Open Letter to JB Cordaro and Peter Heer of CRN/Hoffman La Roche

To: IAHF List
Subject: Open Letter to JB Cordaro and Peter Heer of CRN/Hoffman La Roche Re Codex Vitamin Issue
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2000 15:27:45 -0500

All Webmasters: Please Post

Everyone: Please Forward Widely- I will forward, as well as post any response to this, (if there is one.)

This letter constitutes a direct effort to defend the public health of vitamin consumers world wide who are in the process of being disenfranchised and injured by multinational pharmaceutical corporate interests operating behind closed doors via the "Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue" (TABD), via the EU, and via the UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission's Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use who show every sign of appearing to place profits very far ahead of the public health, and who seek to take over, and dominate the dietary supplement industry, for their own selfish personal gain using subterfuge, outright lies, and spin controlled allegedly "scientific" papers, which lack any credability because THEY funded them, and there has been no chance for any public involvement in this highly illegitimate so called "process."

Vitamin consumers world wide must forward this to their elected officials and request oversight, as well as assistance to stop this heist in progress. IAHF Needs your urgent donations to catalyze global opposition to this vast screwing: IAHF POB 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA

From: John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
December 9, 2000
PO Box 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA
http://www.iahf.com

To: JB Cordaro- President, CEO,
The Council for Responsible Nutrition
Peter Heer - Hoffman La Roche, member CRN

Re: Your Press Release Titled: "U.S. and International Leaders Agree on Principles to Harmonize Dietary Supplement Regulations" (November 20,2000)
http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html

Dear Mr.Cordaro and Mr. Heer:

I wrote to you 2 weeks ago with a number of questions pertaining to this press release, but since you failed to reply, I am emailing you again and request that you please respond to what I'm saying if you disagree with it in any particular. [Any ongoing non response on your part will be construed to mean that you cannot respond without exposing an apparent unscientific, greed driven pharmaceutical agenda for the world to see. If you feel that I am incorrect in any particular, please respond, in detail.]

Mr. Heer: In 1999 the United States Justice Department imposed a record fine of $500,000,000. against Hoffman La Roche, your company, due to the fact that it engaged in violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act consisting of illegal price fixing in the sale of vitamin raw materials. This greed driven maneauver illustrates clearly that your company puts profits above any sense of ethics pertaining to any true desire to benefit the public health and to help consumers in any way. For a 10 year period, due to your companies illegal moves, vitamin manufacturers world wide had to pay grossly inflated prices for the raw materials they bought from your company, and these high prices were then passed on to consumers, including many poor people who then could not afford the vitamins they need for their health. The US DOJs action against your company is well documented at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/1999/2626.htm Although one of my clients, the Life Extension Foundation of Florida successfully sued your company in the aftermath of the DOJ decision, and won some damages, IAHF doesn't just represent them, we represent vitamin consumers, and your company burned them, so we are retaliating against your company, and any organization that has anything to do with it by exposing the truth.

It is obvious to any thinking person that pharmaceutical interests would stand to benefit a lot if high potency vitamins were regulated as "drugs" by prescription. You could make HUGE profits, FAR more than you already make, by selling even LESS product, and you could DOWNSIZE your vitamin operations which would please investors.

This would ALSO block consumers from having access to vitamins and minerals within the therapeutic range, which you really don't WANT them to so freely have access to, because its not in your best interests to truly promote widespread PREVENTION as it hurts the sale of your pharmaceutical prescription drugs when people are healthy and don't have to go to the hospital or to doctors who write prescriptions for products from which you derive vastly more profits than you do from your sales of vitamins. So you might as well do what you can to generate MORE profit from the sale of LESS vitamin product, and simultaneously PROTECT the sale of all of your OTHER products (highly toxic pharmaceutical prescription drugs.) All that is necessary for you to achieve this greed driven agenda is to do the following:

A) Make an end run around the US Congress and our Vitamin Laws (Proxmire, DSHEA, and FDAMA) via the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue, and the UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission

B) Make an end run around the US Department of Justice by participating in an international shell game (CODEX) which USDOJ would not have sufficient clout to stop.

C) Cover your tracks via pharmaceutical domination of the vitamin trade associations world wide, by buying up vitamin companies world wide, and by setting up and or getting control of many supposed "health freedom organizations" in order to use them as "controlled opposition" to do spin control in an effort to cover your tracks so that small vitamin companies, health food stores, consumers and members of congress will remain in the dark as to what you're really trying to do. Thus we have such conflicts of interest which benefit your agenda such as so called "Citizens for Health" having as its Treasurer, Randy Dennin, of Capsugel, a subsidiary of CRN member Warner Lambert, which was just bought out by Pfizer Isn't this true? And isn't it ALSO true that Dennin is Chair of NNFA's International Committee which determined that trade organizations pro FDA, pro pharmaceutical, pro NAS position at Codex? Isn't it true that Dennin is also running IADSA, an international umbrella of vitamin trade associations which is also heavily influenced by pharmaceutical interests?

Correct me if you think I am wrong in any particular about what I've just stated. Any failure to respond will be construed by me to mean that you agree with what I'm saying, but can't respond because to do so would call unwanted attention to what you are trying to do, and you really don't want Congress to pay any attention, do you? You really don't want Congressman Burton to hold an oversight hearing on the Codex Vitamin issue, do you? You don't want Senator Hatch to pay attention to what you're doing, do you? You don't want Congressman Ron Paul to look too closely either do you? (He could point a finger at your actions and cite them as a strong reason for members of Congress to cosponsor his American Sovereignty Restoration Act by using the Codex vitamin issue as a smoking gun, now couldn't he? You know that if Burton did hold an oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue, he could ask you the same questions I'm asking you now, couldn't he? Isn't THIS why you told Burton last year that a hearing on the Codex vitamin issue "isn't necessary"???

Lets take a close look at what you're saying in your press release about the TABD meeting in Cincinnati: http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html In it you state many things that indicate to me that a global heist of our vitamins is being attempted. If you feel I am incorrect in any particular about what I am saying, please let me know. Again, any failure to respond will of necessity be construed by me to be an admission that what I am saying is correct.

"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."

TRANSLATION: CEOs of several multinational pharmaceutical corporations, which happen to also sell vitamin raw materials and vitamins, convened in Cincinnati to meet behind doors that were closed to any involvement by vitamin consumers who fought hard to pass the Proxmire Vitamin Act in 1996 or the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or to amend the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 so as to protect our dietary supplement laws from harmonization. These people were intentionally excluded from your meeting because their public health needs run counter to your greed driven agenda, and their involvement would hinder your efforts to harmonize American vitamin laws to the far more restrictive regulations being "developed" right now by the European Union (which European consumers are doing their best right now to oppose.) Thus this heralded alleged "BREAKTHROUGH" of which you speak, is clearly NOT in the best interests of consumers, or the public health now is it???

Moving right along, NEXT you've written the following [my comments are in square brackets, please respond if you disagree in any particular]:

"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:

TRANSLATION [While disenfranchising vitamin consumers who will obviously be impacted by your actions, you have approved measures intended to knock off your smaller competition by raising the hurdles so they can't compete, (especially via GMPs which you'd love to push to full HACCP standards in order to knock the small players off the cliff by pushing things to a state of regulatory overkill), you're exploring ways to maximize profits further by defining "SAFETY" in such a way that you will be able to make high potency vitamins that you wish to sell as prescription "drugs" only available by prescription.]

1. 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.

TRANSLATION [That part about "assessming conditions for exclusivity" seems to indicate that you'd like to require vitamins to undergo the same sort of incredily expensive drug approval process currently used to evaluate toxic pharmaceuticals. The unscientific paper "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Safe Upper Levels" for vitamins would facilitate this heist, but it has been exposed as scientifically fraudulent, and as funded by pharmaceutical interests, and for never having undergone any sort of public comments period, and for not being subject to FOIA so that we can't get the raw data behind it or the CVs of its authors which would show a clear conflict of interest. All of this is brought out at http://www.iahf.com When challenged to comment on the exposes of this fraud by Dr. Rick Malter and Dr. Brian Leibovitz, Dr. Beth Yetley of the FDA has been silent as she clearly seeks to work hand in glove with you in an effort to foist this greed driven agenda off on the American people.]

2. 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.

TRANSLATION [Ah yes, now we get down to the nitty gritty of this heist, now don't we? Here you identify the pharmaceutically dominated bodies on both sides of the Atlantic that all of you CEOs from multinational pharmaceutical companies conspiring to steal our vitamins intend to cojoin for the sake of foisting off your "HARM-onization". The US Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences are not the least bit accountable to the American people, now are they? Isn't it true that they're not subject to the Freedom of Information Act so there is no way we can assess what they are doing? Isn't it true that we can't get the CVs of the authors of their papers, or get the raw data behind them, and isn't it true that their papers, and the papers of the EU so called "Scientific Committee on Food" are all bought and paid for by the multinational pharmaceutical companies including many that belong to CRN? (All anyone has to do to see that this is true is to examine the NAS "risk assessment paper" which is at http://www.iahf.com and see the list of companies that funded it.)]

[Furthermore, isn't it true that the EU's scientific committee on foods pending "Vitamin Directive" was based on a 486 page pile of SPIN CONTROL generated by Hill and Knowlton, that infamous PR firm which acted on behalf of the CIA to get us into the Gulf War by inflaming the American people by fabricating a story that Iraqui troops had "pulled the plugs" on Kuwaiti babies in incubators? (see below for confirmation on both points and references)

[Furthermore, The establishment of "tolerable upper limits" may assume there are no health benefits, and only undesirable side effects, beyond a certain point of consumption. No mention is made of a therapeutic range. For example, some heart disease patients take 3200 units of vitamin E, which exceeds current maximum recommendations. Anything can be toxic at some level, even WATER or AIR. Drink enough water and you'll burst your stomach wall and you will die, but we don't go around creating a "UL" for water do we? Eat enough hotdogs and you will burst your stomach wall and die, but we don't go around creating a "UL" for hotdogs, do we?
Your comments please?

Hill and Knowlton spin paper "Study on Nutritional, Health and Ethical Claims in the European Union." http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/policy/developments/envi_clai/envi_clai03_en.pdf

How to Create a War (Exposes Hill and Knowlton's Spin Which got us into the Gulf War under False Pretenses http://www.aci.net/kalliste/hkwar.htm ]

3. 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.

TRANSLATION: [Ah yes! HARMonization at its "best" ? I guess you feel comfortable employing the NAS Food and Nutrition Board, and the EU "Scientific" Committee on Food to create these allegedly "objective" ULs since they're being paid to do so by a number of multinational pharmaceutical interests, and the consuming public is being shut out of the dialogue. So now you're planning on "harmonizing" the USA to the grossly restrictive EU regs that consumers over there are in the process of being sidled with? How do you intend to do this when you haven't yet successfully DISARMED the American people???]

4. 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."

TRANSLATION: [Ah yes, the the Big Lie about DSHEA allegedly being the "savior" of vitamin consumers in the USA comes out! DSHEA handed the FDA a huge weapon: the right to draft new GMP regs for the American supplement industry, but they haven't done so yet, and now we know WHY! Its because they were biding their time, as they're being coordinated via the UN's International Council of Drug Regulating Authorities, that umbrella group which oversees the FDA and its international counterparts and coordinates all of their efforts as "trade associations" to benefit the multinational pharmaceutical companies and to suppress all competition from the dietary supplement industry.]

The truth comes out with CRN's "smoking gun" press release! So, tell me JB, exactly what ARE these GMPs that you're working so hard to develop, eh? Please confirm whether or not you're attempting to push things to full HACCP regulations? Please let us know exactly WHAT proposed GMPs are being made here, and please respond to all OTHER questions asked in this email. As a consumer, what the TABD is attempting to do behind closed doors offends me greatly, and I intend to demonstrate in front of the next TABD meeting in order to paralyze traffic so people can't even GET to the meeting, since it excludes consumers from the decision making process.

As stated previously, any ongoing lack of response on your part will be construed to support my contention that an attempted heist of our vitamins is in progress, and that you have a lot of things you're trying to keep hidden from the vitamin consuming public, because you know that if they could see what you're up to, there would be a huge PUBLIC BACKLASH. Isn't this TRUE JB??? (Please respond in detail, otherwise I'll just continue to debate an empty chair.)]

For the Public Health,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom

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