To: "Health Freedom, Codex Issues
Subject: IAHF Comments to FDA Re Docket # 02N-0063: FDA Solicits Public Comments on Their [Apparent] Intention to Rig a Survey in Order to Limit Allowable Structure Function Claims Per Desire of ICDRA [UN Body That Coordinates and Oversees FDA & Their International Counterparts on Behalf of Cartel]
From: "I A H F" jham@iahf.com
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 19:45:05 -0500

FDA: See My Comments to You Re Docket # 02N-0063 in red below.....

IAHF List: See my comments below to FDA Docket # 02N-0063. FDA intends to do consumer surveys that they may attempt to rig in such a way as to limit future allowable structure function claims on dietary supplements.FDA has announced a public comments deadline of March 25th regarding this proposed survey.

See IAHF comments below and feel free to echo them and add your own comments to them and send them to FDA at fdadockets@oc.fda.gov

The article below my comments from Natural Products Insider has information about this, but everyone really needs to read the FDA's Federal Register announcement about this at http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/022102b.htm comments to the FDA should be emailed to the FDA at fdadockets@oc.fda.gov re Docket # [Docket No. 02N-0063] Agency Emergency Processing Request Under OMB Review; Consumer Surveys on Food and Dietary Supplement Labeling Issues

Deadline is March 25th. Be sure to copy your Senators and Congressmen about this, forward this to everyone you know, post it on websites, and get the jungle drums buzzing via radio shows and word of mouth to everyone you know.

To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
re Docket # 02N-0063
Agency Emergency Processing Request Under OMB Review; Consumer
Surveys on Food and Dietary Supplement Labeling Issues

FDA, due to the enormous increase in Users Fees you're now collecting from pharmaceutical companies to process their drugs through FDA's so called "Approval Process" you are under increased lobbying pressures from those companies to do anything possible to block the dissemination of truthful, first amendment protected information to consumers of dietary supplements regarding the beneficial properties of these products via structure function claims.

This pharmaceutical lobbying squeeze upon you is strong due to the revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, and it is apparently so strong that you seem tempted to IGNORE the fact that you lost the first amendment case of Pearson v Schalala where the courts have ordered you to STOP blocking the truthful dissemination of health information about dietary supplements via structure function claims allowed by law on the labels of these products.

Due to your consistent efforts to block consumer access to dietary supplements and to truthful health information about them via labeling, I am highly suspicious of your Federal Register announcement [http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/022102b.htm] that you intend to "conduct a survey about perceptions of food and dietary supplement labeling." Ostensibly to, uh, " determine how consumers are likely to interpret various kinds of claims, disclaimers, warnings, caution statements and notice statements that might appear in labeling ....

I share the concern expressed by Marc Ullman, a partner in New York's Ullman, Shapiro & Ullman. Regarding this, Ullman stated "The concern is that you can design a survey to come up with whatever answer you want." Since I totally distrust FDA's motives for conducting this supposed "consumer survey" to answer your first question: You do not need to conduct this survey as it is obvious to anyone with any awareness at all of your bias against dietary supplements that your intentions here are suspect. To dispel any doubt, should you choose to ignore IAHF's view on this and conduct the consumer survey ANYWAY, I think it would be quite reasonable for the FDA to publish the list of proposed questions, in the precise order you intend to ask them so as to solicit public comments on both the questions themselves, and the order in which they will be asked.

Due to the revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, IAHF is very concerned about the FDA's tendency to engage in genocidal actions intended to block our access to dietary supplements and to truthful health information about them. (How many children were born with neural tube defects during the years that Pearson and Shaw sued you over this issue? How many died of heart attacks and strokes or developed preventable Alzheimers disease before you would allow their health claim re folic acid in the reduction of homocystein levels? Tell the TRUTH!! IAHF INSISTS that you NOT conduct this survey without first soliciting full public comments on the EXACT proposed questions and the order in which they are asked.

FDA you ask this question in the Federal Register: You want comments on: Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of FDA's functions?

The answer, most EMPHATICALLY, is NO, thats N-O, NO! Your function as clearly defined by the courts in Pearson v Schalala, a first amendment case that you LOST is to STOP BLOCKING consumer access to truthful health information about the beneficial properties of dietary supplements through structure function claims.

Since everything you do with regards to dietary supplements is an effort to help your pals in the pharmaceutical industry to eliminate unwanted competition, clearly nothing you do in this area can be trusted by consumers of dietary supplements and you should just leave well enough alone before consumers of dietary supplements get so enraged towards you that we call for the complete dismantling of your Agency, complete with very angry demonstrations in front of your offices intended to manufacture consent for our desire that you be even FURTHER removed from regulating these products than you ALREADY are.

IAHF realizes that you are desperately looking for ways to force harmonization of American dietary supplement laws to the grossly restrictive EU Vitamin Directive and Codex, but we remind you that this isn't Europe where people are pushovers. You go back to ICDRA* at the UN and explain to those idiots that there are 75 Million gun owners here who refuse to give up their arms, (so called) Model Emergency Powers Act legislation http://www.aapsonline.org/ emanating from spook central (Georgetown University School of Law, and the UN NGO International Standards Organization efforts to put our thumb prints on drivers licenses http://www.aamva.org/standards/stdWG10Overview.asp and to turn our state Governors into dictators who could unleash the National Guard on us NOT WITHSTANDING!!!http://www.aapsonline.org/ *(ICDRA = International Council of Drug Regulating Authorities, the UN entity that attempts to script the FDA and their international counterparts on behalf of the multinational pharmaceutical industry.)

IAHF clearly sees the writing on the wall. We see the EU Vitamin Directive on the verge of being rammed through the EU Parliament on March 14 due to the pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations (especially EHPM) turning their backs on consumers in their zeal to increase marketshare, and to make far greater profits off high potency vitamins by selling them as prescription drugs. We are aware that the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (http://www.tabd.org) intends to hold a meeting in late March of the US Commerce Dept + pharmaceutical interests and sold out industry companies intent on harmonizing American dietary supplement laws to the emerging grossly restrictive EU Vitamin Directive and Codex, but these plans are doomed to failure and you might as well accept it because American consumers see all of this and will not stand for it.

IAHF hereby puts the FDA, the UN, and specifically ICDRA on notice that you can run, but you can't hide, and the time has come for you to back off because if you proceed any further down this road, you must realize that it is laced with mines called THE TRUTH, and we are very sick of your twisted greed driven agenda- so why don't you STOP trying to play games with us? The whole sad commentary of the taxpayers money you have wasted in an effort to suppress our constitutionally protected right to free speech on labeling of dietary supplements is solidly documented on the website of Emord and Associates at http://www.emord.com/publicat.htm There you will find all the transcripts of the cases you have lost.

I suggest your show that site and all its contents, especially Pearson v Schalala to your shadow government overseers at ICDRA in order to help explain to them and to the Pharma Cartel why you cannot do their bidding in this area, for you have run head long into a brick wall so thick that there is simply no way through it, NOT EVEN VIA CONTRIVED SURVEYS and its far too high for you to get over it, so you have no choice but to capitulate to the will of the heavily armed American people who are as heavily armed with truthful information that you can't continue to bury as 75 Million of us are with weapons which we could use against your Agency if left with no other choice. In the aftermath of the Judge's decision against you in "Pearson" you held a public hearing. I was one of a lot of people who had 5 minutes at the microphone to address you at that time. You might recall that I told you I had never come armed into the District of Columbia, and that I hoped I never would have to. The choice to you should be clear: you can simply OBEY THE LAW and stop trying to get AROUND the Judge's decision via contrived so called "Surveys" because that is obviously what you're trying to do in this case!!

Since I am ccing this comment to several magazines where the public will read them, I thought I'd also mention that anyone can be on the IAHF email distribution list (even FDA employees) by signing up at http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=IAHF or at http://www.iahf.com where donations to IAHF can also be made.

For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
POB 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA
http://www.iahf.com
jham@iahf.com
800-333-2553 (N.America)
540-763-3051 (World)

http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/hotnews/22h20122421.html
FDA May Conduct Consumer Surveys on Supplement Labeling
Posted on: 02/20/2002

WASHINGTON--The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requesting comments on a proposal to conduct consumer surveys about perceptions of food and dietary supplement labeling. The agency's stated aim is to "study consumers' understanding of labeling on conventional foods and dietary supplements as well as consumer practices, knowledge levels and attitudes related to such labeling."

The surveys would be conducted through the mail, on the telephone, online and in person to look at how consumers would respond to existing or proposed label statements. The surveys would help FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) decide on policy recommendations on labeling. "Determining how consumers are likely to interpret various kinds of claims, disclaimers, warnings, caution statements and notice statements that might appear in labeling is critical to agency decisionmaking under the act and the First Amendment," according to the Federal Register notice (due to be published Feb. 21). "It is often necessary to test actual or proposed labeling statements in realistic situations with typical consumers to determine what these label statements are communicating to consumers."

Comments on FDA's proposal are due by March 22 and can be filed electronically or via regular mail. The opportunity to comment should not be allowed to slip by, according to Marc Ullman, a partner in New York's Ullman, Shapiro & Ullman. "The concern is that you can design a survey to come up with whatever answer you want," he said. "The industry should express a desire to have transparency in the design of the studies and surveys." Ullman said his concern is that surveys could be designed to show that structure/function claims are actually making implied disease claims, which could eliminate several categories of labeling.