To: IAHF List
Subject: Live Pre Oversight Hearing Codex Report from Capital Hill in Washington
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 00:14:28 -0500
IAHF List: Tomorrow Congressman Paul and De Fazio will put a dissenting statement into the hearing record on the Codex vitamin issue, and they'll also issue a "Dear Colleague" letter to discuss the truth of the Codex vitamin issue, (the truth that won't come out in the Hearing itself.)
Since the Government Reform Committee and the Commerce Committee are the only House Committees with jurisdiction over our issue, we will never get what we need from the House of so called "Representatives" (who clearly don't represent the people of America any longer as Congress has become a truly sick joke, a body that has no problem whatsoever ignoring petitions such as ours entirely as they go through the motions of pretending to be interested in campaign finance reform, even as they look for ways to scuttle such legislation in their zeal to constantly manipulate our perceptions so as to remain in office, continuing to feed like pigs from the public trough.
This trip to DC began in surreal fashion, as I found myself accompanying a friend from Silver Spring Maryland who is kind enough to let me crash on his couch into a mormon church in Kensington, Maryland where I listened to Senator Orrin Hatch (sponsor of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994) deliver a personal confession of faith. Kafkaesque. Surreal. Kinda like watching a horror movie while seriously stoned, numb to the awful reality of the situation. I watched Hatch's lips move far off in the distance as I sat high up in the bleacher seats feeling very far away indeed.
While listening to the Senator's solemn intonation, I couldn't help but wonder if he would bother to read, much less think about the message neatly folded up in my shirt pocket which I handed him after the program ended as people were filing out. I might not ever find out if he read my message, much less whether or not he attempted to act on it, but I will try to find out this week as I intend to try to meet with Bruce Artim on his staff if I am able to get an appointment. The last time I tried to talk with Artim, he was angry as hell at me because I had you guys flood Hatch's press secretary with requests that Hatch get an emergency injunction in federal court to stop Yetley from continuing to violate the law at Codex.
Artim indicated to me that he too has either bought into the big lie that Federal Statute 19 USC 3512 (a)(1) and (a)(2) protects our domestic law, or that he knows it doesn't, but is playing the pharma cartel's game in total non comprehension. Too bad they won't let international law expert Suzanne Harris, or Malter or I testify tomorrow.
Too bad NNFA's witnesses will all be going over to the IADSA meeting in Capetown to assist the cartel develop the Global regs intended to enslave us all just 10 days after they all speak as scripted by the Cartel's attorneys.
Hatch's talk was down to earth and interesting. He grew up in Pittsburgh PA in a house that his dad had rebuilt after a fire which did not have indoor plumbing, and he was a boxer at one time- neither of which I knew about him. His many years of public speaking as a Senator were evident in his delivery which was crisp, and polished, and it was interesting to hear such a deeply personal statement coming from this public figure.
At the end of the program, I waited in a short line and told the Senator that Congressman Burton was going to be blind sided on tuesday (tomorrow) unless someone could wake him up somehow to the truth, and I handed him the "Fiction/Fact" 2 page summary of the Codex vitamin issue that I sent to you by email on sunday just before leaving for DC. I asked him to please talk to the Congressman, and as I asked him to, I felt sort of nauseous, rather like a quarterback attempting to throw a "hail Mary" desperation pass the full length of a football field in a last ditch chance to try to save 5 years worth of intense research on this issue, even though I know tomorrow's "dog and pony show" is only the opening skirmish in what will be a much longer war because the other side can't do spin control against the American people forever on this issue and keep a lid on it- its much too big an issue for them to be able to keep things under wraps forever.
What will Hatch and Burton say to people when the ugly spector of harmonization rears up in everyone's faces so that the whole country finally realizes with horror that we've been led to the edge of the cliff? Perhaps they won't even still be in office when this happens, and two other talking heads will have taken their place by then as Virtual government goes on as before. Scary, aint it?
What is going to happen tomorrow behind the doors of Room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building at Burton's Oversight Hearing is so predictable that I don't even know why I'm going except to scoop up the written testimony, and copies of the scripted questions that members of the Committee will be asking the witnesses. I would like to hear the Committee's questions, and would like to see whether or not Burton says anything whatsoever that indicates that he might have at least CONSIDERED what all of us have been trying so hard to lob in to him, or not.
Frankly, I doubt I'll witness anything other than scripting, massive scripting with zero real thought at all. I'll observe the jaws of Karl Riedel, NNFA's International Committee Co Chair move up and down and in about 30 seconds of inane chatter, he'll perform as expected, on cue, echoing the words of Charles Raubicheck and Randy Dennin, which Dennin in turn will have heard from Pfizer's attorneys- and who the hell knows who Sidley and Austin's OTHER clients are besides NNFA???
Through Riedel's mouth these Cartel scum will speak, and his talking head will declare Codex to be a "non issue". He'll say that NNFA regards the National Academy of Sciences Paper "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Safe Upper Levels for Nutrients" to be "the best science available" with which to "defend our business interests abroad" and he might even thank Dr.Yetley of the FDA for putting it on the table at Codex, if his discussion even goes that far.
I won't have any breakfast tomorrow. That way I won't have anything in my stomach to lose.
Keep in mind that in '98 when Riedel and I were on the US Codex delegation together in Berlin, he chastised me for having confronted Yetley with my camcorder for ignoring Burton's letter which told her not to put the NAS paper on the table. After chastising me, he thanked me for acting so rudely towards FDA because my rudeness towards them was apparently the reason NNFA sent him to the Codex meeting "to compensate for my presence" as he so arrogantly put it.
FDA, NNFA,CRN, UNPA, IADSA, TABD----- have all become interchangable in my mind as they're really all one big happy family- the Pharma Cartel in various guises, some totally obvious, some not so obvious, but as our grass roots movement continues to grow, we'll expose this little scam more and more, so tomorrow's hearing won't be the end of this strange saga, not by a long shot.
Congressmen Paul and De Fazio will be putting a dissenting statement into the hearing record, and they'll be issuing a Dear Colleague letter to raise awareness of our concerns.
Although these two Congressman are in our corner, the rest have yet to be sufficiently educated, and we're going to just have to keep on working to build our coalition larger and stronger.
When I went to Burton's office today, and to the Committee office, predictably, the very paranoid Beth Clay was nowhere in evidence, but I sure was greeted by a massive police presence. The police were on my like glue the moment I got to Burton's office. They must have had someone stake out his office all day long, wondering if I would show up or not. I got there at 4pm. The staffer in Burton's main office was quite unfriendly as might be expected, and conferred with the cops while I sat there for a minute.
No one there was willing to meet with me, so I wandered on down the hall to the Commitee office with 6 cops escorting me. I got there and neither Beth, nor her assistant TJ were anywhere in evidence or had left instructions in the outer office for the receptionist to tell me they weren't there. So I left my "Fiction/Fact" synopsis of the issue, and left to go to the Canon building, cops following me all the while.
I waited for a while to talk with Norm Singleton, while this army of cops all hung out in the hall. I told my escorts I'd be a while and gave them copies of my "Fiction/Fact" piece which they read in complete boredom, having no clue what they were reading, but glad to have something to break up the monotony of doing "guard duty" in order to protect Congress from allegedly mad dog Hammell.
Dave Ajay was NNFA's very first President. Three years ago at the NNFA trade show in Las Vegas I discussed the Codex vitamin issue with him in depth, and he is with us, he sees the corruption inside NNFA today and it angers him greatly.
NNFA was an honest organization at one time, when it was first started on someone's kitchen table, back when health food stores were small mom and pop stores.
Those days are gone, very far gone, and as this industry keeps getting further and further from its original grass roots base, the need for groups such as IAHF to pull things back grows stronger, and the words from the street demo in Seattle echo back to me from the not so distant past:
"There aint no power like the power of the people and the power of the people don't stop."
Tomorrow won't be the end of this battle people, tomorrow will be a day that will live in infamy, and the Cartel will never be able to live it down. The big lie they will tell tomorrow will only expose their scam, and I am very confidently calling it in advance. It will backfire on them just like Grossklauss's action of forcing me to turn my camcorder off at the Codex meeting in Berlin in '98 has already backfired on him.
Our movement is just BEGINNING. Stay tuned..... I'll be talking with everyone on this committee, and we're going to be organizing a Briefing that will be videotaped and put on the web to further expose the lie.
Reporting Live from Capital Hill
John Hammell