CAFTA, Codex, and the war against vitamins.

One purpose of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), according to the preamble to the pact, would be to define the "respective rights and obligations" of its member nations (including the United States) "under the ... agreement establishing the World Trade Organization." Put more simply, CAFTA--like the European Union--would be a regional administrative unit of a global economic system supervised by the WTO.

Many Americans don't regard that prospect to be particularly alarming, since they can't see how it affects their daily lives. A recent ruling by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome offers a useful--and outrageous--illustration of the immediate effect that WTO-imposed regulations can have on everyday life.

Established by the UN in 1961, the commission "establishes guidelines to harmonize trade in food," in the words of a European news agency. In early July, the commission approved a regulatory framework that would eventually phaseout over-the-counter sales of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other food-based nutritional aids. As Britain's DeHavilland News Service reported on July 7, the commission's ruling was buttressed by a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) intended to "restrict the sale of supplements and ... set upper limits of vitamin doses. Once fully implemented, the new measures laid out in the EU supplements directive will mean that supplements can only be taken from an approved list ... which will effectively license vitamins in the same way as normal medicines."

Prior to creation of the WTO, the Codex Commission was an utterly toothless institution. But with the WTO in place, the com mission now has the means to enforce its rulings through trade sanctions targeting uncooperative nations. Backed by the WTO, the Codex Commission has made it known that it expects all nations to "harmonize" their regulations governing dietary supplements with its new regulatory framework.

This is where CAFTA comes into the picture. Like the NAFTA agreement and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, CAFTA contains a provision called the "Sanitary Phytosanitary Measures Agreement," which would require all signatory nations to "harmonize" their domestic food safety standards to those issued by the Codex Commission. John C. Hammell of International Advocates for Health Freedom points out that the "safety standards" imposed by the commission in essence treat vitamins as potentially dangerous drugs, imposing "Maximum Safe Permitted Levels" of potency that would make them subject to regulations in much the same way as drugs.

This would nullify the Dietary Supplement, Health, and Education Act of 1994, which was enacted after the federal Food and Drug Administration threatened to restrict vitamins and other non-drug supplements.

It is estimated that roughly half of the money spent by Americans on healthcare is invested in non-medical dietary supplements. Outraged over the FDA's totalitarian ambitions and thuggish tactics, millions of Americans supported the 1994 legislation. Undaunted, proponents of totalitarian medicine--and their allies in politically connected pharmaceutical companies--simply appealed to a "higher" venue, the Codex Commission.