Take action. Supplement Access Under Fire.

[saracat]

Supplement Access Under Fire: Life Under CODEX

Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may end in June
of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the
World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS (Food Code) is setting the supplement standards for all
countries in the WTO. They will be enforced by the WTO and will over ride U.S. laws.

The U.S. President and Congress agreed to this take-over when the WTO Treaty was signed. Violations are punished by WTO trade sanctions. CODEX drastically restricts vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements. CODEX met secretly in November, 2004 and finalized Step 8 (the final stage) to begin implementation in June, 2005.

The CODE includes:

(1) No supplement can be sold for preventive or therapeutic use.

(2) Any potency higher than RDA (minimal strength) is a "drug" requiring a prescription and must be produced by drug companies. Over 5000 safe items now in health stores will be banned, terminating health stores as we now know them.

(3) CODEX regulations become binding internationally.

(4) New supplements are banned unless given very expensive CODEX testing and approval.

CODEX now applies to Norway and Germany, among others, where zinc tablets rose from $4 per bottle to $52. Echinacea (an ancient immune-enhancement herb) rose from $14 to $153 (both examples are now allowed by prescription only). They are now "drugs". Vitamin C above 200 mg, niacin above 32 mg, vitamin B6 above 4 mg‹all are banned over-the-counter as drugs. No amino acids (arginine, lysine, carnitine, etc. = essential amino acids!), essential fatty acids (omegas 3, 6, 9, etc.), or other essential supplements such as DMEA, DHEA, CoQ10, MSM, beta-carotene, etc. are allowed.

The CODEX rules are not based on real science. They are made by a few people meeting in secret (see web sites below), not necessarily scientists. In 1993 the FDA and drug corporations tried to put all supplements under restriction and prescription. But over 4 million Americans told Congress and the President to protect their freedom of choice on health supplements. The DSHEA Law was passed in 1994, which does so. But this will be over ruled by CODEX and the World Trade Organization.

Virtually nothing about it has been in the media. What the drug corporations have failed to do through Congress they have gotten by sneak attack through CODEX with the help of a silent media. What can be done at this late hour?

(1) Spread the word as much as possible. Inform yourselves fully at
http://www.codexinfo.org
www.iahf.com
www.alliance-natural-health.org .

(2) Oppose bills S.722 and H.R.3377. These support the CODEX restrictions with U.S. laws, changing the DSHEA law.

(3) Support H. R.1146 which would restore the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution over CODEX, etc.

(4) Express your wishes to the President, Senators and Representatives (They got us into this!) ASAP.

(5) Contact multi-level health marketing groups that can get their members to inform the government.

(6) Send donations, however small, to the British Alliance for Natural Health (see web site above). It has succeeded in challenging the CODEX directives in World Court later this month or next. They need help financially, having carried the fight effectively for everyone. CODEX and the FDA wish to protect us by controlling supplements in the same way they do prescription drugs.

Pro-drug hypocrisy

A study of the latter by three medical scientists was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Covering 30 years (1966 to 1996) it was found that in the U.S. an average of 106,000 hospitalized patients per year (290 per day) die from ADR's and 2,200,000 need more hospitalization for recovery. These were FDA approved drugs, properly administered by competent professionals in hospitals--none were considered malpractice.

This is the number four cause of death in the U.S. When combined, these account for 7% of all hospitalized patients. This is equivalent to a 9-11 attack every ten days. There are very few fatalities from supplements or the news would be on every front page. There is no need for more FDA control of supplements than is already in place, which is substantial. Instead of drastically restricting supplements, why doesn't the FDA better control and restrict the extremely dangerous pharmaceutical drugs which are now killing us at the rate of a major airline crash per day?

Wallace G. Heath, Ph.D.
1145 Marine Drive Bellingham, WA 98225

tp://www.theomnivore.com/February%203%2C%202005%20Newsletter.html

[Fiona]

1. this has been around for years

and it's entirely untrue.

[saracat]

3. Really? I hadn't heard it and the site I got it from originally is

reputable. Sorry is this is false.

[kaygore]

10. It is not false just because Snopes says it is!

[Warpy]

5. Well, not really

big pharmy would love to see herbal and vitamin supplements subject to the same testing that their stuff is. Competition doesn't sit well with any of those old boys, even minor competition from a few old hippies and young health food nuts.

However, take heart. There's a curious loophole in laws that says the whole herbs and vitamins in powder form are FOODS and not ever to be considered as medications.

So if you buy your own capsules and fill them with the really nasty stuff, you'll be OK, even if you won't be able to achieve the precision in dosing that tablets obtain. If you're able to hold your nose and swallow brewer's yeast and drink foul teas, you'll still be able to get your herbs and vitamins every day without paying twenty times more for them than you do now.

[kaygore]

7. It is NOT a hoax

That it is a hoax is propaganda by the pharma industry. I have been following this closely. To cite some sources if you want further information, the Life Extension Institute )http://www.lef.org) has been fighting this. One article that addresses this can be found at:
http://search.lef.org/src-cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=20&EXTRA_ARG=&CFGNAME=MssFind%2Ecfg&host_id=42&page_id=11998208&query=codex&hiword=codex+

Another source is http://www.iahf.com/

There is so much going on with Bush that it is hard to find time to fight for vitamins, but this is a very real threat and the deadline is fast approaching.

[salib]

2. that final web address is also flaky

[saracat]

11. corrected address

[HuckleB]

4. This is bogus.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/vitamins.asp

[kaygore]

8. Snopes is wrong. Read below!

IAHF Webmaster: Breaking News, Whats New, What to Do, Codex, EU FSD,
All Countries

IAHF List: See my detailed response below to Barbara Mikkelson of
SNOPES (erstwhile debunkers of Urban Legends, aka Internet Hoaxes. Lynn
Miller called this to my attention and I have responded in detail, below. I
emailed Mikkelson challenging her to a radio debate on this issue and
demanding she remove her inane pro FDA drivel from the Snopes website
since Codex is most definitely NOT a "hoax." If Snopes annoys you as they
did me, kindly send them an email via the form on their website to give
Mikkelson a piece of your mind.....

Good Morning John,
I have posted one of your most recent letters on one of my
websites that I am a member of, and this is the link that one of the ladies
posted. What are your thoughts on this John? I need to post them back
to the thread I started. Thank you John:) Lynn Miller

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/vitamins.asp

See comments below in . Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes
was way too quick on the trigger. Ironically, while terming Codex an
"urban legend", Mikkelson is perpetuating FDA's own spin against my
message.

In addition to reading my detailed response (below) she should call me
to get her facts straight because she is in way over her head when it
comes to assessing this complex issue. I emailed her directly via a form
on Snopes website asking for her email address and urging her to call
me. I challenged her to a radio debate on this issue which she knows
nothing about.

There WERE some inaccuracies in what Wallace Heath said in his widely
circulated alert. Its too bad he didn't run that past me for editorial
input before he sent it out, but his CONCERNS weren't unjustified, he
just didn't have a solid enough understanding of the issue to be able to
distribute an unassailable alert. Mikkelson, on the other hand, is
clearly an apologist for the Pharma Cartel- she is openly calling for the
Repealment of the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act & her whole
orientation is to obfuscate this all too VALID issue: (IAHF response to
Snopes comments below

Snopes website said:


Vitamin See

Claim: American consumers risk losing their right to purchase and use
vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements.

IAHF Comment: simplistic. To assert that Codex is a "non issue" just because S.722 and HR
3377 have not yet been reintroduced in the new congress is patently
absurd, especially given that quick phonecalls to both Durbin's and
Davis's offices indicates that they fully intend to reintroduce both bills,
with slight changes, under new bill numbers, sometime in this new
congress. We go through this EVERY Congress, and the REST of Mikkelson's
simplistic analysis totally falls apart especially because she merely
echoes the FDA's spin. (complete details below) Anyone can believe FDA (and
Snopes) spin on this issue if they want to- but they'd be totally
ignoring a slew of unassailable FACTS presented below.]

never ran his alert past me for editorial input before he circulated it. I
never even KNEW the guy til after he circulated it. He lives in
Bellingham, Washington (one hour south of me) and his was an honest attempt to
try to fight back, but he wasn't up to speed on the issue before he
circulated his alert and he unwittingly played right into the spin
doctor's hands.]

met with me twice since he ciruclated his alert. We live in the same
county. Wally Heath is a retired professor from Western Washington
University, and he's a really good man who is using dietary supplements to
treat BPH- Benign Prostate Hypertrophy.]

he lacked thorough understanding of before he sounded his heavily
circulated alarm. While some of his specifics were inaccurate and
misleading, the basic THREAT he was trying to alert people to is all too REAL,
and Snopes has just done us all a serious disservice with their
misinformation, because it has created even MORE confusion. See below.... this
whole thing is a classic example of the trouble I have when well
intentioned, but not thoroughly informed people circulate alerts that they
haven't run past me first for editorial input and scrutiny: See my
responses to Snopes spin in below....]

Snopes said:

Status: Multiple ­ see below:

In June 2005 the USA will be forced to accept Codex regulation of
vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements: False.


IAHF: USA in June of 2005, Wallace Heath said that due to not having all his
facts straight, What I have been telling people is that between July
4th and 9th 1995 the 28th General Session of the UN's Codex Alimentarius
Commission will be held in Rome, Italy and a highly draconian global
trade standard for vitamins and minerals will be ratified at that time
unless a last ditch global campaign to stop this criminal agenda
succeeds.]

a future WTO trade dispute as a result of which Congress would be
forced via the threat of cross sector sanctioning to harmonize our
supplement laws to the Codex standard or huge sanctions could be levied against
broad sectors of our economy. At the same time this is happening, huge
domestic attacks are occurring against the Dietary Supplement Health
and Education Act of 1994, with the Institute of Medicine at the National
Academy of Sciences being joined by the National Center for
Complementary and Alternative MEdicine in calling for the Repealment of DSHEA.]

global pattern of pharma attack against the natural supplements industry
which I've been documenting since I created IAHF in '96 to catalyse
awareness of this complex issue.]

just prior to the recent US Presidential election when the WTO ruled that
US Tariffs protecting our steel industry were illegal under
international law. We lost in a trade dispute over this, and the WTO's Dispute
Settlement Body told Bush that unless Congress scrapped the tariff that
they'd begin imposing trade sanctions beginning with Florida Citrus
Growers...... (Gee- guess where Bush needed
votes?)http://americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=925
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/wto/800.html We're up against a
mechanized system of international coersion. If we can't protect an
industry as important as our STEEL INDUSTRY what makes people think we can
protect ANY of our industries including our dietary supplement
industry?]

can kill ratification of the global trade standard for vitamins and
minerals which stands to be ratified at the Codex meeting in Rome between
July 4-9th 2005 or else get this country out of the WTO. (Last time
anyone tried that was Ron Paul in 2000 via House Joint Resolution 90 (see
legislative history here
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&db_id=cp106&r_n=hr672.106&sel=TOC_7355&
HJRes 90 was slammed.)]

associations have been effectively pulling the wool over their members eyes
on this issue since 1996 when they first began echoing the FDA's spin
against IAHF's message, but none of them can explain away anything I'm
saying, especially not this statement made by former acting FDA
Commissioner Friedman who very CLEARLY stated what FDA's intentions were
regarding Codex back in 1997 and his speech before the Senate Labor Committee
is right on the FDA's own web site:

On March 17, 1997 acting FDA Commissioner Michael A. Friedman stated
the following in a speech before the Senate Labor Committee " FDA plans
to amend its regulations and procedures for consideration of standards
adopted by Codex. This action is being taken to provide for the
systematic review of Codex standards in order to enhance consumer protection,
promote international harmonization, and fulfill the United States
obligations under international agreements." FDA/CFSAN Federal Register 62
FR 36243 July 7, 1997 http://www.fda.gov/ola/1997/319.html ]

at the meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special
Dietary Uses in Bonn, Germany- see this article by Scott Tips, JD,
Legal Director of the National Health Federation
http://ahha.org/codextips2004.htm and see this link to the website of
the Codex Alimentarius Commission which shows their schedule
http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/current.jsp?lang=en The FDA is
setting the USA up for harmonization to a grossly restrictive
international standard. Snopes analysis is grossly simplistic. Too bad]

Snopes:

Bills proposing the regulation of dietary supplements are currently
before Congress: Not any more. (Says Snopes)- but look at this:

know this from communications with Senator Durbin's office (sponsor
last congress of S.722) and Congresswoman Susan Davis' office (HR 3377).
Talk with Patricia Zabala in Davis' office. They are in a process now of
rewriting these bills, but they'll be back, and we must remain vigilant
regarding them. If you'd like to verify what I'm saying, contact
Durbin's and Davis's offices via 202-225-3121 (Congressional Switchboard to
reach any congressional office) and talk with April Fulton in Durbin's
office, and Patricia Zabala in Davis' office. In any case, anyone who
understands the Codex issue realizes that the larger threat has always
come from offshore via our membership in the WTO and the process of
globalization which no one can deny is real. More on this below....]

Snopes says:

Example:

Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may
end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be
defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World
Health Organization (WHO).

The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS (Food Code) is setting the supplement standards
for all countries in the WTO. They will be enforced by the WTO and will
over ride U.S. laws. The U.S. President and Congress agreed to this
take-over when the WTO Treaty was signed. Violations are punished by WTO
trade sanctions.

CODEX drastically restricts vitamins, minerals, herbs and other
supplements. CODEX met secretly in November, 2004 and finalized "Step 8 (the
final stage)" to begin implementation in June, 2005.

IAHF: dramatization by Wallace Heath in his efforts to condense this issue to just one
page, but it is none the less true that there is a gross lack of
transparency in the Codex process. I know. I videotaped part of the CCNFSDU
meeting in Berlin Germany in '98 but was stopped by the Chair of the
meeting and was forced to turn my cam corder off.]

videotape, and if I had gone beyond what I had already done to disrupt the
meeting, I would have found myself in a German jail cell on trumped up
charges. I digitized a portion of the videotape and it was up on the web
for a few years on a tripod site (a free hosting site) but tripod later
shut that site down. I still have the footage, but its not in
cyberspace at the current time. I was, however, thrown off the US Delegation
prior to the meeting in Berlin in 2000 by US Codex Manager Dr.Ed
Scarborough at the US Department of Agriculture who is US Codex Manager at the
US Codex Office- see details: http://www.iahf.com/codex/20000603.html]

in Berlin in 2000 due to efforts to be a whistleblower against Yetley-
US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods For Special
Dietary Uses. The German government has permanently banned my
participation in Codex meetings even though I am a licensed, credentialled member
of the press because of what happened after the '98 meeting when I put
my video footage on the web showing them force me to shut my camcorder
down. See my additional Comments to Snopes in square brackets below:
scroll down:

SNOPES SAID:(Providing Wallace Heath's Widely Forwarded Alert):

The CODE includes:
(1) No supplement can be sold for preventive or therapeutic use.
(2) Any potency higher than RDA (minimal strength) is a "drug"
requiring a prescription and must be produced by drug companies. Over 5000 safe
items now in health stores will be banned, terminating health stores as
we now know them.
(3) CODEX regulations become binding internationally.
(4) New supplements are banned unless given very expensive CODEX
testing and approval.

CODEX now applies to Norway and Germany, among others, where zinc
tablets rose from $4 per bottle to $52. Echinacea (an ancient
immune-enhancement herb) rose from $14 to $153 (both examples are now allowed by
prescription only). They are now "drugs". Vitamin C above 200 mg, niacin
above 32 mg, vitamin B6 above 4 mg ­ all are banned over-the-counter as
drugs. No amino acids (arginine, lysine, carnitine, etc. = essential
amino acids!), essential fatty acids (omegas 3, 6, 9, etc.), or other
essential supplements such as DMEA, DHEA, CoQ10, MSM, beta-carotene, etc.
are allowed.

The CODEX rules are not based on real science. They are made by a few
people meeting in secret (see web sites below), not necessarily
scientists. In 1993 the FDA and drug corporations tried to put all supplements
under restriction and prescription. But over 4 million Americans told
Congress and the President to protect their freedom of choice on health
supplements. The DSHEA Law was passed in 1994, which does so. But this
will be over ruled by CODEX and the World Trade Organization.

Virtually nothing about it has been in the media. What the drug
corporations have failed to do through Congress they have gotten by sneak
attack through CODEX with the help of a silent media. What can be done at
this late hour?

(1) Spread the word as much as possible. Inform yourselves fully at
http://www.ahha.org, www.iahf.com and www.alliance-natural-health.org.
(2) Oppose bills S. 722 and H.R. 3377. These support the CODEX
restrictions with U.S. laws, changing the DSHEA law.
(3) Support H.R. 1146 which would restore the sovereignty of the U.S.
Constitution over CODEX, etc.
(4) Express your wishes to the President, Senators and Representatives
(They got us into this!) ASAP.
(5) Contact multi-level health marketing groups that can get their
members to inform the government.
(6) Send donations, however small, to the British Alliance for Natural
Health (see web site above). It has succeeded in challenging the CODEX
directives in World Court later this month or next. They need help
financially, having carried the fight effectively for everyone. CODEX and
the FDA wish to protect us by controlling supplements in the same way
they do prescription drugs.

A study of the latter by three medical scientists was reported in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998 ­ Vol. 279,
No. 15, p. 1200 "Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR's) was found
to be extremely high." Covering 30 years (1966 to 1996) it was found
that in the U.S. an average of 106,000 hospitalized patients per year
(290 per day) die from ADR's and 2,200,000 need more hospitalization for
recovery.

These were FDA approved drugs, properly administered by competent
professionals in hospitals ­ none were considered malpractice. This is the
number four cause of death in the U.S. When combined, these account for
7% of all hospitalized patients. This is equivalent to a 9-11 attack
every ten days.

There are very few fatalities from supplements or the news would be on
every front page. There is no need for more FDA control of supplements
than is already in place, which is substantial. Instead of drastically
restricting supplements, why doesn't the FDA better control and
restrict the extremely dangerous pharmaceutical drugs which are now killing us
at the rate of a major airline crash per day?

Wallace G. Heath, Ph.D.
1145 Marine Drive Bellingham, WA 98225
[e-mail]

SNOPES GOES ON TO COMMENT:

Origins: This e-mailed alert began circulating on the Internet in
January 2005. Although the call to arms is worded in such a way as to
convince those who receive that their right to purchase vitamins, minerals,
and dietary supplements in the U.S. is about to be lost to them unless
they act decisively in defense of it, it is outdated and the facts of
what is being considered by American lawmakers and why are radically
dissimilar from the red cape being waved.

IAHF RESPONSE:

Extension Magazine in 1996. I was first educated on the issue by an
American named Ron Birckhead who had moved to Norway where he was running
a vitamin distribution company. His business was great til Norway began
harmonizing their laws to a mindlessly restrictive World Health
Organization guideline that is being paralleled today by what is coming out of
Codex. Norway was a New World Order test country to see how they could
foist these regulations off on people, and what they've learned there
they're now attempting to implement globally via Codex and the WTO. In
'96 I was an observer on the US Delegation to the Codex Committee on
Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, and again in '98 where I
observed Dr.Beth Yetley of the US FDA violate US law in a naked effort to
set us up for harmonization to an international Codex standard.]

SNOPES SAYS:

First of all, this is another case of an issue that is now largely moot
due to outdated information. Back in 2003, two versions of a bill that
proposed the regulation of dietary supplements (S. 722, the "Dietary
Supplement Safety Act of 2003," and H.R. 3377, the "Dietary Supplement
Access and Awareness Act") were introduced to Congress. Neither of these
bills was ever voted upon, much less passed. They both expired with the
end of the 108th Congress in 2004 and have not been reintroduced to the
currently sitting 109th Congress.

IAHF RESPONSE:

Durbin or Davis offices (sponsors of S.722, and HR 3377) before making
this mindless statement. She appears to be ignorant of the fact that
whenever a new congress begins, it takes a while for old legislation to
be reintroduced, often under new bill numbers.]

offices, she'd have learned that both members of Congress are currently
re-writing these bills with the FULL INTENTION of reintroducing them
under new numbers. When they ARE reintroduced, we will not be able to take
either one lightly. Both dovetail with a recent 300 page report issued
by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences which
is openly calling for the REPEALMENT of the Dietary Supplement Health
and Education Act of 1994. The American Herbal Products Assn has issued
a recent press release about the IOM report calling it inaccurate- and
you can see what they have to say about it here:
http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=11446&zoneid=2
]

repealment of DSHEA, but their call for repealment is being ECHOED by the
Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(NCCAM). As a former member of the ad hoc advisory board that created the
Office of Alternative Medicine from which NCCAM was spawned, it
frustrates me greatly the way pharma was able to get control of the entity
which I helped create and to turn it against us, but that is what has
happened, and its due to that that former Congressman Berkley Bedell (who
was one of the prime movers behind creation of the Office of Alternative
Medicine at NIH was forced to form his own private foundation, The
National Foundation For Alternative Medicine http://www.nfam.org/ See
additional responses to Snopes inane drivel below in blue, following their
bad information....]

SNOPES SAYS:

Moreover, neither of these items of potential legislation was forced on
the U.S. by an outside regulatory body, nor did they say anything about
restricting the American public's access to vitamins and minerals.
Their sole target was dietary supplements, a class of products that has
been unregulated since 1994, when Congress passed legislation that
exempted them from federal regulation. Claims that your right to take vitamins
and minerals is about to be impaired or that you will require doctors'
prescriptions to obtain such products should be regarded as attempts at
rabble-rousing, deliberate moves to spur you into action against one
thing by convincing you that something very different and far closer to
your heart is at stake.

Vitamins and minerals are not under the gun. Dietary supplements are.
And no outside regulatory body is behind this move: the proposed
legislation is the work of American lawmakers looking to safeguard the public
from the unscrupulous and the hazardous. If you take nothing else from
this article, take the preceding three sentences.

IAHF: of all, it is NOT TRUE that dietary supplements are "unregulated".
Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes has clearly bought the PARTY LINE of people who
seek to REPEAL the Dietary supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.
As a professional lobbyist, I have been defending consumer access to
dietary supplements since 1989, but my encyclopedic knowledge of the
legislative history as pertains to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act goes
back to the early 1900s- and I can cite chapter and verse when it comes
to the regulation of dietary supplements not only in America, but
globally since I'm now an International Lobbyist.]

FDA rulemaking effort which threatened to curtail consumer access to
high potency vitamins, but the FDA attacked us again in 1989 when they
got the Nutrition Labelling and Education Act fast tracked through the
House of Representatives. It was on its way to the Senate like a guided
missile aimed straight for the heart of the supplement industry when
many of us jumped in with both feet and we were able to curb some of its
worst excesses, but they were STILL in position to SEVERELY IMPEDE
consumer access to dietary supplements which forced us to scramble and to
pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 to protect
our access.]

enforcement powers over dietary supplements that they did not previously
have. For example, DSHEA gave the FDA the right to generate new Good
Manufacturing Practice regulations to govern the manufacturing of dietary
supplements, and FDA will be coming out with those new regulations within
the coming year. FDA will no doubt violate the law with the new GMP
regs they're about to come out with, and that will force small vitamin
companies especially to file lawsuits against them, but anyone saying that
dietary supplements are presently "unregulated" in this country is not
telling you the truth because the fact is they are OVER REGULATED.]

are safe for consumers to use, let alone are beneficial to their health.
Products can be 100% natural yet deliver a deadly payload, as have some
in the past. Lacking regulation of such ingestibles, there is no
protection afforded consumers, and authoritative-looking labels are no
guarantee that what is being vended in those bottles they envelope is not
harmful. Under current law, dangerous supplements get onto the market and
stay there, with serious physical harm resulting among those who use
them, as was the case with ephedra, which caused strokes, heart attacks,
and upwards of 150 deaths before the Food and Drug Administration was
finally able to get it out of the stores.]

evidence. See this accurate assessment of the supposed "risks" posed by
ingestion of dietary supplements graphically compared in a table with the
risk of ingesting prescription drugs, the risk of dying from a bee
sting, the risk of being hit by lightening, the risk of dying from
ingestion of food in common form, etc
http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/medical_injury_law.pdf In the early
90s the FDA went on a witch hunt against the safe amino acid
l-tryptophan.]

contaminant which the Centers for Disease Control later identified as
"Peake E", but FDA ignored the fact that this contaminant had been
identified and rather than just ban l-tryptophan coming from Showa Denko til
the company rectified the problem that had caused the contaminated
batch, the FDA banned ALL l-tryptophan while seeking to try to DEMONIZE the
entire supplement industry thru the slick use of spin against this
totally safe substance which is contained in bananas and milk.]

Lilly introduced Prozac to the market and FDA fraudulently approved it
even though its a very dangerous drug. Prozac acts on the reuptake
mechanism for serotonin in unpredictable ways, causing some people to commit
suicide, others to commit homicide, and it is nowhere NEAR as safe to
use as l-tryptophan is (which is a NATURAL serotonin precursor.)]

their body needs and can handle, but Prozac is different- its much less
safe, yet FDA demonized it and got it banned, while protecting the
business interests of Eli Lilly by blocking this natural, unpatentable
substance from interfering with the sale of Prozac, a patented prescription
drug.]

ephedra by the American Botanical Council
http://www.supplementquality.com/news/ABC_ephedra_monograph.html
Ephedra is a safe substance, certainly far safer than Ephedrine is which is
found in a slew of OTC cold preparations. Any honest examination of data
gathered by the National Association of Poison Control Centers will
indicate that there is a very SERIOUS problem with deaths caused by
Ephedrine, but there have been very FEW problems caused by Ephedra. The
attack on Ephedra was nothing more than the latest witch hunt against the
supplement industry.]

resources, committing a disproportionate amount of their budget to attack
largely SAFE dietary supplements while they FRAUDULENTLY APPROVE a slew of
toxic, ineffective pharmaceutical drugs such as VIOXX and many others
that have been in the news lately. FDA acts like a trade association for
the drug companies because there is a revolving door between their
employees and these drugs companies such that a "good ol' boy network" is
very much in place between them. Additional response to Snopes inane
drivel follows below....]

SNOPES SAID:

In 2004, according to the National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine, almost one in five Americans (19%) reported using a
supplement, which means the pool of folks at risk is great. Yet the
incentives are there for the dietary supplement industry to keep on doing what
it has been doing: in 2002, it reported $18.7 billion in sales. With so
much profit at stake, there is little desire on the part of
manufacturers to police themselves or their products all that carefully.

IAHF: risk of ingesting dietary supplements compared with using prescription
drugs, getting hit by lightening, and numerous other objectively
measured risks http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/medical_injury_law.pdf ]

consuming foods in common form is FAR greater than the risk of consuming
dietary supplements, but we don't see FDA engaging in a witch hunt against
foods in common form. (Gee, I WONDER why? ha ha) So WHAT if supplement
sales totalled $18.7 billion in sales in 2002?]

and statements like this are merely an indicator of how scared the drug
companies are as they see consumers fleeing from their midst in droves
as more and more people turn to using supplements as they take charge of
their own health and STAY CLEAR of hospitals and doctors completely.
The vast majority of supplement companies are very responsible when it
comes to following good manufacturing standards, and the assertion that
these products are putting large numbers of people at risk is outrageous
and unsubstantiated.]

that its original purpose as envisioned by Senator Tom Harkin and
Congressman Berkley Bedell has been subverted, which forced Bedell to create
his own private Foundation http://www.nfam.org to do the work which the
Office of Alternative Medicine (later NCCAM) was supposed to do, but
now ISN'T DOING. Additional response to Snopes inane drivel follows
below....]

SNOPES SAID:

It's not just about inherently dangerous substances being sold to the
unwary as the latest miracle answer for what ails them ­ even when
dietary supplements contain nothing obviously harmful, the current lack of
regulation results in improperly manufactured or contaminated products
reaching the public. Quality control is missing.

IAHF: under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act since 1994 to
draft new Good Manufacturing Practice Regulations for dietary supplements
but they have dragged their feet in doing so because they like being
able to make this sort of unfounded accusation, and if they come out with
new GMP regs, this finger could no longer be pointed.]

protocols and FDA does inspect manufacturing facilities on a regular
basis and they have the power RIGHT NOW to shut down any manufacturing
plant that is not doing what must be done to safeguard consumers. I am a
consultant to many dietary supplement companies that have had FDA
inspections of their manufacturing facilities since passage of DSHEA in '94.
Right on FDA's own website you will find reports of successful FDA
legal action against misbranded products proving FDA's hands aren't tied as
Durbin, Davis AND SNOPES would have you believe. http://www.fda.gov
Additional response to Snopes inane drive follows below...]

SNOPES SAID:

Absent regulation, consumers have little reason to trust they are
getting the dosage they believe they are taking. ConsumerLab.com, an
independent laboratory that tests dietary supplements, found that some
name-brand products contain only small quantities of the active ingredient on
their label. "Some have none, some have 80 percent, some have 20
percent," Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of the lab, told ABC News. Also, some
contaminated supplements reach the market and thus fall into the hands
of unknowing consumers. In December 2004, pesticide was found in
ginseng being vended on the East Coast, and heavy metals such as mercury and
arsenic were discovered in herbal supplements.

IAHF: independent laboratory analysis, but they are not. They are sending
samples off to outside labs, many of which are caught in conflicts of
interest, such that their results are suspect- and their whole way of doing
things INSURES a gross lack of objectivity, here is why:]

publish negative findings of companies that pay them to keep them from
publishing the lab results, only of companies that don't, so this calls into
question the objectivity of the labs that test products Consumer Labs
wants tested. Their credability would be a lot higher if they published
ALL lab results of ALL companies whose products they test,
transparently list which labs they use to do this testing (since they don't reveal
that at all, and that makes it impossible to assess any possible
conflicts of interest. Many testing labs have strong pharma ties and FDA
often farms work out to private labs which know what side their bread is
buttered on.)]

SNOPES SAID:

Two bills put before Congress in 2003 looked to regulate dietary
nostrums by imposing quality and safety standards on them, and giving the FDA
the ability to take them off the market before a great number of folks
have been harmed by them. In March 2003, Senator Richard Durbin
introduced bill S. 722, the "Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003" in the
U.S. Senate.

The purpose of this legislation was to "protect consumers from
dangerous dietary supplements such as ephedra and other stimulants by requiring
manufacturers to submit proof that their product is safe prior to
bringing it to market." The bill would require manufacturers of the most
dangerous types of dietary supplements (stimulants) to submit proof of
their products' safety prior to bringing them to market.

The bill also expands the FDA's authority to require from any dietary
supplement maker proof of its product's safety if that agency has
received information suggesting the product is causing death or other serious
adverse health effects. It would also require manufacturers to report
serious adverse health events (e.g.; heart attack, seizure, stroke,
death), to the FDA no later than 15 calendar days after they learn of them.
The bill also looks to close a loophole in current law that, according
to Senator Durbin, "has been exploited by many dietary supplement
manufacturers, allowing anabolic steroids to be sold widely as dietary
supplements" by clarifying that anabolic steroids are not dietary
supplements and are subject to regulation that restricts their availability under
the Controlled Substances Act.

IAHF:

he got nowhere with his efforts to push the bill in the last congress
are that there is no NEED for this legislation and it flies totally in
the face of the will of the people and the will of congress as expressed
via passage of DSHEA in 1994 which it seeks to repeal. There are no
dangerous dietary supplements, only dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. Durbin
is a Senator from Illinois where AMA Headquarters is.]

want S.722 to be passed in order to be able to put the burden of proof
on supplement manufacturers to proove the efficacy of unpatentable
products where there is no incentive for manufacturers to spend the sums of
money which drug manufacturers have to spend to get their toxic
substances through FDA's approval process. The drug companies don't like the
competition provided by supplements so they're pushing for a level
playing field that is not warranted on a basis of safety as they claim.]

SNOPES SAID:

In October 2003, Representatives Susan Davis (D-CA), Henry Waxman
(D-CA) and John Dingell (DMI) introduced bill H.R. 3377, the "Dietary
Supplement Access and Awareness Act" in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This legislation would increase the FDA's authority over dietary
supplements, enabling that agency to monitor the health risks of dietary
supplements and take appropriate action if problems develop. The proposed law
was not intended to have any impact on the regulation of vitamins and
minerals, which are specifically excluded from the bill. In addition,
for dietary supplements that contain herbs, amino acids, and other
botanicals, the bill will ensure that FDA has basic information about who
makes them and the products' ingredients. It would also require dietary
supplement manufacturers to provide FDA with information about all
adverse events, so that the agency could spot warning signs and investigate
if necessary. It further allows the FDA to prohibit sales to minors of
supplements that may cause significant harm to children. Finally, it
allows the FDA to demand safety information from a manufacturer if the FDA
has evidence that a particular supplement may pose serious risks.

IAHF:

manufacturers in totally superfluous and unecessary red tape. Dietary
Supplements aren't injuring and killing people, pharmaceutical drugs are
and in very large numbers. These bills are being pushed by pharma which
doesn't want people being healthy because it interferes with their
"business with disease". FDA has all the power they need right now to
regulate dietary supplements. The people of America spoke in '94 when we
passed DSHEA in the direct face of an FDA rulemaking effort that would
have crushed consumer access to supplements, and now pharma is trying to
once again subvert the will of the people and the will of Congress.
They're coming at us domestically, and via maneuvering offshore at CODEX.
Currently, the Codex threat is far greater than any domestic threat,
especially since S.722 and HR 3377 have yet to be reintroduced. When they
are reintroduced, they still won't move for the same reasons they
didn't move in the last congress. Codex still remains the far greater
threat. See ADDITIONAL RESPONSES to Snopes Inane Drive Below:]

SNOPES:

Getting back to the e-mail's claim that a foreign regulatory body is
behind all this, we address the claim that:
Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may
end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be
defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World
Health Organization (WHO).
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1962 by two United
Nations organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World
Health Organization.

It is the body of government representatives and non-governmental
organizations charged by the United Nations with establishing international
guidelines on food law. This commission is empowered to set standards
of operation for the health industry and is working to control such
things as the sale of dietary supplements for preventative or therapeutic
reasons and the potency of natural remedies. It also seeks to convert
definitions of many supplements to drugs and to make its rules binding on
every U.N. member nation.

However, what it seeks and what it can do are very different things. It
has no power to force its will on any nation. Codex standards are
voluntary, which means if the U.S. doesn't adopt them, they will not govern
the regulation of vitamins, minerals, or dietary supplements in the
USA.

IAHF:

harmonization via membership in the WTO. We signed the SPS and TBT Agreements
which are subsections of GATT. Codex standards and guidelines WERE
VOLUNTARY up until the Uruguay Round of GATT which created the WTO which has
ENFORCEMENT POWER via a new international court that doesn't follow our
rules of evidence- the Dispute Settlement Body. ]

against the public health, against human rights, against labor rights,
against every intangible that goes into the make up of any democratic
nations laws. This is why there was a huge demonstration in Seattle in '99
and why there have been other huge demonstrations against the WTO in
other countries. The FTAA is an effort to create a carbon copy of the EU
dictatorship in our hemisphere to harmonize all the laws between the
Artic Circle and Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) See
http://www.citizen.org/trade/index.cfm see http://www.stoptheftaa.com
see article Do Three Interlocking Events in November Signal the End of
Health Freedom?
http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/THREE_INTERLOCKING_EVENTS.mht See
Additional Response to Snopes Inane Drivel Below:]

SNOPES:

In November 2004, the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Nutrition and
Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) reached agreement on the
definitions and regulatory guidelines for the worldwide use of vitamins and
minerals in food supplements and will present its "Guidelines for Vitamin
and Mineral Food Supplements" to the Codex annual meeting in Rome in
July 2005 for formal approval. Once approved, countries are expected to
consider these new guidelines in developing or modifying their national
food laws.

The Codex guidelines form a key reference point in case of
international trade disputes in the area of food supplements. That, in a nutshell,
is the extent of its teeth.

The e-mailed exhortation to rise up against Codex claims that
commission's guidelines regarding dietary supplements "will over ride U.S. law."
That's just plain wrong.

United States law governs trade within the United States. Codex
standards come into play only when American manufacturers of dietary
supplements look to vend them on the international market, and even then only
when the other nations involved have incorporated Codex guidelines into
their food laws.

Claims that in various European countries vitamins are now selling for
a horrendous amount or are available only by prescription are strawmen,
because the U.S. (as does every other nation) makes its own laws, and
the new laws it is proposing in S. 722 and H.R. 3377 specifically and
deliberately omit mention of vitamins or minerals, both of which are
already adequately regulated.

Barbara "vitaminimized" Mikkelson

IAHF Response:

US law, forcing Congress to change our law under threat of cross sector
trade sanctions against broad sectors of our economy. See the example
cited previously about what happened to our Steel Tarrifs just before
the last US Election. The US lost a trade dispute.

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body ruled that our Steel Tarrifs were
illegal. Just before the last election WTO told Bush they'd begin imposing
cross sector sanctions unless he got Congress to change our law by
removing the tarrif. They DID remove the tarrif, because no nation can
withstand this sort of economic coersion.

The WTO has put the mechanisms in place to override ANY national law
that interferes with multinational corporate profits, and THAT is why
Congressman Ron Paul tried to REMOVE us from the WTO in 2000 via House
Joint Resolution 90 (cited above). For similar reasons he's been trying to
remove us from the UN which the Codex Commission is part of. HR 1146
The American Sovereignty Restoration Act would do that. It will be
reintroduced, but like efforts to remove us from the WTO has little chance of
going anywhere given our Congress of Whores.

It is due to these concerns that IAHF, ANH and allied health freedom
organizations world wide have been calling attention to the Codex
International Threat to Health Freedom, a very REAL threat which is hardly a
"hoax."Read this article Do Three Interlocking Events in November Signal
the End of Health Freedom?
http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/THREE_INTERLOCKING_EVENTS.mht

Examine this information on the website of the American Holistic Health
Association's website http://ahha.org/codex.htm

Read this information on Gary Null's website:
http://www.garynull.com/Article.aspx?article=Issues/Index.aspx&Head=Issues

Read this alert from the Alliance for Natural Health (UK) to the US
Supplement Industry:
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_129.doc

Watch the DVD of the Emergency Health Freedom Meeting held at ACAM in
San Diego on November 18th, 2004 http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf Grasp
that this Emergency Meeting was emceed by Jonathan V. Wright, MD a
Harvard Graduate, and Director of the world famous Tahoma Clinic near
Seattle WA.

Wright is an icon in the health freedom movement. FDA did a Gestapo
like raid on his clinic in '92 which he survived, and in the process
became a cause celebre. He was on Larry King Live and helped catalyze the
movement to pass DSHEA which he realizes we are now attempting to defend
on the world stage in the face of Codex. He published an article about
the Codex threat last September.

He wouldn't be staking his reputation on his concern about this if it
were a "non issue." Dr.Rob Verkerk, exec dir of the UK based Alliance
for Natural Health would not have flown to California from England to
speak at our meeting if it were a "non issue", and I wouldn't have gone to
the trouble of organizing this meeting if it were a "non issue."

Aside from poorly informed pro pharma spin doctors such as Barbara
Mikkelson of Snopes who obviously didn't take the time to do a thorough
research job, people are being led to the cliff on this issue by the
pharma dominated vitamin trade associations including IADSA- exposed here
http://www.iahf.com/iadsa/index.html , CRN and NNFA.

CRN's membership is riddled with pharma interests including Wyeth,
BASF, Bayer, Monsanto, Cargill and many others
http://www.crnusa.org/who_omc.html This is a gross conflict of
interest. NNFA members are being advised on Codex by NNFA's legal counsel:
Sidley, Austin, Brown and Wood LLP. This multinational law firm has 1500
attorneys and offices on 3 continents- and they have a slew of pharma
clients- it is a gross conflict of interest that NNFA has retained them:
http://www.sidley.com/practice/group.asp?groupid=25

WHAT CAN WE DO?:

What can be done to STOP the Codex threat? We outlined that in our
Emergency Health Freedom Mtg in San Diego at ACAM in November and you can
watch it here http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf A core group of us are
refining our battle plan and are reaching out to a rapidly awakening
industry which is reading articles such as this one of mine
http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/emergency_update_020705.htm and
they're getting behind our plan.

Consumers wanting to help can sign on to the IAHF email distribution
list at http://www.iahf.com and can help get copies of our DVD "Push Back
from Codex Cliff" http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf out to health food
stores and vitamin companies. We need donations for ongoing public
speaking on this issue, and we hope to launch a lawsuit against the FDA to
get an injunction to block ratification of the Codex vitamin standard,
as well as donations for a global PR campaign against ratification and
against the WTO.

So much for the Codex vitamin issue being an "urban legend". It is not.
We're up against a deliberately incremental agenda that has been moving
with intentional slowness so as to not arouse a public backlash, but
that sure doesn't make it any less real. Please forward this
massively.Urge everyone you know to sign on to the IAHF email distribution list at
http://www.iahf.com Please contribute to help me get to Expo West in a
month in California and to do additional public speaking as the fuse
burns closer to the bomb.

---
For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
556 Boundary Bay Road
Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA
http://www.iahf.com
[e-mail]
800-333-2553 N.America
360-945-0352 World

[RC]

6. Do you really think the criminals in the White House

Would allow this even if true? They want to run everyone else's show. No way is anyone going to run theirs.

[kaygore]

9. THIS IS NOT A H*O*A*X--read for yourself

http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/emergency_update_020705.htm

UPDATE FROM THE HEALTH FREEDOM FRONT LINES

By John C. Hammell, President, International Advocates for Health Freedom


The two barristers (attorneys) who represented ANH before the World Court in Luxembourg, Paul Lasok, QC, (right), who argued the case and Michael Patchett-Joyce. Photo by David Hinde, ANH.


On January 25, I witnessed Paul Lasok, QC, a world leading expert on EU law, do a superlative job of presenting the case of The Alliance for Natural Health (UK) in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

At issue is the draconian EU Food Supplement Directive’s so called “positive list” of ingredients allowed to be used in the manufacture of dietary supplements. The ban posed by the “positive” list will eliminate 75% of the forms of vitamins and minerals currently used in the EU market, unless the court issues a favorable verdict in June.

Americans must be concerned about ANH’s case due to the fact that the EU Food Supplement Directive is being overlaid as a template atop the development of a global trade standard for dietary supplements being “developed” by the UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission (with a little “help” from the US FDA.)

Dietician Christine Lewis-Taylor is “on loan” from the FDA to the World Health Organization where she is spearheading their “nutrient risk assessment project” which by May will have “filled in the blanks” on allowable vitamins and potency limits at Codex.

FDA is setting the USA up for “harm-onization” of its dietary supplement laws to a mindlessly restrictive international standard- aided and abetted directly by pharma dominated vitamin trade associations world wide which have been effectively pulling the wool over the eyes of American industry, health food stores and consumers.

Senator Hatch and Harken’s offices, the US Trade Representatives Office, and especially the US Codex Office (led by Dr.Ed Scarbrough at the USDA) have been actively lying to the public on the Codex issue for years- while the Life Extension Foundation was the first to call it to global attention in 1996 via my article. International Advocates for Health Freedom was created specifically to catalyze awareness of the issue and in November we held an Emergency Meeting at ACAM- a DVD of which can be watched at

http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf

Jonathan Wright, MD MC ed this emergency meeting which was well attended by alternative practitioners and innovative supplement manufacturers who are finally seeing through the spin.