Codex text (Step 1), it must then enact national legislation
to make revised standard or guideline becomes national law (Step 2). Having
carried out the required two-step process, the country is then free to engage
in the manufacture and trade (including export) of items that would otherwise
be prohibited by the Codex standards and guidelines. For example, the sale
of high-potency nutritional supplements permitted under a DSHEA-type law currently
violates the restrictive and deadly Codex VMG. The Natural Solutions Foundation
helps countries establish access to unlimited amounts of dietary supplements
at their discretion by establishing the principles of DSHEA globally.
With
units in Africa and India, the Natural Solutions Foundation is actively
forging a global pro-health community transcending political,
religious, or
economic delineations. Bringing their template to governments and activists,
the Natural Solutions Foundation's mission is to promote health and health
freedom globally. Funded entirely by donations, the Foundation's non-commercial
stand can gain access to leaders around the world. The Natural Solutions
Foundation is raising the bar for international health activism and
providing life-saving
information to some of the world's neediest countries, encouraging them to
set their own standards. Other groups in the United States and abroad are
beginning to follow the Foundation's lead and advocate solving health
and health
freedom problems globally through similar hybrids of political, medical,
and scientific advocacy. The Natural Solutions Foundation is a not-for-profit
tax
exempt organization located in New York State. For more information, please
visit http://www.healthfreedomusa.org.
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