Threats to your access to vitamins and minerals
You've taken supplements for years. You're out of vitamins C and E. You go to your natural food store, but you can't find the kind you want on the shelf. You ask a clerk to find them for you. She says you can't get your vitamin E as mixed tocopherols (the best natural form) anymore, and asks if you like your vitamin C in the 100- or 200-milligram size. The 1,000-milligram size, you say.
"Where have you been?" she asks. "Asleep since 2004? It's 2007 now! The types and sizes of vitamins you just asked for have been declared illegal by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization!"
"Wait!" you reply. "This is America! Our president says we're fighting for American freedom -- and you're telling me that the World Trade Organization can dictate what size vitamin C I can take, and forbid me from taking mixed tocopherols?" [
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004