“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[The Legendary Shark]

The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for Food Book) is beginning to make an impact.

The ostensible role of the CA is to regulate food standards to protect consumers - but many researchers (including Ian R. Crane and the US National Health Federation) have detected some less desirable consequences. CA, which sovereign nations can volunteer to opt into, seeks to ban health supplements such as vitamins and vitamin fortified foods*.

This may sound perfectly reasonable until one discovers that drugs companies and GM companies have had a heavy hand in the background. Take, for example, Tibetan Crystal Salt - a salt which contains around 75 minerals essential or beneficial to the human body. Under Codex Alimentarius, this salt would be banned because those 75 minerals are seen as additives - even though they've been part of that particular salt deposit for millions of years! Let's say that some people use Tibetan Crystal Salt regularly and that it naturally helps their bodies stay healthy. Once the salt is banned, those people will begin to deteriorate and may even fall ill. And when you fall ill, where do you go? Drugs companies.

Codex Alimentarius - you didn't vote for it and I'll wager that many of you have never even heard of it. If you need an illustration as to how insignificant our opinions are to the ruling classes, then this is a good one. They say that CA is here to protect us - and in some ways I'm sure that's true - but its hidden purpose is to increase the profits of Big Pharma, GM and and maybe (at the darkest ends of the spectrum) to keep the general population weak, sickly and easy to control.



*Hence Denmark's banning of Marmite.

[House of Usher]

I don't get this. Why is big pharma more powerful than multinational food conglomerates, and why do its profits matter more? Don't Kraft, Nestle, Heinz and Kellogg carry any clout with governments? I think they do.

[Richmond Clements]

I don't get this. Why is big pharma more powerful than multinational food conglomerates, and why do its profits matter more? Don't Kraft, Nestle, Heinz and Kellogg carry any clout with governments? I think they do.

Because 'Coco Pops' doesn't sound as sinister as 'Big Pharma'..?

[Colin Zeal]

To be fair, Marmite is filth so banning it got the thumbs up from me.

[Hoagy]

Denmark, kicked out Kelloggs, years ago.

[TordelBack]

I'm with Big Marma block, who you fightin' with?

[The Legendary Shark]

Big Pharma also make food additives.

[House of Usher]

CA, which sovereign nations can volunteer to opt into, seeks to ban health supplements such as vitamins and vitamin fortified foods

...when you fall ill, where do you go? Drugs companies.

its hidden purpose is to increase the profits of Big Pharma

But...

Big Pharma also make food additives.

So Big Pharma, who manufacture health supplements and benefit from the sale of foods containing additives such as vitamins and minerals and probiotics, want health supplements and food additives banned, so that... er... Big Pharma can benefit from the subsequent increase in demand for medicines? Sounds to me like they would be better off sticking to the supplements and fortified foods market that is already serving them very well.

its hidden purpose is to increase the profits of Big Pharma [...] and maybe to keep the general population weak, sickly and easy to control.

And maybe not. Maybe Big Pharma's interests are better served by a fit and healthy general population with high demand for its products, buying more dietary supplements and wanting more nutritional additives in foods.

[The Legendary Shark]

Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? However, Big Pharma can only make real money out of artificially created additives.

To illustrate: It has been shown that a fair few natural substances such as hemp oil, bicarbonate of soda, peach pits and mistletoe (amongst a fair few others) are very effective in curing cancer*. However, these substances are no good to Big Pharma as they are naturally occurring and therefore cannot be patented**. All the cancer treatments and chemotherapy drugs Big Pharma sell (for huge prices) are artificial substances created in a lab and then patented. Why would Big Pharma want you to know that hemp, for example, will cure cancer? Hemp is little more than a weed you could grow yourself in the back garden for pennies. Artificial drugs sell for a fortune and cancer is a multi-billion dollar cash cow for them. (NB, there are possible links with substances such as aspartame, an artificial sweetener, which can cause horrible health problems if ingested in large enough quantities whereas naturally occurring sugars cause fewer and more easily treated health problems if ingested to excess. However, if aspartame ingestion causes you cancer, diabetes or galloping knob-rot, then fear not! Big Pharma has drugs you can buy that will make you better - apart from the side-effects, which can be combated with even more artificial drugs!)

It is, therefore, no surprise that Big Pharma has been and continues to lobby for hemp and suchlike to be criminalized. The same is true of vitamins and such - they create artificial vitamins, artificial preservatives and such because that's where the money is. GM crops have fewer vitamins, minerals and nutrients than natural foods which is why Big Pharma loves GM. If your food isn't giving you what you need then fear not! We've got pills and additives to bridge that gap!

*If you or anyone you know has cancer, do not take my claims here as rock solid. Whilst I am fairly convinced of the truth of what I am saying and would probably try one of these natural remedies before having my body blasted by radiation and poisons should I be diagnosed with cancer, you must do your own research. I take no responsibility except to point you in this direction - whether you take that path or not is up to you.

**A reason why the corporate world wants patents and copyrights to last as long as possible. I'm amongst those who think that if a company develops a perfectly safe cure for cancer or an engine that runs off water then it should have a limited copyright/patent on those things. By all means let a company have exclusivity on such breakthroughs for, say, ten years. Once that ten years is up, any other company capable of doing so should be able to produce those things for five years so long as they pay the original company a royalty on sales. Once this five year period is up, the copyright/patent should be given over completely to the public domain. The current period of the lifetime of the inventor + 70 years is at least 70 years too long. If a corporation is credited as the inventor, then the copyright/patent period could last indefinitely, raking in huge profits for the corporation instead of benefiting as many people as possible. Long copyright/patent periods actually stifle innovation.

[Old Tankie]

And yet, despite all these evil politicians and corporations trying to do us down (apparently), human life expectancy continues to rise.  God, we must be a hardy bunch!

[The Legendary Shark]

And yet, despite all these evil politicians and corporations trying to do us down (apparently), human life expectancy continues to rise.  God, we must be a hardy bunch!

In Nigeria alone about 145 women die each day during pregnancy or childbirth, as do 2,300 children aged five years and under, according to United Nations figures.

Globally, more than 5000 children under five die every day from diarrhoea.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide: it accounted for 7.9 million deaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2007.

About 72% of all cancer deaths in 2007 occurred in low- and middle-income countries where expensive artificial drugs cannot be afforded but global rules still ban natural cures (usually as components of loan/trade/aid agreements).

Deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to continue rising, with an estimated 12 million deaths in 2030.


(Statistics taken from the WHO website.)

[House of Usher]

In developed countries people are increasingly living longer. If you live long enough and manage not to die from anything else, you will eventually get cancer as a consequence of ageing.

Infant mortality and death in childbirth figures are inadmissable in an argument about the banning of natural remedies to further the agenda of global pharmaceuticals corporations.

The statistic about 72% of cancer deaths occurring in low and middle income countries has to be put in the context of what proportion of the world's population lives in low and middle income countries. There are reckoned to be about 195 countries in the world, of which only 30 are considered to be developed.

The availability of effective medicines isn't the only factor to be considered in cancer survival rates. The distribution of cancer risks is one important factor, and the quality of medical care is another. UK cancer survival increased dramatically since the 1980s, not because outlawed folk remedies were legalized, but because health spending was increased and improvements were made to cancer treatment.

[Old Tankie]

Yes, Sharkey, terrible statistics, but are they solely down to the politicians and corporations and have nothing to do with the decadent Western population?  Perhaps, in future, before we buy our wonderful children/grand children/nieces/nephews their next pointless toy or present, we should think about donating that same money to an African charity that could supply safe drinking water to children of the same age who are dying of diarrhoea, as I'm typing this.

Of course, that won't happen, because we must get our loved ones the latest computer game or their zillionth cuddly toy.  Yeah, go on, blame it all on the politicians and corporations, it'll make you feel better.

[Peter Wolf]

 Perhaps, in future, before we buy our wonderful children/grand children/nieces/nephews their next pointless toy or present, we should think about donating that same money to an African charity that could supply safe drinking water to children of the same age who are dying of diarrhoea, as I'm typing this.

Thats a good idea.

Its curious why i never hear Bill Gates the [fake] philanthropist talk about spending his billions on a drinking water programme to provide clean drinking water and irrigation in Africa where there is hardly any.Unfortunately Bill Gates has a fixation on vaccines[produced by bigpharma companies he has shares in] being the panacea of all of the health and mortality problems in Africa.

How very curious 

I am going make a miniture lifelike Bill Gates effigy and stick pins in it. 

[Richmond Clements]

Bill Gates the [fake] philanthropist

I'm not a fan of Gates- more of the opposite in fact, but this is bullshit. Not only that, I fear it may be libel.
Unless you have evidence that he doesn't actually do things like buy medicine and build schools, then I think you should retract that statement.