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Subject: Throwing Off The Yoke Of UN CODEX Vitamin Oppresion: Detailed Report From Berlin And Action Plan
From: jham@iahf.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:19:23 -0400
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THROWING OFF THE YOKE OF UN CODEX VITAMIN OPPRESSION Huge Anti UN CODEX Demonstration Held in Berlin, Germany Hammell Thrown off US Codex Delegation/Barred from Meeting as Press
The United Nations is moving quickly to control your access to vitamins. The groups that are supposed to safeguard your rights are doing nothing to stop it. What You Can Do
by John C. Hammell, President, International Advocates for Health Freedom
A dramatic breakthrough in vitamin research has identified most common diseases like heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, heart weakness, diabetes, cancer,schizophrenia and many others as direct consequences of vitamin deficiency;and therefore avoidable. All of these diseases are totally preventable, and the only thing holding us up is the UN Codex Commission's efforts to halt the spread of this information around the globe. The Mission of the UN Codex Pharma Cartel is to protect their global drug market while banning consumer access to unpatentable dietary supplements within the therapeutic range, as well as to health information about these substances.
We are at a crossroads similar to that which existed 500 years ago when mankind had to free itself from another yoke- the yoke of illiteracy. The invention of the printing press made the bible suddenly available, translated into all the European languages. Despite the authorities efforts to ban books and imprison printers, the literacy rate plummeted from 80 to 20 percent during the 16th Century because people rallied to throw off the yoke of oppression. Today we have the opportunity to liberate mankind from heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, heart weakness, diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis - among many other diseases. Despite the efforts documented below to suppress the truth, we are all going to band together to overcome the greed and power of the Pharma Cartel by spreading this article rapidly around the world and to our elected officials world wide. At Codex I have heard delegates from other countries mock the FDA for being unable to restrict vitamin usage in the USA as much as other countries. Through the UN's Codex Commission, the FDA and the Pharma Cartel clearly hope to play "catch up ball", but their house of cards is falling down. When the time for change is at hand, not even the strongest army in the world can stop it as the Cartel will soon discover!
Provided below is a form letter that all Americans must send to Congress because the FDA is trying to break US law regarding Codex, and we must work together to expose what is going on and get an oversight hearing!
WHISTLE BLOWER BANNED FROM US CODEX DELEGATION
Prior to this years Codex meeting in Berlin, Germany, my application to attend as a member of the US Codex delegation to the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use was denied by Beth Yetley, Ph.D. of the FDA . Yetley is the US Delegate to this Committee, and she libelled me in her rejection letter by falsely stating that I had been "kicked out of the meeting in 1998 by the Committee Chair for attempting to videotape the meeting without the permission of the Chair, and for continuing to take photos after being told not to." The letter was cc'ed to Edward Scarbrough, Ph.D., US Codex Manager. Although I had been told to stop videotaping in '98, and did stop when asked by the Chairman, at no time was I kicked out of the meeting as Dr.Yetley claimed. Moreover, I caught Dr.Yetley on video violating US law at the '98 meeting and the digitized footage can be viewed at http://www.lef.org/shop/fda2.html
So I called Dr.Edward Scarbrough, US Codex Manager at USDA to complain about this mistreatment by Dr.Yetley, and to demand that she be removed from the US Codex delegation to the CCNFSDU for libelling me and for violating current US vitamin law at the meeting in '98, and for ongoing attempts to do the same. I demanded to be reinstated to the delegation. Needless to say, my complaint fell on deaf ears.
US CODEX MANAGER GIVES FDA "BROAD LATITUDE" to STOP WHISTLE BLOWERS
Scarbrough angrily informed me on the phone that although his office could find no evidence to back Dr.Yetley's claim that I had been thrown out of the '98 meeting, he did not agree with my legal interpretation regarding the FDA's breaking the law. He said that the FDA saw things differently and that Yetley had "broad latitude" to kick anyone off the delegation "for any reason" at her discretion. I then received another letter from Yetley retracting her libelous statement from the first letter, while this time claiming that even if the Chairman had not kicked me out, my actions had "embarrassed the US delegation at an international meeting" and that they "couldn't take the chance that I'd do it again." Yetley was clearly retaliating not only for my actions in '98, but also for grilling her on videotape at a DC meeting held a month before this years Codex meeting.
NO FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN GERMANY
Next I sent an email to the German so called "Ministry of Consumer Health Protection" (Bgvv), hosts of the Codex meeting informing them that I am a licensed member of the American Media Association, and I wanted to know if they had an application form that press were required to fill out in advance of the meeting.The week before the meeting I finally received an email from Press Officer Juergen Kundke informing me that because the American Media Association is a "private body" "there is no proof" so he could not admit me. (Gee- big surprise!) He told me I would have to belong "to an international press association" (implying AP, or UPI which routinely look after the interests of the Pharma Cartel) So I emailed him back asking for his fax number, offering to fax both sides of my press pass, along with letters from the Editor of Life Extension Magazine, the Spotlight News Paper, and a letter from the President of the American Media Association. Again, no surprise- he never responded, so clearly there is no freedom of the press in Germany. The journalists who they did allow in weren't allowed to take photos, audio or videotape the proceedings, but they sure have no use for a whistleblower like me. Although I was not inside, consumer advocates from several delegations reported to me out in the street.
RATH's DEMONSTRATION JOLTS CARTEL: "VITAMINE STATT PHARMA !!" RATH ATTACKED ON GERMAN TV
On June 19th, over 1000 angry vitamin consumers led by Matthias Rath, MD of Almelo, Netherlands held a spirited demonstration in 90 degree heat in front of the gate leading in to the Codex meeting. We carried signs in staunch opposition to the genocidal UN initiative. Berlin riot police stood guard next to the "checkpoint Charley" style guardhouse while the road leading in had been blocked by a huge steel barricade that was permanently in place in anticipation of protestors. The Bgvv (German FDA) buildings where the meeting took place were about 50 yards inside the barb wire perimeter outside of which Dr.Rath had set up a podium on the trailor of a flatbed truck with a huge backdrop reading "Stoppt Das Pharma Cartel- Vitamine Statt Pharma!" http://www.rath.nl/ for pictures and commentary
Behind the demonstrators a crane held aloft a huge hanging banner showing a woman with a large red X across her mouth to symbolize the suppression of the truth regarding the health effects of vitamins. Delegates inside the building could clearly see this banner and hear our PA System. "Ein, Zwie, Drie, Stoppt Das Pharma Cartel!" we chanted. Speaker after speaker mounted the podium attesting to how they were healed from heart disease, cancer, arthritis and other serious illnesses by Dr.Rath and others using the same approach using vitamins that enabled me to recover from schizophrenia 22 years ago. I shouted myself hoarse while trying to aim my videocamera through all the baloons to capture this historic scene. At the end of the demonstration several cages full of pigeons and thousands of colored helium balloons were released to symbolize the fact that the truth can't be suppressed forever. A human chain over a kilometer long was filed from the air by a helicopter which filmed the demonstration.
The day before Dr.Rath had held a huge conference with over 2000 people in Berlin at which many of his patients presented moving testimonies of recovery. All of the Codex delegates had been invited to attend, but only two did, and of those one was a plant, clearly illustrating the bias of the people we're up against. They can't be troubled with learning the truth, and helping people is the furthest thing from their minds.
I demonstrated along with Patrick Walsh, one of many consumers who assisted me in getting to the meeting. Rath, is holder of US patent # 5,278,189 PREVENTION AND TREATMENT OF OCCLUSIVE CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE WITH ASCORBATE AND SUBSTANCES THAT INHIBIT THE BINDING OF LIPOPROTEIN(a) - http://www.rath.nl/menue/news_content/usa/aktuell-usa /united_states_patent_patent_numb.htm The patent is of a nutritional protocol that successfully prevents and treats the world's number one killer disease: heart disease. Rath's efforts to expose the genocidal actions of the Pharma Cartel at Codex greatly anger the cartel which ran an attack piece against him on German TV after the first day of the meeting, and people at the meeting were talking about it before it aired indicating probable collaboration with Committee Chair Rolf Grossklaus.
The attack piece slammed Rath as "paranoid" claiming that all of his concerns were "invalid" and that he could not be trusted in any case as a seller of vitamins. Interestingly, the same charges leveled against Rath by the German press have been leveled against me by Dr.Yetley, congressional staff, and by people from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, and the National Nutritional Foods Association and by Citizens for Health who should be protecting us and should be helping me expose what is happening at Codex-- while doing anything but. (More detail on this below)
GS Odin, an American attending the meeting representing The New Zealand Charter of Alternative Health Practitioners, left the meeting in complete disgust to address the crowd at Rath's demonstration. After addressing the crowd through an interpretor in a speech in which he told the German people they needed to rise up just as we had in America when we passed DSHEA, Odin invited Dr.Rath to have lunch with him inside the Bgvv building. There Rath confronted Grossklaus having heard from Odin that an attack piece was expected to air against him on German TV that night and that many delegates had been discussing it indicating probable collaboration between the German press and Grossklaus. Grossklaus trembled as he demanded that Rath leave immediately, and threatened to have him arrested if he did not. Grossklaus was clearly retaliating for the more than 300,000 emailed form letters sent by vitamin consumers from Rath's website (http://www.rath.nl/) to all of the Codex delegates informing them that they would be charged with committing crimes against humanity if they attempted to advance the Codex vitamin proposal.
INSIDE THE MEETING: VITAMIN PROPOSAL ROLLED BACK - SHOULD HAVE BEEN WITHDRAWN!
Inside the meeting only Uruguay called for a halt to deliberations on the Codex vitamin issue at Codex, correctly stating that the matter is best left up to national authorities to decide.The vitamin proposal was set back from step 4 to step 3 because the two conflicting sides were unable to reach consensus. On one side there was the Germans and several allied countries advocating strict potency limits for vitamins and minerals based on slight multiples above the RDA , and on the other side was the American position backed by all the English speaking countries which isn't much better.
(The current limit in the German Reformhauses is 3x RDA- roughly what the German Codex proposal advocates, and the American position isn't much better advocating allegedly "scientific" risk assessment based on a totally unscientific National Academy of Science's paper that was pharmaceutically funded.
Even though the NAS paper has been thoroughly rebutted as unscientific and biased by Dr.Rick Malter in an article published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine (Second Quarter, 2000 Volume 15, Number 2), and even though both the NAS paper and Malter's rebuttal have been on at http://www.iahf.com/ for months before the meeting, Dr.Yetley refuses to read Malter's paper, Congress refuses to hold an oversight hearing, and the pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associtions and the controlled opposition group"Citizens for Health" are telling Congress and the public that an oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue "isn't necessary." Check out Bill Faloon's A Critical Analysis of The National Academy of Sciences' Attack on Dietary Supplements at http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/may2000_canasads _01.html
While the vitamin proposal should have been withdrawn completely in deference to consumer demand and basic morality, Rath claimed victory because it did not advance. His billboards denouncing the Codex meeting could be seen all over Berlin on the sides of busses, in railroad stations, and on walls where billboards were posted. He also had taken out full page ads in USA Today in an effort to expose what is going on, but so far, Congressman Dan Burton,Chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Hearing has not held a badly needed oversight hearing to examine the FDA's actions at Codex because the vitamin trade associations CRN and NNFA are telling him a hearing "isn't necessary."
WAKE UP CALL TO SENATOR HATCH: FDA IS IGNORING YOUR CONGRESSIONAL RECORD STATEMENT PROOF THAT GATT EXEMPTION CLAUSE DOES NOT PROTECT US/ NEITHER DOES FDAMA AMENDMENT! FDA TAKES AN ARTFUL DODGE AROUND FDAMA
Prior to the meeting I and many others flooded Senator Hatch's office with requests that he get an injunction filed against the FDA in Federal Court to keep them from continuing to violate US law at Codex. I got a call back from Bruce Artim on Hatch's staff and he said "John! Don't you feel protected by that amendment that you worked so hard to get back in '97 to the FDA Modernization Act (FDAMA) which specifically exempts dietary supplements from the harmonization language!" And I said no, because the FDA is ignoring it. So he said, "John! What about the exemption clause (19 U.S.C. 3512(a)(1) which provides that "no provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have any effect?"
My response: "Bruce! That exemption clause is only a paper tiger! In THEORY it protects US laws from harmonization, but there have been seven documented intances wherein the USA has lost trade disputes, and changes have been indirectly forced to US laws under threat of trade sanctions! For this reason Congressman Paul has 56 cosponsors on House Joint Resolution 90 which would get us out of the WTO! Although it is true that the WTO can't DIRECTLY force us to change our laws to comform to international standards such as Codex standards, they can apply so much pressure to Congress through the threat of trade sanctions that Capital Hill crawls with lobbyists demanding that we harmonize our laws so that the industries they represent doesn't get hurt by the trade sanctions!"
I suggested that Bruce examine a paper by the Jeanne J. Grimmett of the Congressional Research Service titled "WTO Dispute Settlement" (at iahf.com) which discusses trade disputes that we have lost and the changes resulting to our laws. I also told him that health freedom attorney Milton Bass had examined the statute that allegedly protects us from harmonization and felt that it is very loosely written, warning that it opens a Pandora's box in terms of interpretation. (What if we don't have something in our law that a Codex rule calls for (eg restrictions on availability of high potency vitamins). Would Codex restrictions be INCONSISTENT with US law if thats not IN our law? Bass says "no!"
Now - further corroborating Bass's fears, the amendment I got back in '97 to FDAMA affords us no protection!! Norm Singleton in Congressman Paul's office ran it past the Congressional Research Service to see if it was worded strongly enough to stop the FDA from participating in the Codex process with regards to dietary supplements in an effort to push towards a highly restrictive Codex standard. CRS said that it was not- it leaves room for interpretation!
(In a letter dated June 16, 2000 L.Robert Lake, Director, Office of Regulations and Policy, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at FDA told me that the amendment to FDAMA "operates solely to release FDA from the affirmative obligation established by paragraph (c)(3) of participating in international harmonization efforts with regard to dietary supplements. It does not prohibit FDA from participating in those efforts.")
Thus, FDA is taking a highly predictable "artful dodge" around the will of Congress and the will of the people! I worked incredibly hard to get that amendment back in '97, walking miles all over capital hill while consumers who I'd alerted flooded the Senate Labor Committee with enough faxes to make their machines run out of paper and ink. Afterwards, Senator Hatch had this to say in the Congressional Record about our amendment. His statement along with the "Dear Colleague Letter" signed by Congressman Paul and Chenoweth represent the will of Congress on this issue but are being ignored:
Senate floor comments of Senator Hatch after passage of the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 (S830):
And on behalf of the dietary supplement manufacturers, and most importantly the 100 million or so consumers -- most of whom seem to have called our offices in the last few weeks -- let me thank you for making sure that the bill does not undo the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in any way and that dietary supplements will remain what they are, food products, not drugs.
Published in the Congressional Record on 11/9/97.
I asked Norm Singleton in Congressman Paul's office if the FDA legally has to obey the will of Congress or the will of the people as reflected by statements such as this in the Congressional Record, or as recorded in Committee Reports, colloquys, or Dear Colleague letters, and Norm said "Some Judges will consider this information, but they are under no obligation to look beyond the letter of the law as expressed in the statute, and some won't look any further than to consult a dictionary when interpreting a statute."
Folks: We are in trouble! Jeanne Grimmett of the Congressional Research Service documents in her article "WTO Dispute Settlement" that the USA has lost 7 trade disputes, and that changes have been indirectly forced to our laws as a result. Granted, Congress made those changes to our law, and now the WTO, but they resulted under the threat of trade sanctions, so NONE of our laws, including DSHEA, are safe. Any of our laws can be forced to change, so the exemption clause that Senator Hatch's aide, Bruce Artim, thinks is "protecting" us, clearly is not! (Your Congressman can download Grimmett's article from http://www.congress.gov/brbk/html/ebtra56.html and it will be available to consumers at http://www.iahf.com/
The Congressional Research Service has examined the amendment that we worked so hard to get in '97 to FDAMA, and they tell us that it does NOT stop the FDA from participating in Codex efforts to push through a finalized Codex standard. FDA has clearly indicated in their letter to me dated June 16, 2000 that they do not feel in any way bound by that amendment as discussed in detail above.
Based on their interpretation of the law, the FDA has ignored written Congressional requests to not put the pharmaceutically funded, heavily biased, grossly unscientific NAS paper on the table at Codex. This paper, plus Dr.Rick Malter's rebuttal, and the letters from Congress to the FDA about this can be viewed at http://www.iahf.com/. Malter's paper has just been published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, but Dr.Beth Yetley refuses to read it. Senator Hatch and Bruce Artim haven't yet read the NAS paper or Malter's rebuttal because they don'tyet grasp that the exemption statute which allegedly protects our laws from harmonization is a paper tiger, and the CRS article proves it! Hopefully Senator Hatch will now communicate with the Congressional Research Service to discuss their interpretation of the amendment to FDAMA since they say it doesn't stop FDA at all. Congressman Burton, Chair of the Oversight Committee is being misled, perhaps intentionally in the meantime by CRN, NNFA and Citizens for Health who are telling him that oversight on the Codex vitamin issue "isn't necessary." He and Beth Clay should take a much closer look at all of this as well in light of the points made above.
How can Senator Hatch and Congressman Burton ignore the conflict of interest within CRN, NNFA and Citizens for Health? They are dominated by pharmaceutical interests. In 1999 Hoffman La Roche was fined $500 Million by the Department of Justice for engaging in illegal price fixing in the sale of vitamin raw materials while BASF was fined $250,000,000. They are members of CRN and NNFA respectively, along with many other pharmaceutical companies- which pay the most in dues. The Chairman of Citizens for Health's International Committee, Randy Dennin, is an employee of Capsugel which is owned by Warner Lambert, which was recently bought out by Pfizer. Is it really a surprise under the circumstances that these groups have no objection to the FDA proceeding towards development of a highly restrictive Codex vitamin standard? Is it really a surprise that they endorse the grossly biased, heavily unscientific NAS paper which the FDA is handing to the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body as the alleged "gold standard" on vitamin safety so that we will be set up to lose in a trade dispute?
Members of these trade associations and Citizens for Health as well as ALL vitamin consumers world wide need to look VERY CLOSELY at the NAS paper, and Malter's rebuttal and give serious consideration to this whole article, then call it to the attention of your elected officials while demanding accountability. Please follow these instructions and urge others to follow suit:
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
To The Honorable
US Senate (or US House of Representatives)
Washington DC 20510 (Senate)
Washington DC 20515 (House)
Date:
Dear Senator (or Congressman) _______________________________:
The exemption clause (USC 3512(a)(1) and (a)(2) which allegedly protects our laws from harmonization to international standards, such as Codex standards, is a paper tiger as evidenced by the article "WTO Dispute Settlement" by Jeanne Grimmett of the Congressional Research Service which shows 7 trade disputes that the USA has lost. The article illustrates that due to the threat of trade sanctions, DESPITE the supposed exemption clause, Congress DID change our laws because of the enormous pressures put on them by lobbyists from multinational corporations who contribute millions to congressional campaigns.
I do not trust promises from Congress or the FDA that this statute will in FACT block the FDA from eventually harmonizing our dietary supplement laws to a very restrictive Codex vitamin standard, and feel that the FDA is blatantly ignoring the will of Congress over this issue (See Senator Hatch's floor statement on 11/9/97 regarding S.830) Oversight Hearings are badly needed to enforce the will of the people and the will of Congress.
Senator Hatch is of the belief that the FDA is kept in check on this issue by an amendment to the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 which in theory makes it illegal for FDA to take any action at Codex intended to foster completion of a finalized Codex vitamin standard. The Congressional Research Service has examined the amendment and found that it does not stop FDA from doing anything at Codex - it is too loosely worded, and FDA is also taking this interpretation while utterly ignoring the will of Congress as expressed through Senator Hatch's statement about the vitamin amendment in the Congressional Record on 11/9/97 regarding passage of S.830.
Please sponsor an amendment with teeth that will protect us, because it is obvious that the amendment in '97 does not, and FDA is ignoring the will of the people and the will of Congress as a result. See http://www.iahf.com/ "Amendment Needed" for more details.
Please hold oversight hearings on the Codex vitamin issue in order to closely examine the positions the FDA has been taking.
Please communicate your concerns on this issue to the US Trade Representatives Office and ask him how they would handle it if we lost in a trade dispute because the FDA is arming the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body with a paper that establishes an unscientific "gold standard" on vitamin safety which would be used against us in a trade dispute. Please get the US out of the WTO by cosponsoring HJR 90 which is sponsored by Congressman Paul.
Please let me know if you have carefully reviewed my specific concerns, and if you intend to take action in my behalf.
Sincerely,
Name_____________________________________________________________
Address ______________________________________________________
City_____________________________State________Zip_____________
1. Fax, email or mail this article to your Senators and Congressman along with the enclosed form letter (your own letter would be better) to request that oversight hearings be held on the Codex vitamin issue. You can call them via 202-225-3121, the Capital Switchboard.
2. Especially fax, email or mail this article along with your note or the form letter to Congressman Dan Burton, c/o Beth Clay beth.clay@mail.house.gov, fax attn Beth Clay 202-225-3974, Room 2157 RHOB Washington DC 20515.
3. Also fax, email, or mail this article along with your note or the form letter to: Senator Orrin Hatch c/o Bruce Artim fax 202-228-0029, bruce.artim@hatch.senate.gov, Room SD 224 Washington DC 20510
4. Send it to all Presidential candidates and make an issue out of it.
http://www.algore2000.com/
http://www.georgewbush.com/
http://www.votenader.com/
http://www.buchananreform.com/default.htm
http://www.hagelin.org/
http://www.harrybrowne2000.org/
5. If you live outside the USA, please send this article to your members of Parliament, or other elected officials and demand oversight!
Information provided by John C. Hammell, legislative advocate, International Advocates for Health Freedom, POB 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA
http://www.iahf.com/ jham@iahf.com, Tel. 800-333-2553, overseas 540-745-6534, fax 540-745-6535 Donations and clients badly needed!
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