To: "Health Freedom, Codex Issues
Subject: Australia Imposes Dietary Supplement Restrictions on New Zealand, NZ Grassroots Struggle to Fight Codex Type Mindlessness Pharma Domination of New Zealand Raises Many Pertinent Parallel Questions About How We're Being Lied to About Codex by NNFA/IADSA
From: "I A H F" jham@iahf.com
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 19:42:02 -0500
IAHF List: The Pharma Cartel is using the Australian Government as their Big Stick to force tiny New Zealand to harmonize their liberal dietary supplement regulations to those in restrictive Australia. Australia's TGA regulations have for years imposed mindless bans on numerous products while driving many small vitamin companies out of business. American vitamin company owner GS Odin who set up shop in New Zealand as a possible fall back position in case the FDA ever raided his American business in New Mexico again, may now have to reconsider that plan... plus give additional thought to US NNFA's lies about Codex....(that it "can't" impact US domestic vitamin laws.) The SQUEEZE is obviously ON and US NNFA members should quit in droves to form a new trade association that will defend them!!!
With New Zealand being shoved over a cliff by Australia via so called "harmonization" and the EU subject to a probable slam dunking on February 20 with only 3 out of 15 nations opposing the restrictive vitamin directive, America continues to be isolated in the world. Passage of a very restrictive Codex vitamin directive is clearly being set up, which America would then be forced to harmonize to- especially with pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations only going through the "motions" of fighting back to defend their interests. [EHPM now openly endorses the EU Vitamin Directive, yet IADSA has made no effort to condemn this. IAHF notes that EHPM and IADSA both use European Advisory Services in Brussels as lobbyists.... IAHF Notes that NNFA has made no effort to censure IADSA or EHPM on their pro EU Vitamin Directive Stance (sue to overlapping members consisting of several multinational pharmaceutical companies.]
IAHF urges NNFA members to ask why NNFA has not demanded that IADSA oppose the EU Vitamin Directive, and why they don't openly denounce EHPM's endorsement of it. IAHF urges all small members of NNFA and all health food stores to quit NNFA after they fail to account for their support of IADSA in light of this... IAHF also questions NNFA's and IADSA's apparent unwillingness to challenge the EU for their mindless echoing of the German governments ban on kava kava, noting that in the process of attacking kava, they are ignoring the many dangers of several pharmaceutical drugs used for the same purpose.
Could NNFA and IADSA be too pharmaceutically compromised to actually defend the supplement industry from pharmaceutical attack? (Why has IADSA made no effort to condemn EHPMs pro EU vitamin Directive position? Is NNFA lying to its members about Codex when they say it poses "no threat" to US domestic law? All evidence indicates that they are lying and that Burton whitewashed the March 20 Codex oversight hearing due to pharmaceutical pressure exerted primarily by NNFA's pharmaceutically dominated DC lobbying firm Parry, Romani, DeConcini, and Symms http://www.lobbycongress.com (see their pharmaceutical client list.)
Anyone can be on the IAHF email list http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=IAHF also http://www.iahf.com
For more info on the New Zealand situation, see http://www.jtaproject.com/default.asp http://www.choices.org.nz/index.asp
in addition to the article below from Healthy Options mag (NZ) which is written by a member of the NZ Parliament who is a vitamin consumer and who clearly identifies the creeping monster called Globalization that threatens all life on this planet.
http://www.healthyoptions.co.nz/articles/kedgel.html
by Sue Kedgley, Green Party of Aotearoa NZ
The NZ government is negotiating with the Australian government to create a single trans-Tasman therapeutics body, based in Canberra, which will regulate all New Zealand dietary supplements and other complementary healthcare products like homoeopathy, Chinese herbs etc, along with medicines and medical devices.
What worries me most is that the Government is intending to agree to this radical new trans-Tasman regulatory structure before there has been the opportunity for a public debate about the proposed changes, or any debate in Parliament about whether New Zealanders even want these changes. Instead, the government is intending to sign a treaty between the New Zealand and Australian governments, agreeing to set up this new trans-Tasman body, in the next few months. Unfortunately, in New Zealand, treaties do not have to be debated or ratified by Parliament, so the treaty can be signed by the Cabinet without the agreement of any other party in Parliament.
Once the treaty is signed, the Government will then introduce legislation into Parliament to ratify the treaty. But by then the agency, and how it will operate, will effectively be decided. All that New Zealanders will be able to do, will be to change the details of how it operates (though I certainly shall attempt to amend or throw out the legislation when it finally comes to Parliament).
I have huge concerns about the proposal to create yet another trans-Tasman regulatory body, and the Green Party will be vigorously opposing the move. The regime the Australians have set up to regulate therapeutic goods is prohibitively expensive and has already resulted in the closure of dozens of small Australian businesses which used to produce dietary supplements and other therapeutic products. We certainly don't want to see that happen here. We are also opposed to any further moves to regulate New Zealand products through a trans-Tasman authority, because of the loss of sovereignty involved.
Under ANZFA, New Zealand consumers have lost effective control over the food they eat. Decisions about the food we eat are made in Canberra, by a body dominated by Australians. As consumers, all we can do is send written submissions to ANZFA. New Zealanders sent thousands of submissions to ANZFA opposing the introduction of genetically engineered foods, but all of them were ignored.
To make matters worse, right at the moment, legislation is being debated in the Australian parliament to change the way ANZFA operates and allow up to half the membership of the ANZFA Board to be filled by the food industry. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard is trying to push through these changes because he was furious that the labelling regime for genetically engineered food, agreed to by ANZFA last year, was stronger than he had wanted. These changes are, in effect, his payback.
Unbelievably, we here in New Zealand do not have any right to debate - or oppose - these changes which will fundamentally change the way decisions about our food are made. If food industry representatives gain effective control of ANZFA, they could, for example take a more lenient stance on issues such as genetically engineered food.
Once again, they will be signed off by our government in an amendment to the ANZFA Treaty which will not be debated in Parliament. We see these unilateral changes as a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and have called on the Prime Minister to guarantee that the proposed changes, and any treaty ratifying them, are debated on and voted by the New Zealand parliament before they come into effect.
New Zealand consumers need to make their voices heard on these proposals -by writing to the Government and insisting that we in New Zealand have the democratic right to decide on any changes which will affect the way our food or dietary supplements are regulated.