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

[Guest guest]

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

top of scrollbar inside the site.

 

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 bill " ).

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 and one in November. 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.

 

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.

 

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 " serious " 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, 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 as 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. 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. 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 -

 

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