Save Our Supplements! Grass Roots Action Needed IMMEDIATELY To Oppose Bad AER Bi

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IAHF.COM

Tuesday, December 05, 2006 10:18 AM

SOS Save Our Supplements! Grass Roots Action Needed IMMEDIATELY To

Oppose Bad AER Bill During Lame Duck Congress Session This Week!!

 

 

IAHF List:[see Byron Richard's article below my comments]

 

Immediate grassroots action is needed RIGHT NOW to oppose the bad AER bill

because the Pharma Dominated NPA (Natural Products Assn) (formerly NNFA)

just sent a HUGE E-Blitz out to every vitamin company, and every health food

store in the country to try to push this TROJAN HORSE legislation.

 

This huge push by NPA threatens to blow the innovative sector of the

supplement industry SKY HIGH, and you MUST contact congress per the alert

below AND network this info for ALL YOU'RE WORTH!!

 

Please call your family, friends, neighbors about this and URGE them to join

you in taking action! Copy the article below. Take it to every health food

store within a 50 mile radius of your home and strongly urge the owner to

QUIT NPA (formerly NNFA). Use your strongest powers of persuasion to get all

the staff in the health food stores to read Byron's superb article below.

 

If you lack time right now to read it, at least skim through to the part

where with ONE MOUSE CLICK you can TAKE ACTION, then print it out and keep

it by the toilet so you can read it while sitting on the throne... but

PLEASE READ IT- this one is a MUST READ.

 

Donations needed to send IAHF back to DC: IAHF needs to return to DC after

the lame duck session to continue opposition to the bad AER bill and also

for ongoing work against the FDA's Trilateral Cooperation Charter. For $25.

we'll send a copy of Byron's book Fight for Your Health- Exposing FDA's

Betrayal of America. For $50. we'll send the book, plus Kevin Miller's

documentary film " We Become Silent " about the Codex vitamin issue.For $100.

we'll send the above + an IAHF Bumper Sticker. For $500. we'll send the

above + an autographed photo of John Hammell swimming in a hole cut in the

ice of a frozen pond. Please help us get back to DC so we can do our work!

IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd., Point Roberts WA 98281 or via paypal: HYPERLINK

" http://www.iahf.com " http://www.iahf.com click to enter site, see paypal

link on top of scrollbar inside the site.

HYPERLINK " http://www.iahf.com/ " http://www.iahf.com/

 

 

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron16.htm " http://www.newswithviews.

com/Richards/byron16.htm

 

BIG PHARMA TROJAN HORSES PERMEATE SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

December 5, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

 

Today I received an e-mail from the Natural Products Association (NPA)

asking me to support the Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Drug

Consumer Protection Act (the “AER billâ€). Apparently they do not know I am

one of the most outspoken critics of this legislation. I have already posted

two articles on this topic for NWV, one in July

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron1.htm " http://www.newswithviews.c

om/Richards/byron1.htm

and one in November

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron14.htm " http://www.newswithviews.

com/Richards/byron14.htm

The NPA, formerly the NNFA (National Nutritional Foods Association), is the

largest trade association for ingredient suppliers and health food stores.

This group, along with CRN (the Council for Responsible Nutrition) has been

taken over by Big Pharma and is selling out the supplement industry.

 

You as a consumer must weigh in on this subject before it is too late. Your

options for effective natural solutions are in serious jeopardy. Immediate

action is required to defend health freedom and your right to have

therapeutic choices in natural health options.

 

Unfortunately, it is up to “we the American people†to save the supplement

industry from traitorous groups pretending to be on your side. There is a

serious attempt underway to push this bill through prior to the close of the

lame duck session (apparently to end on December 8). Click here to take

action now, tell your congressional leaders to vote no on S. 3546/H.R. 6168.

 

HYPERLINK

" http://www.thenhf.com/oppose_S3546_nhf_call_to_action_nov_2006.htm " http://w

ww.thenhf.com/oppose_S3546_nhf_call_to_action_nov_2006.htm

 

This is what the December 4, 2006, NPA e-mail stated:

 

We’re contacting you because an important bill may soon be voted on in

Congress. This legislation, which the Natural Products Association – along

with the other leading dietary supplement trade groups – supports, is, S.

3546 in the Senate and H.R. 6168 in the House of Representatives.

 

Yes, these are the names of the bills and they are rotten to the core for

consumers and the supplement industry.

 

Contrary to what you may have heard, this legislation will not affect the

availability of dietary supplements or lead to closures of health food

stores.

 

Wrong, an outright lie! This legislation may drastically reduce the

availability of therapeutic supplements by linking them with adverse effects

actually caused by drugs. True, health food stores are not likely to close.

They will keep selling the lower quality Big Pharma brands, like One-A-Day

(Bayer) and Centrum (Wyeth). About 80% of the supplement market is not

really concerned about your health; this includes big box stores, most

network marketing companies, drug stores, super markets, and internet

fly-by-night operations. Big Pharma knows these brands pose no competition

to their monopolistic drug cartel. Rather, Big Pharma wants all effective

nutrition off the market – the really great products that fix diabetes,

resolve depression, prevent heart disease, enable weight loss, fix

fibromyalgia, and help a person survive cancer treatment. Big Pharma wants a

sick America and will do anything to keep people in poor health and on

multiple toxic drugs.

 

It’s also important to remember that the legislation would require only

serious – such as life threatening– experiences, not just any complaint, to

be reported. And keep in mind that the government already tracks adverse

experiences that could be related to dietary supplements.

 

The FDA is currently unable to properly track adverse events caused by drugs

and does not even know which drugs are safe. Over 100,000 Americans are

killed each year by drugs, and at least 3 million are injured so severely it

requires hospitalization. The FDA already has an adequate MedWatch reporting

system for serious adverse events for dietary supplements. The proposed bill

calls for supplement manufacturers to keep track of all complaints any

person reports, serious or not, a standard far stricter than truly dangerous

drugs! This is absolutely absurd.

 

If such legislation becomes law it will be used as a vehicle for the FDA to

remove supplements from the market based on hearsay data. There is no

mechanism in place for any supplement company to collect health information

on the person reporting, including existing medications or health history.

This means the legislation can and will be used as a witch hunt against

effective natural options for health. Certainly, the lawyers at NPA and

those supporting this bill are licking their chops at all the business this

legislation will generate for them.

 

What’s new is that manufacturers who get reports of consumers being

seriously harmed by their products can’t keep them secret. While we believe

such occurrences are extremely rare, if they do happen, reporting is the

right thing to do.

 

True serious adverse events from dietary supplements are extremely rare and

already covered by MedWatch. Any medical doctor or patient believing a

supplement has injured them can easily fill out a MedWatch form. No one has

any objection to serious AER reporting. That is not what this bill is really

all about. It is about gutting DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and

Education Act of 1994), the legislation that enables American consumers to

have more options for health than in any other country in the world. By

implying there is a safety problem (which there isn’t) and making supplement

companies defend themselves, the burden of proof is shifted from the FDA to

supplement companies, thereby drastically changing existing law in favor of

Big Pharma and away from access to natural health options granted by DSHEA.

The FDA already does what it can to discriminate against small and

innovative companies.

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron12.htm " http://www.newswithviews.

com/Richards/byron12.htm

 

 

If H.R. 6168 and S. 3546 are passed and become law, they will amend the

federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to require the reporting of “seriousâ€

adverse events for both over the counter (OTC) drugs and dietary supplements

to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

 

That is true. However, there is no way to differentiate between drug-drug

interactions, drug-nutrient interactions, or food poisoning, meaning there

is no way to accurately judge what is causing a problem. Furthermore, the

real issue is the safety of drugs, not supplements. Until the FDA has a

working system for drug safety, there is no way for the FDA to judge

supplement safety. There is a reason the Institute of Medicine reported that

the FDA is dysfunctional and not able to protect Americans from harm. Its

drugs!!!! – not vitamins.

 

While the Natural Products Association understands that the mandatory

reporting requirements of the AER bill will add to manufacturers’ record

keeping responsibilities, we believe the bill will benefit the industry in

the long run.

 

This opinion must be coming from the lawyers that stand to make a fortune

defending supplement companies from frivolous attacks relating to

non-serious adverse events. Also, doctors will attempt to blame vitamins for

the devastating side effects of their commonly prescribed medications.

Dangerous drugs, like statins

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron15.htm " http://www.newswithviews.

com/Richards/byron15.htm

are in widespread use and making many Americans very ill and even causing

premature death. When someone has heart failure from taking statins, doctors

will try to blame it on vitamin E. It would be a major travesty to pass

legislation that allows the side effects of dangerous drugs to be reported

in such a way as to remove safe and effective supplements from the market.

The Big Pharma goal is to maintain its monopoly at any cost. It is an agenda

based on drug sales and a callous disregard for human life.

 

First, by helping to change the perception by critics of the dietary

supplement industry that it is not well regulated.

 

This is the Big Lie

HYPERLINK

" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

The truth is that supplements are safer than food. Supplements are not

drugs. Critics of the dietary supplement industry are all getting a pile of

money from Big Pharma and they pretend to be upset about network marketing

companies making bogus health claims, companies with a history of paying off

Senators Hatch and Harkin for protection. Since most of these companies that

seemingly cause problems are members of CRN and NNFA, why don’t these junk

trade organizations clean up their own members? There is no need to put out

of business the many nutritional companies providing a true quality service

to millions of Americans in true need of real help, unless of course you are

simply trying to put your own competition out of business.

 

Second, over time, the recordkeeping and reporting requirements will

substantiate what many in the industry have been saying all along – that the

safety record of dietary supplements is exemplary, especially when compared

to other health-related products.

 

Obviously, true serious AERs will be very infrequent, unlike the several

thousand people dying each week at the hands of Big Pharma. However, the

recordkeeping requirement for non-serious adverse events opens the door for

unlimited FDA harassment of any company. Since the FDA is currently bought

and paid for by Big Pharma, that is a huge problem.

 

Ultimately, safety reporting is the right thing to do for a responsible

industry that puts consumers first.

 

In a world where Big Pharma and the FDA have spent decades trying to

obliterate competition, such a naïve statement is designed to appeal to

“reasonableness†and “political correctness.†NPA has no concept of

integrity to the US Constitution or what makes America great. If anyone

wants to believe the utopian garbage put forth by NPA, try to get the

statement to apply to Big Pharma.

 

The e-mail is then signed by the Natural Products Association. Yes, not one

person in this pathetic group had the nerve to put their name on this

embarrassing e-mail. I wonder who wrote it. Was it Senator Hatch’s younger

son who works at NPA? Was it Senator Hatch’s older son who lobbies for NPA?

Or was it one of the Big Pharma members sitting on the NPA board? Companies

supporting this horrid legislation and the related anti-American

globalization agenda of Codex Alimentarius include Mannatech, Herbalife,

Shacklee, Now Foods, Dr. Weil Vitamins, Jarrow, and many more.

 

Besides faxing, phoning, and e-mailing Congress to vote no on S.3546, any

person purchasing supplements should demand that whomever they buy

supplements from is not a member of CRN or NPA. Health food stores and

ingredient suppliers should withdraw from these bogus Big Pharma

pro-globalization organizations. If you need more facts to convince you of

the magnitude of this problem, read my book Fight for Your Health: Exposing

the FDA’s Betrayal of America

HYPERLINK

" http://www.newswithviews.com/HNB/Hot_New_Books32.htm " http://www.newswithvie

ws.com/HNB/Hot_New_Books32.htm

If you buy supplements from such companies or stores then answer this simple

question: why are you paying money to be shot in the back?

 

© 2006 Truth in Wellness, LLC -

HYPERLINK " http://www.truthinwellness.com/ " http://www.truthinwellness.com/

 

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

Health Freedom 556 Boundary Bay Road Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA

HYPERLINK " http://www.iahf.com " http://www.iahf.com HYPERLINK

" jham " jham 800-333-2553 N.America 360-945-0352

World

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I am not even in the USA, but I'm sending

Ian a few bucks.

 

AND: I urge everybody, no matter where

you live, to educate yourself about local

herbs and to plant and preserve some.

 

" They " may ban supplements, but they can't

kill all the dandelions, nettles, plantain, burdocks,

purslane, sorrel, to name just a few ordinary weeds

that are powerful healers.

 

 

Ien in the Kootenays

http://freegreenliving.com