SNOPES DECLARES CODEX AN URBAN LEGEND

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Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:54:11 +0100

 

" IAHF.COM " <jham

 

 

 

SNOPES DECLARES CODEX AN " URBAN LEGEND " --- IAHF SHREDS SNOPES

SPIN- CHALLENGES BARBARA MIKKELSON OF SNOPES TO RADIO DEBATE

 

 

 

 

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 [square brackets]. 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 [square brackets]

 

Snopes website said:

 

 

Vitamin See

 

Claim: American consumers risk losing their right to purchase and use

vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements.

 

IAHF Comment: [This is true. The SNOPES analysis below is grossly

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.]

 

[i am not the originator of Wallace Heath's information, either. He

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.]

 

[He is a lot more up to speed now because he drove to my house and has

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.]

 

[His concerns on this issue were motivated by a very REAL threat which

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 [square brackets] 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: [This IS false, but I never said vitamins would be banned in the

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.]

 

[unless we succeed in stopping this, the USA would be set up to lose in

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.]

 

[This attack is not happening in a vaccuum, its part of a broader

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.]

 

[An example of the WTO forcing our Congress to change a law happened

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?]

 

[The fact is, WE CAN'T protect our supplement laws in the USA unless we

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.)]

 

[The fact is that Pharma interests controlling the vitamin trade

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 ]

 

[A draconian Codex vitamin standard was finalized last November, 2004

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:

 

[s.722 and HR 3377 have not yet been reintroduced, but they will be. I

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: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

 

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: [They did not " meet secretly " . That is a slight over

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.]

 

[if I had not, at the very least they would have confiscated my

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]

 

[i was thrown off the US Delegation just prior to the CCNFSDU meeting

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

www.pulseplus@...

 

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:

 

[Not true. The first Codex alert ever circulated was my article in Life

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:

 

[barbara Mikkelson of Snopes never bothered to communicate with either

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.]

 

[if she had taken the trouble (as I have) to call Durbin and Davis's

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

 

]

 

[Not only is the National Academy of Sciences calling for the

repealment of DSHEA, but their call for repealment is being ECHOED by the 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: [Where should I BEGIN with these two outrageous statements? First

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.]

 

[in 1976 the Proxmire Vitamin Act was passed in the face of a mindless

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.]

 

[Far from tying the FDA's hands, DSHEA actually gave the FDA many

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.]

 

[Despite their presence on store shelves, not all dietary supplements

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.]

 

[These statements are outrageous and aren't backed up by any solid

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.]

 

[A contaminated batch manufactured by Showa Denko in Japan contained a

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.]

 

[The real reason FDA attacked l-tryptophan was that at that time Eli

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.)]

 

[A person using l-tryptophan will only manufacture as much serotonin as

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.]

 

[The FDA attack on Ephedra was similarly motivated. See this review of

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.]

 

[The FDA has a limited budget, and they are squandering precious

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: [This sort of spin is outrageous. This table shows the relative

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 ]

 

[As you can see from these statistics, the risk of injury from

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?]

 

[Thats just a drop in the BUCKET compared with PHARMACEUTICAL SALES,

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.]

 

[NCCAM has been hijacked by the pharma elements that control NIH such

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: [More disinformation. The fact is that the FDA has had the power

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.]

 

[in any case, most manufacturers already DO follow very rigourous GMP

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: [ConsumerLab would have you believe that they are doing their own

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:]

 

[Consumer Lab has highly unethical business practices: they won't

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:

 

[This is the spin Durbin has used to try to push S.722, and the reason

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.]

 

[He is doing the bidding of the AMA and the major drug companies which

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:

 

[More spin. S.722 and HR 3377 constitute an effort to bury supplement

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:

 

[bull. The USA has agreed to enter into a constant process of

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. ]

 

[Every ruling this entity has made has gone against the environment,

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:

 

[barbara Mikkelson is clueless. Numerous WTO rulings have gone against

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

jham

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World

 

__________