Attorney Jonathan Emord- The Man Who Has Defeated the FDA More Times in Court than Any Attorney in the USA
We Damn Well Better Take Him Seriously When He Tells Us to Get Off our Asses and Get to Work on This!!
IAHF List:
Soon I hope we'll have an audio archive of the Jonathan Emord's radio show today with guest Byron Richards re the dire need to amend S.1082/ HR 1561. If I can get that, I'll send it out in case you missed the show today.
Emord holds the record of defeating the FDA in court more times than any other attorney. He has done more to defend DSHEA in court than any other attorney. When he issues an alert, we damn well better listen.
He did not mince words in what he had to say about the threat posed by S.1082/ HR 1561- to paraphrase Emord said : "Through this legislation The FDA are about to unleash the Big Dogs of Big Pharma on the Dietary Supplement Industry to Take It Down unless you take immediate action to defend the industry by pushing for our amendment."
To clarify the situation, Emord queried Richards regarding the Trade Associations position on the issue- he asked Byron to explain why the Trade Associations are saying the bill poses "no problem".
Byron explained that due to all of the calls we generated to the Senate, Hatch, Harkin, Kennedy, and Enzi published a colloquy in the Congressional Record in which they stated that "nothing in the bill undermines DSHEA" (and NPA, formerly NNFA and the other trade associations are all saying the colloquy "protects us" but that they didn't bother putting any actual LANGUAGE into the bill to coincide with that statement, he stated that a colloquy has very little legal impact, that the statutory language and the conference report are what is really important. Unless we get an amendment specifically to protect supplements, using their "Critical Path Initiative" and the unproven sciences of genomics and proteomics, the FDA can pick off any dietary supplement at will and ban it.""
Emord jumped in and said (in effect) "Thats correct- If the bill language is clear on its face then a Judge won't even LOOK at the legislative history as shown in a colloquy, so its very misleading for the Natural Products Association to say that a colloquy protects us."
Byron Richards jumped in and stated that "Senators are coming back to constituents saying that the only reason the words FOOD and FOOD INGREDIENTS are in the section on the Reagan Udall Foundation for the FDA is to give FDA the power to go after unsafe food products (like contaminated spinach)", but he stated that this was a SCAM!
Emord backed him up by stating that since passage of the Kefauver Harris Act in 1962 which gave FDA the power to regulate the safety and efficacy of drugs, FDA has initiated at least 10 actions against dietary supplements, and that it would be very naive to expect them not to use this current bill language as a way around DSHEA unless an amendment is specifically added to the legislation to protect us. Emord pointed out that FDA changed the standard for evaluating supplements via how they attacked ephedra where even an infinitesimally small risk became sufficient for them to ban it while ignoring all benefits.
He warns us that unless we amend S.1082/ HR 1561, it will be OPEN SEASON on ALL dietary supplements. Richards backed him up with a discussion of how Genomics and Proteomics work and how FDA could use these unproven sciences to ban anything on a whim- based on just their OPINION, and he made it clear that the moment you allow the FDA to create their own drug company, which is going to be developing, patenting and licensing its own drugs, you'll also create a situation where FDA is going to have far more incentive than they've EVER had to attack dietary supplements as unwanted competition.
WHAT YOU MUST DO, RIGHT NOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF:
1. Life Extension Foundation now has the form letter to the House on their Capwiz site where with one mouse click you can email it to your members of congress: http://www.lef.org/lac/index.htm#HR1561 You will have the opportunity via LEF's site to alert 6 friends to this issue- please do this both by email and by phone to insure that they act! After emailing the form letter, please also CALL your members of congress via the Capital Switchboard at 202-225-3121 to demand to know if they will help protect you by pushing for this amendment or not. Let me know what they say.
There is no way of knowing how soon this will come up for a vote in the House, but its a "must pass" bill because its been coupled with the FDA Prescription Drug User Fee Act which must be renewed, so at the very least they will pass something by the end of September, and they'll probably vote on it in the House before August Recess.
2. Complain about the Natural Products Associations mindless stance on this issue. How the hell can they be FOR this legislation which attorney Jonathan Emord warns us guts DSHEA? Find out if your local health food store belongs to NPA (formerly NNFA) and tell them you're going to BOYCOTT their store unless they help you pressure NPA to switch their position.
Camp out in front of NPA member
health food stores to hand out form letters and if the store objects,
urge everyone to boycott the store. Call the front office of NPA
in both Washington DC and in California at ph: (202) 223-0101 fax: (202) 223-0250 E-mail: natural@naturalproductsassoc.org ph: (714) 460-7732
toll-free: (800) 966-6632 fax: (714) 460-7444 and let them know you're
ANGRY AS HELL about this. DEMAND that
they pay attention to what Jonathan Emord is saying and let them know you
intend to BOYCOTT any NPA store that
doesn't do their part to oppose this wrong position. If they attempt
to tell you that Emord is wrong, send them here and tell them to REFLECT
on his credentials: http://www.talkstarradio.com/hosts/emordpage.htm
Tell them its high time they started enforcing their conflict of interest disclosure bylaw and that they stopped allowing pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer to be amongst their membership. (If they try telling you Pfizer is not a member, tell them that Capsugel is and they're a Pfizer subsidiary.) Use the argument below that I'm asking you to present to CFH.
3. Complain about so called "Citizens for Healths" allignment with NPA on this issue by calling Frank Herd, Executive Director at 612-879-7583 and also by calling their Board Chairman- attorney Jim Turner at 202-882-6664 (H) 202-255-8040 (cell) 202-462-8800 (w) Use the information in this email to argue with them and if they attempt to tell you Emord is wrong, direct them to his credentials here: http://www.talkstarradio.com/hosts/emordpage.htm and tell them you can't possibly trust them as a health freedom organization. Tell them that you're very ANGRY about their directing people to file comments with FDA re the CAM Guidance Document given that we have zero leverage over the unelected bureaucrats at FDA and that they're using this non issue to DISTRACT the grass roots from the all too REAL issue of S.1082/ HR 1561.
Tell them that Emord stated on the air that a colloquy doesn't protect us, that a Judge only looks to the legislative history when the language of a bill is not clear and that in this case its clear: FDA is being turned loose on safe dietary supplements because we don't have an amendment in there to specifically protect us- by itself the Hatch/Harkin colloquy is meaningless. Tell them they're in no position to argue with Emord's judgement, he's defeated FDA more times in court than any other Attorney. If you get their alerts, email them demanding to be removed from their mailing list and tell them why you're doing it.
3. Call Ralph Fucetola at 973-300-4594 and Complain about so called "Natural Solutions Foundations" constant effort to confuse the grass roots by misdirecting them using the CAM Guidance Document, a non issue, while not doing the right things to alert them to the need to amend S.1082/ HR 1561.
Tell them that FDA routinely ignores citizens input, that we have zero leverage over unelected FDA bureacrats, that we only have leverage over elected congressional officials and that right now DSHEA is under full blown attack according to Jonathan Emord who just said so on the air and that Fucetola is in no position to second guess his judgement.
Tell them that you're angry that they're not even mentioning the House bill by number in the woefully insufficient alert on their website and that theres a real question as to where form letters signed on their website actually go- tell them it seems to you that they're doing nothing but build a mailing list while going through the MOTIONS of "defending health freedom". (When someone on the IAHF list tested their form letter it did not reach its (supposedly) intended congressional destination.) Unsub from their distribution list and never forward any of their so called "alerts".
This is for all the marbles folks, and its NOT a drill!!! I strongly recommend that you take your summer vacation sitting at a card table in front of your local health food store to distribute info about this if you value your health freedom, and in case you think I'm joking GUESS AGAIN!! I'm NOT!
This situation is identical to what we faced when I first started doing this work back in the summer of '89 when the NLEA was a stealth bill that had been fast tracked through the house. I spent that whole summer camped out in front of health food stores that I systematically made the rounds to in order to hand out form letters, and I enlisted a grass roots army to fight back!
We failed to kill the NLEA because NNFA was behind it, but we did get them to switch their position, and we did get some amendments to curbed some of its worst excesses. The situation today is far WORSE than it was then because even more people are now asleep. We MUST wake them up! Please let me know what YOU are doing. Don't expect me to do your work for you, I'm just one person, with no staff. I'll go to DC for you on this, but I need to know you're backing me up with tons of calls, faxes, emails and I'll need you to make personal visits over this to your Congressman's district office- and let me know you're doing this. Without your help, I won't be able to do much on Capital Hill. When you aren't slinging money around on the hill, you damn well better have grass roots firepower or you just get stonewalled. Don't leave me twisting in the wind folks.
Please systematically go through your phone book and make a list of every health food store within a 50 mile radius of your house and contact them all. GO to them all. Enlist help from friends and neighbors. I am NOT joking! Direct people to this article for more information: http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron31.htm Please keep me abreast of your efforts, I'm serious, if you want me to go to DC for you, I need to know you're in the trenches with me because I don't have a magic wand.
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