Subject: CODEX - Response from MN Congressman
Kevin,
This is a response from Congressman Oberstar from Minnesota
to my question/fears regarding Codex.
Regards,
Wendy in
Minnesota
Hi Wendy-
Kevin Miller forwarded your email to me for my input:
Oberstar is misinforming Constituents on this issue, and is circulating the disinformation originating from the FDA and from the Pharma Dominated vitamin trade associations. You can get a lot of insight into whats happening here if you read Suzanne Harris's article "Who Says Whatever Happens at Codex Won't Affect US Law & Why Are They Saying It?" http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm
The FDA and Pharma Dominated Vitamin Trade Associations are colluding with each other and they've sent their spin far and wide and its up to us to show congress that it is not the truth.
See my comments interspersed in square brackets below, and please go back to his staff, and inform them, that if Oberstar doesn't change his tune, and if he doesn't oppose CAFTA and CODEX, his name will be put on a BLACK LIST of congressmen who turned against vitamin consumers on this issue, and we WILL drive him from office in the next election by writing letters to the editor about this, and by informing our friends, family, and neigbors that he cannot be trusted to uphold the interests of the millions of vitamin consumers who campaigned in '94 to pass DSHEA which generated the largest volume of calls and letters to congress on any issue in the HISTORY of Congress.
Make sure Oberstar watches "WE BECOME SILENT" at http://www.welltv.com Tell him you intend to set up a card table in front of the busiest health food store in your area to pass out flyers about this, that you're enlisting more people to do the same, and that you are calling everyone you know in his distract to fully inform them on this matter given that he's been duped into taking a wrong position that he must correct. Get a meeting with his staff in his district office. That always gets their attention.
See my comments to his innane drivel, below, and please show them to lots more people there in Brainerd and all over his district! A member of congress has no excuse when they disseminate inaccurate information like he has here, and if he doesn't change his tune, we need to get rid of him in the next election.
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
http://www.iahf.com Archives at https://www.ymlp.com/pubarchive.php?jham
800-333-2553 (Washington State) see comments below to Oberstar and please keep a dialogue going til you swing him around
Subject:
Correspondence From Congressman Oberstar
Date:
Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:28:15 -0400
From:
To:
July 7, 2005: Congressman Oberstar Regurgitated FDA/ Pharma Dominated Vitamin Trade Association Propaganda by Writing The Following DRIVEL: (With IAHF response in [ ] below.
Dear Mrs. DeBusk:
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me regarding the
sovereignty of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).
I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
The United Nations/World Health Organization Codex Alimentarius
Commission (Codex) is an international intergovernmental organization
that is designed to protect the health of consumers and facilitate world
trade by establishing uniform international food standards.
IAHF: [Bull. Every single one of your erroneous points has been very ably refuted below, in detail. You've been reading entirely too much propaganda on this issue emanating from the FDA and from the Pharma Dominated vitamin trade associations such as CRN, whose membership includes Monsanto, Wyeth, Bayer, BASF, Pfizer, and Cargill. Codex has NOTHING to do with "protecting the health of consumers" and Americans don't WANT "uniform international food standards" we don't WANT to be part of a world government, we want to CONTINUE living in AMERICA, under OUR LAWS, not under the DICTATES of a pharma dominated United Nations entity called the Codex Alimentarius Commission with its FACELESS BUREUCRATS who are totally UNACCOUNTABLE to the American people. Codex makes a MOCKERY of every tenet of representative government on which this country supposedly bases its laws, and if you are backing this corrupt process, I guess you must wish to commit political suicide, because thats what you're doing unless you hear our argument (below) and change course.]
OBERSTAR: In the 1990s, a Codex Committee began to develop guidelines for vitamin and mineral
supplements. The guidelines address the composition of vitamin and
mineral supplements, including the safety, purity, and bioavailability
of the sources of vitamins and minerals. In November 2004, this Codex
Committee (that included U.S. representatives) adopted guidelines on
vitamin and minerals supplements, and on July 4th, the full Codex
Commission voted in Rome to approve these guidelines.
IAHF: [We were have been "represented" by UNELECTED BUREAUCRATS from the FDA, and the USDA, agencies controlled by the PHARMA DOMINATED Executive Branch of our government. Bush is a WHORE, controlled by Eli Lilly which pumped millions into his campaign coffers. These unelected bureaucrats VIOLATED US LAW with actions taken at CODEX, but have never been stopped by a sold out congress which on March 20, 2001 WHITEWASHED an oversight hearing on this issue, barring the grass roots from presenting testimony.
All of this has been documented by International Advocates for Health Freedom, National Health Federation, Alliance for Natural Health, American Assocaition for Health Freedom, National Coalition for Health Freedom, American Association for Health Freedom, and by the Coalition for Health Freedom, as well as by numerous allied organizations, and individuals working with us including, but not limited to The Whitaker Wellness Center, The Life Extension Foundation, Gary Null Incorporated, The Tahoma Clinic, The Paracelsus Clinic, and many others.
If you continue to mess with us, you will hit the third rail, and we WILL drive you from office. Your name will be posted on a BLACK LIST of congressmen and senators who made the MISTAKE of voting for CAFTA and therefor CODEX, and we WILL drive you out if you don't CHANGE COURSE on this issue. We urge you to strongly RECONSIDER the huge mistake you are in a process of making and watch "WE BECOME SILENT" which is narrated by famous British actress Dame Judi Dench- see it at http://www.welltv.com]
OBERSTAR: These new international guidelines do not specify upper limits
for vitamins and minerals in supplements. Criteria are established, by
scientific risk assessment, for the maximum amounts of vitamins and
minerals that can be consumed based on daily portion recommendations
from the manufacturer. The Codex standards are voluntary and not binding on
any nation; as a result, vitamin and mineral food supplement products
sold in the United States will not be required to comply with Codex
provisions that may be more restrictive than DSHEA.
IAHF: [By November they WILL specify "Maximum Safe Permitted Levels" (following the next meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses which meets in Bonn, Germany.) This meeting is chaired by Dr.Rolf Grossklaus, who also is Director of the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, the only global body examining this issue which has done the full math as called for in the fine print at Codex on "risk assessment". Grossklaus is a tool of the German pharmaceutical industry who inserted him into his position at Codex where he has been running his committee like a dictator for years as documented by Scott Tips, Legal Counsel to the US based National Health Federation which has NGO status at Codex meetings and which has been attending these meetings since 2000.
See Tips assessment of the gross lack of honesty employed by Grossklaus in how he has been running these Codex meetings: http://www.thenhf.com/codex.html
Especially see these articles http://www.thenhf.com/codex_48.htm and http://www.thenhf.com/codex_25.htm
There is nothing at all "scientific" about how Codex plans on filling in the blanks on allowable vitamin and mineral potencies, they're completely IGNORING the BENEFITS of these substances while taking very BIASED looks at supposed "risks". Grossklaus intends to limit allowed potencies to levels even LOWER than RDAS as seen from this table: http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_Doc/ANHWebsiteDoc_145.doc The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment intends to impose extremely low 'recommended maximum levels', such as 225 mg vitamin C, 5.4 mg vitamin B6, 5 mcg vitamin D and 15 mg vitamin E via Codex, in November- this is the FDA's wet dream and they will go along with it.
The UK based Alliance for Natural Health has filed extensive comments with the World Health Organization regarding the severely flawed methodology they're employing as they go about filling in the blanks on allowed potencies for vitamins and minerals, yet WHO EXCLUDED THEM from a less than transparent Nutrient Risk Assessment Workshop held last May. Given that this "workshop" was run by Christine Lewis Taylor, PhD, a dietician from the US FDA, which for years has wanted to overturn DSHEA, I am not the least bit able to accept anything you are trying to tell me here.
Please read ANH's submission to the World Health Organization here:
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_Doc/ANHWebsiteDoc_121.pdf and bear in mind that ANH has convened the Dutch based PAN Foundation to conduct a PROPERLY SCIENTIFIC risk analysis of vitamins and minerals, one which includes consideration of their BENEFITS (something which the FDA, WHO, and CODEX are completely IGNORING in diametric OPPOSITION to the will of the American people, and the will of Congress as expressed via passage of DSHEA in 1994: see ANH Press Release: http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=news&ID=174
The issue of Codex "not being binding" on any nation is a reflection of the wrong question being asked. Its not a matter of whether or not the guidelines are BINDING or not, its a matter of whether or not they serve as a TEMPLATE for CONTAINMENT or not within which a WTO member nation must CONFORM or be subject to enormous political and legal PRESSURE. See Suzanne Harris's article "Who Says Whatever Happens at Codex Does Not Affect US Law, and Why Do They Say It?"
http://www.thelawloft.com/Freedom/050125_us_law.htm]
OBERSTAR: Rest assured that consumers' access to a broad array of
dietary supplements under DSHEA will not be changed by Codex's adoption
of guidelines on vitamin and mineral food supplements. I do not expect
Congress to consider legislation to replace DSHEA with the new Codex
guidelines.
[That is true, it would NOT be changed by Codex's adoption of guidelines on vitamins and minerals, it would be changed by a COMBINATION of Codex adoption of the grossly unscientific guidelines they're in a process now of generating COMBINED with either WTO pressure, or pressure from regional harmonization coming from CAFTA and the FTAA, Section 6 of which (in CAFTA) require members to create a Sanitary Phytosanitary Measures Committee to insure that we engage in a constant process of harmonizing our laws to international standards, guidelines and recommendations as called for in section 3 of the WTO Trade Agreement, the SPS Section, which reads as follows:
"To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, members SHALL base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations." Codex establishes global standards for food safety.
If you continue disseminating this erroneous and inaccurate information, and if you fail to oppose CAFTA and therefor CODEX, we will work TIRELESSLY to drive you from office and if necessary will add your name to a BLACKLIST on several health freedom websites and we WILL REMEMBER at the ballot box.]
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