Nutritional Freedom vs Codex Totalitarianism

The government and pharmaceutical-industry ringleaders behind the Codex Commission are implementing their anti-competitive agenda through free-trade rhetoric. Their rhetoric is to break down trade barriers, but their agenda is to eliminate competition from generic therapies for their proprietary products. These products include pharmaceutical substances, which are patent protected as new chemical entities, and proprietary formulations of generic substances, which are patent protected for specific applications. Neither of these categories of product are protected from competition from generic substances, which include vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs (and plant-based substances), and other nutritional substances (i.e., all food-based substances). Just like it says in DSHEA.

Generic substances are things without brand names. This means that anybody and everybody can produce and trade such products. More importantly to the issue before us here, it means that generic products face the fiercest competition. As a rule, profit margins are rock bottom in the generic market. So while generics are the backbone of free trade, they are an anathema to high-profit corporate interests. There’s a limit to how much you can charge for a synthetic antioxidant when you face competition from generic vitamin E and butylated hydroxytoluene. But if they can get rid of the generics, it will be a whole new ball game.

The high concept in Codex terminology is “harmonization.” In the US, politicians and bureaucrats are equating harmonization with free trade, to better sell it to the US business community. However, they are not the same. Free trade is about eliminating trade barriers. Harmonization is merely about equalizing trade barriers. The Codex people want trade barriers more than anything. They just want them against competitive products (i.e., generics).