OPINION by IAHF.....
"My dear Kepler, what do you say of the leading philosophers here to whom I have offered a thousand times of my own accord to show my studies, but who, with the lazy obstinacy of a serpent who has eaten his fill, have never consented to look at the planets, or moon, or telescope? Verily, just as serpents close their eyes, so do men close their eyes to the light of truth."
Galileo Galilei in a letter
to Johannes Kepler ca. 1630
To: Michael McGuffin, Exec Dir
American Herbal Products Assn
Re: Our Conversation About Codex, Re IADSA & Global Harmonization Posing Threats to Vitamin Consumers & To the Innovative Supplement Manufacturers Which The Vitamin Trade Associations Have Wrongly Turned Their BACKS On
Dear Michael-
I am deeply saddened by the things you said in our conversation about Codex. In our conversation you told me that as a private individual you would like vitamin consumers world wide to have the widest possible access to dietary supplements, but you THEN told me that while wearing your AHPA hat, as Executive Director, you have to be "PRAGMATIC" and that BEING "pragmatic" from a BUSINESS STANDPOINT forces you into a situation where you, in essence, must STOP BEING IDEALISTIC.
I feel sickened by the things you told me, here is why: In the early '90s, I was one of the biggest organizors in the drive to pass DSHEA. I did my DAMNDEST to rally thousands of consumers to come to the defense of the American dietary supplement industry, but TODAY, in 2005, I see CRN, NNFA, AHPA, and especially IADSA, turning their BACKS on the very same consumers who kept this industry from being knocked off a CLIFF by the FDA- and all in the name of MONEY.
All the vitamin trade associations, including yours are pushing with EVERYTHING THEY HAVE for "one stop shopping" at CODEX because you WANT one set of regulations for the WORLD so that your members don't have to comply with different sets of regulations for each country. Suzanne Harris' article spells the whole sorry mess out very accurately right here: http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm
You are SELLING OUT. You are turning your BACK on the vitamin consumers of America and the World. You've made money your GOD just as your friend Randy Dennin has.
You told me that you TRUST what Randy Dennin tells you when he claims to want to harmonize the planet to DSHEA, but WHY do you trust this former employee of Pfizer, Michael?
IADSA's "mission" is to "harmonize the planet to DSHEA" ???
BULL.
If that were TRUE, IADSA would be supporting ANH's legal efforts to overturn the EU Food Supplement Directive's so called "Postive List", but IADSA is totally AGAINST ANH's legal effort, not only to overturn the Food Supplement Directive, but also to kill the Pharmaceuticals Directive which threatens to turn any substance with any physiological effect in the body into a "drug". Since its INCEPTION, IADSA has been trying to push a Codex vitamin standard through to completion, while only going through the MOTIONS of "defending" this industry.
Look at this IADSA EXPOSED Site http://www.iahf.com/iadsa.index.html
Look at the GIF Files of the letters between the Board of NNFA New Zealand and IADSA and IADSA's terse letter of EXPULSION. Look at all peripheral emails..... they spell out a very sordid situation.... but they tell THE TRUTH.
When I discussed the experience NNFA New Zealand had with IADSA when they requested HELP from IADSA in fending off pharma driven harmonization pressure coming from Australia, you steadfastly DEFENDED Dennin's (Pfizer's) actions. WHY?
How the hell can you claim to care about consumers, and about small manufacturers when you DEFEND Dennin's kicking NNFA New Zealand out of IADSA when all they wanted was for IADSA to live up to their own RHETORIC?
Every single small innovative manufacturer that currently belongs to AHPA (and to NNFA for that matter) should QUIT and form their own trade association, one that will actually FIGHT for health freedom an TRULY ADVANCE the proud legacy of DSHEA on the world stage.
In our conversation you told me that your ONLY concern is Durbin's bill.
How can you comfortably ignore the REALITY of globalization?? Hell you WANT globalization.
With regard to my request that AHPA educate its members about the DANGERS posed by globalization you told me that AHPA is a "poor" trade association, that your annual budget is "only about a million a year".
You said that on that basis you can only focus on the things your Board wants you to focus on, and that since 90% of your members profits are made in the USA, you have this myopia which causes you to focus EXCLUSIVELY on Durbin's bill, while IGNORING our political reality vis a vis the looming threat of the FTAA, and this just doesn't make any sense unless one realizes as I do that you've turned a deaf ear to the truth in your quest for the almighty dollar.
I have interracted with vitamin consumers in the UK who have had the horrible experience of generating over a million signatures on a petition against harmonizing the UK's liberal dietary supplement laws to the mindless EU Food Supplement Directive, only to be TOTALLY IGNORED by their government which told them "We're members of the EU, and we're going to harmonize the UK to EU law whether you like it OR NOT" (and then they went on to stack the vote in the Standing Committee on Health by yanking 3 MPs who vitamin consumers had swung to our side, replacing them with yes men.)
What you told me is that while you as a private citizen think its too bad that people in the UK are threatened with loss of access to product, this is "outweighed" by the "increased access" which consumers throughout the REST of Europe would have via the Food Supplement Directive.
WHAT HYPOCRISY.
AHPA should have been behind the ANH lawsuit to OVERTURN the restrictive so called "positive" list in the Food Supplement Directive because it bans hundreds of allowed ingredients, forcing products to be watered down to the point of ineffectiveness, but you weren't, because you've turned your BACK on consumers.
You've bought into Dennin's lies.
Well the TRUTH is staring you in the face RIGHT HERE http://www.nzhealthtrust.co.nz because the people of New Zealand (who IADSA wrongly ABANDONED) by kicking NNFA New Zealand out of IADSA and by doing NOTHING to help them, are STILL fighting back against pharma driven harmonization pressure coming from Australia, and this whole Codex issue can be seen in microcosm RIGHT THERE.
I am DISGUSTED.
I'm ALSO disgusted by the LIES IADSA has been so successful in getting the rank and file members of the trade associations to buy into on the Codex issue.
American industry has been told that we won a "victory" at Codex when a move to base allowable potencies at RDA levels was scrapped in favor of "scientific risk assessment" but theres NOTHING at ALL scientific about whats going on.
Vitamin companies have been told that the "Upper Safe Levels" (which are comparable to current allowed potencies) are the END RESULT of this supposed "Scientific Risk Assessment" but that is a LIE, and this table PROVES its a LIE because the USLs are not the END POINT, they get watered down to "Maximum Safe Permitted Levels" but this truth is being HIDDEN from every vitamin company member of CRN, NNFA, AHPA and IADSA
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_145.doc
If CRN, NNFA, AHPA and IADSA actually CARED about vitamin consumers,small innovative supplement manufacturers, alternative practitioners and health food stores, you'd be pulling out all the stops to EDUCATE your members to the DIRE NEED to kill CAFTA and the FTAA before these trade agreements DESTROY AMERICA and DSHEA along with them.... but you're not doing that.
WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE A MEMBER OF AHPA or ANY OTHER VITAMIN TRADE ASSOC
If I were a health food store belonging to NNFA, or an innovative company belonging to NNFA or AHPA, I'd be ENRAGED right now over this, and I'd be DEMANDING answers, and when all I get back in response is LIES and SPIN, I'd consider lawsuits, and I'd also consider just bailing out, and taking my money ELSEWHERE because the vitamin trade associations are threatening to kill the goose that laid the golden egg: they're threatening the LIVES of consumers.
IAHF should institute a BOYCOTT against every member company belonging to AHPA on a basis of the conversation I had with you Michael, but I won't do it because they know not what they do and its not their fault they haven't heard the truth....
All I can say is I hope this motivates people to call Congress via 202-225-3121 to oppose CAFTA and FTAA, because unless large numbers of people do, the collectivists who are trying to destroy individuals rights world wide will run roughshod over ALL of our civil liberties, not just our access to dietary supplements. See http://www.stoptheftaa.org
See http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/emergency_update_020705.htm
To offset the HARM being done to the cause of health freedom by the vitamin trade associations who have turned their BACKS on consumers, IAHF needs emergency donations for a lobbying trip to DC at the end of April. Please help. See address below.
---- 