Codex Alimentarius (finally!)

I've been meaning to write about this for quite a long time and, frankly, have been putting it off. It's not that I'm frightened of Monsanto's mafia or of simply being wrong, it's just that there's so much of it I haven't really known where to start.
Codex Alimentarius is also really, really complicated and technical. I make no apology here for running on gut instinct - it feels wrong - and allowing other more informed and expert people to do the talking for me. I'll come back to those people a little later.

A History Lesson
A short, potted history of Codex Alimentarius (lit: "Food Book") goes a bit like this:
In 1963 a group of countries involved with the United Nations' FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), and the WHO (World Health Organisation) got together to create the Codex Alimentarius Commission (or CAC, which is hilarious if you speak any Irish!). CAC's aims were to create international health and safety standards for the production, hygiene, and labelling of food and food supplements, and thus give consumers a chance to protect themselves from shysters and monied interests.
Sounds pretty good so far, and to be honest, it was until the advent of Genetically Modified foods and the biotech industries who created them. Power corrupts and money, of course, is power!

The Experts
The first person I'd like to bring into this argument is gentleman called Dr. Robert Verkerk. Dr. Verkerk (who has more letters after his name than enough) used to work as a research fellow at Imperial College London and has worked all over the world, often with governments using his combined expertise in agriculture, sustainability and health care. He's also, to some extent, involved with CA - but he's one of the good guys!
In 2002 he started the Alliance for Natural Health, and has been campaigning on multiple fronts ever since. Basically, he's worried. And if he's worried, perhaps we should ask why.

Another person to bring in is Ian R. Crane. I've put a link there, but I think it's probably better to watch his videos on YouTube. Where Dr. Verkerk is possibly a little dry and analytical (like any good scientist) Mr. Crane is a tad more sensational and radical. This doesn't make him wrong (or right either) but it does make him accessible.

One of the most informative and accessible videos about Codex is called We Become Silent. It's worth half an hour of anybody's time and the fact that it's narrated by Judi Dench does no harm at all.
Finally, of course, there are the loud and slightly nutty ones. That still doesn't make them wrong, you just have to turn down the volume a bit. Prime amongst these is Dr. Lima Raibow, although there are plenty more.

On the other hand there are plenty of pro-Codex sites too. The problem with these is that they tend to be government-approved and very technical and confusing. Here's the official site, and if you can translate it you're cleverer than me.

My Own View
There are several things which worry me about Codex Alimentarius. One of which is how quiet and secretive it is. The vast majority of people don't know about it, yet it affects one of the most basic aspects of their lives - food!
Another is the fact that I don't understand it. I'm not meant to understand it because I'm not an expert. But it's my food, and surely I should know what I'm eating and feeding my children, rather than relying on experts to tell me what's okay. It reminds me of the Monty Python sketch of a woman giving birth - Woman: "What should I do?" Doctor: "Nothing dear. You're not qualified!"

The most worrying thing of all, though, is this:
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is staffed mostly by governmental appointees. There are some experts with ethical stances in there but this is never going to be enough. CAC claims that there are no profit-making interests involved in its decisions, which is true as far as it goes. The point here is that there doesn't need to be.
A politician is not an expert in his or her department. A Transport Minister doesn't have to know a lot about transport because they might be the Education or Health Minister in six months. Instead they rely on expert advisers to provide them with all the info they need and suggest what they ought to do. So who is providing CAC with their info?
The answer is vested and monied interests. Big pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness and biotech companies. One of the biggest of these (if not the biggest) is Monsanto.
I'll write about Monsanto specifically another time. The purpose of this piece is simply to make people aware of Codex Alimentarius.

Please research Codex Alimentarius. Find out everything you can, and everything you can understand. Then make a decision. If you decide you're against it you'll already have found a large number of groups to help you do something about it.
If Codex Alimentarius doesn't bother you, then fair enough. You can put your feet up and not worry about it. But I'd like to offer a final quote to think about. It comes from John Hammell, a legislative advocate and the founder of International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF):

The Codex Alimentarius proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an Echinacea tincture, which is being sold there as an over the counter drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs, and only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores or pharmacies."

It is now a criminal offence in parts of Europe to sell herbs as foods. An agreement called EEC6565 equates selling herbs as foods to selling other illegal drugs. Action is being taken to accelerate other European countries into 'harmonization' as well.

Would you like some basil with your tomatoes?

Love,
Seán