Is Health Freedom an Endangered Species?
We are at a crossroads. The Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 in the US is at risk, as is consumer access to dietary supplements in Canada, but you will not find flyers in any health food store about it, nor are dietary supplement companies sounding any alarm. How is this possible when more than 40% of Americans use at least some form of dietary supplement to improve their lives? For me, I suffer from a genetic need for these vitamins at higher doses than what you can buy off the shelf at Wal-Mart or Walgreen’s. As one of the original activists who helped pass DSHEA, I count my blessings every day for the opportunity that I enjoy. But now this access to vitamins is being threatened by the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter (TCC).
Food and Drug Attorney Suzanne Harris once said that no governmental initiative or legislation today can truly be understood without viewing it against a backdrop of interrelated international trade agreements and intergovernmental pacts such as NAFTA and the Security & Prosperity Partnership of North America (“SPP”).
The FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter “TCC” with Canada and Mexico is just such a measure. This is intended by the ruling elite to be a “sleeper issue” that never gets onto the grass roots radar screen. We are all supposed to view the “TCC” as a wonderful united intergovernmental front against what they call “health fraud” – and believe it was created “for our own good” to protect us from “snake oil.”
MUCH ADO ABOUT “MUCH”
Born of an “unholy alliance” between NAFTA and the SPP, the Trilateral Cooperation Charter is an effort by the FDA to create a framework for one harmonized set of food and drug regulations for Canada, the US and Mexico as if the planned North American Union Dictatorship were already in place.
So far under the TCC, the trinational regulators have created a group to “protect consumers” called the “MUCH” Group where “MUCH” is an acronym meaning “Mexico, US, Canada, Health Fraud” task force. According to the Charter, the purpose of “MUCH” is "to maintain a formal framework for cooperation in combating health fraud and to identify appropriate lines of communication to ensure a continual exchange of information on compliance and enforcement activities among the three countries."
The website identifies Mexico as the "lead country" on the MUCH working group, and its real objective can be seen in the hundreds of "warning letters" that already have been issued about "fraud." In 2005, for instance, the FDA sent 29 warning letters to businesses making health-related claims that their dried fruit, fruit juice, and juice concentrate products could help treat or prevent cancer, heart disease, arthritis, and other diseases.
Under the auspices of the “MUCH” group, the TCC is already fingering dietary supplement products in the US, Canada and Mexico for attack by all 3 countries’ respective FDA and FTC using the pharmaceutical industry’s definition of “Health Fraud”—that is, any non drug product that cuts into pharmaceutical sales. The FDA website also documents that the FTC has brought 40 law enforcement actions, largely as part of "Operation Big Fat Lie," aimed at stopping the marketing of allegedly bogus weight-loss products and services. Resulting from these cases, the FDA reports that U.S. courts have ordered over $188 million in consumer redress judgments resulting from these law enforcement actions, but with no public records accessible for review, we cannot see precisely what products have been targeted. It would appear as if this shadowy trinational body is attacking natural products across the board with impunity.
While it is true that all legal efforts to address alleged “Health Fraud” are taking place under the separate laws of the 3 countries, there are efforts to harmonize lab testing and other regulatory procedures and to collaborate on enforcement efforts. While they claim consumer protection is their goal, could it be that the real reason for all this harmonization is that the FDA is morphing into something far more dangerous—a North American FDA with no checks and balances, and more dangerously, no transparency or accountability to anybody?
A GLIMPSE INTO OUR FUTURE WITHOUT DSHEA
In a North American Union, DSHEA would not exist because Canada, the US and Mexico would be harmonized to “NAU” law, similar to how all EU member nations are currently being forced to harmonize their dietary supplement laws to the grossly restrictive European Directives
As a person who lives along the US- Canadian border, I know first hand that literally thousands of dietary supplement products are no longer available in Canada. This is due to Canada regulating these products as “drugs” whereas in the US, they are considered “foods” under DSHEA. In Canada, all products must have an “NPN” or “Natural Product Number” that requires the manufacturer to pay a licensing fee to the government. Issuance of the NPN can be blocked via a host of arbitrary means pertaining to alleged “safety” concerns. To get this number, the manufacturer is required to submit to site licensing which requires adherence to full HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) regulation. Additionally, all product labels must be in both English and French, and no health claims of any kind are allowed.
For example, I spoke with a Canadian manufacturer who was manufacturing liquid ionic magnesium, but was forced out of business because she could not afford the cost of an NPN number and still be competitive. Instead of protecting consumers, under Canadian law, consumers have less choice and less freedom.
To make matters worse, the Canadian government imposes an additional tax on these manufacturers who then must pass on the cost to the overly taxed Canadian consumer who pay GST, PST and now the new HST (Harmonized Sales Tax). Americans and Canadians alike need to watch Kevin Miller’s new documentary
“A Question of Sovereignty” . One by one, Canadian manufacturers are becoming extinct and the US will be next if people fail to heed IAHF’s warning.
The message is stark yet clear: if the Canadian people fail to hold the line against the Pharma drivenBill C-36 and if this bill is successfully rammed through the Canadian Parliament, then the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter (TCC) with Canada and Mexico will wreak its genocidal effects south of the border via harmonization.
It should also be noted that the recently passed so called “Healthcare” legislation in the US will give pharmaceutical companies more control due to greater integration into government policy making. We are becoming just like Canada which has already been burdened with socialized “health care” that is economically unsustainable. All the more reason why we must work hard to nullify and repeal the passage of “healthcare” in the US and to oppose all other sovereignty threatening legislation including Amnesty for illegal aliens and Cap and Trade.
Which leads us back to that proverbial fork in the road facing our health freedom. The biggest threat facing DSHEA is the FDA's Trilateral Cooperation Charter and any sovereignty threatening legislation (such as the above) that threatens to force us into the NAU which would activate it. I have sounded the clarion call, rang the proverbial warning bell, raised the red flag to gather those same forces that helped support DSHEA, and very few have answered my call, so its up to each of us to take action and to urge still more to!
After some deep soul searching, I must now ask: what is the current state of our health freedom movement? I have come to realize that what was once our greatest strength has now become our largest liability. DSHEA galvanized an American public to call their congressional representatives, gave birth to various health freedom organizations. We were all vigilant about any attempts by the pharmaceutical industries to infiltrate our movement with “agents of influence” or “plants”. Sixteen years later, this is what you find: where once you had boldness, inertia and paralysis by fear dominate; unity of purpose has morphed into fragmentation and fractionalization, vigilance has turned into complacency. See Figure 1.
If you are still not convinced you would be disenfranchised if you lived under a North American Union, and would like to see a prelude of the chaos of what would happen with one such union, take a look at our cousins across the pond, Greece in the EU.
With government overspending, our national debt is now above $15 Trillion…and rising as more “social justice” programs like “Amnesty for Illegals” and “Cap and Trade” are threatening our very existence as a nation. Just like Healthcare “Reform”, these laws have a very good chance of passing when deals are cut behind closed doors and legislation will be passed during the wee hours of the night without our elected representatives even bothering to read the thousands of pages of law before they cast their vote.
Americans have fought and died for our sovereignty, our freedom to choose. And that boils down to our God given right to choose for ourselves how we heal ourselves. For you, perhaps it is taking prescription drugs. For me, it’s a more holistic approach, of which at the core are dietary supplements like the humble vitamin. Take away my choice, and I am reduced to a slave. That is what the recently passed Health Care Reform Act or “Obamacare” means to the rest of us Americans. Slavery. “There can be no tyrants if there are no slaves”. 1 I know what I have chosen. Do you?
PASSING THE TORCH OF HEALTH FREEDOM TO THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT
This and similar experiences cause us to believe that the Health Freedom movement that sprang up in the early 90s to pass DSHEA in ’94 is in disarray today due to pharma and globalist infiltration. Aside from a select few people and groups, the health freedom movement cannot be consistently counted on any more, but there is still hope.
Health freedom along with ALL freedom can still be saved if enough people roll up their sleeves and assist IAHF in reaching out to the Tea Party via sites like this in an effort to get the threat of the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter more into the public eye so we can neutralize and block it as a threat to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.
There is a small window of opportunity to save our sovereignty. The current mood of the voters is anti-establishment, anti-incumbency. Just take a look at the wave of primary challengers to incumbents for the November 2010 election. The new movement with the same esprit de corps and vitality that I experienced in the passage of DSHEA sixteen years ago is now with the Tea Party Movement.
Cutting across demographics and transcending party ideologies, the Tea Party Movement is the cleansing fire that we need to clear the brushwood of compromised politicians, many of whom sit too comfortably on the largesse of Big Pharma donations, and vote their way. In races where they could be found, I believe these Tea Party candidates will have the best chance to replace the members of the Congressional Oversight & Investigations Sub Committee members and call on congressional oversight over the FDA. See Figure 2 for a chart with key “health freedom” races and potential candidates that we need to reach out and educate about the need for congressional oversight on the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter.
As a veteran in the front lines of this war for health freedom, a glimmer of hope flickers in my heart. But let this be a warning to the Tea Party movement that just like any movement, vigilance is required in order to minimize being infiltrated by the enemy of freedom: complacency and corruption.
Please help me make the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter a campaign issue by pitching the issue to Tea Party candidates. I am appealing to all of my loyal readers to help me reach as many of these candidates given the remaining August primaries and the November 2010 Congressional elections. We can network the issue via sites like this: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/Default.aspx and by reaching out to people challenging entrenched incumbents- especially those receiving a lot of Pharma PAC donations. We must drive them from office and replace them with people who believe in protecting our right to choose and save our health freedom.
Figure 1: Analysis of Health Freedom Movement
Figure 2: Potential Congressional November 2010 Challengers
Please forward this alert widely! We don't have a lot of time between now and the upcoming Congressional primaries. We need to work hard to try to boost this issue more into the public consciousness! If you have any success educating a candidate for office such that they use this issue as part of their platform, please let us know. Please let me know of any postings you make about this on any website so we can coordinate our efforts and foster a sense of esprit de corps.
If you appreciate this effort to defend health freedom, please send a badly needed donation to:
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1 A quote from Noli Me Tangere, written by Dr.Jose Rizal.
