To: IAHF List
Subject: "Safe Upper Levels for Vitamins" Trial By Associated Press &TV- How We're Being Set Up for CODEX
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:40:31 -0500
All Webmasters- especially Alice at Gary Null's, please post!!!
IAHF List: Safety is our only out in a future trade dispute where pharmaceutical interests will force the harmonization of our domestic vitamin laws to a grossly restrictive international standard by developing phony safety standards now. Here is complete information on how this SET UP is unfolding..... and what we MUST do to stop it.
(Beth Clay is receiving this so there will be no excuse if we don't have a REAL oversight hearing to STOP this nonsense!!!) Jump to the Petition for Oversight from http://www.iahf.com sign the online petition, then download the paper petition and Codex Backgrounder and put these materials into all the health food stores within a 50 mile radius of your house. Give me the numbers of any stores that don't understand...
THE ABC's of CONFUSION as a WEAPON- EXPLAINS the SCIENTIFIC FRAUDULENCE of the "SAFE UPPER LEVEL" CONCEPT for VITAMINS
The late Dr.Brian Leibovitz wrote a great Editorial titled "The ABC's of Confusion as a Weapon" which exposes the fraudulence of the "Safe Upper Level" vitamin concept as well as numerous other phony anti vitamin pharmaceutically pushed acronyms and "concepts" which you'll find in the Leibovitz section at http://www.iahf.com
I urge all of you to read it and then:
* Read the propaganda below about "Safe Upper Levels" from the National Academy of Sciences Anti Vitamin paper titled "Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline"
Read the Life Extension Foundation's expose on the National Academy of Sciences bogus 512-page book titled Dietary Reference Intakes For Vitamin C,Vitamin E, Selenium and the Carotenoids http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/may2000_canasads_01.html
* Then read the Associated Press article below which smears Vitamins, and tries to scare us away from consuming megadoses of anything.
Are you beginning to grasp the extent to which we're being SET UP for harmonization to the outrageous restrictions of the EU Vitamin Directive??? (Unless YOU explain this to your local health food store, and the vitamin companies who's product you buy, they WON'T understand how they're being SET UP!!!)
Take another look at the press release on the CRN website titled "US-EU Leaders Agree to Harmonize Dietary Supplement Rules" You'll find the article at http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html In this article you will see reference to a body comprised of multinational pharmaceutical interests called the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue's Dietary Supplement Working Group.
The GOAL of this group is to monopolize the sale of dietary supplements world wide, such that high potency vitamins are only available by prescription, and access to any supplements not having an RDA would also be by prescription only. Achieving this goal would drive all their competition out of business because the smaller companies can't afford the expenses involved of manufacturing to pharmaceutical GMP standards. They could then downsize their vitamin divisions, make FAR more money off LESS product, investors would love it, and they'd simultaneously BLOCK our access to vitamins so that they would no longer interfere with the sale of their OTHER products: toxic, ineffective, patented prescription drugs.
As for our efforts to get "Oversight"???? Congress is owned lock stock and barrel by the Pharma Cartel, and if you don't believe it go to http://www.fec.gov I have been trying since '96 to get oversight, and we're being blown off, lied to and manipulated in our efforts, so we must REDOUBLE our efforts to get signatures on our petition which you can jump to from the front page of http://www.iahf.com Download the paper petition and put it into all the health food stores in your area, because we are being set up like bowling pins.... and must awaken the sleeping giant, the American people.
The vitamin trade associations are being dominated by pharmaceutical interests, and that is why they're not with us. This is why health food stores are oblivious. Show this to them. CRN is especially bad. Several CRN member companies helped fund the bogus NAS paper discussed below, while NNFA's International Committee which developed their pro FDA pro pharmaceutical position on Codex is chaired by an employee of Pfizer, a gross conflict of interest. NNFA is not enforcing their conflict of interest bylaw, Article 14.3 NNFA members are being set up.
We're being set up to lose in a trade dispute. The only way a country can refuse to harmonize to a Codex standard is on a basis of SAFETY,and NAS is creating phony, pharmaceutically biased SAFETY STANDARDS (see below), then the AP helps them spread this propaganda through TV and print media, but its not SCIENCE- its economically motivated PROPAGANDA............ Will we in fact get an oversight hearing? Will Congress defend our vitamin laws from harmonization?????
I am sending this to Beth Clay for educational purposes. Will we in fact get an oversight hearing on the Codex Vitamin issue, and if so, will the Hearing look closely at the issues raised below? Time will tell, in the meantime please jump to the Petition for Oversight from the front page of http://www.iahf.com
http://books.nap.edu/html/dri_thiamin/index.html
http://books.nap.edu/html/dri_thiamin/index.html#Notice
The Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) is the highest level of daily nutrient intake that is likely to pose no risk of adverse health effects to almost all individuals in the general population. As intake increases above the UL, the risk of adverse effects increases. The term tolerable intake was chosen to avoid implying a possible beneficial effect. Instead, the term is intended to connote a level of intake that can, with high probability, be tolerated biologically. The UL is not intended to be a recommended level of intake. There is no established benefit for healthy individuals if they consume nutrient intakes above the RDA or AI.
ULs are useful because of the increased interest in and availability of fortified foods and the increased use of dietary supplements. ULs are based on total intake of a nutrient from food, water, and supplements if adverse effects have been associated with total intake. However, if adverse effects have been associated with intake from supplements or food fortificants only, the UL is based on nutrient intake from those sources only, not on total intake. The UL applies to chronic daily use.
For some nutrients, there are insufficient data on which to develop a UL. This does not mean that there is no potential for adverse effects resulting from high intake. When data about adverse effects are extremely limited, extra caution may be warranted.
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC000/333/333/308209
January 10, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) - Don't pop too many vitamin A supplements, because large amounts, particularly megadoses available from health-food stores, can be dangerous, the government says in guidelines that update how much of certain nutrients Americans should consume for good health.
Men need 900 micrograms of vitamin A a day and women 700, says Tuesday's report by the Institute of Medicine, which slightly lowers the "recommended daily allowance," or RDA, of the nutrient.
Never eat more than 3,000 micrograms a day, because such high levels can cause severe liver disease and, in pregnant women, birth defects, the panel concluded.
Vitamin A is crucial for good vision, immune function and other bodily functions. In poor countries, vitamin A deficiency is a huge problem that blinds thousands.
Here, vitamin A deficiency is very rare, because Americans have so many foods chock full of the nutrient: meat, fish, eggs, vitamin-fortified breakfast cereals, and dark-colored fruits and vegetables like oranges, carrots and spinach.
It's easy for most Americans to get enough through diet alone, said Tufts University nutrition professor Robert Russell, who chaired the Institute of Medicine panel.
Vegetarians, however, may need to eat more dark-colored fruits and vegetables, because new research shows those foods actually yield half as much vitamin A as previously thought.
"We're not talking about eating mammoth amounts," Russell said. Half a cup of cooked carrots is enough. Cooking doubles the body's absorption of vitamin A, so people who prefer raw veggies need more.
But vitamin supplements - even a regular multivitamin that contains three times the RDA - can push people over safe levels, the report cautioned. Of most concern are megadoses sold in health food stores, often measured in confusing "international units." Know that 10,000 international units is the same as 3,000 micrograms, a dangerous amount, Russell warned.
The institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that advises the federal government and has set the nation's RDAs for nutrients since 1941.
Other nutrient levels released Tuesday: -Men and post-menopausal women need 8 milligrams a day of iron, vital to prevent anemia. Because iron is lost through bleeding, premenopausal women need 18 milligrams daily.
Iron is found in many foods, especially meat. But pregnant women need an extra 27 milligrams daily for fetal growth, and thus require iron in prenatal vitamins.
More than 45 milligrams a day will cause stomach upset. Also, men should not take iron supplements, the institute said. There's no benefit; some research suggests too much iron increases the risk of heart disease; and some people harbor a gene that makes their bodies dangerously overload iron.
-The RDA for zinc is 11 milligrams for men, 8 milligrams for women, a little lower than before because scientists have found the body stores zinc better than once thought. About 10 percent of Americans don't eat that much, a particular problem for children because zinc deficiency can stunt growth.
The upper limit is 40 milligrams a day. That much can block the body's absorption of another vital nutrient, copper. As for those zinc supplements popular to fight colds, there's not yet proof they really work and the doses could exceed the upper limit, IOM cautioned.
-Chromium, widespread through the food supply, may stimulate insulin, a hormone important for converting blood sugar into energy. Consequently, chromium supplements have become popular among people worried about diabetes. But the IOM called chromium supplement studies inconclusive and couldn't set an RDA or a safe upper limit because so little is known about the nutrient. Americans today eat 25 to 35 micrograms daily.
-Men need 120 micrograms of vitamin K daily, 90 for women. Found in green leafy vegetables and certain oils, it's essential for blood clotting.
-Copper's new RDA is 900 micrograms; the upper limit is 10 milligrams daily, which can cause liver damage. Copper is found in organ meats, seafood and nuts.
-Eat 150 micrograms a day of iodine but never more than 1.1 milligrams a day. Found mostly in iodized salt but also some seafood and grains, it's important for proper thyroid gland function.