To: IAHF List
Subject: Open Response to Beth Clay Re Need for Oversight Hearing on Codex Vitamin Issue
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:38:59 -0500

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See my response below Beth Clay's. Beth Clay is Congressman Burton's
assistant, and Burton is the Chair of the House Oversight Committee.
Please join me in asking these questions. Discuss this with your Senators
and Congressmen via 202-225-3121 Capital Switchboard.

At 10:51 PM 1/12/01 -0500, you wrote:
The Government Reform Committee in the US House of Representatives has an on going investigation into dietary supplement registration, including CODEX. If you are monitoring the legislative activities, you will know that Congressman Dan Burton, the Chairman of this Committee is a strong supporter of the right of citizens to make their own medical choices, and to use natural, alternative, complementary, or unconventional approaches to care, including dietary supplements. Testimony from the hearings we have conducted to date can be viewed at http://www.house.gov/reform/hearings

The FDA will continue to receive your comments after January 16 and will hold two public meetings. For information on CODEX, please visit their official website.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov:80/OA/codex/index.htm

Thank you for contacting me.

Beth Clay
Professional Staff Member
Government Reform Committee
US House of Representatives

Dear Beth:

Although Congressman Burton is indeed a strong supporter of the right to citizens to use alternative treatments and dietary supplements, he has not yet held an Oversight Hearing on the Codex Vitamin issue, and this is cause of great and mounting concern, especially as Gary Null has just done 4 radio shows on the issue with guests from all over the world, each from a vitamin trade association or true grass roots health freedom organization who are trying to warn the American people about how they've been lied to on this issue.

Later today, Null will be making a Backgrounder, Petition, and action materials available on his website at http://garynull.com/issues/codex/AboutCodex.htm and you are going to be hearing from thousands of people on this issue. Null will shortly engage in a National book signing tour of health food stores all over the country where he will be bringing the information, and boycotts will be instituted against any stores that do not assist with the effort to get the word out on this. NNFA is actively misleading its members on this issue. NNFA is not enforcing its conflict of interest bylaw article 14.3 Pharmaceutical interests are exercising considerable power within NNFA, and members can't trust what they're being told on this issue.

The longer Congressman Burton waits to hold a hearing on the Codex vitamin issue, the further along the pharmaceutical takeover is being allowed to proceed, and this is not acceptable to the American people, many of whom worked very hard for passage of both the Proxmire Vitamin Act and DSHEA, both of which stand to be scrapped by what is unfolding.

US Domestic laws are not protected from harmonization by 19 USC 3512(a)(1) or (a)(2). This Federal Statute is only a paper tiger. For this reason, Congressman Ron Paul introduced the American Sovereignty Restoration Act which will remove the USA from the WTO.

Paul felt compelled to sponsor this bill after an exhaustive study of how WTO Dispute Settlement panels have been successfully pressuring Congress to harmonize US laws to international standards. On the IAHF website, we are documenting the fact that NO US law is safe from harmonization, citing specific examples of laws that were forced to be changed due to threat of trade sanctions.

We have also documented the fact that the FDA is setting us up for harmonization, and that they are doing so over the direct written objection of Congressman Dan Burton. See the gif file of Burton's letter to the FDA telling them not to put the pharmaceutically biased, unscientific NAS paper "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Safe Upper Levels for Nutrients" on the table at Codex under "Letters from Congress" at http://www.iahf.com See the video footage of Dr.Beth Yetley of FDA blatantly IGNORING your bosses letter in the Media section at http://www.iahf.com

Also in that Media section see the video footage of Grossklauss, the German Chair of the CCNFSDU force me to turn my camcorder off, which proves the non transparency of Codex meetings. This video footage has been called to your attention in the past several years ago and has been on the web all this time, yet still the American people are being denied a hearing, and that is wrong.

While it is true that the FDA will continue to "RECEIVE" comments for the next codex meeting of the CCNFSDU after their arbitrary and capricious deadline of January 16, they will be IGNORED as have been any comments not originating from multinational corporate interests. The PROBLEM is inescapable. This DEADLINE is a full 11 months prior to the next meeting of the CCNFSDU. We are being SET UP.

As you are well aware, Dr.Matthias Rath held a huge demonstration in front of the CCNFSDU Codex meeting last June, and I was there. The REASON I was out in the street protesting is because Jurgen Kundke, Bgvv Press Officer, barred me from participation in the meeting. He did not honor my valid press credentials. I am a member in good standing of the American Media Association. This proves that there is no Freedom of the Press in Germany.

The problem, is inescapable. We need an oversight hearing on the Codex Vitamin issue. CRN and NNFA do not speak for or represent the American people, yet by not holding a hearing thus far, Congressman Burton is doing THEIR bidding, while IGNORING the will of the American people. The Multinational Corporate presence of pharmaceutical companies amongst CRN's membership is well documented on their own website at http://www.crnusa.org/2members.html Some of their members helped fund a grossly unscientific paper generated by the National Academy of Sciences. See this paper and several rebuttals to it at http://www.iahf.com We are being set up to lose in a trade dispute. The only out by which any country can legally refuse to harmonize its laws to an international standard is on a basis of safety, and pharmaceutical interests are attempting to preempt things by falsely defining safety.

See the Leibovitz section at http://www.iahf.com and read his editorial "The ABCs of Confusion as a Weapon" He totally shreads the whole concept of creating "Safe Upper Limits" for already safe substances. Any substance, even water can be dangerous at some level. Drink enough WATER and you will burst your stomach wall, yet we don't see the NAS attempting to develop a "UL" on water for the simple reason that its sale does not cut into the sale of any of their patented pharmaceuticals, so they don't feel compelled to attempt to arbitrarily and capriciously restrict our access to water.

Nothing the National Academy of Sciences does is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The fraudulent Vitamin A study that they recently did which was so widely reported in the news was funded in part by the same pharmaceutical interests at CRN who funded the so called "risk assessment paper" which Congressman Burton requested that the FDA NOT put on the table at Codex.

Vitamin consumers across America want to know when you intend to start holding an oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue? We are not interested in any public meetings the FDA holds on this issue, as the FDA has been violating US law at Codex. The FDA have no legal right to harmonize our domestic laws, yet this is exactly what they are setting us up for, and so is the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue. The TABD does not speak for the American people either. They represent multinational pharmaceutical interests. Please see the press release on the CRN website at http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html The article is titled U.S. and European Leaders Agree on Principles to Harmonize Dietary Supplement Regulations.

The American people have been EXCLUDED from this TABD dialogue, and do not attempt to tell us we are being "represented" by the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue. We're not. That body includes Center for Science in the Public Interest, and Public Citizen, two organizations that are publicly trying to repeal DSHEA. They do not speak for the American people, and we must have an Oversight Hearing. When do you intend to give us one? The public wants to know. Please respond to each point made in this letter. Any failure to repond will be very conspicuous because the letter will be posted in the IAHF website. If you respond, your response will be included.

Beth, you have had a loose leaf binder citing the numerous reasons for holding a hearing on the Codex vitamin issues for well over one year. The American people have been clamoring for this hearing now since 1996. Why are we being denied a hearing? Does the rule of law still exist in America today, or are we being forced into a totalitarian world government? You can see the huge number of American vitamin consumers signing the Anti EU Vitamin Directive Petition at http://www.laleva.org They're signing it because CRN states openly on their website that the TABD is harmonizing our laws to the EU's, and they're hard at work there preparing to burn all the vitamin consumers in Europe, they're forcing all 15 EU nations to walk in lockstep with Germany, and now CRN has a press release on its website stating openly that the TABD plans to harmonize our laws to the EU's. The problem......... is INESCAPABLE! We MUST have oversight! Please respond, addressing each of the substantive points made herein.

John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
PO Box 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA
800-333-2553
http://www.iahf.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mojo191@aol.com [mailto:Mojo191@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 10:43 PM
To: Clay, Beth;
Subject: Fwd: the FDA Only Gives Consumers until Jan 16 to file Codex Comments

Please read this petition, sign it (if you're in agreement with it) and forward it to anyone you know who wants to preserve, and continue to exercize, his or her rights to take nutritional supplements in order to maximize preventive and therapeutic benefits to health. Your right to take nutritional supplements is being dangerously threatened by some regulations which could be adopted by the government at the urging of the pharmaceutical industry, if you don't make your voices heard.

To make a difference, also send a signed copy to:
Congressman Dan Burton, Chairman
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee
c/o Beth Clay
at the following e-mail address:
beth.clay@mail.house.gov
or call (202) 225-3121 and ask for Congressman Dan Burton's office.

Please help by also signing the international petition at the following website:
http://www.laleva.org/petizione/english/petitioneng.html

This website is very important! Signing its petition gives us the chance to have a positive effect on an international level. Just scroll down the page, when you get there, until you see the icon "English" on the bottom right side of the page and then press it. Then, on the page which follows, press the word 'petition and, then, just press the English flag icon which shows up and you'll have an English translation of the petition.

You can find more pertinent information on this issue at the following
websites:
The website of health & wellness advocate Gary Null, Ph.D. -http://www.garynull.com
International Advocates for Health Freedom - http://www.iahf.com

Whoever signs the 100th, 200th 300th, etc. place can send me a copy of their petition as well, if they like. Then I'll forward those copies to the Congressman as well. Feel free to also send signed petitions to your local congressman.
-----------------

PETITION

To: Congressman Dan Burton, Chairman
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee
c/o Beth Clay beth.clay@mail.house.gov
12/31/2000

In a sly move, the FDA has designated January 16th as the last date by which we consumers can protest the govenment's ratification of an international agreement that promises to be quite detrimental to everyone's health. To stop this agreement from being ratified, we would have to voice our opinion by January 16th, even though the international meeting at which the final decision will be made is still 11 months away! (November 2001)

Could this deliberate limiting, by the FDA, of allowable time in which to let our voices be heard on this issue be anything other than a (transparent) strategem of the FDA to keep as many of us as it can in the dark about this issue, until it will be already too late for us to have an effect on the outcome?

Acting in this manner, the FDA seems to be hoping it will be able to sideline any potential consumer opposition to the agreement, which would then become the new internationally adopted regulation after November.

The name of this diabolical agreement is the Codex Alimentarius. For those of you who don't know, the Codex is an international treaty which is being aggressively promoted by the international Pharmaceutical cartel and the special interest groups who are their friends in the international business community.

It is an agreement for which the pharmaceutical lobbies are working as hard as they can to gain international passage because it will allow them to force the passage of laws, in every country, severely limiting the scope and effectiveness of nutritional supplements (which they want very much to do, presumably, because healthy people do not buy their medicines as readily as sick people do).

These new laws would have precedence over all national laws of any given country, effectively usurping them and incapacitating concerned citizens from being able to do anything about these repressive laws. Infractions would be punished by economic sanctions against the country, in order to "keep it in line". Citizens would effectively be blocked from taking action because the Codex provides neither transparency about its motives & actions, nor accountability to anyone but itself.

I guess if the Pharma Cartel is so desperate to have this treaty ratified, it must be a powerful signal that our efforts to improve our health through preventive nutrition have been succeeding so impressively and astoundingly that less people are getting sick... which must be cutting so deeply into the Pharma Cartel's profits (from selling their pharmaceutical drugs to sick people) that they're now trying, at all costs, to make this repressive treaty into an international law.

I'm not at all interested in having the right to manage my own health taken away from me! I don't think you want to lose yours either... So why don't we all get out there and do our best to prevent this draconian treaty, and the greedy little men who conceived of it, from ruining our health... and our world!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, here is the body of the petition:

1) We the undersigned, users of natural health products and food supplements, ask legislators and administrators in the U.S.A., in all European countries and delegates to Codex Alimentarius discussions world wide to take into account the following:

2) Considering that international legislation on the subject of food supplements is currently under discussion at both Codex Alimentarius and in the European legislative system (Council of Europe and the European Parliament);

3) Considering further that in both venues of discussion there are heavy pressures brought to bear by pharmaceutical interests, to limit the effectiveness and the availability of natural health products and food supplements to the detriment of consumer choice and public health;

4) Considering that approved, regulated and properly prescribed pharmaceutical medicines are causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year, having become the fourth most common cause of death in several countries (see statistics and article by Ron Law from New Zealand);

5) Considering that vitamin supplements and other natural health products have a clean bill of health, having been used for decades by millions of consumers world wide without more than a handful of confirmed lethal outcomes;

6) Considering that the clearly visible pressures of pharmaceutical interests to limit the effectiveness and availability of natural health products are dictated by motives of monetary profit and and considerations of market share, not by concern for the health of consumers;

7) Considering that true health preservation today is achieved through the widespread use of natural health products and supplements (see recent prevention references in Ron Law's article) and considering that consumers should not be deprived of the health preserving and health promoting means of their choice merely by reason of the distraction of legislators or the greed for profits of the mentioned pharmaceutical interests, let it be said then that the consumers of natural health products and food supplements, both in Europe and internationally, demand that legislators and administrators, in discussions concerning food supplements, take into account the following:

A) Natural health products and food supplements, in the absence of specific regulations in place internationally, have shown to possess an unsurpassed safety record and to be of great benefit to health as evidenced by scientific studies and by the personal experience of the undersigned users.

B) It does not therefore make any sense to limit the dosages of essential nutrients in supplements except where consumption of such substances has shown actual, health risks;

C) It does not therefore make any sense to limit the availability of nutrients or other ingredient substances by socalled "positive lists" as contemplated in current international legislative proposals;

D) It would seriously undermine programs for the promotion of public health and the prevention of illness as well as the practice of non conventional methods of therapy, to put limits on the availability of these products, even if ostensibly "in the name of consumer protection" for these reasons, we demand that:

E) ANY EUROPEAN OR INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION BE CAREFULLY STRUCTURED SO AS TO GUARANTEE THE FREE ACCESS TO NATURAL HEALTH PRODUCTS AND FOOD SUPPLEMENTS THAT HAVE PROVEN TO BE SAFE AND ARE IN DEMAND BY CONSUMERS, OR BE INDEFINITELY SHELVED.

F) ANY SUCH LEGISLATION SHALL NOT CONTAIN PROVISIONS LIMITING THE DOSAGES OF NUTRIENTS OR ACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN SUCH PRODUCTS EXCEPT WHERE ABSOLUTELY AND CLEARLY NECESSARY TO AVERT PROVEN, NOT FICTITIOUS OR ASSUMED DANGERS TO THE HEALTH OF CONSUMERS

G) ANY SUCH LEGISLATION SHALL NOT LIMIT THE SCOPE AND VARIETY OF NUTRITIVE AND OTHERWISE HEALTH PROMOTING SUBSTANCES BY THE USE OF ANY KIND OF LISTS, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, EXCEPT WHERE SUCH SUBSTANCES CAN BE SHOWN TO HAVE CAUSED DAMAGES SIMILAR TO THOSE EVIDENT TODAY IN THE PROPERLY APPROVED AND REGULATED PHARMACEUTICALLY PRODUCED MEDICINES

H) In support of these principles and requesting that legislators and administrators take into account these demands, we hereby sign:

1) Monty J. Renov; Holistic Health Practitioner, Herbalist, Member of the American Association of Body Psychotherapists, Certified Biofeedback Technician, Certified Postural Integrator