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Health Scams & Population
Control
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7/18/05, Ron Paul's Texas Straight
Talk
CAFTA and Dietary Supplements
The
House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Central
American Free Trade Agreement in the next two weeks, and one
little-known provision of the agreement desperately needs to
be exposed to public view. CAFTA, like the World Trade
Organization, may serve as a forum for restricting or even
banning dietary supplements in the U.S.
The Codex
Alimentarius Commission, organized by the United Nations in
the 1960s, is charged with “harmonizing” food and
supplement rules between all nations of the world. Under Codex
rules, even basic vitamins and minerals require a doctor’s
prescription. The European Union already has adopted
Codex-type regulations, regulations that will be in effect
across Europe later this year. This raises concerns that the
Europeans will challenge our relatively open market for health
supplements in a WTO forum. This is hardly far-fetched, as
Congress already has cravenly changed our tax laws to comply
with a WTO order.
Like WTO, CAFTA increases the
possibility that Codex regulations will be imposed on the
American public. Section 6 of CAFTA discusses Codex as a
regulatory standard for nations that join the agreement. If
CAFTA has nothing to do with dietary supplements, as CAFTA
supporters claim, why in the world does it specifically
mention Codex?
Unquestionably there has been a slow but sustained
effort to regulate dietary supplements on an international
level. WTO and CAFTA are part of this effort. Passage of CAFTA
does not mean your supplements will be outlawed immediately,
but it will mean that another international trade body will
have a say over whether American supplement regulations meet
international standards. And make no mistake about it, those
international standards are moving steadily toward the Codex
regime and its draconian restrictions on health freedom. So
the question is this: Does CAFTA, with its link to Codex, make
it more likely or less likely that someday you will need a
doctor’s prescription to buy even simple supplements like
Vitamin C? The answer is clear. CAFTA means less freedom for
you, and more control for bureaucrats who do not answer to
American voters.
Pharmaceutical companies have spent
billions of dollars trying to get Washington to regulate your
dietary supplements like European governments do. So far, that
effort has failed in America, in part because of a 1994 law
called the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Big
Pharma and the medical establishment hate this Act, because it
allows consumers some measure of freedom to buy the
supplements they want. Americans like this freedom, however--
especially the health conscious Baby Boomers.
This is
why the drug companies support WTO and CAFTA. They see
international trade agreements as a way to do an end run
around American law and restrict supplements through
international regulations.
The largely government-run
health care establishment, including the nominally private
pharmaceutical companies, want government to control the
dietary supplement industry-- so that only they can
manufacture and distribute supplements. If that happens, as it
already is happening in Europe, the supplements you now take
will be available only by prescription and at a much higher
cost-- if they are available at all. This alone is sufficient
reason for Congress to oppose the unconstitutional,
sovereignty-destroying CAFTA bill.
www.house.gov/paul/index.shtm
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