IAHF List: The S.African health freedom partial victory described below
came as a result of advice from Poldi Meindl of BC Canada, who is on the
IAHF list and whose information I have disseminated, but didn't know how to
apply. I am hoping that Poldi will comment further in order to help us all
to duplicate what PHARMAPACT has just done by using his suggestion:

At a time when MCC has just raided 7 Durban health food stores and appears
ready to nuke the natural products industry into oblivion, Anthony Rees of
PHARMAPACT just had a great partial victory against the South African MCC
at a recent meeting in Pretoria that he just called to tell me about. He is
busy transcribing a tape of the meeting now and will email it to me in the
morning.

I mistakenly thought the anti vitamin bill there which is being fast
tracked had been put through already, but it seems that its on the verge,
threatening to go through soon but hasn't quite happened, and now it
appears STOPPABLE due to an interesting and noteworthy tactic which Anthony
Rees just used against them!

What just happened is that the MCC met with a lot of concerned reps of the
health food industry in a big meeting in Pretoria, and Anthony Rees was
there to represent PHARMAPACT. He asked the woman from the MCC for a simple
yes or no answer to 2 questions which tripped her up, and forced the MCC to
concede to his demands:
 

1. Do you have any training in the administrative sciences?
2. Are you familiar with your mandate to protect consumers against
dangerous substances?

She responded that she couldn't answer either question, so Anthony said:

"You mean you can't answer??!! If you HAVE had training in the
administrative sciences, then you SHOULD have replied to my requests for
information over the past 2 years! If you HAVEN'T had training in the
Administrative Sciences, then WHAT QUALIFIES YOU to do your current job?

If you had answered YES to my second question, then how is it that you have
treated international products sold through health food stores differently
than the indigenous African herbs? While you're busy impounding all the
health food products imported into S.Africa from abroad and you're busy
raiding health food stores, you've done NOTHING to regulate the sale of
indigenous herbs from unhygienic sidewalk markets when they're not
packaged, and theres no directions for use when theres objective proof that
some of these herbs are the leading cause of deaths for the indigenous
people. If you had answered "NO" to my second question, than what qualifies
you to do your job?

THEN Anthony angrily informed her that if any of her inspectors attempted
to raid HIS health food store, he'd "shoot to kill"! Anthony was dressed as
an international terrorist, wearing a Chinese "Mao" uniform, and a Green
beret! When he told her that he'd shoot to kill, she went white as a sheet!

Then, he followed that announcement by saying that "If any of your
inspectors are still alive after I start shooting, if they have damaged any
of my products, I'll sue for damages and will charge them with TRESPASSING!"

She tried telling him that PHARMAPACT had always been invited to their
meetings, but had never shown up, and he said "Thats right! We never showed
up because nothing you are doing is legal!"

Then, Sendephi Spogter spoke up announcing that he was the leader of the
Association of Traditional Medical Practitioners, representing over 250,000
S.African herbalists, and that they had never been invited to any of the
meetings... this didn't exactly put the MCC bitch in a good position...the
last thing she wanted was to spark a REVOLUTION with Xhosa and Zulu
warriors armed with spears and automatic weapons laying SIEGE to the MCC
offices...

So, Anthony then informed her that PHARMAPACT wanted two things:

1. A Meeting with the MCC to directly express their concerns, and

2. A national meeting involving all role players to discuss the many issues
involving the regulation of dietary supplements which had never been openly
discussed before because the MCC did everything clandestinely.

Also, Anthony told her that there were only 2 things that would be
acceptable to PHARMAPACT:

1. If everyone were regulated EQUALLY (which would never happen in South
Africa because the government can't afford to piss off the indigenous
population which constitutes the majority there. The government isn't about
to go into the streets of Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Capetown and
hassle sidewalk vendors selling bulk, unpackaged herbs in open air markets
because it would trigger civil unrest against the government!)

2. If they weren't going to regulate everyone equally, then NO ONE should
be regulated, and the MCC should back off!

RESULT of these demands:

 The MCC yielded to PHARMAPACTS demands for both a meeting with them, and
for a National Meeting of all rollplayers.  So, theres hope in S.Africa
YET! Stay tuned!!

**Note: Anthony got the idea to ask those 2 questions from Poldi Meindl in
British Columbia, Canada who has been urging me to try this same approach
for a long time, but I couldn't understand before how to apply it. Now that
Anthony Rees has just used this message of Poldi's to good advantage, I
think we all should try it in any country! Poldi has gotten very frustrated
trying to explain this to me for a long time, and I just never understood
before. I am sending this to Poldi to let him know what happened in hopes
that he might comment, and have some rule of thumb ideas to share with all
of us in light of this victory. Poldi, ho would you recommend that
PHARMAPACT continue to proceed, and how would you recommend that we apply
this method in similar situations world wide?

I am trying to get an Oversight Hearing of the FDA. If I succeed, I want
the Oversight