To: IAHF List
Subject: Verkerk to Rense- PLEASE WAKE UP!!!
From: IAHF.COM
Date: 12 Aug 2003 20:35:04 -0000

IAHF List: See the email below from Robert Verkerk, PhD, Exec Dir, Alliance for Natural Health to Jeff Rense, who inexplicably is not pitching support to ANH's lawsuit urging donations to overturn the EU Food Supplement Directive which will definitely negatively impact consumers world wide including the USA due to its threatened impact at Codex. Donations can be made at http://www.alliance-natural-health.org

What makes Rense's stance inexplicable is that Verkerk and I each spent an hour attempting to educate him during the 2 hour long radio show we did with him on July 10th (audio file at) http://www.soundwaves2000.com/rense/

Rense's website is in the top 1% of all sites in cyberspace on a basis of web traffic and we badly need his assistance to spread word of ANH's dire need for donations.

Inexplicably, Rense has not had the common courtesy to respond to the email I sent him which you can see at http://www.ymlp.com/management/archive.php?1+61

Due to the profound international implications of this matter and the threat it directly poses to US consumer access, and due to Rense's engaging in censorship regarding my view that S.722 is a red herring generated by the PR campaign launched by NNFA, which is dominated by their pharmaceutical members due to their unwillingness to enforce their conflict of interest disclosure bylaw and their code of ethics, I have no choice but to request that you forward these comments plus Verkerk's email (see below) in to Rense at jr@rense.com

S.722 is a bill with no movement behind it due to massive lobbying by Metabolife and by the Ephedra Education Council http://www.ephedrafacts.com there is no justification for Rense to divert attention away from where it belongs: on ANH's need for donations for their lawsuit given that the EU Food Supplement Directive is a BONAFIDE threat, while 96% of all bills are never passed into law, and Durbin's bill is unlikely to even make it out of committee.

If you go on the Ephedra Education Council's website http://www.ephedrafacts.com, and see the weapons there that are at the disposal of Metabolife's DC lobbying team, which has direct access to members of Congress due to making huge campaign contributions, you will far better grasp why I feel such complete assurance when I inform you that Durbin's and Sweeney's bills will be among the 96% of all bills that are introduced that never get passed into law, but ANH's needs are IMMEDIATE as you can see very clearly from Verkerk's email to Rense below....

From: "Dr Robert Verkerk"
To:
Cc: "ralph Fucetola"
Subject:

Dear Jeff

I greatly enjoyed the opportunity of being on your show last month, along with John Hammell. I have followed some of the feedback since the show and in particular I see that you have put a major link through to Durbin's Bill (S722) on the supplement quality.com website and I have heard also that you have seen fit to exclude an important response by John Hammell.

Further to this, I am also aware that the attorney Ralph Fucetola http://wwww.vitaminlawyer.com has written to you suggesting that you include John Hammell's response.

I think it is critically important, if we are to effectively fight the engines that are creating the restrictive legislation across the globe, that we take up the fight on the international stage. John Hammell is far from being alone in his view that the EU Directives represent the single most important piece of legislation ever to have impacted the dietary supplement industry.

This EU legislation is not just in the pipeline, but the first stage of it, the Food Supplements Directive, was passed in to EU law in June last year and was transposed in to the laws of all EU member countries in July of this year. There is a 2 year grace period before it starts to impact so the bans on around 5000 products will not start until 1 August 2005. This includes all products containing natural vitamin forms (eg mixed tocopherols, tocotrienols, carotenoids, methylcobalamin) as well as nearly all food-form minerals and all trace elements!! If this is not bad enough, they will then in subsequent phases of the directive, limit the allowed dosages (to ridiculously low levels) and further limit the range of other nutrient types, such as amino acids, fatty acids, phytonutrients, etc. The effect of this is to kill innovation in the industry as well as most effective supplements. The surviving products will be low-dose products manufactured predominantly by pharmaceutical companies and widely available throughout Europe via supermarkets and pharmacies.

The machine to do all of this is already in place and the only chance of railroading the machine is to challenge the directive legally. You could argue that it should never have been allowed to get this far, but there was so much confusion in the European Parliament as a result of mixed messages, by statements from the European Commission that the law would not result in any bans, and that protests were coming just from a noisy minority (in actual fact it seems that well over 10 million consumers objected to the legislation). So it narrowly missed being stopped and the pro-lobby won the day back in March 2002.

When it comes to challenging the legislation in the courts, we have only one last window of opportunity and that's making a challenge before October of this year. After this, we would have to accept every part of this legislation or run the risk of being prosecuted as criminals all of this for taking responsibility for our own health and taking nutrients that exist in foods.

Also of great importance is that you have to appreciate that the EU Food Supplements Directive will form the basis for international harmonization to be enforced through Codex Alimentarius and other international instruments. The European legislative model is the key model that will define all legislation across the world. Many say that the US would never harmonise to Europe, but it is abundantly clear that this is exactly what is being planned through Codex, the WTO, the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue and through international phytosanitary measures. Let's look at the evidence and it is John Hammell more than anyone else I know that has been screaming this message from the roof tops. It is probably the single most important message for health freedom so let us please listen to it!

Jeff - I don't mean that you should dismiss US issues such as S722, but I would say, if only to maintain your normally high standards of journalism, that you also very seriously consider keeping your listeners fully abreast of the situation in Europe, that you give John Hammell's message the exposure that it deserves, and that you consider making a link from your site to that of the pan-European Alliance for Natural Health (www.alliance-natural-health.org). Should you consider this request favourably, I have taken the liberty of attaching the ANH logo to this email.

I look forward to hearing from you in the very near future.

Kind regards
Dr Rob Verkerk

- - - c o n t a c t - - -

Robert Verkerk PhD
Executive Director
Alliance for Natural Health
t +44 (0)1252 371 275
m +44 (0)771 484 7225
e robv@alliance-natural-health.org
w www.alliance-natural-health.org
"Working cooperatively to ensure access to safe,
effective and innovative dietary supplements"

International Advocates for Health Freedom
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