Name: John Hammell, President IAHF
E-Mail: jham@iahf.com
Subject: Response to Meridaraines@aol.com- Everyone Please Read
IAHF Webmaster: Breaking News, Whats New, What to Do, All Countries, Codex, EU FSD, Walking in Balance
IAHF List: Please take the time to read my response to Meridaraines@aol.com and please communicate with me regarding it, especially if you would like to be part of the IAHF Speakers Bureau so you can help me by doing radio shows and public speaking yourselves.
Together, we can roll this boulder uphill, its a big load for me to try to carry without more help. Please forward this information to more people, and encourage them to also get actively involved in the fight back.
Body of Message:
At 09:23 AM 3/30/04 -0500,Meridaraines@aol.com wrote:
Dear John Hammell:
I'll be listening in and have been supporting the Coalition For Natural Health for the last 2 years (since I heard about it). I fully appreciate that you are out there fighting the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies that want complete control over our supplements, our money, our freedom to choose, and ultimately, us. Please continue your work and keep us informed! Many thanks!
IAHF Response:
Thanks for contacting me. Will you be listening via the web, or via the radio from California? I'm trying to see how many people listen from outside KPFA's broadcast range via the web, and how many listen via the radio. Please help me out by participating on our Community Bulletin Board at http://www.iahf.com where you can post ideas, suggestions, comments, and especially- information about what YOU are doing in your local area to help inform more people so that they too will become more active in fighting back.
When I first started doing this health freedom work back in 1989, I was an unpaid volunteer for well over a year. I was earning a living by running a janitorial service called Dawn's Light Floor Company. I stripped and waxed floors, cleaned carpets, polished marble floors and refinished them, waxed and polished wood floors- working mostly at night. I maintained a string of hair salons- shining up all the chrome on the barber chairs, cleaning the mirrors, toilets, floors, windows. I cleaned acres of carpets in office buildings, banks, and I also installed and refinished wood floors from time to time drawing on past experience as a boat builder.
I did this work while I was writing a book about my orthomolecular recovery from schizophrenia, but had to stop working on this book (for which I had interviewed people across North America who had also recovered from schizophrenia the way I had- via taking vitamins. I was forced to drop this book project in order to fight the FDA.
I tell people this, because frankly, we're in the same situation today as we were in 1989, its just not as apparent on the surface- they're in our faces, but most people simply don't see it because they're not familiar with the ramifications of our having joined the WTO, and they fail to grasp that we've been set up by the pharma dominated vitamin trade associations which are keeping their members in the dark about what is going on- thats why no one is seeing flyers in the health food stores the way we were during the campaign to pass DSHEA in the early 90s.
Although I was working mostly at night, I'd grab a few hours sleep and then shlep off to visit every health food store within a 50 mile radius of my house, which at the time was in Morristown, New Jersey, just outside of New York City. My rounds took me into Manhatten, and there were a ton of stores in my area to visit. I kept a log of directions to all the stores, their phone and fax numbers (this was before most people had email), and the names of the owners, managers, and store personnel.
I did my best to get to know these people on a personal level, and found that even back then NNFA was corrupt. NNFA was originally in FAVOR of passage of the Nutrition Labelling and Education Act, a stealth bill which the cartel rammed through the House at high speed during the summer while people were on vacation and not paying attention.
It was on its way to the Senate like a guided missile aimed straight for the heart of the dietary supplement industry, when I back burnered my book, and jumped in with both feet to fight back.
I was new to lobbying, and made lots of mistakes, but learned quickly, guided by the most experienced health freedom lobbyist in the world: Clinton Ray Miller, who is still my main mentor today.
Clint started lobbying for health freedom in the early 1960s after the FDA raided his health food store in Bountiful, Utah where he had been making "illegal" health claims on bread that he'd been baking to an old family recipe that had been brought over from Germany. His health food store doubled as a bakery.
After the raid, Clint said to his wife Bonnie: "Bonnie, I've had enough! Lets pack, we're movin' to Washington!"
And so Mr.Miller moved to Washington, beginning the first vitamin lobby in the world as lobbyist for the National Health Federation.
Today Clint is in his 80s and is still actively working part time as a lobbyist, travelling all over the USA to fight dieticians bills at the state level mostly, but he was with me at a Codex meeting in Germany, and he's been with me to London England to meet the guys from the Alliance for Natural Health.
Together, we can win this fight, but only if people get personally involved, so please post info on the Community Bulletin Board at http://www.iahf.com to let others know what you are doing in your local area to awaken more people. One thing I recommend is to download copies of the interview Greg Ciola did with me from http://www.thehealthcrusader.com/pgs/article-0104-ban.shtml and encourage more people to donate to IAHF via http://www.iahf.com and to the Alliance for Natural Health at http://www.alliance-natural-health.org . Please download this information and get it around to every health food store in your area. They are all being lied to by NNFA on this issue, they're being led to the cliff by pharma interests controlling their trade association. The same exact thing is happening in Canada, Europe, Australia, everywhere. Its a very dangerous thing when all of the vitamin trade association, world wide, are being so heavily dominated by pharma interests that the grass roots can learn the truth about whats really going on from their local health food store- so its up to us to awaken these stores, and to enlist their help to communicate with the sales reps that walk in to these stores, so that they in turn can wake up their companies.
I have confidence that we WILL prevail, but I need everyone out there to help me because I'm just one person.
I need people to volunteer to be part of a speaker's bureau so that many more people can help me do radio shows. I have the contacts and can put people on the air, but first they need to let me know of a willingness to help in this way and I can work with them to get them sufficiently around the learning curve that they can do radio shows and public speaking as my friend Dr. Robin Falkov has and a few others.
Some people see this battle and just give up in their minds. That saddens me. We have to be stronger than that.
Each of us has more inner strength than we realize. Back in 1975, when I was a senior in high school, I ran and completed the New York Marathon. I had never run a marathon before. The longest previous race I'd ever run was just a 3 mile cross country race on my high school team. At the start I had butterflys as I stretched and did warmups. I looked around me at all the other runners, all going through their own pre-race rituals.
At about the 18 mile mark I hit the proverbial wall. My lungs ached, I had a bad side stich in my left side and my calves ached badly- but just as I thought I might have to stop running, I got my "second wind" and had the strength to carry on and over the finish line.
I've been in this marathon that all of us are running since 1989, and I get my second wind every time someone jumps in with both feet in the way I did 14 years ago.
We CAN win this battle, we can do ANYTHING WE SET OUR MINDS TO DO.
And we're not alone either.
There is a Creator who loves us, who gave us the vitamins and herbs for our use, for healing purposes.
We can pray for strength and guidance, at any time, any place. We MUST pray for strength and guidance because we're up against the world's biggest investment industry, and they are bound and determined to crush us, to break our spirits, but they will never succeed.
The reason they will never succeed is that we're not going to let them. Every time I click my mouse to send this information out, its being forwarded to many more people who are signing on to the IAHF email distribution list at http://www.iahf.com The tide will turn. The wind will be blowing from a different direction, and when all is said and done, the pharma cartel will be gnashing their teeth, crying out in the darkness of their own creation, unable to extinguish the light that shines within our hearts and minds.
I'm doing another sweat in two weeks on the Semiamoo Reserve near White Rock, British Columbia. Anyone living in the Seattle or Vancouver metropolitan areas who would like to join me is more than welcome- just sent me an email. If you live outside North America and would like to build a sweat lodge, I can tell you how, just email me- its very easy, costs almost nothing, and much good can come from the effort. There are native american sweat lodges now on all continents. Its not a religion, its a way of life. There are people who go to sweat lodge ceremonies who are Christians, Jews, Athiests, Agnostics, Muslims, Hindus, you name it- but whatever you believe in, or don't, its a healing experience to pray in your own way, and to develop your powers of intuition. We oppose secret combinations of men, acting clandestinely, and the truth is not in them. Please pay a visit to the "Walking in Balance" section of the IAHF site if you are feeling overwhelmed with stress. We need everyone to get as healthy as they can for this fight back. 