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01-25-2010, 08:56 PM | #1 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 53
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My letter to the department of health R.E Codex Alimentarius
Hi,
This is a letter I wrote to the department of health regarding a part of Codex Alimentarius (read more about if at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_alimentarius and also http://foodcode.blogspot.com/2007/11...onspiracy.html) This is the part I am refering to, which is about vitamin supplements. http://www.codexalimentarius.net/dow...6/cxg_055e.pdf I just got a reply saying that my email was forwarded to the food standards agency. Please add to my email by writing your own and sending it to helpline@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk. With enough pressure, we will get an answer. Below is my email which I have pasted. You can use bits from it. I am writing to express my conceran about the vitamin and mineral guidelines that the Codex Alimentarius seeks to enforce at the beginning of this year, especially the maximum recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals needed. All vitamins and minerals are essential for the healthy growth of people and only a handful of them are toxic in large prolonged doses (most notably vitamin A). This is important information to know. However, the Codex guidelines go too far in their regulation and I am worried that this regulation may lead to more rigorous regulation which will make vitamins and minerals less available to the general public and so cause widespread health problems. Below are some quotes from the guidelines for vitamins nad mineral food supplements. 3.2.1 The minimum level of each vitamin and/or mineral contained in a vitamin and mineral food supplement per daily portion of consumption as suggested by the manufacturer should be 15% of the recommended daily intake as determined by FAO/WHO. Wouldn't that make perfectly good supplements illegal? What about multivitamins and supplements where there is a secondary vitamin that is below 15% (for example a vitamin D supplement that contains 100% RDA of vitamin D but only 10% of vitamin A. People will buy it for the vitamin D, not the vitamin A. Yet under these guidelines, it can't be used because the secondary vitamin is too low.) This is going to stop the sale of a lot of perfectly good vitamin supplements. 3.2.2 Maximum amounts of vitamins and minerals in vitamin and mineral food supplements per daily portion of consumption as recommended by the manufacturer shall be set, taking the following criteria into account: (a) upper safe levels of vitamins and minerals established by scientific risk assessment based on generally accepted scientific data, taking into consideration, as appropriate, the varying degrees of sensitivity of different consumer groups; (b) the daily intake of vitamins and minerals from other dietary sources. The upper safe limit seems to be based on things which will make it quite low. A lot of people eat red meat which contains a lot of vitamin A. However, a lot of people are vegetarian and their diets make it almost implossible to overdose on this vitamin. How is a label going to be able to guide everybody with such a vast range of diets? It will not and may give people false and very damaging advice. Also most vitamins require a very extreme diet for someone to overdose on to the extent that they have health problems from the vitamin. This will just make people think that they are overdosing on vitamins when they aren't and so not get their RDAs. When the maximum levels are set, due account may be taken of the reference intake values of vitamins and minerals for the population. This provision should not lead to setting of maximum levels that are solely based on recommended nutrient intakes (e. g. Population Reference Intake or Recommended Daily Allowance values). Due account may be taken of the reference intake values of the vitamins for the population? Once again, this is an attempt at a 'one size fits all approach' to advising people on what they should take to make them healthy. It will not work and will doubtless lead to a cry for more regulation which will further regulate and therefore reduce the availability of vitamins and minerals. 5.7 The label shall contain advice to the consumer not to exceed the maximum one-day amount. Why? With the case of water soluble vitamins (mainly B and C), exceeding your RDA menas that they come out in urine. In the case of fat soluble vitamins, you will need to take a lot over a prolonged period to suffer ill effects. 5.9 The label shall contain a statement that the product should be stored out of reach of young children. Really? Vitamins supplements should be stored out of reach of young children? I thought it was important that young children knew how important vitamins and minerals are to their diet - not that they should be classed 'out of reach' along with bleach and other actual dangerous chemicals. If this wasn't in a serious document, I would have though that it was a laughable attempt at reverse psychology on young children that if vitamins and minerals were forbidden that they wouldn't stop taking them. These regulations are going to damage the health of many people by making vitamins and minerals less available to them. Vitamins and mineral supplements need to be classified as foods again. Thanks for reading this email |
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