The proposed Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements will NOT apply in Australia and will have NO IMPACT on the way these types of products are regulated in Australia.

In Australia, vitamin and mineral supplements are regulated as complementary medicines. As such, they are required to meet the same standards of quality and safety as other types of complementary medicines under Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. The TGA is responsible for the regulation of these medicines in Australia. In some other countries, these products are regulated as foods and are subject to the standards and guidelines that apply to food.

...nor can I see how malnutrition would be and issue.

July 2006 – There is currently a significant amount of inaccurate and misleading information circulating on the internet about Codex and other related health freedom issues, much of which would appear to have originated on the website of the so-called Natural Solutions Foundation. Whilst the Natural Solutions Foundation's Medical Director, Rima Laibow,claims to have carefully studied more than 16,000 pages of Codex documentation, the content of her articles and the nature of her proposed strategies strongly suggests otherwise. The following article may therefore help you to sort the facts from the fiction.

FICTION: Codex will go into global effect on December 31, 2009.

FACT: The Natural Solutions Foundation do not seem to be aware that ‘Codex’ already consists of around 300 official food standards, some of which have been in ‘global effect’ since as long ago as 1966.
If however the Natural Solutions Foundation is referring specifically to the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements then it is in fact confusing these with the European Union's Food Supplements Directive.

FICTION: Theoretical exceptions exist for natural substances which are submitted and accepted for testing by July 12, 2005 at a cost of approximately $250,000 per submission.

FACT: As with the previous example, the Natural Solutions Foundation is confusing the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements with the European Union's Food Supplements Directive.

FICTION: Countries who pass the Natural Solutions Foundation's Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines would be protecting themselves from the unbearable burden of World Trade Organization sanctions.

FACT: This is utter nonsense. Tellingly, therefore, what the Natural Solutions Foundation has seemingly not as yet publicly addressed is the specific legal mechanism via which their revisions could supposedly be utilized in place of the official Codex guidelines.

FICTION: Codex has officially reclassified Vitamin C and every other vitamin and mineral your body needs from the class of ‘nutrients’ to the class of ‘toxins.’

FACT: Whilst it is true that through its proposed use of risk assessment to determine safe upper levels for vitamins and minerals Codex will essentially be treating these nutrients like toxins, it has not officially reclassified them as such, and nor could it, as they occur naturally in foods and are essential for life. In fact, vitamin and mineral supplements are actually classified as foods by Codex, which is why its guidelines for these products are entitled the Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements.
In short, therefore, the claim by the Natural Solutions Foundation that "Codex has officially reclassified Vitamin C and every other vitamin and mineral your body needs from the class of ‘nutrients’ to the class of ‘toxins’" is both untrue and absurd.

By publishing this article we are attempting to correct some factual inaccuracies and promote better understanding of these complex issues. It is, however, important to re-state clearly that we in no way endorse the stance taken by Codex Alimentarius against natural health and continue to oppose the work of Codex at every opportunity.