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IAHF List: I just sent the letter below to US Codex Chairman Dr.Ed Scarbrough to demand an explanation for why both US Delegates to the Codex Committee on Food Labeling in Montreal did not back the South African proposal at this meeting to allow for truthful health claims to be made for dietary supplements. (The US Delegates SHOULD have backed the South African proposal because it was consistent with US law.)
If you agree with my letter, I encourage you to copy it, (irrespective of what country you're from) and to email it to Dr.Scarbrough and to the list of others in the US Government (see below) to demand action in defense of consumer's access to dietary supplements.
Please consider adding a brief preface to my letter before sending it. Your preface might read as follows:
Having read John Hammell's concerns as expressed in the letter below, I'd just like to add my voice to his and to let you know that I share his concerns. (and add the text below from the body of my message, then
email it to: ed.scarbrough@fsis.usda.gov, Robert.Lake@cfsan.fda.gov, mary.cutshell@fsis.usda.gov,elizabeth.yetley@cfsan.fda.gov, danielle.perrault@mail.house.gov, norman.singleton@mail.house.gov, lissa_camacho@judiciary.senate.gov, patricia_deLoatche@judiciary.senate.gov, ben.neralla@mail.house.gov,president@whitehouse.gov
HERE IS THE LETTER I SENT- IF YOU AGREE WITH IT- PLEASE ADD THE COMMENT SUGGESTED ABOVE AND SEND IT YOURSELVES
To:
Ed Scarbrough, US Codex Chairman
Also to L.Robert Lake, JD, CFSAN, FDA, US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Food Labeling
And to Mary Cutshell, FSIS, USDA, Assistant US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Food Labeling
And to Elizabeth Yetley, CFSAN, FDA, US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses
[See South African Government Complaint to CODEX re opposition to the finalization of a Draft Guideline for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims, below my comments- I would like an immediate response to all questions asked herein.]
Dear Dr.Scarbrough:
Below my comments you will find the Official Complaint of the South African government to CODEX opposing finalization of a Draft Guideline for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims because Codex is refusing to allow for truthful health claims to be made for dietary supplements.
In their detailed complaint they cite evidence that the World Health Organization itself has acknowledged the role nutrition plays in the prevention and alleviation of disease states. Given that WHO administers CODEX, I share their concern that if the Draft Guideline for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims is allowed to be finalized as currently written, it will directly contradict positions already taken by the WHO, which would cast WHO and CODEX into total and complete DISREPUTE amongst vitamin consumers world wide (along with the US Government unless you take appropriate action in light of my concerns.)
It is totally inconsistent with US law that US Codex Delegates to the Committee on Food Labeling (Robert Lake and Mary Cutshell) failed to back the South African proposal at Codex to allow for health claims to be made for dietary supplements.
I know Dr.s Anthony Rees, and Dr.Antoinette Booyzen on the South African Codex Delegation, and have been to South Africa where I worked closely with Dr.Rees. I have had numerous lengthy communications with them both and know that they have been influenced heavily in their thinking at CODEX on the issue of allowing health claims to be made for dietary supplements by the ideas contained in both the US Nutrition Labelling and Education Act of 1990 and the US Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which as you are all well aware have been US law since 1990 and 1994 respectively.
As one of the legions of American vitamin consumers who worked diligently to get DSHEA passed in 1994, it angers me greatly when I see unelected US bureaucrats who supposedly "represent me" taking actions as official representatives of my country at UN Codex meetings which directly CONTRADICT established US law which most unquestionably represents the express will of We the People of these United States of America, and the will of Congress.
I find this ESPECIALLY galling when I know that the USA's dietary supplement laws serve as a MODEL which many health conscious people world wide seek to emulate, especially in the third world where the insane costs of the current allopathically oriented "medical model" are bankrupting entire governments, while NOT bringing about ANY improvement in health whatsoever. This problem is well documented in the article DEATH BY MEDICINE by Gary Null, PhD, Carolyn Dean, MD,ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Deborah Rasio MD, and Dorothy Smith, PhD http://www.garynull.com/Article.aspx?Article=/documents/iatrogenic/deathbymedicine/deathbymedicine1.htm
Currently an estimated 48% of Americans consume dietary supplements regularly. Thats an estimated 139,000,000. people. I am quite aware that the multinational pharmaceutical companies which FDA and USDA represent as de-facto "trade associations" fully realize that Senator Durbin's bill S.722 has zero chance of passage given these demographics, so the only way FDA and USDA and the drug companies which control them can hope to make an end run around current US law is via pushing draconian finalized trade standards for dietary supplements through to completion at CODEX and via the US being hauled before the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body- a new international court that does not follow US rules of evidence, which deliberates behind closed doors, and where we would be "represented" by the same unelected bureaucrats who are setting us up to lose in a trade dispute in the first place.
As you are all well aware, both US laws (NLEA and DSHEA) allow for the limited making of health claims on the labels of dietary supplements so that vitamin consumers shopping in health food stores can benefit from a wealth of thoroughly documented scientific information at the point of sale.
A primary example of this is shown through the example of health claims being permitted on folic acid supplements for the prevention of neural tube defects. Having once visited The Matheny School in New Jersey where I witnessed numerous victims of a horrible paralyzing disease called Spina Bifida caused by their mothers not having sufficient folic acid when they were pregnant (because at that time the FDA still forbade the making of this health claim), I remain genuinely perplexed by the actions of Robert Lake and Mary Cutshell as US Delegates to the Codex Committee on Food Labelling in Montreal where they were both were AGAINST the South African motion to allow for health claims to be made for dietary supplements.
I would like a complete explanation of Lake and Cutshell's actions in this instance, and would like to know whether or not you (Dr.Scarbrough) intend to REMOVE Lake and Cutshell from the US Delegation to this (AND ALL) Codex Committees in the future, and to urge that they be fired for acting inconsistently with US law, and if NOT, WHY NOT???
Please explain your answer. (Mr.Lake and Ms. Cutshell, if you have anything to say in your defense regarding your highly questionable non backing of South Africa's proposal to allow health claims be made for dietary supplements at the meeting on Food Labelling in Montreal, I'd really like to see it.)
In addition to being cc'ed to numerous key members of Congress, this email is being posted on the IAHF website, and any lack of a response will be very conspicuously noted by not only these members of Congress, but also by the huge number of visitors to our site from all over the USA and the world. It is also being circulated via email to thousands of vitamin consumers across the USA and the world, and we demand immediate answers, as the USA's non backing of the South African proposal seems to us to be part of a "World Health Organization" Genocide Agenda to cull our numbers. [ See Article: Population Control: Conspiracy or Fact http://www.taxtyranny.ca/images/HTML/AER/Misc/Articles/population.doc
I would also like a detailed official US reaction to the South African COMPLAINT lodged with CODEX on this issue. (See Below.)
I am also sending this email to Dr.Beth Yetley at FDA (US Codex Delegate to the Committee on Nutrition) and would like her detailed reaction to my comments as well since the South African motion would impact things at both the Codex Committee on Food Labeling and the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses.
It is painfully obvious to a growing number of people world wide that US actions at CODEX go diametrically against current US law, and that systematic efforts are being made by unelected bureaucrats "representing" the USA at Codex meetings abroad to set the USA up to LOSE in a future WTO Trade Dispute via which US Dietary Supplement Laws can be forcibly harmonized to an emerging mindlessly restrictive international trade standard under "development" at the non transparent, undemocratic FARCE known as Codex. (See http://www.thehealthcrusader.com/pgs/article-0104-ban.shtml
Will there be any ACCOUNTABILITY in this matter, or is this just another rampant example of the sort of heinous GOVERNMENT ABUSES documented in Omar Garrison's well written book The Dictocrats- Our Unelected Rulers , or in James Bovard's book How the Government Screws You From A-Z (?)
I would like to see detailed comments to all concerns expressed in this email which I am also sending to you by certified mail with return receipt requested with an extensive paper trail to other interested parties including Senators Hatch and Harkin, Congressmen Paul, De Fazio, and Burton.
Here is the COMPLAINT the South African Government has just lodged with the Codex Commission on this issue, and as US Codex Chair, I would like to know what the official US response to it will be:
Comments from South Africa to the Codex Commission
(2004)
CL 2004/22-FL
Draft Guideline for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims at step 8 for adoption by the Commission
South Africa is concerned that a Draft Guideline is presented for adoption at Step 8 that contains a section that is no longer sustainable because of overwhelming scientific evidence that contradicts the message of this section. Since Codex adopted the principle that Standards and Guidelines should be based on scientific evidence, the above-mentioned Guideline should not be adopted at Step 8 with this section still in operation.
In the following documents, the WHO, acknowledges the role of "diet and nutrition in the prevention of chronic diseases"', and the "promotion of optimal nutrition amonq consumers throuqh adequate labellinq and the use of health claims, to assist them in makinq the riqht choices"z:
1. "WHO Technical Report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases" (2003)
2. WHO's Director-General's report of the Joint FAO/WHO evaluations of the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Fifty sixth World Health Assembly Provisional agenda 14.19, reference A 56/34, dated 3 April 2004), paragraph 23. In paragraph 17 the Director-General noted that the Codex Commission recommends that the scope of the Commission should also fully cover health-related aspects of food standards.
In our opinion two Codex Committee's failed to implement this policy recommendation of science-based decisions, namely CCNFSDU 2003 and CCFL 2004 by not acknowledging -
1. In the case of CCNFSDU 2003: The use of the wording "prevention of chronic diseases" in the preamble to the document Proposed Draft Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral supplements", based on an outdated clause in the Codex general Guidelines on Claims (CAC/GL 1-1979 (Rev. 1-1991) which prohibits claims as to the suitability of a food for use in the prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of a disease; and
2. In the case of CCFL 2004: The revision of the Codex general Guidelines on Claims (CAC/GL 1-1979 (Rev. 1-1991) to update the abovementioned clause to reflect the latest scientific evidence that nutrients can heal nutritional deficiency diseases and certain metabolic disorders, can prevent chronic diseases and can be used as an alternative option in the treatment of some diseases.
WHO finds it acceptable to use the word "diseases" when referring to diet and nutritional policies which are within the scope of Codex Alimentarius. In other words, the fact that foods and nutrients can prevent diseases and some cases cure diseases (e.g., classical deficiency diseases and certain metabolic disorders) do not make these foods and nutrients medicines from a scientific point of view. Dictations from national legislation should not be permitted to influence and allow incorrect statements in a global Guideline.
South Africa recommends that the Draft Guideline for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims not be adopted at step 8 by the Commission and that section 3.4 of the Codex general Guidelines on Claims (CAC/GL 1-1979 (Rev. 1-1991) which prohibits claims as to the suitability of a food for use in the prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of a disease be revised to correctly reflect scientific evidence.
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
360-945-0352 World
cc: President George W. Bush
cc: Senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin
Congressmen Ron Paul, Peter De Fazio, Dan Burton- (c/o Danielle Perraut- House Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness danielle.perrault@mail.house.gov)
To Sen. Hatch via Lissa Comacho, and Patricia DeLoatche--- To Congressman Paul via Norm Singleton; to Congressman De Fazio via Ben Neralla; to Senator Harkin via Peter Reinecke
cc South African President Thabo Mbecki c/o Drs. Anthony Rees, Antoinette Booyzen- South African Delegation to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses and the Committee on Food Labeling.
cc: Drs. Anthony Rees, Antoinette Booyzen- South African Delegation to the UN Codex Alimentarius Commission's Committees on Food Labeling and Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, and to South African President Thabo Mbecki c/o Rees and Booyzen.
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