CAFTA contains provisions that give new legal status in the United States to guidelines issued by an international entity, the Codex Commission, that seeks to regulate the content and potencies of everyday vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements. 

The new guidelines state "vitamin and mineral food supplements should contain vitamins...whose nutritional value for human beings has been proven by scientific data and whose status as vitamins and minerals is recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO)."  The CAFTA bill also approves United States participation in the World Trade Organization’s so-called "SPS Agreement" — which requires all member nations to submit to Codex regulation. 

For consumers this means that supplements not approved by these international bodies could be banned for sale in the United States.  The FDA’s website seems to assure Americans that nothing will change with the passage of this law.  The FDA claims "the SPS Agreement does not require a country to adopt any international standard."  But in the very next sentence, the FDA states that member nations must base their standards either: "on international standards [the Codex Guidelines]" or on "measures that result in a higher level of protection."

Read together, the FDA’s position, then, is that the United States is not subject to strict Codex regulations if and only if it adopts regulations that are more restrictive than those of Codex.  If the United States follows the Codex Guidelines, then, quite possibly, the power to make life or death decisions about vitamins and supplements will be taken out of the hands of individual Americans and transferred to an international, non-elected organization that is responsive neither to the United States government nor the needs of its citizens.

Sources :"Chapter 6:  Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures," Text of CAFTA, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, August 5, 2005. "ALINORM   05/28/26:  Draft Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements," Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme, Codex Alimentarius Commission, Twenty-eighth Session, Rome, Italy, July 4-9, 2005. "Codex Alimentarius, Report of the U.S. Delegate, 26th Session, Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses," Bonn, Germany, November 1-5, 2004. "The WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement)," World Trade Organization, September 6, 2005. "Responses to Questions About Codex and Dietary Supplements," U.S. Food and Drug Administration, March, 2005.

December 2005