International War Against Health

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International War Against Health

Your FREE Access to Nutritional Supplements May be Soon Lost

by Dr. Robert Jay Rowen

 

What if I told you the next time you walk into your health food store,

it will be the last time you're able to buy vitamin C in 500 mg doses?

 

Or what if I said the recommended daily allowances, as given by our

government, had become the maximum amount you could buy?

 

If you've read this newsletter for very long, you know both of these

situations could happen. But the possibility has always been " years

away. " Well, this month I'm writing to tell you that those " years

away " are now down to 18 months!

 

That's right!

 

I've written to you on several occasions through the years about the

war our government is fighting against our beloved supplements. This

war has now escalated to the point that you could lose your free

access to vitamins in just a year and a half!

 

How can this be?

 

Thanks to certain trade agreements our government has made " on your

behalf, " it's quite possible the United States will be forced to

declare high dosages of nutritional supplements as drugs - subject to

prescription laws.

 

Several years ago, you read in these pages about Codex Alimentarius,

which means " food code " in Latin. It's the name of a United Nations

commission that operates as part of the World Health Organization. The

Commission's mandate is to set international standards for trade in

all kinds of food products. Its concerns include raw- and

processed-food standards, pesticide and other contaminant levels,

nutritional content, and labeling. Nutritional supplements are

considered food products.

 

The Codex Alimentarius Commission has been establishing world

guidelines that no dietary supplement can be sold for preventive or

therapeutic purposes without a prescription.

 

Second, the Codex Alimentarius Commission is limiting over-the-counter

sales of dietary supplements to those of low or RDA dosage, the

amounts required to prevent deficiency diseases but not chronic or

degenerative diseases (such as cancer). Dietary supplements of higher

potency - the dosages that work to fortify the immune system and stave

off aging and chronic disease - would become pharmaceuticals. You

would have to get them from a pharmacist. And that's after visiting

and paying your doctor just to get the prescription.

 

If you want to know what the Commission has in store for you, you just

need to look at Europe where Codex rules are already in place. Vitamin

C, for example, is limited to just 50 mg per dose in some countries,

compared to our products of up to 1,000 mg or powders of several

thousand mg per teaspoon. I was one who thought this horror would not

reach our shores. However, what I'm finding out is that it very well

could reach our shores in a year and a half through treaty law. Some

officials are saying the treaties don't come into play here and others

are saying they do. At this point, it looks to me like the treaties

will force us to comply with international law.

 

You're well aware of the FDA's move to ban ephedra. In the wake of the

ephedra bill, I also told you about two bills quietly moving through

the U.S. Congress entitled " safety and access " regarding supplements

(S 722 - The Dietary Supplement Safety Act and HR 3377 - The Dietary

Supplement Access and Awareness Act). Once passed, the FDA will be

empowered to reel in any supplement it deems unsafe.

 

But these bills will mean nothing if the World Health Organization

adopts the Commission's rules. Why? Once WHO adopts these rules, they

become the standard for international trade, and enforcement will fall

under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization. When the U.S.

became a member of the WTO, it agreed to act in accordance with the

rules of the multilateral body. What that means is that the United

States is legally obligated to make sure our laws do not conflict with

WTO laws. In other words, our government must agree to any

" directives " the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body

hands down. (If you don't believe me, our Congress has already changed

American corporate tax law and other laws because of threats from the

WTO.) The U.S. will have to adopt the new WTO rules, which are far

more stringent than the current bills before Congress, or face trade

sanctions from member nations.

 

This is truly an outrage! Not only are we losing our vitamins, but

we're also giving away our national sovereignty! All because Big

Pharma can't stand to lose its profits.

 

There is not much time to act. I have contacted editors of other

newsletters, including Jonathan Wright and Julian Whitaker, and asked

them to run similar warnings so that there can be a galvanized storm

of opposition.

 

Please take this article to your nutritional stores, or if you belong

to a multi-level vitamin company, alert the leaders. Contact every

person you know with copies of this article. You have my permission to

make copies!

 

However, even your congressman is powerless to fight Codex, so I

implore you to help support the British " Alliance for Natural Health, "

which has filed suit to overturn the European Food Supplements

Directive. In January 2004, the Alliance's attorneys (a firm which has

successfully had another European Directive overturned) won the first

round in the High Court of Justice in London; the appeal was referred

to the European Court of Justice.

 

Please visit the Alliance's website,

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org, read about its case, and most

importantly, make a donation to support its efforts to protect

everyone's supplements, including yours. Even a few dollars will help!

If we can help them overturn this food supplement dictatorship in

Europe, it won't ever come here.

 

© 2005 Dr. Robert Jay Rowen.

Dr. Rowen can be reached at his

newsletter website called Second Opinion

(www.secondopinionnewsletter.com.)