CAFTA BAD FOR DIETARY SUPPLEMENT CONSUMERS: VOTE _NO_ ON CAFTA!!

[Guest guest]

fw:

 

CAFTA isn't just about free trade. It contains language on an alarming number

of seemingly unrelated issues and threatens to undermine freedoms we all take

for granted. Freedoms like the right to purchase and consume vitamins,

minerals, and food supplements all of which will be reclassified as drugs.

Because commonly used vitamins, minerals, and food supplements have not

undergone an expensive FDA approval process, they will in fact be summarily

removed from the shelf's and disappear forever to protect the drug company's

profits and deny you access to alternative and natural forms of health care.

CAFTA has already passed the Senate and will be voted on next week in the House

of Representatives. It is imperative that you contact each one of your states

representatives and demand a no vote on CAFTA. I am including a link below so

you can see how each representative, Republicans and democrats stand on the

issue of CAFTA. Please get involved on this issue It couldn't be more important

for you to do it now!

 

Please email this to your Representatives via http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and

use the suggested letter below..

 

CAFTA BAD FOR DIETARY SUPPLEMENT CONSUMERS: VOTE _NO_ ON CAFTA!!

 

Dear Congressman_______________________________

 

Section 6 of the CAFTA Treaty requires us to create a Sanitary Phytosanitary

Measures Committee to insure that we enter in to a constant process of

harmonizing our laws to international standards. Section 3, the SPS Section of

the WTO Trade Agreement, requires us to harmonize our laws to Codex standards:

" To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as

possible, members SHALL base their food safety measures on international

standards, guidelines or recommendations. " (Codex standards)

 

On July 4, 2005, the UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission ratified a framework to

create a global trade guideline for vitamins and minerals. In November Codex

will move to bill in the blanks on allowable potency levels. The methodology

being employed by the World Health Organization to fill in these blanks is

scientifically biased given that it is only examining supposed " risks " of

vitamins, while completely ignoring benefits, and its been heavily criticized by

the Alliance for Natural Health in these extensive comments submitted to WHO

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_121.pdf

 

ANH, along with all other critics of WHO's biased methodology were barred from

participation in a " Nutrient Risk Assessment Workshop " presided over by an FDA

employee, Dr.Christine Lewis Taylor, an unelected bureaucrat with a known bias

against the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 and against

consumer access to vitamins and minerals within the therapeutic range.

 

Given the well demonstrated bias, and flawed scientific methodology being

employed, it is highly probable that Codex will fill in the blanks for allowed

potencies of vitamins and minerals to potencies that are well below the

therapeutic range- even lower than RDAs in some instances are reflected by

column in the right side of this table:

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_145.doc

 

Attorneys who have analyzed this situation caution us that we're dealing with

emerging law here and that anything can happen. For example, the FDA has

recently blocked some manufacturers from marketing products containing one or

more New Dietary Ingredients (NDIs). Under DSHEA, any ingredient not in use at

the time DSHEA was ratified is classified as an NDI, and the FDA requires the

manufacturer submit 90 days advance notice of intent to market a product with it

along with safety data to show a history of safe use.

 

It would be easy for FDA to block a foreign product from coming in here due to

its containing one or more NDIs, and the foreign manufacturer could initiate a

trade dispute against us. Threat of cross sector trade sanctions has forced

congress to change our laws on several occassions. Under these circumstances

there is no reason to expect that the SPS Committee established under CAFTA

wouldn't strongly recommend that congress pass legislation which scuttles the

Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 as mandated by Section 3 of

in the WTO Trade Agreement which requires harmonization to Codex. Enormous

political pressure could be applied to congress for this purpose by industries

that would be impacted by trade sanctions- overriding the will of the people.

 

A vehicle for this purpose has already been introduced in the form of HR 3156

" The Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act " which would force substantive

changes to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, effectively gutting

it.

 

Public Citizen has documented that we have lost 33 out of 36 cases brought

against us before the WTO, and that we've lost EVERY case pertaining to

environmental or public health matters. Frankly, I don't like those odds, and

am not willing to take any chances.

 

Signed_________

 

Address___________