Codex?

I am alive. Really. I just haven’t blogged in a particularly long time. Ehm. Yeah. The only reason I’m blogging right now is that I’ve been doing less of the whole “keeping my head down” thing lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading up on vaccinations. Maybe it’s because one’s mind does screwy things when one is pregnant. (Oh, yeah. Since I last blogged? Got engaged. Got married. Got pregnant. Go me!) Maybe I’m just restless. Frankly, at the moment, I just feel plain twitchy.

There I was, quietly perusing Google Reader, and I came across this post by TNFarmgirl about her herbal medicine classes, and I thought, “Hm. I really want to take something along those lines sometime.” And then I noticed this sentence:

With the changes in health care and the fact that our President has quietly signed an executive order that takes steps to place America under the Codex program of Europe - herbal medicines and vitamins may become impossible to get except through your doctor.  

This, of course, made me go, “Huh?” So I did a Google search for executive order Codex. I’ll admit, I’m a little disconcerted by what I’ve found. None of it is… concrete. Heck, the thing ends with the following statement:

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

That should put me at ease, I guess, but really, it doesn’t. I don’t like this section:

“Section 6 (g) contains specific plans to ensure that all prevention programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services are based on the science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under subsection (d) of this section.”

I know, it sounds innocent enough. But consider what this blog post at Surviving the Middle Class Crash has to say about that section:

In other words, ALL prevention programs, even those outside of the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services, must align with CDC guidelines, which are “science-based.” What do we take for prevention? Herbs and vitamins. Herbs that you grow in your backyard and vitamins that are not approved by your doctor do not fall under these “science-based” guidelines, and are not allowed. Therefore, this will effectively open the door to outlawing ALL disease prevention practices that use herbs and vitamins not prescribed by a doctor, and implement CODEX ALIMENTARIUS right here in the good old U.S.A. Thank you, Semra Orhon Hughes, for the heads up! 

Consider, further, what this person commented about what Europe already has:

The U.K. is already under Codex:

http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/Codexbranch/

Vitamins and herbs, under Codex, are considered toxic substances and should be under strict regulation.

“Many European nations are already in compliance. Until 1996, the average German citizen could buy 500 mg vitamin C tablets – or, 400 I.U. capsules of vitamin E. Today, the highest dosage of vitamin C available without a prescription is 200 mg. Vitamin E is available in 45 I.U. doses.

In Norway, citizens can purchase 2.4 mg of vitamin B1, 2.8 mg of B2, 4.2 mg of B6, and 32 mg of niacin. Any dosage for these vitamins that exceed this level requires a prescription.

In Canada, any herb making health improvement claims is classified as a drug. In Europe, the European Economic Community (EEC) has said if an herb is medicinal, it is medicine and should be sold as a drug.

The original proposals for the food code came from Germany. They were made by a panel sponsored by three giant drug companies: Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. These companies resulted from the disbandment of I.G. Farben after World War II.” (http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=30144)

We are marching towards this agenda, and if something isn’t done soon, we will lose our right to purchase doses of vitamins higher than what a hamster needs to survive other than from the local pharma with a doc’s perscription.

Logically, what you say makes perfect sense. However, a government that classifies GMOs as both substantially equivalent and patently unique at the same time does not function on logic.

I need to do some more reading, but at this point, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. By itself, it could mean nothing. But when you consider all of the other things this government is doing… well, I just don’t like it. I do not like it in a house, I do not like it with a mouse.

(Done with the Seuss now, honest.)

Call me paranoid, I don’t care. I still don’t like it.

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A “Right” to Healthcare?

Steve @ The Skeptical Doctor presents us with an essay presenting Theodore Dalrymple’s case against healthcare as a basic human right. From what I gather, much of this is spoken of in his book An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Medicine. Something tells me that I’ll be adding this book to my library queue very soon.

Some highlights from the essay:

The first step is to dismiss out of hand the absurd idea that anyone has a right to healthcare. No one has a right to healthcare. Indeed, where could such a right come from? The increasing tendency in modern society to treat all goods, and all human desiderata, as the American Declaration of Independence treats life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is extremely foolish, for reasons I shall explain. The problem of the metaphysical origin of human rights will not go away. It should be remembered that the American Declaration of Independence asserted the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the belief that all men were created equal and that these rights were endowed upon them by their creator. In other words, the Declaration was, if not a religious, than at least a theist, document. Take away God, and the origin of the rights asserted becomes completely mysterious.
- Theodore Dalrymple, The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Medicine

It does not follow in the least, of course, that healthcare should not be available for people. The satisfaction of rights does not exhaust moral duties. A society in which the ill are well treated is better (at least in this regard, though not necessarily in others, since health is not the whole purpose of human existence) than one in which they are not. No one would want to see a society in which the ill were denied help: but this is because human kindness, decency, solidarity and sympathy demand that we succour the sick, not because the sick have rights.
- Thomas Dalrymple, The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Medicine

Hayes does not distinguish between moral responsibility and the kind of inescapable philosophical demand that requires recognition in law. For him, the choice seems to be that we either establish a legal right to healthcare or we allow the poor to die. He does not seem to believe that compassion and charity can exist even when it is not legally required.
- Steve, “A Right to Healthcare?”

Read the essay in full here.

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