UN REGULATION ENDORSED BY USA GOVT

In a message dated 97-10-30 07:00:27 EST, hmawn@juno.com writes:

Subject: Urgent--Stop this "Secret" Bill from Passing Now!

THIS MESSAGE IS SENT ON BY BOB ROSS FOR YOURSELF AND ALL THE PEOPLE YOU CAN FORWARD IT TO IMMEDIATELY

CODEX This concerns the right to use vitamin supplements and therapeutic dosages of herbal remedies, food supplements and generally all forms of healing methods based on non-pharmaceutical approaches! It is NO JOKE. We are about to lose our hard won health freedoms RIGHT NOW. This message has been updated 10/21/97.

YOU MAY LOSE THE RIGHT TO YOUR VITAMINS, HERBS, AND OTHER SUPPLEMENTS IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!!!

An insidious bill, called the CODEX LAW or CODEX ALIMENTARIUS, has already been sneaked through both the Senate and the House of Representatives in record time. It has been passed by both houses.

The Codex is a nutrition code to set worldwide standards for foods, drugs, pesticides and their trade. The latest German proposal includes the following provisions:

The wording in the Congressional Bill uses the term "harmonization" which means that most senators and congresspersons are likely not aware of the implications.

The delegates that make up and decide on the CODEX mandates are made up of 90% of the giant Multi-national Pharmaceutical corporations. The drug companies want to monopolize and create pharmaceutical versions of the Natural healthfood and nutrient business throughout the world. An example of the consequences: possession of DHEA is now a felony in Canada with the same penalty as that for possession of drugs. You could go to jail for having DHEA in your house.

You have LESS THAN 10 DAYS to save your vitamins!

The latest development as of 10/18/97 is that the House and Senate are now voting on a 3rd merged version of the Codex Bill. (The House Companion Bill).

What you need to do now is very simple.

1. First, pick up your phone and call 1-800-972-3524. This is the Congressional switchboard. Leave a message for your Senators AND your Representatives. Request that the Harmonization Language in the FDA Reform Bill be amended when it goes to the Conference Committee. State that you oppose to Codex Bill and any attempt to regulate nutritional supplements as drugs. This committee, as far as we know, will be meeting THIS WEEK, the week of 10/21. Also state that you request a public comments period concerning the harmonization agreements.

2. Please telephone, fax, and email everyone you can think of. Make a phone tree. Email everyone on your list. Send them this information and ask them to make calls as well. To stay updated on what to do, email Jham@concentric.net and request to be put in his distribution list. Or, call John Hammel at 1-800-333-2553 for a recorded message. (I believe this is the correct email address. Try all lower case if it doesn't work. The address is given in John's phone message.)

You can read the information below if you wish. But the important thing is to act, before it's too late.

CODEX: What does it mean?

Although written by a prominent Canadian M.D., the article below, one of the best we have read on the topic, was distributed by a U.S. group seeking to stop the CODEX in the U.S. The CODEX affects the U.S., Canada, and all member nations of the U.N. We urge you to read it and decide if maybe, just maybe, it's finally time for you to use the democractic process TODAY to preserve the future of you and your family TOMORROW.

"If you value freedom of choice in health care, it may still not be too late for you to help stop the pending world wide suppression of Complementary Medicine. If the Codex Alimentarius (Nutrition Code) Commission has its way, then herbs, vitamins, minerals, homeopathic remedies, amino acids and other natural remedies you have taken for granted most of your life will be gone. The name of the game for Codex is to shift all remedies under the prescription category that would be controlled exclusively by the medical monopoly and its bosses, the major pharmaceutical firms. This scenario, predictably, has been denied by both the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) and the Health Protection Branch (HPB or Hocus Pocus Bunch). Do not for one second believe these people. Let me explain:

No, Codex is not a new sanitary napkin. Nor is it a benign group of boring bureaucrats. It is officially known as the United Nations/World Health Organization (WHO) Codex Alimentarius (Nutrition Code) Commission. It meets every 2 years, usually in Rome, and very little has appeared about it in the media. Nevertheless, documentation supports the possibility that Codex is the greatest threat to health freedom in the world today. Most of the information we have on this secretive group can be found on the Internet. Codex is empowered by governments to set standards of operation for the health industry. Over 90% of the international organizations allowed to send delegates to the meetings represent giant multinational pharmaceutical corporations. The only consumer organization is the International Organization of Consumer Unions. Neither the natural health care industry nor the general public has any representation at Codex meetings.

In October, 1996, Codex met in Bonn, Germany to make radical changes in the rules governing dietary supplements for member nations. The proposals of greatest concern were those made by the German delegation (Proposed Draft Guidelines for Dietary Supplements) and is being sponsored by Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. These are the three drug companies formed when the Nurenberg War Trials disbanded IG Farben, manufacturer of the poison gas used in Nazi concentration camps. This is not the first time that the U.N. has been linked closely with Nazi war criminals. Ostensibly, their purpose is &quote;....create a set of international standards to guide the world's growing food industry and to protect the health of consumers.&quote; If you really believe that, I have some ocean front property for you at half price in Saskatoon.

The drug company backed proposals call for the following:

No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc., can be sold for prophylactic (preventative) or therapeutic reasons.

Natural remedies can be sold as food but they must not exceed the potency (dosage) levels set by the commission. This means that consumer access to dietary supplements will be limited to the RDA dosage as a maximum limit for vitamins (vitamin C - 60 mg, vitamin E - 15 mg, etc.). Supplements without an RDA (e.g. coenzyme Q10) would be illegal to sell because they would all become drugs.

Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating the escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that allows a nation to set its own standards. This applies to all member countries of the U.N. Any nation that does not accept and apply these new standards will be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO) creating the potential of crippling entire sectors of that nation's economy.

All new supplements would be banned unless they go through the Codex approval process. Five steps have already been taken in the Codex process over the past few years. Remember Canadian Bill C-7 which was passed eventually in Canada as C-8? The similarity of the process, the secrecy and the wording between the Codex proposals and the Canadian laws is uncanny. Voting in favour of adopting the German proposal has been overwhelming (16 for and 2 against in the most recent vote). The Codex process is now at Step Five- formalization and debate concerning the specific features. In two years, Codex could jump from step 5 to step 8 to finalize these restrictions.

The Codex proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, Vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an echinacea tincture which is being sold there as an OTC drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs and only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores, or pharmacies. According to Dr. Matthias Rath, researcher and author who discovered a correlation between vitamin C deficiency and heart disease, the three Nazi-linked drug companies pushing so hard for the German proposal, Hoechst, Bayer and BASF, are also manufacturers of heart drugs. Obviously, with the vitamin competition gone, nothing will stop their profits.

Yes, very much so. According to John C. Hammell, legal advocate for the U.S. based Life Extension Foundation, the Nazi-linked proposals have the backing of Canadian and French Codex commission representatives. In June of 1996, the Codex Executive committee will be creating an expert panel on herbs which is likely to generate a negative list to prevent public access to certain herbs internationally (see the list below). The formation of this expert panel was advocated by none other than the Canadian representatives. Why then are the HPB and the CHFA denying that the Codex proposals will have no impact on the availability of nutritional supplements in Canada? Either spokespersons for these two groups are ignorant about the proposals or they are lying to the public in order to protect drug company profits. After all, several voting members of the CHFA are owned by or are subsidiaries of major drug manufacturers or pharmaceutical chains. Neither group can be trusted to give the public straight answers about the Codex scam. They are in a clear conflict of interest since they stand to gain financially when the supplement prices are boosted out the roof. Further evidence of Canadian involvement is the HPB (Hocus Pocus Bunch) position on what is or is not a food or a drug. This bunch is either cleverly devious about their support of pharmaceutical concerns or just plain dumb. For example, garlic, ginger, licorice and peppermint are considered to be foods when sold as spices. If a grocery store manager makes claims for their therapeutic effects, they then become drugs via a hocus pocus mechanism which remains to be defined. As it now stands in Canada (and this changes on a regular basis given the current mood, blood sugar level or whims of officials at the HPB) the following list of currently available health food store nutritional supplements are considered nebulously to be either a drug a drug even in the absence of claims or a new drug with claims

Aloe vera
Astragalus
Bilberry
Capsicum
Cascara sagrada
Cat's claw
Chamomile
Dong Quai
Echinacea augustifolia
Echinacea purpurea
Ephedra (Ma huang)
Feverfew
Garlic
Ginger
Ginkgo biloba
Ginseng
Golden Seal
Gotu Kola
Hawthorne
Kava Kava
Licorice
Milk Thistle
Pau D'arco (Taheebo)
Peppermint
Psyllium
Sarsaparilla
Saw palmetto
Yohimbe

This list is likely to expand over the next two years.

If the Codex and the HPB have their way, your favorite supplements will be replaced by expensive, patented, over-the-counter or prescription drugs.

Just look what has already happened to amino acids like tryptophan. Once available for under $20 for a bottle of 100 tablets of 500 mgs. at your local health food store, the same tablet is now only available by prescription at a cost of over $120 at your pharmacy. On top of that, in order to get a prescription for tryptophan, you will have to convince your doctor to give you one. This is easier said than done simply because most medical doctors have no clue what tryptophan does or believe it to be toxic. Project this shallow thinking on to the herbs listed above and it becomes quite clear that public access to natural remedies will be a thing of the past."

For more information, documentation and a plan of action to fight the Codex proposals, contact:
John Hammell, Legislative Advocate, The Life Extension Foundation
2411 Monroe St. #2 Hollywood, FL 33020 USA
Telephone: 800-333-2553, 954-929-2905
Fax: 954-929-0507
E-mail: Jham@concentric.net
Internet web site: http://www.lef.org/lef/index.html