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IAHF List:
Below you will find IAHF's responses to Jack Konrath's reply to my last message. Through it you will all gain a healthy perspective on the reality of where we all stand. My purpose in making this response to Jack Konrath is not to put him down, it is to provide my perspective on this complex issue we're all attempting to address.
One thing I will never do with you guys is to sugar coat this situation. To do so would deprive you of the awareness necessary to grasp where we ACTUALLY stand, and we can't possibly fight back and win if a huge number of people on this list remain in la la land.
Its very easy to be an armchair quarterback the way Jack is, but the reality of being on the front lines in this battle in this office with a phone ringing off the hook and no one to help answer it is another story entirely.
If you read my responses to Jack below, it will help you to put yourself in my shoes, and you just might come away with a more in depth perspective that could help us all in some way to fight back successfully.
I've had an interesting mix of emails today from a wide variety of people on the IAHF list.
Some of you are very angry at me right now, while others feel more in allignment with my views. Far more phone calls came in today than I could possibly handle so I never once picked up the phone because I have to pace myself to avoid burnout, and I'm feeling VERY burned out right now.
If you'd like to see my perspective on this battle we're all in together, please take the time to read my response to Jack's response. I can't be all things to all people, its pointless to even try. Everyone on this list has a common bond of wanting very much to successfully stop the pharma juggernaut. We're never going to all see eye to eye.
JACK KONRATH
John,
My criticism of your letter was meant to be constructive. I'm sorry you missed the point. "Mindless critic"? I'm deeply disappointed that you would personalize such an important issue.
IAHF- Its a very personal issue. My LIFE is at stake. I have a genetic need for the supplements I use. They saved my life after mainstream medicine almost killed me http://www.iahf.com/on_the_back_wards.html This article has been translated into several foreign languages and has been widely downloaded by people around the world. I get far more calls and emails regarding it than I can handle from people who are desperately seeking help for themselves or loved ones. I don't have a staff here, and at times my phone rings off the hook. I get over a thousand emails a day sometimes, and work over a hundred hours a week. I am responding to your email at 12:23 am after getting a couple hours sleep. I swam a mile earlier today and hiked for a couple hours in the woods near my house.
My friend Sue called me today from South Carolina. Dick Cheney incested her daughter years ago and almost killed her on numerous occassions. He is a pedophile. Sue wrote a book under the pseudonym Brice Taylor. It is a very heavy book. If you read it, you would have a much deeper awareness than I think you do of what we are really up against. Sue escaped from the CIA's MKULTRA Mind Control Program, and the only reason she is alive is that she wrote this book http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966891627/qid=1109577787/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-2874850-7805730 I spent 5 days visiting her in South Carolina to pick her brain about the hell she survived. You can learn a lot about the MKULTRA program from this article http://www.raven1.net/kilde2.htm by Dr.Kilde, a former Chief Medical Officer of Northern Finland. Her article was published in Spekula, a Finnish Medical Journal.
JACK KONRATH Of course everyone is free to send what ever letter they feel is appropriate. It would be best to send a letter crafted to induce those in power to read it, take it seriously and take positive action. To be taken seriously, the reader (hopefully the president) must understand that the words carry the weight of the millions of people who agree with and support my cause.
IAHF Neither the President or VP are running this country. They were both inserted by the CIA http://www.blackboxvoting.com and are merely figureheads, pawns of the Bilderbergers, Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations. They have no power to do anything about what is going on with dietary supplements. If either of them were to block US ratification of the Codex vitamin standard, they'd be killed just as surely as Kennedy was.
I had death threats for pushing for congressional oversight on this issue. Milt Copulous was trying to help me get oversight til he was fired from Congressman Burton's staff. He was not fired by Burton. He was fired by someone with power over him on the Committee staff whose palm was being greased by the Cartel, and he was replaced by a pharma plant who was a woman with 5 kids who was being stiffed on child support by her ex which made her easy pickin's for the cartel to grease HER palm.
I knew she was a plant the moment I got wind that she'd been tapped to replace Milt, but not just because of the circumstances, because she had previously worked for the Office of Alternative Medicine at NIH, (before it became NCCAM) She was a snitch for Varmus, the head guy at NIH, who HATED OAM and was filling the place up with plants. She ratted out my friend Dr.Jackie Wooten and got her fired. All Jackie had done was to give out the names of alternative practitioners to members of the public who called in desperately seeking help.
I was on the ad hoc Advisory Board that created OAM at NIH, and am one of the authors of Alternative Medicine- Expanding Medical Horizons- a Report to NIH on Alternative Medical Practices in the United States. This book is still being sold by the government printing office, but NCCAM has been totally hijacked by the Cartel which is why former Congressman Berkley Bedell formed his own private Foundation- NFAM- National Foundation for Alternative Medicine http://www.nfam.org Everything the government touches turns to SHIT.
JACK KONRATH- By your response to my letter, it seems you think we differ on what is wrong. We do not. However, your letter whines about what is wrong and demands change. There is no consequence for inaction. For there to be a major consequence for inaction requires the strength of numbers, both dollars and votes. If you have the strength of numbers, there is no need to even articulate what is wrong. It doesn't matter. No whining necessary. Simply demand the change you seek and it will be done. Do you think that the "Congress of whores" will be moved by whining about what is right and what is wrong? They'll be moved by only two things: Votes & money. To win this battle through the political process requires the power of votes and money. That needs to be the focus.
IAHF- You are BADLY out of touch with REALITY and you're also in deepest denial about what is going on in the world, especially with regards to this issue. Apparently, you are failing to connect the dots on what is going on. This article will help, but only if you also read the links attached to it
http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/emergency_update_020705.htm
JACK KONRATH- Let me try an analogy. Think for a moment about the Palestinians. For decades they've tried to further their cause using (not so figuratively) slingshots and sticks against an enemy driving M-1 tanks and flying F-16s. Meanwhile, we watch the news every night and think what a bunch of stupid inhuman barbarians the Palestinians are. Hence, no American support... and apparently no support from any other country. They'll never win that way. The only way they will ever win is with the weight of major political powers behind them in their cause.
To influence those powers, they need to control money and votes. You and I both know it. In my opinion, your suggested letter makes you... and more importantly, the IAHF... look like the Palestinians. In your proposed letter, you threaten the existing political power with slingshots. But, to win, you need to be able to disrupt the flow of money and influence the popular vote. Yes. It is a big fight. That's why you must be big. You need 80 million supplement using voters on your side.
IAHF-
Nice joke. You have no clue about what we are up against. Even if the US Codex Delegate were to back off completely, we're still roped in to the outcome by membership in the WTO, and it wouldn't matter if I had petitions signed by every voter in America, our Congress is not ABOUT to remove us from the WTO or from the UN. I have been to Codex meetings in Germany.
It was quite an eye opening experience. Unelected bureaucrats from the world's FDAs all know each other on a first name basis like one huge happy family. Thats from attending numerous international meetings and from being networked heavily by phone, fax, email and even video conferencing.
Every single one of these bastards has the same Dieticians mindset as Christine Lewis Taylor who FDA sent over to WHO to fill in the blanks on allowable potency levels at CODEX. We are witnessing a monolithic level of corruption, but you have not experienced what I have. I was driven from my house in Florida and had to run for my LIFE for pushing for congressional oversight on this issue, and the hearing that I pushed for for 5 very long years with every fiber of my being was WHITEWASHED on March 20, 2001.
The fix is in. We have been set up like bowling pins. The situation we're facing in America is no different than that occuring in England where the ruling Labor Party totally ignored over a million signatures on petitions against harmonizing to the EU Food Supplement Directive that were gathered in English health food stores.
If I had not experienced the stuff I have, I would not believe this about America, but I have no illusions about how deep the CESSPOOL is.
You are living in La La land.
JACK KONRATH-
We know that over half of the population of the U.S. uses alternative medicine to maintain their health. That's a lot of votes to a politician and a lot of money being spent on products threatened by Codex. The problem is that the Codex issue is invisible to 99% of the users. The issue NEEDS VISIBILITY.
I applaud your efforts, but, to win on Codex, every single vitamin user needs to know that their rights are being threatened... and needs to know what action to take to protect their rights... and then needs to TAKE THAT ACTION. The challenge is to gain that visibility so the message can be communicated to the entire population of vitamin users.
National visibility implies a spokesperson... one who has or can get visibility... perhaps a popular actor or actress who has the money and the inclination to represent the cause and make the appeal to the millions of people who will be affected but... most of all... CAN GET ON TV. I think you can agree that the visibility, news coverage and response to such an approach would have an enormous impact by virtue of strength of numbers. Money and votes will win the day. 80 million voters need to stand up and say "enough is enough".
IAHF
Our President and VP were inserted by the CIA. They were not voted into office. http://www.blackboxvoting.com Many Senators and Congressmen were also inserted, and all of them are figureheads in any case. They're not running this country, its being run by a shadow government which is running governments world wide. They're pulling out all the stops right now to force us into a carbon copy of the EU Dictatorship in our hemisphere, the FTAA- see http://www.stoptheftaa.org FTAA will harmonize all the laws between the Arctic Circle and Tierra del Fuego, yet if you take a poll of the next 100 people you bump into, I bet not even 3 have even HEARD of it.
During David Kessler's reign of terror in the early 90s the FDA was actively raiding health food stores, alternative practitioners and vitamin companies. There was a huge public backlash and we DID get media coverage then, as well as support from such celebrities as Mel Gibson. It was obvious that we were under attack.
Today's situation is far more complex and not nearly as easy to understand. Every vitamin trade association in the world today is controlled from the top down by pharma interests. The spin against my message has been never ending and incessant for the past 9 years. You have no idea what its like to be up against this level of spin. The supplement industry is being spun literally into the ground.
The Emergency program we had at ACAM was too little, too late. I just about KILLED myself to make that program happen. If this were a football game, we'd be in the 4th quarter, behind by 8 touchdowns, but you don't realize this because you aren't in my shoes, seeing this situation from my perspective.
JACK KONRATH
Do you really think that Dick Cheney worries that he will lose access to chelation or supplements as a result of Codex? Of course not. In fact, Codex tacticians make every attempt to obfuscate the real issue by arguing that NO ONE will lose access to supplements as a result of Codex. Only the supply channel will change.
Codex is an issue of control. A doctor will still be able to issue a prescription for anything up to and including mega-doses of any supplement now available at our corner health food store or drug store... but the vitamins will only be available in those doses by prescription and come from Big-Pharma-owned or -controlled manufacturers.
It is this control that we're fighting... which means that we're fighting the billions of advertising dollars and billions in tax revenues Big Pharma represents. Any strategy that fails to confront these dollars with an equal or greater opposing force will fail. 80 million voters/supplement users are big enough to win.
IAHF
This is such an ignorant statement that I almost don't know where to even begin to address what you are saying. It is not true that we will be able to get the most innovative supplements currently available by Rx, for the simple reason that they won't even be manufactured any more unless we find some way to stop what is unfolding.
They're banning the raw materials that go into them, you haven't read the fine print for the EU FSD. see http://www.alliance-natural-health.org Sorry, but 80 million voters are NOT enough to win, because we did not vote our President into power, he was installed on us by the CIA along with many members of congress. You are living in La La Land. http://www.blackboxvoting.com
JACK KONRATH
Now to that which so offended you. I don't really care what your actions were that got you kicked off the US Codex Delegation to the CCNFSDU prior to the 2000 meeting in Berlin. The fact that you DID get kicked off rendered you less effective in the fight. Were you still there, you would know their strategy, tactics and direction, thus giving you important insights in real time. Now you no longer have these advantages. Again, I applaud your motivation to add transparency to the process, but reject any tactic that lessens your effectiveness.
You WERE the only transparency. Now you're in hiding. That you were threatened and felt the need to move to a remote location... and still feel that need... reduces your ability to fight, thus lessening your effectiveness. Do you see no value to a stealth mode that would allow you to know, on an ongoing basis, exactly what the enemy is doing? Web published camcorder proceedings and threats of gun ownership lobbies and any other confrontational tactic not based on overwhelming force reduces your credibility and effectiveness. Think bigger. No battle was ever won without overwhelming force. 80 million voters/supplement users are indeed an overwhelming force. We need a strategy that enlists and makes visible to the government their full support.
IAHF
Bullshit. I got footage from inside a Codex meeting showing them FORCE ME to turn my camcorder off, and by putting it on the web I woke up huge numbers of people on this issue, at great risk to my life. We have had lots of people inside Codex meetings after I was thrown off the US Delegation. Scott Tips, JD, Legal Director of the National Health Federation is one of many examples I can cite. He has attended numerous Codex meetings. Having people inside codex doesn't do any good whatsoever because its a TOTALLY RIGGED game, but I guess the awful truth of that has eluded your feeble mind. See this article "A Meeting of Two" by Scott Tips http://ahha.org/codextips2004.htm and pull your head out of your ass.
JACK KONRATH
You wrote: ""The spirit is evil"? It is "evil" to attempt to stop a global eugenics program?"
Did I state that it's evil to attempt to stop a global eugenics program? Of course not. I said the spirit of your proposed letter is evil. Do you think you can win the support of the office of the president through mean spirited threats? He is your would-be proponent. You need to give him both a will and a way that he can help you, not threaten him with your slingshot to further alienate him to your cause.
IAHF
Read this psychological profile of GW Bush http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1033771,00.html
JACK KONRATH
You wrote: "You don't like the "tone" of my letter? Write your own, but don't tell me what to send out to MY email distribution list which you OPTED ONTO. You signed yourself on, you can sign yourself OFF at any time. Any time you want to start your OWN health freedom organization, you are more than free to do so. Personally, I think another revolution is long overdue."
What is that all about? Did I tell you what to send to your list? Did I opt off your list? Of course not. I sent you a private communication meant to get you to consider how really stupid your proposed letter to the president comes across. Are you above criticism? My opinion is unchanged. The tone is wrong, the spirit is evil and the grammar is third grade at best. There is no value to being confrontational in such a letter unless you possess overwhelming power. I think we can agree that our power in this battle is well less than overwhelming.
The letter will fail to influence because it flexes muscles not yet built. It will precipitate no action because there is no dire consequence for inaction. It makes our would-be proponent defensive and adversarial rather than offensive and cooperative. Your proposed letter to the president makes any would be adopter look like a slingshot-wielding radical, with no power or credibility, digging his toe through the dirt and begging the president for a fight.
The president shouts over his shoulder, "Hey, Dick... Do we have any more of those M-1 tanks and F-16s to quell this little band of dissidents?" Sunday stroll in the park? The best strategy would make the enemy think that this battle is a stroll in the park... just before you unleash the power of 80 million voters/supplement users on the Congress and office of the president. Actually, I think you know that. I just don't think your letter does the trick. In this case, yes, I'll write my own letter.
IAHF
You are so far out of touch with reality that its mind boggling. The vast American public has no idea that this battle is even going on. We aren't living in the early 90s during David Kessler's reign of terror. The whole nature of the attack today is vastly different and vastly more difficult to expose.
JACK KONRATH
With regard to IAHF and the mailing list, I remain a supporter of both you and the cause... no matter what name calling you choose to employ... because I believe that winning is what's important here... and to win we all need to be together. At least 80 million of us.
Thanks for listening.
IAHF
Its so easy to be an armchair quarterback. You are living in La La Land. You don't even have the REMOTEST awareness of how deep the CESSPOOL in DC actually is. I have no illusions. I've been going toe to toe with the Cartel on this issue since 1996 when I was the first to call it to public attention, and I'm lucky I'm still alive.
Even if every voter in America were to awaken to the truth of what I'm trying to say, and they made their feelings known, we'd all be ignored just as the more than one million vitamin consumers in the UK were when they signed petitions against harmonizing England's vitamin law to the EU Food Supplement Directive.
Thats the part you don't understand, and clearly, you never will. You still believe in this fetid cesspool known as America. I stopped believing in it a long time ago. Open your eyes to reality. Read this article by Stephan Ames http://www.apfn.org/apfn/halluc.htm
At 12:30 AM 2/27/05, you wrote:
IAHF List: See my response to Jack Konrath below. Through my response you will see exactly where I am coming from. Also realize that this is not going to be a sunday stroll in the park- this Codex vitamin issue is just the TIP of a MUCH larger iceburg....
Konrath said:
I've been following this Codex debacle for the last six months and find it totally unacceptable. However, there is no way I would ever use the moronic letter you suggest in this email. The tone is wrong, the spirit is evil and the grammar is third grade at best. The whole thing has a "sour grapes" stink to it, induced mostly by your direct reference to being "kicked off" the 2000 Codex delegation. Why not just stick to the facts and forget about the hyperbole? Don't you think the facts speak loudly enough? Of course they do. Don't waste the time and money of the people who believe in your cause by coming on as a disgruntled wus. You are on the side of right. You don't need to stoop to foul play to win this fight. You DO need to keep everyone on your side and the way to do that is to be big. Do you really think that your suggested letter is the best way to do that? If I were Bush, I'd crumble your letter up into a little ball and toss it in the circular file. If that's the ou!
tcome you seek, you're on the right track.
Jack Konrath
IAHF RESPONSE:
"The spirit is evil"? It is "evil" to attempt to stop a global eugenics program?
Explain yourself.
I was kicked off the US Codex Delegation to the CCNFSDU prior to the 2000 meeting in Berlin because at the '98 meeting in Berlin I videotaped the first half hour of the meeting (til Grossklaus, the German chair of the meeting stopped the meeting to force me to shut my camcorder off), and for pushing very hard for congressional oversight having witnessed illegal acts by Dr.Yetley of the FDA.
The German government banned my future participation at Codex meetings because I not only attempted to make these non transparent meetings more transparent by filming the meeting, but because I digitized the film I shot which showed them forcing me to shut my camera off, and I put it on the web in order to show the total non transparency of these rigged proceedings.
I had serious death threats for attempting to get congressional oversight on this issue, and was forced to move from South Florida to a very remote location in the mountains of Virginia (where I have since moved from again) due to my efforts.
What I said about Cheney in my letter is true: his life WAS saved just before the election by chelation therapy administered at Bethesda Naval Hospital and by consuming dietary supplements.
If he cares about defending his own life, he and Bush will pay heed to what I am saying. Personally, I don' t think they have the BALLS to do the right thing here.
It is true that the FDA is part of the Executive Branch.
Everything in my letter was protected first amendment speech. You are free to use it, to not use it or to edit it and send your own version, but I do not appreciate your highly offensive comments especially given that I have been risking my LIFE to address this issue since being the first to call it to global attention in 1996 via my article in Life Extension Magazine.
This sad fact remains: Even if we could get a legal injunction against the FDA over ratification of the standard, and we BLOCKED the FDA from ratifying it, we're STILL roped in to harmonizing to it due to our membership in the WTO.
Last time a member of Congress attempted to get us OUT of the WTO was in 2000 when Congressman Ron Paul tried via HJ Res 90. He got body slammed for his efforts which went NOWHERE.
Face it, we're up against a Congress of whores which has a eugenics agenda.
My advice to people to join Gun Owners of America, the NRA and JPFO was very well founded, especially given the constant efforts we're up against to impose gun control legislation which is part of an effort to render us defenseless against this eugenics agenda.
You don't like the "tone" of my letter? Write your own, but don't tell me what to send out to MY email distribution list which you OPTED ONTO. You signed yourself on, you can sign yourself OFF at any time. Any time you want to start your OWN health freedom organization, you are more than free to do so. Personally, I think another revolution is long overdue.
John Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
At 11:02 PM 2/26/05, you wrote:
IAHF Webmaster: Codex Emergency, All Countries, Breaking News, What to Do
IAHF List: No matter what country you live in, please join IAHF in sending email to President Bush and to the US Congress demanding that Bush reign in Christine Lewis-Taylor of the FDA who is "on loan" to the (so called) World Health Organization, where she is in charge of the (so called) "Nutrient Risk Assessment" workshop which in May will proceed to "fill in the blanks" on allowable potency levels at CODEX. (If you live outside the USA, please copy your letter to Bush to your elected officials).
There has been zero transparency in how Taylor (a Dietician and former assistant US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses) has gone about selecting the 18 people who will be making these determinations as to what the allowable potency levels for vitamins and minerals will be. (All applicants on our side have been rejected by Taylor including Robert Verkerk, PhD, Exec Dir of the UK based Alliance for Natural Health despite his having made just one of 16 submissions to WHO on this issue.)
See the NY Times article below (at end) about the rampant corruption at FDA wherein Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra were fraudulently approved despite serious safety concerns by a panel of people which included scientists who had worked in the past for Merck, and Pfizer, makers of these dangerous drugs.
Christine Lewis-Taylor of FDA is threatening to murder people all over the world via her actions. Your own life could well hinge on her actions (as does mine.) The FDA is answerable only to the Executive Branch of the US Government.
Taylor was on the US Codex Delegation in 2000 when I was kicked off as a whistle blower attempting to put her and Yetley under a congressional microscope. I had death threats for my trouble, and the oversight hearing I pushed for for 5 years was whitewashed on March 20, 2001. Pharma elements which have penetrated the vitamin trade associations figured prominently in the whitewashing of the hearing as did pharma plants on congressman Dan Burton's staff.
Please copy and past the message below into an email and sent it to President Bush (no matter what country you are in) and to members of Congress (if you are an American). If you live outside the USA, please ask your own government to put pressure on Bush over this as Taylor's actions at WHO are threatening people's lives world wide and she should be put into Guantanamo along with US Codex Delegate Barbara Schneeman.
IAHF is taking actions behind the scenes to try to turn this horrible situation around. We're not fully at liberty to discuss all that we're doing, but donations are urgently needed for travel expenses related to ongoing public speaking in an effort to sound an urgent alarm.
Please forward my article at http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/emergency_update_020705.htm widely along with this alert:
To: President@whitehouse.gov
To: The Honorable George W. Bush
Re: Need to Fire Christine Lewis-Taylor from FDA and to Stop US Participation in the 28th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome (July 4-9, 2005) vis a finalization of a Global Trade Standard for Vitamins and Minerals.
Dear President Bush:
With great alarm I have read the New York Times article below about the gross conflicts of interest inherent in the FDA Advisory Panels which fraudulently approved Vioxx, Celebrex, and Bextra for human use. I demand that you institute immediate reforms, because this is murder, plain and simple. Thousands of people have been murdered by these dangerous drugs.
Under the circumstances, I am OUTRAGED that you have allowed the FDA to commission the National Academy of Sciences to generate a totally unecessary 505 page book titled "Dietary Supplements: A Framework for Evaluating Safety".
This outrage is coupled with the FDA's sending Dietician Christine Lewis-Taylor to the World Health Organization where she is chairing their (so called) "Nutrient Risk Assessment" program which in May will be "filling in the blanks" on allowable potencies of vitamins and minerals at CODEX, with CODEX meeting in July to ratify a global trade standard which FDA has obviously set us up for harmonization to. http://www.who.int/ipcs/highlights/nutrientraproject/en/
Just as there is zero integrity and total conflicts of interest in the FDA Advisory Panels that fraudulently approved Vioxx, et al, for human use, there is ZERO TRANSPARENCY in how Taylor selected the 18 participants in WHO's "Nutrient Risk Assessment" workshop and we demand that you fire Taylor and put her in Guantanamo for she is clearly a terrorist. Ditto for Dr.Barbara Schneeman, author of the aforementioned book, and current US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Use.
We understand that the only reason Dick Cheney is alive today is that he had numerous chelation treatments at Bethesda Naval Hospital and that he has been put on a vigorous program of vitamin supplementation.
Unless you don't mind being labelled Eugenicists, we demand that you and Cheney defend consumer access to dietary supplements world wide by reigning in Taylor, Schneeman, and the REST of the murderers at the FDA. They are terrorists and belong in Guantanamo along with the executives of Merck and Pfizer.
To not do reign Taylor in, and stop the FDA's genocidal actions in our view, would constitute not only HIGH TREASON, but also CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
Please let me know how you intend to handle this matter and know that I am joining Gun Owners of America, the NRA, and Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership out of total distrust of your administration. We realize that politicians prefer unarmed peasants, but we're not interested in living in the global equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto.
With Serious Concern,
(Name, Address, and Date) and cc it to your senators, congressmen, or if outside the USA to your elected officials demanding that they block your countries Codex delegate from ratifying the Codex vitamin and minerals standard in Rome at the 28th General Session in Rome from July 4-9th, 2005. ----See NY Times article below and include it in what you send to Bush.
The New York Times (February 25, 2005)
10 Voters on Panel Backing Pain Pills Had Industry Ties
By GARDINER HARRIS and ALEX BERENSON
Ten of the 32 government drug advisers who last week endorsed continued marketing of the huge-selling pain pills Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have consulted in recent years for the drugs' makers, according to disclosures in medical journals and other public records.
If the 10 advisers had not cast their votes, the committee would have voted 12 to 8 that Bextra should be withdrawn and 14 to 8 that Vioxx should not return to the market. The 10 advisers with company ties voted 9 to 1 to keep Bextra on the market and 9 to 1 for Vioxx's return.
The votes of the 10 did not substantially influence the committee's decision on Celebrex because only one committee member voted that Celebrex should be withdrawn.
Eight of the 10 members said in interviews that their past relationships with the drug companies had not influenced their votes. The two others did not respond to phone or e-mail messages.
Researchers with ties to industry commonly serve on Food and Drug Administration advisory panels, but their presence has long been a contentious issue.
The agency has said it tries to balance expertise - often found among those who have conducted clinical trials of the drugs in question or otherwise studied them - with potential conflicts of interest.
Several of the panel members flagged with conflicts said most or all of the money went not to themselves but to their universities or institutions.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group in Washington that maintains a large database of scientists' industry ties culled from disclosures in medical journals and other public documents, analyzed the panel members' affiliations at the request of The New York Times.
The center has been a frequent critic of the F.D.A. and of the pharmaceutical industry. The center's analysis may understate the industry ties of the panel participants because some ties may not have been previously disclosed publicly.
Dr. Sheldon Krimsky, a science policy expert at Tufts University, said such conflicts were common on F.D.A. advisory panels. The agency often conceals these conflicts, and studies have shown that, taken as a whole, money does influence scientific judgments, Dr. Krimsky said.
He added, "F.D.A. has to work harder to fill panels with people without conflicts, and if they feel they have the best committee, they at least ought to make it transparent."
But Dan Troy, a Washington lawyer who was until last year the agency's general counsel, said that finding knowledgeable experts without financial conflicts was difficult. Suggesting that such conflicts skew a panel's decisions "buys into an overly conspiratorial view of the world," Mr. Troy said.
A spokeswoman for the F.D.A. said no one at the agency would comment on specific panel members' industry ties.
Before each of three meetings of the advisory board last week, an agency secretary read a statement absolving panel members of conflicts of interest because the committee's agenda involved "issues of broad applicability and there are no products being approved."
The secretary also said, "The Food and Drug Administration acknowledges that there may be potential conflicts of interest, but because of the general nature of the discussions before the committee, these potential conflicts are mitigated."
But the committee took nine votes, three for each drug, on whether Celebrex, Bextra or Vioxx hurt the heart, should continue to be marketed and, if so, under what restrictions. These votes were deeply important to the three companies - Merck, Pfizer and Novartis - that came before the committee.
Indeed, shares of Merck and Pfizer soared last Friday after the panel's votes.
Ten members of the panel have worked in some capacity in recent years for Merck, the maker of Vioxx; Pfizer, the maker of Celebrex and Bextra; or Novartis, which is applying to sell Prexige, a very similar pill discussed by the panel, according to the public disclosures.
An 11th panel member, Dr. Jack Cush, a rheumatologist at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, said a disclosure that he once consulted for Pfizer was incorrect, so he was excluded from the analysis.
Of the 30 votes cast by the 10 panel members on whether Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx should continue to be marketed, 28 favored the drugs. Among the 66 votes cast by the remaining 22 members of the panel, just 37 favored the drugs.
Dr. Steven Abramson, a rheumatologist at New York University School of Medicine who was on the panel, has consulted for Pfizer and Novartis. "The F.D.A. is looking for people who understand the science behind these medicines," and such an understanding often results from working with drug makers, he said.
Dr. John Farrar, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has received research support from Pfizer and is a panel member, agreed. "I think F.D.A. would have a hard time finding people who are good at what they do who never spoke to a pharmaceutical company," he said.
But Dr. Curt Furberg, a panel member and an epidemiologist at Wake Forest University who had no ties to any of the drug companies, said he was "uncomfortable with the Pfizer-friendly undertone" at the meeting. And he worried that Pfizer's financial relationships with some panel members might have played a role in setting that tone.
Joan Wainwright, a spokeswoman for Merck, said the company had had no role in choosing any of the scientists on the panel.
Merck has made no decision on whether it will reintroduce Vioxx, Ms.
Wainwright
said. "We look forward to discussing the outcomes of the meeting with the F.D.A. and other regulatory authorities," she said.
Andy McCormick, a spokesman for Pfizer, said the company had no plans to withdraw Bextra from the market. He also said that Pfizer had played no role in helping to choose the panel.
Critics of the drug industry said they were not surprised that the panel's decisions would have been different if scientists with financial ties to the companies had recused themselves from the votes.
"My employees usually vote for me as well," said W. Mark Lanier, a lawyer in Houston who represents people who have sued Merck after taking Vioxx and suffering heart attacks or strokes.
Some lawyers and Wall Street analysts said last week that the panel's decision would help to protect Merck and Pfizer from lawsuits. But juries will be more skeptical of the decision after they learn about the composition of the panel, Mr. Lanier said.
Christopher A. Seeger, a lawyer in New York with many Vioxx clients, said the fact that scientists had not recused themselves simply highlighted the close ties between the drug industry and academic researchers. He said researchers were afraid to say anything negative about new drugs because doing so might jeopardize their chances of participating in clinical trials and publishing papers.
Several panel members said the important split on the committee was not so much between those with industry ties and those who did not have those ties but between experts who treat arthritis patients and those who do not.
Dr. Cush was angry that the voices of the panel's rheumatologists were nearly drowned out by statisticians and others who do not have to cope with anguished patients every day.
Dr. Furberg said clinicians often wanted access to therapies without understanding the devastating public health consequences of their prescribing decisions. Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have never been proved in clinical trials to cure pain any better than ibuprofen or more than a dozen other, older pain pills.
"Fifty patients a day probably die from those drugs, and who is speaking for them?" Dr. Furberg said.
Dr. Alastair Wood, an associate dean at Vanderbilt University and the panel's chairman, said he was disappointed that the F.D.A. failed to disclose the financial conflicts of the panel's participants before each day's meeting.
"I'm a great believer in letting it all hang out," he said.
Still, Dr. Wood said that even with its conflicts the panel was a tough critic of the drugs. Many of the panel members who were among the narrow majorities approving continued marketing of Bextra and Vioxx did so only with the stipulation that severe restrictions be imposed on their uses, he noted.
He said he expected that the uses of the drugs would be confined to very limited patient populations. 