Fw: Summer of Decsions

[Guest guest]

-- Summer of Decisions

July 4, 2007

PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE

Summer of Decisions: The State of Health Freedom 2007

Natural Solutions Foundation Analysis

A series of international and US government actions at the end of 2006 and

beginning of 2007 have put Health Freedom of Choice -- with regards to

Organic Standards, Nutrients, Traditional Remedies and Leading Edge

Alternatives -- in greater jeopardy than any time since the adoption of the

Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). Thus, the

Summer of 2007 has become a Summer of Decision for health freedom activists.

Codex Alimentarius is the least known, the most impactful and potentially

the most dangerous threat to health and health freedom. Most threats to

health freedom are local ( e.G., a State goes on a rampage against

physicians practicing drug free medicine), national (e.G., the US FDA

decides to articulate the law inaccurately setting the stage for Draconian

enforcement " of a regulatory structure which deems all health aides to be

untested drugs, like cherries if used for arthritis, or untested devices,

like hot rocks to sooth painful muscles). Codex, because it is a UN project

which sets standards and guidelines controlling the international trade of

all foods and nutrients, not only determines what is available

internationally (with all the market pressure that implies) but also becomes

the domestic law for those countries which, like the United States, have

decided to " Harmonize " with Codex standards and guidelines. The US announced

its intention to do just that on October 11, 1995 in the Federal Register

when it stated that it would give preference to international standards over

US regulation and, as it has turned out, US law as well.

Codex is a mechanism for moving the entire world rapidly towards an

industrialized, nutrient poor diet which benefit a multinational

constituency and threaten health everywhere by compromising food on a

cataclysmic scale. Under Codex, dangerous, expensive and health-damaging

changes in the global food supply are being implemented. Organic standards

are being degraded, permitted heavy metal residue levels are being increased

Codex permits astonishingly high levels of dangerous industrial drugs,

chemicals, pesticides, toxic veterinary drugs and other poisons in the food

supply. Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) for many pesticides are being removed

so that there is no upper limit whatsoever to the amounts of these systemic

poisons which can be introduced into foods (and into the bodies and

environments of the farmer, his family and his land. Others are being

increased dramatically. Organic standards are being lowered so pure,

unadulterated food can be expected to vanish globally since the phrase will

be maintained but the reality will be degraded beyond recognition to meet

the needs of industrial farming. At the same time, high potency (dose)

nutrients are being prohibited since they are treated as if they were toxins

(severely limited, unlike most toxins) and " assessed " by " Risk Assessment "

to be present at no more than, for vitamins and minerals, for example, 115%

of the amount found in untreated foods. High potency nutrients will become

unavailable in any country which " HARMonizes " with Codex " (the US) or adopts

its texts as its domestic laws (most of the developing world).

In effect, Codex standards and guidelines mandate unparalleled levels of

toxicity plus global under-nutrition, the very same condition to which the

World Health Organization (WHO), one of Codex's parent organizations (Food

and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, is the other) attributes the global

epidemic of non communicable diseases of under nutrition: cancers,

cardiovascular diseases, stroke, diabetes and obesity. These diseases are

the principle killers in the developed world (after properly used

pharmaceuticals) and are rapidly becoming the principle killers in the

developing world as well. These preventable diseases are also major profit

centers for industries that depend on illness for their profits: the

pharmaceutical and medical industries.

At this year's Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) meeting (FAO Headquarters

Rome, July 2-7, 2007) the procedure has been radically altered. In previous

years, standards and Guidelines proposed by the various Codex Committees and

regional associations were discussed (at least to some extent) by the

national delegates to the annual CAC. Unjust, dangerous, unwise or unhealthy

Codex texts were opposed by countries whose self interest or public health

was harmed by the text under consideration. If the standard or Guideline was

not approved or needed to be revised, it would either be killed or sent back

to Committee for revision, often along with specific instructions to that

body. When ready, the text would return to CAC for further consideration,

advancement to another level of acceptance or rejection.

That has changed dramatically. The anticipated date for implementation and

globalization of total control of the world's food trade appeared to be

dramatically off track. Things were not moving very rapidly despite the

near-desperate efforts of Committee chairpersons like the German Rolf

Grossklaus, MD. Of the Codex Committee for Nutrition and Foods for Special

Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) and the Canadian Ellen Mackenzie, Ph.D. Of the Codex

Committee for Food Labeling to rush decisions, curtail discussion and gallop

through their view of the agenda at a dizzying pace. Of course, pro-health

options like the WHO's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and

Nutrition (mandated for implementation by Codex by both WHO and FAO) somehow

never seemed to garner adequate time for meaningful discussion leaving

implementation strategies in the dust and in the dark.

This year at CAC not only has the Natural Solutions Foundation been

prevented from mingling, eating or talking with the Codex Delegates (by

security guards on several occasions!), but the delegates have been

prevented from discussion of the standards and Guidelines they are advancing

through the Codex process! It is strikingly reminiscent of the US Senate

being handed sealed copies of the Patriot Act weeks after 9/11, assured that

their security clearances were not high enough to read the law but being

instructed to vote on it anyway. If you recall, 99 US Senators did.

Bryd of Virginia was the sole member of the Senate to refuse to buy that pig

in that poke.

At CAC, the Chair now urges members to adopt whatever texts have been

brought forward, whether they agree with them or vehemently disagree. Texts

and amendments to them are presented " en bloc " for approval en mass without

a single word of discussion, if the Chair can bully the delegates into it.

When delegates try to overcome this de facto gag rule, either they are told

that they are getting in the way of the good work of the CAC (shame) or that

they are making it impossible for the CAC to complete its work (guilt).

Those few delegates who try to clarify the irregularities of the process or

the dangers of the standards or Guidelines are told that they are getting in

the way. Since Codex refuses to define " consensus " and the Chair's agenda is

set before the meeting, the Chair does whatever the Chair had intended to do

in the first place. An example: today new standards were authorized for a

whole group of dangerous industrial chemicals (pesticides) whose MRLs were

simply evaporated by the Chairman's administrative fiat. This means that

there is no upper limit to the amount of these metabolic poisons which may

be incorporated into your food.

Critical health freedom choices this summer mean making sure that your

country does not harmonize with Codex Alimentarius and that your national

scientists and legislators follow the Codex Two Step Process to make

pro-health choices where Codex makes pro-industry ones and to protect your

right to clean, unadulterated and healthy food. If you are a United States

citizen, that also means signing the Natural Solutions Foundation Citizens

Petition to force the US Government to comply with US law, rather than Codex

standards and Guidelines, with reference to vitamins and minerals.

In the last days of the year the President signed the Adverse Event

Reporting Act that requires supplement sellers to report reactions to their

products; we view this law as potentially beneficial to consumers. At the

same time the Food and Drug Administration - the FDA - issued a draft " CAM "

Guidance (complementary and alternative modalities) that Congressman Ron

, MD, called " an abuse of FDA power... " This is and attempt to grab

power over our remedies traditionally overseen by state law by an agency

that has show itself unable to effectively implement its confused and

contradictory authority over foods and drugs.

The FDA issued the draft Guidance on December 26th, but did not bother to

give the public notice until February 26, 2007. Then the public had its turn

to comment. nearly two hundred thousand people did so, telling the FDA to

leave our alternatives alone. This same grassroots movement has swelled the

ranks of NSF supporters. We've joined Dr. in condemning this blatant

power grab and have called for meaningful reorganization of the FDA. The FDA

needs to focus on its core mission of protecting the public from dangerous,

side-effect causing prescription drugs that, these days, have much more in

common with chemical toxins than natural materials. To do that, the agency's

food jurisdiction should be shifted to the US Agriculture Department or

other existing agencies.

Every Federal agency, however, is capable of causing great harm to the

public and the USDA is no exception. early June, the Department approved the

addition of 38 more non-organic source materials to products that can

continue to mislead us by pretending to be truly organic. This continues a

general and disturbing trend to dilute organic standards. The NSF supports

strong organic standards and supports the disclosure of conditions, such as

irradiation and genetic modification, that allow the public to make informed

choices.

Late in June the FDA, 14 years after being instructed to do so by Congress,

finally issued what are called " Good Manufacturing Practices " regulations to

the dietary supplement industry. This 467 page document has capacity to

reduce consumer access to high potency nutrients and admits that many small

companies will be driven out of business as a result. We are very concerned

about this increase in regulation. Just previously, the US Senate adopted

the FDA " Revitalization " bill which would " solve " the problem of FDA

failures by granting it more power to abuse. When the public rose up against

that bill, it was amended to protect dietary supplements from its new powers

But the House must now consider it, as HR.1567, which ought to be further

amended to further protect natural remedies. We note that Dr. has

introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act, HR.2117, that would do just

that. Our Representatives need to hear from the public so they support our

freedoms with Dr. instead of the new restrictions proposed by Sen.

Kennedy.

At the same time, various regional and international agencies continue to

threaten market access to wholesome foods, natural remedies and dietary

supplements. As always, the FDA's announced intent to " HARMonize " our

freedoms to international rules (even where that decreases our access to

safe products), operating through the North American Union, Codex and the

new US/EU cooperation agreement, remains an ever present threat. Codex

Alimentarius - the world food code - still remains too much a creature of

big governments and big commercial interests, although a nascent alliance of

health-friendly countries, inspired by information from NSF is making

inroads and recently protected healthy babies from being exposed to fluoride

in their formulas.

This is an especially exciting time for the Dietary Supplement / Natural

Products market. While stricter regulations seem on the way, scientific

advances and ongoing clinical studies point the way to better and more

effective products. The problem is not in the science or the production; the

problem is in the politics. These products are generally recognized as safe

when used as directed, like any food. We therefore need to reject the big

government notion that tells us we will only be safe if bureaucrats have

more control over us. That nostrum is provably wrong, as we see from the

failure of government, with plenary power over approving drugs (as to

efficacy and safety) to protect the public from what some estimate to be

hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths each year from lawful and

correctly used prescription drugs.

The wise people who wrote the Declaration of Independence told us, " But when

a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object

evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right,

it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards

for their future security... "

It is now time for people concerned with natural solutions to our health

care crises to declare our independence from the failures of the

bureaucratic system and to demand new freedoms to offset and correct the old

failures of the regulators.

Ralph Fucetola, JD

Trustee

Rima E. Laibow, MD

Medical Director

Natural Solutions Foundation

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Citizens Petition: www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=184

HR. 2117: http://www.democracyinaction

org/dia/organizationsORG/healthfreedomusa/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11754

HR. 1561:

http://www.democracyinaction

org/dia/organizationsORG/healthfreedomusa/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11344