To: "Health Freedom, Codex Issues
Subject: IAHF Petition to the European Parliament Re Vitamin Directive: IAHF Stands in Solidarity With A British Vitamin Consumer
From: "I A H F" jham@iahf.com
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 17:32:22 -0500

IAHF List & Other Interested Parties: I just sent the following petition [below my comments] against the EU Vitamin Directive to the European Parliament via http://www.europarl.eu.int/petition/petition_en.htm, and offered to go to Brussels to address their Committee on the Environment regarding this important public health issue. If the EU Parliament does not vote to kill this mindlessly restrictive vitamin directive on February 20th, their decision will not only adversely impact the public health of people all over the EU, but also the world via Codex and the WTO as the "race to the bottom" continues...... It is due to just this sort of mindlessness that I participated in the Battle of Seattle against the WTO in November 1999, and threw tear gas cannisters back at the cops.

The only legal out (re Codex harmonization) is safety, but our pharmaceutically dominated congress has allowed the FDA to fraudulently define vitamin safety via the National Academy of Sciences so called "risk assessment" paper which creates supposed "Safe Upper Levels" for nutrients such as the mindlessly restrictive limit of 35 mg on niacin (just because it causes a harmless flushing effect in some people at that low a dose as blood rushes through dilated capillaries to the surface of the skin.) See NAS paper and REBUTTAL at http://www.iahf.com The REBUTTAL was written by Richard Malter, PhD and was published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Orthomolecular MDs world wide, please take note!!! NAS is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, we we can't get the raw data behind this biased, unscientific paper, or the CVs of its authors. My own sleuthing indicates that most are heads of University Nutrition Departments that are awash in pharmaceutical grant money.

Funding for this bogus paper was provided by the same drug companies that got busted by the US Dept.of Justice and their international counterparts for engaging in illegal price fixing in the sale of vitamin raw materials globally. Codex is their back door play against the vitamin consumers of the world, and the pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations are playing their game. That is why the March 20, 2001 Oversight Hearing held by congressman Burton whitewashed this issue by ignoring the warning of Congressmen Paul & De Fazio. [See gif file of their letter to Burton prior to the whitewashed hearing at http://www.iahf.com click on the spinning green disk. The Congressional Research Service informed Paul and De Fazio that literally ALL of our domestic laws are in jeopardy of harmonization to international standards, this is why Congressman Paul introduced The American Sovereignty Restoration Act HR 1146 which would pull us out of the United Nations and out of Codex to stop this vast genocidal Pharma Cartel screwing now in "progress."]

In the following petition, I have informed the EU Parliament that they should carefully examine Matthias Rath's website http://www.dr-rath-research.org in order to grasp the negative public health implications of ramming through their vitamin directive.

I have urged them to consider the fact that over 26,000 vitamin consumers from 114 nations oppose the EU vitamin directive as can be seen at http://www.laleva.cc I have urged the European Parliament to reconsider what they are doing in light of the fact that the impact this would have on Codex would set up a trade war with the USA over this issue. I have discussed the fact that 75 Million armed Americans are not about to tolerate a WTO Dispute Settlement decision that would force the USA to harmonize its vitamin laws to the EU and Codex, and that the thing that makes the most sense from a global public health standpoint is for the EU to harmonize its laws to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 since there is no way in hell the American people are going to be pushed around on this issue.

I urged the EU Parliament to properly consider the views of the British citizen who's petition is tacked onto the end of mine at the risk of being viewed as dictators by vitamin consumers all over the world. IAHF considers this petition to be a shot across the bow of the multinational pharma cartel which dominates the EU, and which would like to dominate America, but never will. Some have alleged that the American revolution has become a "fat lady drivin' a Cadillac".

IAHF and 75 Million armed Americans disagree. NNFA, CRN, AHPA, UNPA, EHPM, IADSA, and other Cartel dominated vitamin trade associations who are selling us out by only going through the motions of defending health freedom: you have been put on notice that your conciliatory compromising is not acceptable to we, the hardliners, whose backs are to the wall. Our very lives depend on having access to dietary supplements. To the would be Rand Skolnicks of the world: a day of reckoning will come when you have to stand naked before your Creator as you try to justify your greed driven actions. [Skolnick sold Solgar to AHP, Multinational Pharmaceutical Giant. Boycott urged.]

Anyone can be on the IAHF list, sign up at http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=IAHF Appreciate IAHF's no hold's barred style of confronting the tyranical Pharma Cartel dictators from hell and the corrupt, pharmaceutically dominated vitamin trade associations which continue to sell out we, the vitamin consuming people of the world? Send a donation via paypal http://www.iahf.com or via IAHF POB 625 Floyd, VA 24091 USA Thanks and Please forward this widely. If you live in the EU, please send your own petition to the EU Parliament and make up flyers to circulate through the health food stores. If any health food store refuses to cooperate with your efforts, show them this- its HARDBALL time- OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL, each one, teach one, pass it on- the sleeping GIANT is awakening!!

To the Members of the EU Parliament c/o http://www.europarl.eu.int/petition/petition_en.htm

International Advocates for Health Freedom has the largest global network of vitamin consumers in the world. We stand in solidarity with the British citizen below who has expressed the following quite valid concerns regarding the EU Vitamin Directive which is scheduled to be voted on in Brussels on February 20, 2002. As public health advocates we urge the European Parliament and European Commission to give very serious consideration to scrapping the EU Vitamin Directive entirely per the first amendment on this issue [See http://www.codexalimentarius.org for complete info]

This amendment to scrap the Directive is being currently backed by 9MEPs, who currently echo the wishes of vitamin consumers world wide as seen via the more 26,000 signatures from vitamin consumers in 114 nations who have signed the petition against the EU Vitamin Directive at http://www.laleva.cc (La Leva Di Archimede: Italian Health Freedom Organization) IAHF strongly recommends that the EU Parliament scrap the EU Vitamin Directive, and harmonize the EU instead to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 see http://www.fda.gov The Public Health Reasons for this being necessary are fully explained on the website of Matthias Rath, MD at http://www.dr-rath-research.org

To not do this flies in the face of reason, and would condemn people all over the EU to unecessary lives of ill health. It would also clearly send a signal to vitamin consumers all over the EU that the European Parliament is not responsive to the will of the people but instead merely does the bidding of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which seeks to protect its markets from competition from vitamin companies at the expense of the public health.

It would send a signal to people all over the EU that they now live in a total dictatorship. Moreover, passage of the EU Vitamin Directive is being instigated by a White Paper generated by Hill and Knowlton, the same PR firm that manufactured consent for the USA to get into the Gulf War by generating a phony news story wherein the niece of the Kuwaiti Ambassador pretended to have seen invading Iraqui troops yank Kuwaiti babies off of incubators, leaving them to die a cruel death on a cold concrete floor.

How can any information generated by a spin controlling PR firm such as Hill and Knowlton be trusted? IAHF stands in solidarity with the view expressed below by a vitamin consumer in the UK, and warns that if the EU Vitamin Directive is pushed through, it could push the equally unscientific/anti publich health Codex vitamin standard through to completion, but the USA would refuse to harmonize its laws to it due to the enormous grass roots strength of vitamin consumers in the USA who killed an FDA rulemaking agenda that threatened to destroy consumer access to dietary supplements by flooding congress with more mail than they'd ever received in the history of the US Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.

There is no way the American people would ever tolerate a WTO Dispute Settlement Body Decision to force the USA to harmonize its laws to a finalized Codex vitamin standard, and due to the fact that there are 75 Million armed Americans, one out of every two households, there is no way the American people will ever accept such multinational corporate tyranny. The angry rebellion that would inevitably ensue if Americans were ever placed under the sort of attack that British vitamin consumers are currently under would make the Seattle Anti WTO Demonstrations resemble a sunday school picnic by comparison. My ancestors came to America in the early 1500s from Scotland in search of religious freedom.

I am proud of my Scots ancestry, and am proud of the vitamin consumers all over the UK who staunchly oppose the EU Vitamin Directive. I urge all members of the European Parliament to please hear them out, you represent them, and they deserve to have sound decision making in this area so that they will not lose access to the safe substances that have not been posing any problems. Each of us has a God given right to ingest whatever we wish into our own bodies.

If you want to pass legislation that helps the public health, I urge you to leave safe dietary supplements alone, and instead focus on doing something about the world's third leading cause of death: properly prescribed pharmaceutical prescription drugs. See complete stats on comparitive safety of vitamins vs drugs at http://www.laleva.cc

As a person who recovered from a life threatening illness 24 years ago via a suppressed alternative medical treatment mode (orthomolecular medicine) that involves the use of dietary supplements to bring about healing on a cellular level using the constituents of the proteins that comprise each of our cells: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, trace elements, and hormones- I have spoken before the National Institutes of Health and was on the Ad Hoc Advisory Board that helped to establish the Office of Alternative Medicine at NIH which is today the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

I urge the European Parliament to give very serious thought to this issue, and if I may be of any assistance, I would be glad to come to Brussels to give a presentation that could help educate all MEPs on the Environment committee so that they will have a much clearer understanding of this very important public health issue.

For the Public Health,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
POB 625 Floyd, Virginia, 24091 USA
http://www.iahf.com
jham@iahf.com
540-763-3051 h&w (number to call from Europe)
N.America 800-333-2553

see petition below from a British Citizen on this issue: IAHF stands in solidarity

The Food Supplements Directive
Please consider moving the rejection of this measure as it seeks for no established good reason to ban from trade numerous food supplement ingredients which have been safely used for many years. Furthermore, the Commission, through the intermediacy of this measure, purports to refer some of these substances at manufacturers request to the Scientific Committee for Food for safety assessment, which assessment, if not negative, would give those substances a temporary permission for use after which they would then be banned.

I contend that the EU has never banned a food except on safety grounds and that this Directive sets an unwelcome precedent in that regard; and that the proposed "arrangement" whereby innocent substances will eventually be banned is patently unjust and, indeed, nonsensical.

Moreover, the measure in its current form proposes that upper permissible levels of vitamins and minerals be set by a political process in the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs where scientifically established upper safe levels will form only a part of the deliberations. I ask you to consider that questions of safety or otherwise are not appropriate to political horse-trading and should be established on scientific and epidemiological grounds alone. I submit this petition as a resident of Great Britain and a citizen of the EU, who is a consumer of food supplement and a registered practitioner of complementary/alternative medicine.