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IAHF List: See MP Lunney's press release below my comments about the mindless actions of Canada's Keystone Cops, "Health Canada"
Regardless of what country you live in, please take a minute to sign the petition on the True Hope website http://www.truehope.com/breakingNews.asp to help your fellow vitamin consumers in Canada. The information below will explain why. If you are a Canadian, please contact your MP and request that they back Lunney's bill C 420, see info below.
Regardless of what country you live in, please donate to the ANH lawsuit to overturn the EU Food Supplement Directive which has global ramifications. See http://www.iahf.com/anh_lawsuit.html for details and donate via http://www.alliance-natural-health.org We CAN overturn the EU FSD in court, but not without donations. We MUST overturn it or there will be no way to stop a draconian vitamin standard from being rammed through at Codex.
The USA has been set up to lose in a WTO trade dispute via which our vitamin laws will be forcibly harmonized to a grossly restrictive international vitamin standard, unless we monkeywrench its creation by working with our British allies, ANH.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, July 17/2003
War on Natural Health Products Escalates
"What's next from Health Canada's Keystone Cops?"
NANAIMO-Dr. James Lunney, MP for Nanaimo-Alberni, reacted with outrage to Tuesdays RCMP/ Health Canada raid on a Natural Health Products company in Raymond, Alberta.
"Health Canada's latest attack on the freedom of Canadians to make their own health choices is intolerable. They have resorted to extreme, unwarranted measures to prevent promising, low risk products from reaching Canadians who require them. This bureaucratic interference is out of control; it is contrary to science and to the public interest."
On July 15, about twenty armed officers and Health Canada officials raided the offices of Truehope Nutritional Support, charging the company has been selling a nutritional supplement to the mentally ill without government approval. The RCMP demanded that employees immediately stop working and back away from their computers. They proceeded to downloaded company information from hard drives while confiscating stacks of documents.
The supplement in question, Empowerplus, a combination of 36 vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants, has a successful track record in treating symptoms of mental illness. Health Canada states that, under Canadian law, making health claims classifies a supplement as a drug and therefore requires solid, scientific proof of effectiveness before it can be legally sold.
Meanwhile, without any scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness, Health Canada has approved a plan to distribute marijuana through Medical Doctors. This week Minister Anne McLellan stated that if medical marijuana proved not to work she'll shut down the program. Yet, Health Canada has already moved to shut down the $544,000 study of Empowerplus being conducted at the University of Calgary, despite early evidence of effectiveness. What's wrong with this picture?
After the Health Committee report in 1999 and the Transition Team Report in 2000, Canadians were led to believe that the antiquated clauses in the Food and Drug Act that forbid health claims for natural health products would be addressed to acknowledge the scientific evidence that many diseases and disorders can be mitigated through judicious use of natural health products. Lunney has sponsored a Private Members Bill (C-420) which is currently before the House; it would place natural health products under a food directorate rather than an adversarial drug style bureaucracy.
"These draconian measures against a promising vitamin and mineral compound betray the public trust. It's time to reign in Health Canada's Keystone Cops and give Canadians freedom of choice in personal health care," concluded Lunney.
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For further information please contact:
Dr. James Lunney & (613) 992-5243 or (250) 390-7550
Ottawa:
Room 678, Confederation Bldg
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Tel: 613-992-5243
Fax : 613-992-9112
International Advocates for Health Freedom
POB 10632 Blacksburg VA 24062 USA
http://www.iahf.com; http://iadsa-exposed.tripod.com
800-333-2553 N.America
540-961-0476 World 