SPIRITUALITY IN THE SERVICE OF
HEALTH AND FREEDOM

Codex Alimentarius Is Coming—Are We Ready?

by Stephen Wing

Imagine a government based on spiritual principles. Imagine a movement of citizen activists willing to undertake the hard work of campaigning for candidates who share their spiritual values. Imagine that they succeed in electing a majority in Congress and a President who begin to restructure the institutions of government according to those values and beliefs.

Imagine those values and beliefs include dominion over nature, control of people’s marriage and reproductive choices, discrimination against other religions, and pushing the world closer to Armageddon. Now you have an accurate picture of our situation in the United States.

It’s a situation I have long predicted. According to the Law of Karma, any nation that imposes dictatorship on other nations must sooner or later come under some form of dictatorship itself. Since the U.S. has overtly or covertly overthrown democratically elected leaders from Chile to Iran, aided Saddam Hussein and many other dictators in their rise to power, and to this day supports corrupt and authoritarian governments around the world, no one who understands Karma can be surprised by the ascendancy of the neo-cons and the right-wing Christians, who seek to impose Old Testament law on us all.

I have also long advocated a solution. People who have spiritual beliefs that are less narrow-minded, whose values include spiritual freedom, openness and diversity—namely, the growing body of spiritually-minded people who believe in a New Age on planet Earth—are this nation’s great hope. But only if we too are willing to take on the tough political organizing work that the conservative Christians have done.

Historically, my inspiration for this belief is the Civil Rights movement. It was their strong faith in Biblical prophecy and divine justice that gave these heroic Americans the strength and solidarity to nonviolently press the United States of America forward on its evolutionary path: to “live out the true meaning of its creed,” in Dr. King’s still-reverberating words.
As the disenfranchisement of black and poor voters in recent elections makes clear, we’re not there yet. I for one am waiting for the spiritual principles of the New Age to become grounded enough to manifest in focused action on behalf of our country’s destiny of freedom and representation for all.

But what could motivate such a diverse, inward-focused bunch to come together and take action on such a mundane plane as politics? Perhaps it will take a genuine threat to something that unites us all: our health.
Like me, you might have first heard of Codex Alimentarius a few years ago when it became one of the many alarms that circulate on the Internet: a draconian scheme to regulate nutritional supplements out of existence worldwide while promoting genetically modified and pesticide-poisoned foods, hatched by multinational corporations and supported by the World Trade Organization. Like me, you may have believed it was no longer a threat when it dropped out of sight.

In July 2005, beneath most people’s radar, the United Nations’ Codex Alimentarius Commission adopted the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements. Already adopted in Canada, the European Union and other nations, the Guidelines go into effect worldwide in 2009. The FDA claims they are benign. But if you search the Internet, you will find a raging controversy.

Rima E. Laibow MD, a holistic doctor who has studied over 16,000 pages of Codex documentation, sees the Guidelines as a grave danger to democracy, freedom, and alternative health. Her organization, the Natural Solutions Foundation, summarizes her research on its website, www.healthfreedomUSA.org. Here are some excerpts:

“Codex is made up of thousands of standards and guidelines. One of them, the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG), is designed to permit only ultra-low doses of vitamins and minerals (and make clinically effective
nutrients illegal).”

“Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) has two committees which impact nutrition. One of them, the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), is chaired by Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, a physician who believes that nutrition has no role in health.... Dr. Grossklaus happens to own the Risk Assessment company advising CCNFSDU and Codex on this issue.”

“Codex is about the economic ambitions of multi-national corporations, in particular, the pharmaceutical industry... These industries have launched a massive media propaganda campaign to paint Codex Alimentarius as a benevolent tool of ‘consumer protection,’ as well as to negatively taint the image of natural health options and mislead people to fear them as ‘dangerous,’ so they will take drugs (which really are dangerous).”

“Unfortunately, one-time defenders of health freedom such as National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA) and Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) have joined the propaganda bandwagon... The membership of these one-time defenders of health freedom has become permeated by people from the pharmaceutical industry.”

Congress would have to pass legislation to give these Guidelines the force of law. But if only one spiritual vision is represented in Congress, the alternative health movement could be forced underground. If nothing so far has awakened the spiritually aware to their political responsibilities, that will do it. At least I’m praying it will.

Stephen Wing is a local Atlanta poet, activist and author. Contact him at stevew@newleaf-dist.com or 770/948-3445 ext. 3180.