Newsletters > Summer 1997 > Codex: Another Threat to Access, by Leo Cashman

When a leading Canadian holistic physician recently ordered three bottles of natural adrenal booster DHEA from his Florida distributor, Dr. Zoltan Rona received a letter instead: “LEF can no longer ship DHEA into Canada; the government won’t let it through Customs. If they find DHEA, they can deny all shipments, and arrest the person who ordered it.” The Canadian Health Protection Branch (HPB), which regulates food and “drugs,” also blocked Dr. Rona from receiving vitamin E, zinc, and other natural products.

HPB challenges such imports because LEF hasn’t paid its $10,000 “DIN” fee. HPB also requires the manufacturer to come site-test every batch of product. And Dr. Rona, the buyer, would have to pay HPB a “maintenance fee” of between $500-$1,500 annually, as a so-called distributor. HPB also proposes a 1.5% annual sales tax for vitamin manufacturers. Activists are prepared to sue to block this illegal tax.

A grassroots organization called Freedom of Choice in Health Care has risen against pharmaceutical giants who want to disenfranchise these small and mid-sized manufacturers and distributors of natural products. There’s even a Canadian proposal to ban international sales of many herbs.

The grim developments in Canada are part of an international effort by multinational drug companies to eliminate competition from makers of vitamins, herbs and other non-drug supplements. A handful of powerful German pharmaceutical companies which made many supplements available only by prescription and via the Codex Alimertarius Commission, are now trying to further limit consumers’ access to dietary supplements -- new processes are as expensive and burdensome as FDA requirements for new drugs. The German proposal would “destroy the dietary supplement industry, enabling the pharmaceutical industry to take over all natural products as expensive, patented drug analogs,” says International Advocates for Health Freedom’s John Hammell.