IAHF Webmaster: Codex Emergency,Breaking News, What to Do, USA, All Countries
IAHF List:
Please read my response below to a letter sent by congressman Case of Hawaii to a constituent who sent a letter against CODEX/CAFTA. As you can see, Case is attempting to regurgitate spin on this issue emanating from the FDA and from the Pharma dominated vitamin trade associations.
As you can see, I have told Case that if he votes for CAFTA, his name will be added to the BLACKLIST being compiled by member organizations of the Coalition for Health Freedom http://www.coalitionforhealthfreedom.org which IAHF belongs to. We're going to post the Blacklist after the CAFTA vote and we're going to use it against any congressmen that ignores our concerns in order to drive them from office.
Please keep the pressure on, the CAFTA vote could come at any time between now and next Thursday but will probably happen next week according to my sources on Capital Hill.
Strongly also recommend calling congress against Patriot Act 2 which threatens to be an even bigger nightmare than Patriot Act 1, see http://www.infowars.com/police_state.html
Call Congress toll free via 866-340-9281 to oppose CAFTA and Patriot Act 2 which totally guts what little remains of the Bill of Rights.
Representative Ed Case [mailto:no_reply@mail.house.gov]
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 2:39 PM
To: pennyp@
Subject: Reply from Congressman Ed Case
July 15, 2005
Ms. Penny
PO Box
Kamuela, Hawaii 96743-1096
Dear Ms. Pagliaro:
Thank you for your recent communication expressing concern that
Congress may support recommendations of the Codex
Alimentarius Commission to limit sales of vitamins, minerals, or
other supplements. I very much appreciate your concern, but must
tell you that this is a fabrication that has been spreading via the
Internet for several months. These are the current facts:
[IAHF: What follows is spin, unsupported by facts, but read on]:
Congressman Case: The Codex Alimentarius Commission was established in 1962 by
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to set
international standards of operation for the health industry. In
November 2004, the commission's Committee on Nutrition and
Foods for Dietary Uses reached an agreement on the definition and
regulatory use of vitamins and minerals in food supplements. It
will present its formal findings at the annual commission meeting,
which will be held this July in Rome.
[IAHF: On July 4th, Codex ratified a global guideline for vitamins and minerals in Rome. They'll be filling in the blanks on allowable potencies for vitamins and minerals in Bonn Germany in November, led by an FDA employee named Christine Lewis Taylor who is "on loan" from the FDA to the World Health Organization. Last May, Taylor, a registered dietician who opposes consumer access to high potency vitamins and who oppose the use of dietary supplements in general, sent out a call for applicants to participate in a "Nutrient Risk Assessment Workshop". Every single person from our side, who thinks the way WE think was EXCLUDED from participation in this "workshop" which generated a very biased framework to evaluate allowable potencies for dietary supplements such that they're only considering supposed "RISKS" while totally IGNORING BENEFITS.
The fraudulent methodology being employed by the World Health Organization to fill in these blanks on allowable potencies was shredded in these comments submitted to WHO by Robert Verkerk, PhD, Exec Dir, Alliance for Natural Health, and he was one of the many people from our side who was excluded from Dr.Taylor's "Nutrient Risk Assessment Workshop" http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_121.pdf
The person who will run the meeting in Bonn in November where they'll fill in the blanks on allowed potencies is Dr.Rolf Grossklaus, who is ALSO the Director of the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment. This is the only body in the world that has completed the full risk assessment as called for in the fine print using WHO's fraudulent methodology which involves starting with a (fraudulently derived) "SAFE UPPER LEVEL" then subtracts junk science derived supposed "Nutrient Risk Factors", then subtracting junk science derived numbers from a mythical "average diet" (which doesn't exist in real life and which totally ignores biochemical individuality) to arrive at the set of numbers that you can see in the following table which are even LOWER than RDAs: http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_145.doc]
Congressman Case: In general, Codex Alimentarius Commission guidelines do form a
key reference point in international trade disputes, but that is where
its influence ends. Acceptance of the guidelines is strictly
voluntary on each and all countries. Should the United States not
adopt it, the guidelines will not govern the regulation of vitamins,
minerals, or other supplements within our borders.
[IAHF: This is a very misleading statement, and the reality of the situation is amply discussed in this article
by Suzanne Harris, JD WHO SAYS WHATEVER HAPPENS AT CODEX WON'T AFFECT US LAW, AND WHY DO THEY SAY IT?
http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm
Here is the beginning of Harris's article, please go to the website above to read the whole thing:
I was struck recently by an article appearing in the NNFA Today magazine, Volume 18, No.11 entitled "International Products Regulation Q&A: What Affect do They Really Have on the U.S.?" While some parts of the article were good, a number of the questions and answers struck a discordant note including the following:
"However, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture official, the United States has never changed its laws or regulations to conform to any standards or guidelines adopted at Codex. He noted further that the United States does not, as a matter of practice, officially accept, accept in part, accept free distribution, or accept standards or guidelines adopted by the Codex Commission. Therefore, it doesn't appear that any changes to U.S. law or regulations would likely occur as a result of any adoption by the Commission of the vitamin and food supplement guidelines." [emphasis added]
It was the therefore that really bothered me. If NNFA asked that unnamed bureaucrat about acceptance of guidelines, then it really asked the wrong question. The U.S. generally doesn't accept Codex guidelines nor do other countries. The Codex Secretariat hasn't received a notice of acceptance in the last 10 years. The better question is whether Codex standards and guidelines act as a template or containment within which countries must then write their laws and regulations or face enormous political and legal pressure.
To this latter question the answer is clearly yes write laws within the acceptable field set forth by the applicable Codex standard or guideline or be prepared to accept the consequences, including the risk of cross-sector trade sanctions if you don't.
Why are Codex guidelines and standards a containment, a template, within which nations must then operate or face a host of nasty consequences?
Partly because since the creation of the World Trade Organization and its internal operating agreements, every member nation knows that its laws and regulations can become the object of a WTO ruling and the object of political pressure to harmonize. Back in 1997, I watched as the realization dawned on Codex delegates that they had entered into a new era of food law harmoninzation.Too late to cry now was the essence of the message delivered to them by the counsel from WTO.]
Congressman Case: What may have started this myth was the introduction of the
Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act (H.R. 3377),
which was introduced in the 108th Congress (2003-2004) by
Congresswoman Susan Davis. It is my understanding that the bill
was introduced in response to deaths associated with the use of
dietary supplement containing ephedra, which belong to a separate
class of products from vitamins and minerals.
[IAHF: The assertion that this issue is a myth is outrageous and unacceptable as is the assertion that
ephedra "belongs in a separate class of products from vitamins and minerals."
For your awareness, the courts recently overturned the FDA's ban on ephedra:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050415-9999-1n15ephedra.html and rightfully so.]
Congressman Case: As introduced, H.R. 3377 would have amended the federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require all manufacturers and
processors of dietary supplements to provide an updated list of all
products, with each product's labeling and ingredient list, every six
months to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. In addition, the bill would have required
manufacturers and distributors of these products to report serious
adverse event reports to HHS within 15 days, to investigate any
such reports, and to maintain a record of the reports for a period to
be determined by the Secretary.
H.R. 3377 did not advance in the last Congress and it has not since
been reintroduced in the new 109th Congress (2005-2006).
[IAHF: This is not true. Susan Davis DID reintroduce the bill as HR 3156 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.03156: You could have checked your facts before sending this response to Penny Pagliaro who you are apparently attempting to mislead.
Congressman Case: If you would like to review the bill, please visit the following website
maintained by the Library of Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov.
I do hope that you have found this information informative. Please
be assured that any future decision that I may be called upon to
make regarding vitamins, minerals, or dietary supplements will be
based upon scientific evidence and not the emotions of the
moment.
[IAHF: It would be nice if this were true. Unfortunately, as we see from this submission by the Alliance for Natural Health to the World Health Organization, it is not true.
The methodology being employed by FDA employee Christine Lewis Taylor who is in charge of WHO's "Nutrient Risk Assessment Project" which is filling in the blanks on allowable potencies at Codex is fraudulent, only looking at supposed risks, while completely ignoring benefits. They're looking at animal studies when far more accurate human data is available. This is an obvious effort on the part of the FDA to assist pharmaceutical interests in making an end run around US law.
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHWebsiteDoc_121.pdf
The Health Freedom Movement is compiling a BLACKLIST of congressmen who turn their backs on dietary supplement consumers by voting for CAFTA. We will be maintaining this blacklist on numerous health freedom websites and will be calling it to the attention of voters within the districts of any congressmen who attempt to force this unconstitutional measure upon us. Our reasons for opposing CAFTA have been fully delineated in messages sent to congress now for the past several weeks, and are also discussed in this hard hitting documentary WE BECOME SILENT http://www.welltv.com
For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
556 Boundary Bay Rd.
Point Roberts WA 98281 USA
http://www.iahf.com
800-333-2553 N.America 