Leading Innovative Cancer Doctor Warns Congress on CAFTA

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Leading Innovative Cancer Doctor Warns Congress on CAFTA

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 15:21:26 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

Leading Innovative Cancer Doc

Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. Warns Congress on CAFTA:

If the House Votes 'Yes' And Access to Nutritional Supplements Is

Limited, Cancer Patients Will Sit In At Your Offices Until They Die

 

 

© By Peter Barry Chowka

(July 17, 2005) Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D., a pioneering practitioner of

leading edge nutritional medicine in the United States, has taken a

strong stand on the CAFTA bill currently being considered in the House

of Representatives. He promises that if CAFTA passes, is signed into

law, and winds up limiting the ability of Americans to get high dose

nutritional supplements, many of his cancer patients will sit in at

their Congressmen's offices until they die.

 

In his private practice in New York City, Gonzalez treats patients,

most of them with cancer, exclusively with nutrition, supplements, and

detoxification, avoiding conventional therapies and so-called

integrative approaches that attempt to combine orthodox treatments

with complementary adjuncts. In 1999, after publishing a pilot study

in a medical journal on the success of his treatment on advanced

pancreatic cancer patients, Gonzalez received an unprecedented $1.4

million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a

prospective clinical trial of his therapy. That trial is still ongoing.

 

On July 15, 2005, Gonzalez wrote letters to his member of Congress,

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and the Speaker of the House of

Representatives, Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The subject was Gonzalez'

vehement opposition to H.R. 3045 CAFTA, the Central American Free

Trade Agreement which is scheduled to be voted on by the House before

the end of the month. CAFTA has already passed the U.S. Senate by a

close vote.

 

Gonzalez provided me with copies of his letters and gave me permission

to publish and comment on them.

 

Gonzalez critiques CAFTA and its potential to limit Americans' freedom

to access nutritional supplements. In addition, he informs the two

members of Congress that if CAFTA passes the House, is signed into

law, and results in supplement freedom being curtailed, his patients

will sit in at their Congressmen's offices " until they die. " In the

letter to Hastert, Gonzalez adds, " That will include your office,

incidentally, since they perceive you as being in charge of the House. "

 

CAFTA, along with NAFTA, GATT, activities of the United Nations' (UN)

WHO (World Health Organization), FAO (Food and Agriculture

Organization), and CODEX, is one of an alphabet soup of policies,

programs, and highly bureaucratized and unresponsive international

agencies that, in the context of an increasingly globalized one world

economy, are coming together to change the way of life and impact

personal freedom in individual nations, including the United States.

As has become clear only recently, CAFTA represents a potentially

serious threat to Americans' (that is, residents of the United

States') ability to purchase nutritional supplements, especially at

therapeutic (high) dose levels.

 

For almost a decade, a relatively small number of analysts, medical

professionals, journalists, consumer organizations, and activists has

been monitoring developments re: CODEX and how CODEX might affect

freedom to buy and use a range of nutritional supplements in the U.S.

and other countries. The murky CODEX issue has been particularly

difficult to unravel and to educate and mobilize consumers around -

very much unlike earlier struggles regarding nutritional supplements,

which always involved a single piece of legislation in the U.S.

Congress that was identifiable as either bad or good by proponents of

nutritional medicine and freedom of medical choice.

 

This summer, a number of developments, involving CODEX, CAFTA, a

decision by a court of the European Union (EU) on regulating

supplements in the EU member countries, etc., are accelerating the

recognition that limitations on nutritional supplement freedom in the

US are fast approaching. Previously, that dire scenario may have

seemed unlikely to come to pass, but in fact, as Gonzalez contends, It

can happen here.

 

 

A copy of the Gonzalez letter to Maloney:

 

 

July 15, 2005

 

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney

1651 Third Avenue #311

New York, New York 10128

 

Dear Congresswoman Maloney:

 

I am writing with some desperation to express my strong opposition to

CAFTA which is soon coming up for a vote in the House of

Representatives. I sincerely hope someone in your staff reads this

letter, as the lives of my patients could be in jeopardy should CAFTA

pass and become law.

 

I am a physician who lives in your district, and practices in

Manhattan. I have a very traditional medical education background (AB

Brown, postgraduate work at Columbia, MD at Cornell, fellowship in

cancer immunology). Since I was a medical student, first under the

direction of the then President of the Sloan Kettering Institute, I

began researching intensive nutritional approaches to the treatment of

advanced cancer. Though in the past my work has been considered

controversial, in recent years I have received significant academic

support. In 1993, the National Cancer Institute invited me to present

my work to a senior level group in Bethesda, and at their suggestion I

pursued my first clinical trial, an evaluation of my approach in the

treatment of inoperable pancreatic cancer, considered the most deadly

of cancers. The results of that effort, which went beyond anything

previously documented for the disease, were published in 1999 in the

research journal Nutrition and Cancer. As a result of that study, the

National Cancer Institute awarded me a large grant to support further

clinical trials of my work, currently being conducted at the Columbia

University College of Physicians and Surgeons. My current approach

involves the use of high dose pancreatic enzyme and nutritional

therapy in the treatment of advanced malignancies, and does not

involve the use of chemotherapy. All the supplements we prescribed are

considered nutritional supplements; though we have full FDA approval

for the study, none of these supplements required a prescription. I

want to mention that my research has been strongly supported by both

Republicans and Democrats, particularly Senator Tom Harkin and

Congressman Dan Burton, both of whom have met with me to discuss my work.

 

What does this have to do with CAFTA? Everything, since should CAFTA

pass in the US, by the definitions of CAFTA, my therapy, the clinical

trial itself, could become illegal.

 

Few Congressmen and certainly few Senators realize that CAFTA requires

harmonization with existing European legislation regarding food and

dietary supplements under the CODEX regulations. This is the genesis

of the potential problem. The pharmaceutical industry has in Europe

mounted a relentless campaign to use CODEX to virtually eliminate the

over the counter sales of most nutritional and herbal supplements, and

turn them into prescription items which could then be sold at much

higher prices, completely under the control of drug companies.

 

Currently, as you probably know, nutritional supplements are available

over the counter in this country, and do not require a prescription. I

believe as a physician and scientist that this easy availability of

such products has been of great benefit to millions of Americans, as a

substantial and ever increasing amount of scientific literature

supports the beneficial effects of many nutrients that are too often

inadequately provided in food.

 

CAFTA, if passed, would require the US harmonize its dietary

supplement legislation with that of CODEX, forbid the over-the-counter

sale of the great majority of useful supplements, and destroy the

valuable US supplement industry. Since my therapy utilizes only

nutritional supplements, should CAFTA pass, and CODEX supercede

American protection of their availability, my treatment would come to

an end, my promising research would be dismantled, and many hundreds

of my patients whose lives depend on this treatment will die. I am not

exaggerating, and any of your staff are invited to come to my office

to discuss these critical issues with me.

 

Nutritional supplements have a long history of safety except in very

rare cases when misused; their safety profile is far more impressive

than that of many over the counter drugs such as aspirin, which yearly

is responsible for several hundred deaths. Nutritional supplements as

currently available offer many benefits in terms of disease prevention

and good health, as documented clearly in the extensive nutritional

literature, and they are a subject about which millions of Americans

are passionate. You may not be aware, but for 30 years the

pharmaceutical industry in the US has sought to gain complete control

of what they perceive as a lucrative industry, by turning nutritional

supplements into prescription items. Their attempts, often hidden

beyond sacred tenets of " consumer protection from dangerous

supplements, " have little to do with the consumer and everything to do

with industry control.

 

Many of my own patients are desperate, as they learn the dangers of

CAFTA and CODEX to their lives. But that's just the beginning; within

the past few weeks, millions of Americans, including many who feel

their health depends on the availability of their supplements, have

started to organize. The political ramifications are enormous. I have

scores of my advanced cancer patients who have already said should

CAFTA pass and their supplement supply be compromised, they will

picket the offices of any Congressman and Senator who voted for CAFTA,

and they plan to stay and die right in front of the offices. [emphasis

added.]

 

I have been rather amazed that so many politicians seem unaware of

what CODEX is, how the drug companies have used it to infiltrate

CAFTA, and its true origins from the pharmaceutical industry who have

failed for thirty years to get control of the supplement business.

 

I hope you believe that I am not exaggerating when I tell you a vote

for CAFTA is a vote for the death of my patients.

 

For your information, I do have a website with rather extensive

discussions about me and my work. The address is:

 

www.dr-gonzalez.com

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D.

 

forwarded by

Zeus Information Service

Alternative Views on Health

www.zeusinfoservice.com

[Guest guest]

As a cancer patient, and one who went through the worst throes of

the disease without health insurance, I add my voice to this issue.

We live in a dream land where we're inundated with commercials of

happy people talking about the wonderful care they receive at cancer

centers, to the point where we actually believe that " state of the

art " care is available to everybody. It's not--it's expensive. No

money, no care. I'm convinced that basic supplements helped keep me

alive during my cancer, when qualified doctors and the medicines

they prescribed were beyond my grasp because fighting the disease

without insurance drove me into deep poverty and I could barely

afford food, let alone medicine. And for many people, supplements do

something that goes beyond their real or perceived physical

benefits: they give a sense of hope to those who can't afford

anything else. And believe me, if you're fighting a major illness

with no money, sometimes hope is all you've got.

 

 

> Leading Innovative Cancer Doc

> Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. Warns Congress on CAFTA:

> If the House Votes 'Yes' And Access to Nutritional Supplements Is

> Limited, Cancer Patients Will Sit In At Your Offices Until They Die

>

>

> © By Peter Barry Chowka

> (July 17, 2005) Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D., a pioneering

practitioner of

> leading edge nutritional medicine in the United States, has taken a

> strong stand on the CAFTA bill currently being considered in the

House

> of Representatives. He promises that if CAFTA passes, is signed

into

> law, and winds up limiting the ability of Americans to get high

dose

> nutritional supplements, many of his cancer patients will sit in at

> their Congressmen's offices until they die.

>

> In his private practice in New York City, Gonzalez treats patients,

> most of them with cancer, exclusively with nutrition, supplements,

and

> detoxification, avoiding conventional therapies and so-called

> integrative approaches that attempt to combine orthodox treatments

> with complementary adjuncts. In 1999, after publishing a pilot

study

> in a medical journal on the success of his treatment on advanced

> pancreatic cancer patients, Gonzalez received an unprecedented $1.4

> million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a

> prospective clinical trial of his therapy. That trial is still

ongoing.

>

> On July 15, 2005, Gonzalez wrote letters to his member of Congress,

> Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and the Speaker of the House of

> Representatives, Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The subject was Gonzalez'

> vehement opposition to H.R. 3045 CAFTA, the Central American Free

> Trade Agreement which is scheduled to be voted on by the House

before

> the end of the month. CAFTA has already passed the U.S. Senate by a

> close vote.

>

> Gonzalez provided me with copies of his letters and gave me

permission

> to publish and comment on them.

>

> Gonzalez critiques CAFTA and its potential to limit Americans'

freedom

> to access nutritional supplements. In addition, he informs the two

> members of Congress that if CAFTA passes the House, is signed into

> law, and results in supplement freedom being curtailed, his

patients

> will sit in at their Congressmen's offices " until they die. " In the

> letter to Hastert, Gonzalez adds, " That will include your office,

> incidentally, since they perceive you as being in charge of the

House. "

>

> CAFTA, along with NAFTA, GATT, activities of the United Nations'

(UN)

> WHO (World Health Organization), FAO (Food and Agriculture

> Organization), and CODEX, is one of an alphabet soup of policies,

> programs, and highly bureaucratized and unresponsive international

> agencies that, in the context of an increasingly globalized one

world

> economy, are coming together to change the way of life and impact

> personal freedom in individual nations, including the United

States.

> As has become clear only recently, CAFTA represents a potentially

> serious threat to Americans' (that is, residents of the United

> States') ability to purchase nutritional supplements, especially at

> therapeutic (high) dose levels.

>

> For almost a decade, a relatively small number of analysts, medical

> professionals, journalists, consumer organizations, and activists

has

> been monitoring developments re: CODEX and how CODEX might affect

> freedom to buy and use a range of nutritional supplements in the

U.S.

> and other countries. The murky CODEX issue has been particularly

> difficult to unravel and to educate and mobilize consumers around -

> very much unlike earlier struggles regarding nutritional

supplements,

> which always involved a single piece of legislation in the U.S.

> Congress that was identifiable as either bad or good by proponents

of

> nutritional medicine and freedom of medical choice.

>

> This summer, a number of developments, involving CODEX, CAFTA, a

> decision by a court of the European Union (EU) on regulating

> supplements in the EU member countries, etc., are accelerating the

> recognition that limitations on nutritional supplement freedom in

the

> US are fast approaching. Previously, that dire scenario may have

> seemed unlikely to come to pass, but in fact, as Gonzalez

contends, It

> can happen here.

>

>

> A copy of the Gonzalez letter to Maloney:

>

>

> July 15, 2005

>

> Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney

> 1651 Third Avenue #311

> New York, New York 10128

>

> Dear Congresswoman Maloney:

>

> I am writing with some desperation to express my strong opposition

to

> CAFTA which is soon coming up for a vote in the House of

> Representatives. I sincerely hope someone in your staff reads this

> letter, as the lives of my patients could be in jeopardy should

CAFTA

> pass and become law.

>

> I am a physician who lives in your district, and practices in

> Manhattan. I have a very traditional medical education background

(AB

> Brown, postgraduate work at Columbia, MD at Cornell, fellowship in

> cancer immunology). Since I was a medical student, first under the

> direction of the then President of the Sloan Kettering Institute, I

> began researching intensive nutritional approaches to the

treatment of

> advanced cancer. Though in the past my work has been considered

> controversial, in recent years I have received significant academic

> support. In 1993, the National Cancer Institute invited me to

present

> my work to a senior level group in Bethesda, and at their

suggestion I

> pursued my first clinical trial, an evaluation of my approach in

the

> treatment of inoperable pancreatic cancer, considered the most

deadly

> of cancers. The results of that effort, which went beyond anything

> previously documented for the disease, were published in 1999 in

the

> research journal Nutrition and Cancer. As a result of that study,

the

> National Cancer Institute awarded me a large grant to support

further

> clinical trials of my work, currently being conducted at the

Columbia

> University College of Physicians and Surgeons. My current approach

> involves the use of high dose pancreatic enzyme and nutritional

> therapy in the treatment of advanced malignancies, and does not

> involve the use of chemotherapy. All the supplements we prescribed

are

> considered nutritional supplements; though we have full FDA

approval

> for the study, none of these supplements required a prescription. I

> want to mention that my research has been strongly supported by

both

> Republicans and Democrats, particularly Senator Tom Harkin and

> Congressman Dan Burton, both of whom have met with me to discuss

my work.

>

> What does this have to do with CAFTA? Everything, since should

CAFTA

> pass in the US, by the definitions of CAFTA, my therapy, the

clinical

> trial itself, could become illegal.

>

> Few Congressmen and certainly few Senators realize that CAFTA

requires

> harmonization with existing European legislation regarding food and

> dietary supplements under the CODEX regulations. This is the

genesis

> of the potential problem. The pharmaceutical industry has in Europe

> mounted a relentless campaign to use CODEX to virtually eliminate

the

> over the counter sales of most nutritional and herbal supplements,

and

> turn them into prescription items which could then be sold at much

> higher prices, completely under the control of drug companies.

>

> Currently, as you probably know, nutritional supplements are

available

> over the counter in this country, and do not require a

prescription. I

> believe as a physician and scientist that this easy availability of

> such products has been of great benefit to millions of Americans,

as a

> substantial and ever increasing amount of scientific literature

> supports the beneficial effects of many nutrients that are too

often

> inadequately provided in food.

>

> CAFTA, if passed, would require the US harmonize its dietary

> supplement legislation with that of CODEX, forbid the over-the-

counter

> sale of the great majority of useful supplements, and destroy the

> valuable US supplement industry. Since my therapy utilizes only

> nutritional supplements, should CAFTA pass, and CODEX supercede

> American protection of their availability, my treatment would come

to

> an end, my promising research would be dismantled, and many

hundreds

> of my patients whose lives depend on this treatment will die. I am

not

> exaggerating, and any of your staff are invited to come to my

office

> to discuss these critical issues with me.

>

> Nutritional supplements have a long history of safety except in

very

> rare cases when misused; their safety profile is far more

impressive

> than that of many over the counter drugs such as aspirin, which

yearly

> is responsible for several hundred deaths. Nutritional supplements

as

> currently available offer many benefits in terms of disease

prevention

> and good health, as documented clearly in the extensive nutritional

> literature, and they are a subject about which millions of

Americans

> are passionate. You may not be aware, but for 30 years the

> pharmaceutical industry in the US has sought to gain complete

control

> of what they perceive as a lucrative industry, by turning

nutritional

> supplements into prescription items. Their attempts, often hidden

> beyond sacred tenets of " consumer protection from dangerous

> supplements, " have little to do with the consumer and everything

to do

> with industry control.

>

> Many of my own patients are desperate, as they learn the dangers of

> CAFTA and CODEX to their lives. But that's just the beginning;

within

> the past few weeks, millions of Americans, including many who feel

> their health depends on the availability of their supplements, have

> started to organize. The political ramifications are enormous. I

have

> scores of my advanced cancer patients who have already said should

> CAFTA pass and their supplement supply be compromised, they will

> picket the offices of any Congressman and Senator who voted for

CAFTA,

> and they plan to stay and die right in front of the offices.

[emphasis

> added.]

>

> I have been rather amazed that so many politicians seem unaware of

> what CODEX is, how the drug companies have used it to infiltrate

> CAFTA, and its true origins from the pharmaceutical industry who

have

> failed for thirty years to get control of the supplement business.

>

> I hope you believe that I am not exaggerating when I tell you a

vote

> for CAFTA is a vote for the death of my patients.

>

> For your information, I do have a website with rather extensive

> discussions about me and my work. The address is:

>

> www.dr-gonzalez.com

>

> I look forward to hearing from you.

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D.

>

> forwarded by

> Zeus Information Service

> Alternative Views on Health

> www.zeusinfoservice.com

[Guest guest]

Ditto here Richard. Were it not for alternative medicine I would not

have been alive today. Only those who have suffered and observed from

close quarters are in a position to call the bluff of modern medicine.

It is all hype and no substance.

 

Regards,

Jagannath.

 

, " Richard "

<mrthyguy> wrote:

> As a cancer patient, and one who went through the worst throes of

> the disease without health insurance, I add my voice to this issue.

> We live in a dream land where we're inundated with commercials of

> happy people talking about the wonderful care they receive at cancer

> centers, to the point where we actually believe that " state of the

> art " care is available to everybody. It's not--it's expensive. No

> money, no care. I'm convinced that basic supplements helped keep me

> alive during my cancer, when qualified doctors and the medicines

> they prescribed were beyond my grasp because fighting the disease

> without insurance drove me into deep poverty and I could barely

> afford food, let alone medicine. And for many people, supplements do

> something that goes beyond their real or perceived physical

> benefits: they give a sense of hope to those who can't afford

> anything else. And believe me, if you're fighting a major illness

> with no money, sometimes hope is all you've got.

>