To: IAHF List
Subject: Friends: The Next Steps to Bury FDA & Secure our Vitamin Freedom By Monkeywrenching CODEX
From: John Hammell
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 16:39:06 -0400
Fellow health freedom fighters:
I'd like to thank you for forwarding IAHF's anti Codex form letters to the criminal FDA and to your Senators and Congressmen. Again, the deadline is on August 22, tomorrow, Thursday, to get this form letter in to the criminal FDA so they will modify the draft US codex position re vitamins. Please snowball this urgent alert so that more people will go to http://www.lef.org to get the form letter to flood the FDA and congress, and lets keep this ball rolling.... be sure to make a link from your website to International Advocates for Health Freedom http://www.iahf.com and sign up on the IAHF site for emailed health freedom alerts... Be sure to forward this alert widely, and print it out to show your local health food store... Questions? Call John Hammell at IAHF 800-333-2553 N.America (Virginia) or 540-961-0476 world. Send donations to IAHF POB 10632 Blacksburg VA 24062-0632 USA or donate via paypal at http://www.iahf.com to assist with the video documentary:
Here is what we must do NOW:
PHASE 2: OPERATION MONKEYWRENCH CODEX
Background Info
In 1996 IAHF was the first to warn the world of the Codex international threat to health freedom via an article in Life Extension Magazine. In that article, we had a form letter that got sent en masse to the criminal FDA, and the FDA responded with spin controlled lies, as usual, wherein they claimed that Codex "poses no threat" to our domestic vitamin laws, "only to our industries international sales."
Interestingly, this Hitlerian level lie has since been regurgitated constantly not only by the FDA, but also by the pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations. Now, you might not be surprised to see the Council for Responsible Nutrition back the FDA in this lie- after all, when you look at their membership http://www.crnusa.org/2members.html you can readily see that their membership includes BASF, Bayer, Pfizer, and numerous other multinational giants that are actively trying to take over and destroy the dietary supplement industry world wide.
However you might be surprised to know that the National Nutritional Foods Association, the Utah Natural Products Alliance, and the American Herbal Products Association are also aiding and abetting the Pharma Cartel in promulgating this insidious lie because they too are controlled, from the top-down, by pharmaceutical interests and their rank and file members are simply not paying attention because they're immersed in the day to day running of their businesses, and they're easily conned.
UNLESS YOU HELP IAHF WAKE THEM UP....
This inattentiveness is going to drive a huge number of small to midsized vitamin companies (and even many larger companies) out of business in the USA, just as has already been happening all over the world in other countries where the Cartel's "squeeze play" has, um, "progressed" a bit further. Australia, Canada, and Norway where supplements have been "medicalized"- and consumer access has been sharply curtailed- and now the ruling elite are attempting to form a version of the EU Dictatorship in our hemisphere called the FTAA ("Free Trade Area of the Americas"
HEALTH FREEDOM CRUSHED IN THE EU on March 13, 2002 http://www.petition450.org Despite receiving over 6 Million emails protesting the EU Vitamin Directive (enough to crash the server at the EU Parliament), the EU Dictatorship rammed the EU Vitamin Directive down the throats of vitamin consumers all over Europe by a two thirds vote, and this threatens to force a finalized Codex vitamin standard through to completion at codex. The EU has 15 nations, plus the EU itself has a vote at Codex- thats 16 votes, plus the EU nations control the votes of at least a dozen other nations at Codex (former colonies in Africa and the Carribean) so thats at least 28 votes that the cartel now controls at Codex where its one nation- one vote- so even though the USA is the world's largest manufacturer of dietary supplements- we don't have any more voting power at Codex than some tiny little country like Norway or Gabon or Togo....
See how they have the game rigged against us? This is why we must pull out of the UN and out of the WTO because none of our domestic laws are safe from harmonization to international so called "standards" as the "race to the bottom" continues... When I demonstrated in Seattle in '99 against the WTO, we faced down armored personnel carriers and goons shooting tear gas and hard plastic bullets that can crush your trachea or blind - even kill, and we saw the face of the future unless a lot more of us fight very hard to expose this tyranny.
THE FIX IS IN: On March 20, 2001 Burton WHITEWASHED the Codex Vitamin Oversight Hearing-- WHAT WE MUST DO TO COUNTER THIS...
For 5 years IAHF pushed very hard for an oversight hearing, ever since I first observed Yetley violate US law at a Codex meeting in Germany where I was on the US Codex delegation. Pharmaceutical efforts were able to block a hearing on this issue from taking place- but then in 2001 Gary Null got behind IAHF's effort to clamor for a hearing, and the Cartel couldn't continue to block a hearing- but they did whitewash the hearing to block shut our side out- by blocking me and our other witnesses from presenting testimony and by allowing Karl Riedel of NNFA to lie under oath wherein he regurgitated the FDA's Big Lie- that Codex doesn't threaten our domestic law "only" our international sales....
Milt Copulous on Congressman Burton's staff was attempting to help IAHF to get an oversight hearing, until one morning when Milt got fired for his troubles. He wasn't fired by Burton, he was fired by someone with power over him on the committee staff who had been bought off by the Cartel. When this happened, Milt called me and was angry and sickened by what he saw unfolding. He told me that the powers that be had fired him for trying to help me, and they'd set him up with a job on the outside in order to stop him from any ongoing interraction with me. He told me he was sure that whoever the committee staff put on the Codex issue after firing him would be a plant who would do everything humanly possible to block the truth from coming out....
Truer words were never spoken, unfortunately because Beth Clay was assigned the Codex issue and she did everything humanly possible to help the cartel to whitewash the hearing. Instrumental in this whitewashing was NNFA's DC based lobbying firm in 2001 Parry, Romani, Deconcini and Symms- which is riddled with multinational pharmaceutical clients---- including Pfizer-Randy Dennin's company. (Dennin was co chair of NNFA's International Committee in 2001 along with Riedel who lied under oath at the whitewashed oversight hearing. [See client list of PRD&C at http://www.lobbycongress.com ]
WHAT CAN WE DO NOW: 1. Americans (and vitamin consumers world wide) must send donations to:
IAHF POB 10632 Blacksburg, VA 24062-0632 to assist us in putting together a Documentary on this issue in order to awaken sleeping members of NNFA so that they will quit NNFA and start actively fighting back. We need their help to get an honest oversight hearing on this issue. Donations to IAHF can also be made via paypal at http://www.iahf.com
2. Americans and vitamin consumers world wide should also send donations to the UK based Health Freedom Movement via http://www.healthfreedommovement.com to help fund a lawsuit against the European Commission because the vitamin directive, herb directive, and new definition of a medicine in the EU are genocide measures that are not backed by sound science. Their fight is our fight due to how measures in the EU threaten to impact the USA via harmonization.
3. IAHF needs your help to THANK Congressman Ron Paul and Peter De Fazio for standing with us on this issue. They are the only two members of Congress who see the truth on this issue, and we urgently need to educate more Congressmen to assist us in getting an HONEST oversight hearing on this issue, since we did NOT get one in 2001. Reach any member of congress via http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov and be sure to make calls to educate them to the need for another oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue. Please see Paul and De Fazio's letter to Burton at http://www.iahf.com by clicking on the spinning globe on the front of the IAHF site to see the gif file of this letter. Burton was wrong to ignore this letter.
4. Please inform Gary Null that he wrongly stabbed John Hammell in the back, on the air, on his radio show last year, wrongly blaming me for the whitewashing of the oversight hearing on March 20, 2001. I pushed for 5 years to try to get that hearing and in no way deserved Null's outrageous level of flak. His ego got the better of him on the air, and he needs to continue pushing for genuine oversight on this issue or what just happened in the EU on March 13, 2002 will happen here in the USA. Very powerful pharmaceutical forces did not want the truth to come out on this issue. They got Milt Copulous fired, and had Beth Clay installed as a plant. Clay formerly was a snitch for Varmus at NIH where she played a role in getting people fired from the Office of Alternative Medicine when they did things Varmus didn't like. She got a friend of mine fired for merely giving out the phone numbers of alternative practitioners to members of the public who called in urgently seeking help.
5. Please show the following information to health food store owners and vitamin company CEOs, because they need to quit NNFA en masse and band together with IAHF to form a new trade association, one that will actually fight back to defend the industry and consumer rights or what happened in the EU is going to happen here:
NNFA (National Nutritional Foods Assn) has a conflict of interest disclosure bylaw, Article 14.6 in their bylaws, which they're not enforcing.
Due to this, members of NNFA very myopically allowed Randy Dennin, CEO of Capsugel, subsidiary of Pfizer, (the largest pharmaceutical company in the world), to co chair NNFA's International Committee along with Karl Reidel in 1998, the year FDA violated US law by putting a paper on the table at Codex titled "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Upper Levels for Nutrients."
Lets take a close look at this for a minute:
The pharmaceutical industry cannot succeed in taking over the dietary supplement industry without worming their way in to the vitamin trade associations in order to control key decisions that influence the thinking of their membership.
What has made it frighteningly easy for the pharmaceutical industry to get control of all the vitamin trade associations in the world is a group culture of "Go Along, Get Along, Don't Make Waves".
OK- So we have this guy, Randy Dennin, whose company, Capsugel, sells 70% of the capsules used in the manufacture of vitamin products. He's the consummate sales type of guy: gregarius, friendly, charming, a real "people person" a "nice guy." But how REAL is he? How much should we TRUST him?
Dennin is employed by the largest pharmaceutical company in the world: Pfizer, which recently acquired Pharmacia, which in turn acquired Monsanto. Can ANYONE trust Monsanto? (Answer: hell no) Can ANYONE trust Pfizer, which acquired Monsanto to become the largest pharmaceutical company in the world? (Answer, hell no.)
I was at NNFA's trade show in Las Vegas in the summer of '99 when Randy Dennin and Pfizer spent a few grand to have a "Hospitality Suite" at the trade show where they had a fancy catered dinner/shmooze fest complete with lots of fancy imported beer and cheeses, and a big spread of food. Everyone at the show was invited to come have dinner, drink beer and wine, and listen to Randy, Karl Reidel, and an attorney named Simon Pettman talk about IADSA, (International Alliance of Dietary Supplement Trade Associations) an umbrella group of vitamin trade associations from all over the world, that was created (supposedly) to get the rest of the world to harmonize to DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.)
They had an overhead projector, and Karl Reidel showed a transparency of a map of the world, showing the USA in green symbolizing a country with optimal access to supplements, several countries marked with stripes-indicating partial access to supplements, and a lot more countries (most of the world) in RED indicating little to no access to supplements. With a grandiose gesture, Reidel swept his arm across his chest, and as if by magic, all the red countries turned green- and it was drummed into people's overly trusting heads that IADSA's mission was to get the rest of the world to harmonize to our very liberal vitamin laws.
Randy Dennin, and IADSA lobbyist Simon Pettman, gave speeches which reinforced this supposed goal.
Only problem was........ the entire presentation was a massive con job in which they employed the Hitlerian BIG LIE technique, and the really SICK thing is that the rank and file membership of NNFA has fallen for this SHIT hook, line and sinker, being too busy going about their day to day business to pay the proper attention and to look into what they've been told, so they just don't see through the LIE, even though its not that HARD to see through- they're just not focused on any of this though because NNFA (via Reidel/ennin/Pettman) are telling them WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR: ("Don't worry about Codex, we're handling it, and it doesn't pose ANY THREAT to US domestic law, it ONLY threatens our international sales- but via IADSA, we're doing everything we can to protect your interests.")
In REALITY, the only interests being "protected" by IADSA are those of PFIZER and the other multinational pharmaceutical interests that are dominating the decision making of the vitamin trade associations world wide, and they want to MEDICALIZE the supplement industry, drive all the small players out of business, make high potency vitamins only available by Rx, and drive a lot of supplements off the market COMPLETELY.
At that same NNFA trade show in vegas in '99, NNFA used security guards against me to stop me from participating in their business meeting, and they used security guards again to block me from disseminating a 2 page flyer at the show that called attention to the massive problem of conflict of interest inside NNFA that is causing their rank and file membership to be led to the cliff.
They can make far more money selling high potency vitamins by Rx because they can make MORE MONEY from LESS PRODUCT, while SIMULTANEOUSLY stopping dietary supplements from cutting into the sale of patented pharmaceutical drugs (where they make MOST of their money.)
SMOKING GUN PROVES IADSA IS A CONTROLLED OPPOSITION GROUP AND THAT PEOPLE MUST QUIT NNFA
In April of 2002, IADSA held a meeting in Vancouver, Canada. Ron Law, executive director of NNFA NZ wanted to make a presentation at that meeting about the immense threat to health freedom in New Zealand posed by pharmaceutical efforts to force tiny New Zealand to harmonize its liberal vitamin laws to Australia's far more restrictive laws. Ron expected IADSA to help defend the supplement industry in New Zealand from harmonization to Australia, and he very naively expected Dennin to help him.
It sure was no surprise to me that Dennin refused to allow Law to make this presentation, I tried to warn Law years before when IADSA was first formed that it was controlled opposition, but he failed to grasp that concept and he was sucked in, like many others have been, into trusting Dennin.
Also, Dennin had agreed to allow for a rotating chairmanship within IADSA for representation of the IADSA region of the Southwest Pacific, so that chairmanship would rotate between Australia and New Zealand. 2001 Australia held this chairmanship, which was supposed to rotate to New Zealand in 2002, but Dennin reneged on that promise, clearly indicating his desire to medicalize these products and for Australia's regulations to be used as a global model, at the expense of health freedom in New Zealand and everywhere else including the USA.
When Kava came under attack in the mass media, the attack occurred just 2 weeks before an all important committee vote on the EU Vitamin Directive. Even though herbs do not come under the purview of the Vitamin Directive (they have a seperate herb directive via which they're trying to screw EU consumers) it hardly made sense for IADSA not to issue a press release defending KAVA at that critical time, but thats exactly what happened: Simon Pettman, IADSA lobbyist in Brussels, refused to issue a press release defending kava because he is simultaneously lobbying for a lot of pharmaceutical interests via all the different trade associations he's lobbying for including EHPM and ERNA- both of which are riddled with pharmaceutical interests. Ron Law is an expert on risk analysis, and he sent Pettman all the info that Pettman would have needed to do a great job of putting together a really good press release to defend KAVA, but Pettman didn't send one out.
When Ron Law complained that Pettman was involved in a serious conflict of interest, Dennin chastised him, and this conflict combined with Law's not being allowed to make a presentation in Vancouver about the threat of trans Tasman harmonization to Australia's far more restrictive supplement laws, combined with Dennin's refusal to honor his promise to allow for chairmanship of the IADSA SW Pacific region to rotate from Australia, to New Zealand in 2002, caused NNFA New Zealand to send IADSA an letter which raised very serious questions about all of this.....
IADSA's response? Dennin and Pettman and the IADSA Board ignored IADSA's constitution by throwing NNFA New Zealand out of IADSA.....
How BLIND can NNFA members BE?
NNFA is lying to them when they tell them that Codex poses "no threat" to US domestic law---- that it "only poses a threat" to our international sales.....
The REALITY is that IADSA is doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Dennin would have the industry BELIEVE they are doing..... they're not trying to harmonize the world to DSHEA, they're trying to medicalize these products, and their treatment of NNFA New Zealand PROVES THIS beyond any shadow of a doubt.
For 5 years I pushed for an oversight hearing in Congress on the Codex vitamin issue, but pharmaceutical interests kept a hearing from occurring-until 2001 when I had enough grass roots support due to Gary Null's help to force the issue to be addressed at a hearing, but they WHITEWASHED the hearing not letting me testify, not letting any of our witnesses testify. They let Karl Reidel lie under oath, so the fix is in. We have been set up for the complete destruction of our vitamin laws because FDA is setting us up to lose in a future WTO trade dispute by creating a false definition of vitamin safety.
Under the terms of the SPS agreement, a sub agreement of GATT, the only legal means by which a country can avoid harmonizing its domestic vitamin laws to a finalized Codex standard is on a basis of SAFETY. So FDA, with help from NAS, with backing from CRN and the rest of the pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations are setting us up to lose in a WTO trade dispute by creating this false definition, while doing spin control on the members of NNFA in order to con them about what is really going on.
Moreover, the drug companies that are dominating the vitamin trade associations world wide have already announced their intentions to harmonize the USA to the EU and to Codex via a press release sent out by TABD (the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue) in 2000 which has been posted on the CRN website for the past 2 years, but people are too busy with their day to day business to pay any attention to what is staring them in the face in plain site: see http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html Duh.... who are the co chairs of the TABD Dietary Supplement Working Group? JB Cordaro of CRN and Peter Heer of Hoffman La Roche.....
Do they want to harmonize the EU to DSHEA? Hell no, they're fixin' to do the exact OPPOSITE but members of NNFA aren't paying any attention, because in September of '99, NNFA published an article intended to be spin against my entire message on all of this..... this spin piece, authored by NNFA Attorney Charles Raubicheck and Karl Reidel told NNFA members what they wanted to hear, but it sure as hell was a LIE.
So, what should NNFA members do in the face of this? They should get behind IAHF http://www.iahf.com and should QUIT NNFA. If they have any questions, they should call me at 800-333-2553. Why should they get behind IAHF? Simple, all these years, while NNFA was lying to them, I have REALLY been in their corner and in the corner of vitamin consumers all over the world. I need their help to force Congress to hold a GENUINE oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue since they whitewashed the hearing held on March 20, 2001 and the truth did NOT come out. If I don't get this help, the whole American supplement industry will go down the tubes exactly the same way the European industry is right now. The American supplement industry better awaken FAST to these facts:
On March 13, 2002, despite the largest referendum in human history opposing its passage, the EU Vitamin Directive was shoved down the throats of the people of Europe. See http://www.petition450.org Now, the worlds ruling elite are forming a version of the EU Dictatorship in our hemisphere: the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a hemispheric wide expansion of NAFTA.......
Anyone who thinks our dietary supplement laws are safe in the face of globalization is just not paying attention. What can we do about it? There must be a massive grass roots push to get us out of the UN and out of the WTO, otherwise, we're not going to be living in America much longer, we'll be sector 39 or some shit in a global totalitarian state run from Brussels and Geneva.
Am I being an "alarmist"? Now at all, and anyone who checks into what I'm saying in any kind of honest way can easily see that I am correct. Where there is no vision..... the people perish. I have a vision, a vision of a world where everyone can have the same chance I've had to heal using vitamins- a world where everyone can have the freedom that we have here to have access to dietary supplements.
Isn't it time owners of health food stores paid attention to my message? Isn't it time all the small to mid sized vitamin companies that are members of NNFA paid attention? If they don't pay attention, what is happening in Europe is going to happen here.....
John Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
Blacksburg, Virginia
http://www.iahf.com
800-333-2553 N.America
540-961-0476 World
jham@iahf.com
WASHINGTON, DC -- The dietary supplements sector-working group of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) agreed on several key elements to harmonize the regulatory framework for vitamin and mineral food supplements on both sides of the Atlantic. These major breakthroughs were forged at the Sixth TABD CEO Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, from November 16-18.The working group approved the principles and components on definition, safety, and GMPs.
The working group also agreed to continue its dialogue and that its next steps would be to:Define types of claims and appropriate labeling for food supplements and develop criteria for transatlantic acceptance of credible scientific evidence to substantiate these claims; evaluate mechanisms for authorizing/approving claims; and assess conditions for exclusivity to encourage research and development. Encourage the scientific bodies responsible for the evaluation of the safety of total intakes of vitamins and minerals (EU Scientific Committee on Food and US Food and Nutrition Board) to cooperate closely to harmonize setting upper safe levels for vitamins and minerals. Define and recommend methodologies for setting maximum levels for vitamin and/or mineral food supplements on the basis of upper safe levels of total intake for these nutrients and intakes from other sources.
The responsible regulatory bodies are encouraged to cooperate and establish one set of figures for maximum levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements on both sides of the Atlantic. Seek urgently, in light of the imminent proposed US rule on GMPs, transatlantic harmony for implementing common GMPs and quality standards. The working group also agreed to develop practical procedures to support GMP details; and seek acceptance, implementation, and appropriate enforcement.
Progress toward transatlantic harmonization of dietary supplements was led by a team of supplement CEO's that included: Gale Bensussen, Leiner Health Products Inc.; William Van Dyke, B&D Nutritional Ingredients, Inc.; Johannes Burges, Hermes Arzneimittel; and Sonnich Fryland, Ferrosan. They were among the more than 120 industry leaders from the U.S. and the European Union who called on their governments to adopt a list of progressive trade liberalization measures at this TABD CEO Conference. The CEO's, meeting with senior officials form the U.S. Administration, the European Commission, the U.S. Congress, and the European Parliament, made recommendations on how best to boost transatlantic and global trade and investment. They focused on specific mechanisms for resolving trade disputes and expanding the U.S.-EU commercial marketplace, which at $1 billion per day in two-way trade, is the world's largest trading relationship."The recommendations we have developed at this meeting will, if adopted by the governments, expand trade and investment opportunities for large, medium, and small companies by removing obstacles and inefficiencies in the U.S. and European regulatory regimes," said George David, chairman and CEO of United Technologies Corporation and US TABD chair for 2000. "Adoption of these recommendations will create jobs, raise living standards, lower costs and improve access to goods–that is, provide concrete benefits for business, for labor, and for consumers."The TABD is a results-oriented forum that seeks to increase transatlantic trade and investment opportunities through the removal of costly inefficiencies from excessive regulation, duplication and differences in the EU and U.S. regulatory systems and procedures in a manner consistent with sustainable development.
For details about the dietary supplement sector working group progress and future plans, contact either Issues Manager John Cordaro–USA jcordaro@crnusa.org or Peter Heer–Europe peter.heer@roche.com.