URGENT Action Alert: A Major Blow to Alternative Therapies

It happened in Germany and Norway, the health and pharmacuital industries have managed to get laws passed that make the vitimines, herbs, and suppliments we use classified as drugs and taken over by them, prices will rise dramatically. There are petitions to sign, please read this explanation, go to the sites, spread the word, it could happen here, we must stop it.
This will affect mutliple aspects of the alternative therapy industry begining with herbalism, as well as the potential for aromatherapy, flower essences, homeopathy, Oriental medicine, and your right to buy vitamins.

The World trade organization and the world health organization will now have the role of defining and setting the standard for all supplements. Any supplement that is sold for preventive or therapeutic use will not be allowed to be sold OTC. Any potency higher than RDA recomendations will be defined as a "drug" requiring a prescription and only drug companies will have the authorization to produce them. CODEX will become an international binding regulation that requires all supplements to undergo testing and approval, affecting all countries that signed the treaty for the world organization.
CODEX has already gone into effect in Norway and Germany just to give you an idea- Zinc and echinacea, both of which were a readily available supplement are now under these rules as prescription only drugs which can only be sold by drug companies. This has also impacted the prices of each raising the prices by more than 10 times what they sold for as over the counter. Of course they want to make this world wide so we can't get them anywhere.

PLEASE GO HERE: www.aha.org www.iahf.com www.alliance-natural-health.org
and find out about bills S.722 and H.R.3377 regarding the CODEX restrictions and the DSHEA laws in the U.S. if these pass, new laws will go into effect June 2005.

Please pass this information along.

Sincerely, Ariel SilverSpirit

 

Germany passing totalitarian laws. Imagine that! If I'm not mistaken the drinking age in Germany is 16. 16 y/o can drink but they can't buy herbs and vitamins OTC. Go figure.

 

On the plus side, Germany has actually researched many herbs, perhapsbecause the gov't is a big player in healthcare, much bigger than in the States. The use of Saw Palmetto was researched there and found to work about as well for $.20 a day as prescription drugs that cost $2.00 a day. If my memory isn't totally shot, German doctors already prescribe many herbs. Also, in Germany many herbs are regulated for purity. Here in the US, how much of the active ingredient, or how much of the actual herb is pretty much of a crapshoot. I don't think the way they're going about this (effectively banning people from treating themselves with herbs and nutrtional supplements) is right, but I would like to see some sort of standards set for purity. Gov't bureaucrats make me nervous, but a guy who's one purpose in life is to separate me from my money (aka anybody trying to sell me something who hasn't proven their integrity) makes me even more nervous.

 

I don't know. I think we need to protect our right to buy some wonder herbs from a guy named Ron who lives on the sidewalk. I don't need the government telling him how pure it has to be as long as it works.

 

gov has no business outlawing complementary therapies. write letters to your representatives people. let your voice be heard....

By Nancy Lee Bentley
Co-Author, Dr. Mercola's Total Health Program

There's a plain and simple fact about your health and health care choices you won't find covered in any of the mainstream media today: Your health freedom is under attack!

If you are an E-Healthy News You Can Use subscriber and you are at all concerned about your and your family's health, you do most, if not all of these things:

* You take vitamins, herbs or other supplements.
* You try to eat the cleanest, healthiest, foods you can find.
* You think all of us should have the right to make our own health choices.

If you follow any or all of these habits, I urge you to keep reading about Codex, a threat to your healthy lifestyle and your ability to access what you need to maintain it.

Your rights have not been taken away… yet. But, if we don’t all wake up and act now, our access to nutritional supplements to prevent, treat or cure health problems and diseases, as well as our access to clean, uncontaminated food, which hasn’t been genetically modified, treated with hormones, antibiotics, growth stimulants or irradiation, including organically grown food, -- all the things that *********** has been telling you to choose -- can ultimately become unavailable to us.

If the pharmaceutical interests have their way, even access to alternative, complementary, or holistic treatment practices will ultimately be in jeopardy. Don’t panic, the sky is not falling…yet. But now is the time to become concerned, educate yourself and take action!

You may be asking yourself, "What is this threat? Where is it coming from? I've never heard of it!" Keep reading...

What is Codex?

The origin of Codex Alimentarius (CO-DEX' AL-A-MEN-TARE'-Y-US): A stealthy foreign threat that means:

1.

Food rules that are about to be imposed upon you!
2.

An international regulation designed to control food trade and food standards all over the world, created by the United Nations more than 40 years ago.
3.

A hidden danger to your health and freedom, masquerading as food safety and protection, the US Congress is about pass into law, one way or another, unless we act now!
4.

Cancer, Obesity, Diabetes, End of Your Health Choices, Xtra pain, suffering and even premature death.

Where is it Coming From?

CODEX is part of the World Trade Organization -- what Lori Wallach, author of “Whose Trade Organization?” calls the multinational corporate country club -- and its insidious, long-term effort to “harmonize” the world’s food, agriculture and edible health product standards by 2010. Attempts at “HARMonization” have already made inroads through back door politics in the European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia. Already, zinc in Germany costs $54 a bottle and 3-4 days worth of synthetic Vitamin E costs close to $200!

Vitamins and minerals are the first target, although only the tip of the iceberg. Final ratification of these restrictive vitamin and mineral standards’ framework, a prelude to all of the food and health-unfriendly provisions of this multi-headed Hydra, is practically assured at the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission meeting this July 4-9 in Rome. Unless we make a very big noise!

The United States is Next!

A consensus of international watchdog groups tracking this issue agree that these stringent international food rules will most likely be mandated into law here in the US through regional “HARMonization,” once we ratify CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the more expanded hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Identical language contained in the SPS (Sanitary PhytoSanitary Measures) in NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA and the FTAA, bind us to make Codex standards law domestically, part of an overall strategy to create a European Union equivalent, called the Western Atlantic Union (WAU), here in the Western hemisphere.

Even merely being a member of the World Trade Organization guarantees ”HARMonization” of our laws with Codex standards. While most of us may not realize it, treaty law supersedes domestic law. Bills such as Rep. Dr. Ron Paul’s HJ27, proposing our withdrawal from the WTO, are currently on the docket, but as long as we are members of this global management initiative, we are obligated to “HARMonize” with world standards, facing stiff trade sanctions for noncompliance.

At the same time, there is a concerted, although veiled, effort here in the U.S. Congress to gut the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), our remaining legal assurance that food supplements are classified as foods, not drugs. Despite this seeming safeguard and natural trade industry assurances, DSHEA is still vulnerable. Canada and other countries already have provisions that make supplements drugs.

How Can This Possibly be Happening?

So, obviously threats to your health choices are multiple and insidious, like the tentacles of a giant, health and freedom-snatching octopus. How can this possibly be happening? Although difficult to believe, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, The truth is so outrageous, it is almost impossible to believe.

Keep on reading. This truth is one you definitely need to understand and act upon.

What Will Codex Mean?

New England Journal of Medicine studies showed that 40 percent of Americans value disease prevention and alternative health care so they spend over $13 billion annually with out-of-pocket (non-insurance) money.

Up until this point, compliance with Codex standards has been voluntary. Yet, that is only the start of the “Boiling Frog” strategy. First, as you may have heard, allowable supplements will be reduced to a handful of ultra low-dose, synthetic vitamins and minerals. Then, incredibly -- without public intervention and outcry -- starting this year in phases, CODEX will go on to do these things:

*

Prohibit the use of any natural substance to prevent, treat or cure disease.
*

Legalize genetically modified organisms (GMOs), mandate antibiotics and hormones in animal feed.
*

Hoist allowable pesticides, toxin and drug levels in foods, making organics inaccessible.
*

Even eventually prohibit the traditional herbs and medicines indigenous cultures have used for thousands of years.

CODEX is not just about vitamins and minerals, although this is the most acute issue today. It will negatively impact agriculture and economies too. It’s predicted that if CAFTA passes, for example, U.S. corn exports to Central America would increase by 10,000 percent in the first year. In the first 10 years after NAFTA went into effect, 1.7 million farmers, who make up the majority of the population there, lost their land.

Who is Behind Codex?

The pharmaceutical, chemical and agribusiness corporations stand to make huge amounts of money from CODEX. Well-funded, massive disinformation campaigns, half-truth, half-lie “spin” websites like www.snopes.com, as well as infiltration and control of trade organizations supposedly designed to protect the health food and supplement industries, are all smoke-and-mirror tactics of these three “Big” interests.

So, if you have heard of CODEX at all, it may have been from industry or government or even trade group assurances that it is a hoax, beneficial to you, or even both. Don’t be misled by the massive disinformation campaign. It’s easy to just go along and rely on the opinions of so-called “experts”, the government and others, but as a veteran health advocate who has worked for years, like Dr. Mercola, to champion Natural Health, I can assure you that this is no time to take anything for granted or allow yourself to be lulled into complacency.

There is enough smoke about this issue – you will be hearing more about it here and elsewhere in the coming weeks – to warrant making this a priority to understand, act on and spread the word.

Who Stands To Gain The Most?

Pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical companies, including the makers of Vioxx with a litany of 139,000 deaths, just accused by the House Committee on Government Reform of both withholding the truth and releasing misleading information about the increase heart attack dangers of this drug five years ago!

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny’s analysis: “Since it has become an indisputable scientific fact that NUTRITION is the best PREVENTION and CURE of disease, the owners of the “sickness industry” are determined to remove this ECONOMIC THREAT to their MONOPOLY CONTROL … by regulating nutrients out of the open marketplace and under the pharmaceutical umbrella where these nutrients become their property and they can exercise control over their availability.

CODEX is nothing more than “removing of all competition.” The issue is neither “safety” nor “protection.” Beware, for “He who protects you completely also OWNS you completely. i.h.”

Who Stands To Lose The Most?

We do. Our families and ourselves.

If we wait until there are no legal options besides drugs and contaminated foods, and no nutrients or ways to protect ourselves from pesticides, hormones and foreign genes in our food, how will we be able to keep our families and ourselves healthy?

What Can I DO?

DON’T WAIT. Start becoming educated and take action against CODEX et.al. NOW. You can:

*

Sign up to receive an automatic email list of articles, Web sites and “disinformation” Web sites, plus more detailed info on the CODEX issue, including sample letters to fax to Congress protesting CAFTA, our membership in the WTO and attempts to demolish our health choices, by visiting codex.nancyleebentley.com.
*

Call into FREE interactive teleconference phone calls on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 9:00 p.m. EDT conducted by representatives of the newly formed Coalition for Health Freedom. (Wed., Thurs., 9 p.m. EDT, Dial: 712-824-4100, press 2 at prompt, then enter Access Code: CODEXNO# (2633966#) Learn more about this complex issue and what steps you can take to help protect your health freedom.
*

Request an informational meeting in your local area. Representatives of the Food Circle and the new Coalition are now scheduling a city-to-city awareness and action tour. With a local contact person willing to coordinate, you can request that your town or city be included as a stop on this action tour at codex.nancyleebentley.com.

ARE YOU WILLING TO ALLOW UNELECTED FOREIGN INTERESTS TO DICTATE WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR OWN BODY?

CODEX is not without its vulnerability, and WE CAN STOP IT, BUT NOT WITHOUT YOUR HELP! Take a proactive stance and let your Congressmen and women know that permitting any attack on your health freedom will mean that they will NOT be re-elected to Congress again! Get the word out to ALL of your networks.

Keep your health freedom alive!

Nancy Lee Bentley is a dynamic holistic health expert, chef, nutritional consultant, teacher, writer and speaker. This Cornell-educated food, nutrition, and communications professional, whose career spans over 25 years in the commercial and whole foods industry, foodservice, health care and media, has been called a pioneer in the fields of organic and natural foods, sustainable food systems and holistic health. Her work has appeared in national and regional publications, with recognition from Earl Nightingale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 2000 Notable American Women, among others.

 

The US pharmaceutical companies are already lobbying the govt. for regulation of alternative therepy meds ie-herbs so they can be classified as drugs and thus regulate the price. They are claiming it is about purity and that may be a part of it but it is really about money folks...remember it is ALWAYS about money when it comes to corporate America.

 

Snopes is seen as a "half lie spin" website? Where did that come from? They have real data based on fact, not hysteria.

 

Makes some sense as to why Snopes was dissed.

Here is what Snopes says (based on fact) about the Codex hystrionics.

Vitamin See

Claim: American consumers risk losing their right to purchase and use vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements.

Status: Multiple — see below:

• In June 2005 the USA will be forced to accept Codex regulation of vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements: False.
• Bills proposing the regulation of dietary supplements are currently before Congress: Not any more.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

(the above text quoted)


Origins: This e-mailed alert began circulating on the Internet in January 2005. Although the call to arms is worded in such a way as to convince those who receive that their right to purchase vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements in the U.S. is about to be lost to them unless they act decisively in defense of it, it is outdated and the facts of what is being considered by American lawmakers and why are radically dissimilar from the red cape being waved.

First of all, this is another case of an issue that is now largely moot due to outdated information. Back in 2003, two versions of a bill that proposed the regulation of dietary supplements (S. 722, the "Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003," and H.R. 3377, the "Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act") were introduced to Congress. Neither of these bills was ever voted upon, much less passed. They both expired with the end of the 108th Congress in 2004 and have not been reintroduced to the currently sitting 109th Congress.

Moreover, neither of these items of potential legislation was forced on the U.S. by an outside regulatory body, nor did they say anything about restricting the American public's access to vitamins and minerals. Their sole target was dietary supplements, a class of products that has been unregulated since 1994, when Congress passed legislation that exempted them from federal regulation. Claims that your right to take vitamins and minerals is about to be impaired or that you will require doctors' prescriptions to obtain such products should be regarded as attempts at rabble-rousing, deliberate moves to spur you into action against one thing by convincing you that something very different and far closer to your heart is at stake.

Vitamins and minerals are not under the gun. Dietary supplements are. And no outside regulatory body is behind this move: the proposed legislation is the work of American lawmakers looking to safeguard the public from the unscrupulous and the hazardous. If you take nothing else from this article, take the preceding three sentences.

Despite their presence on store shelves, not all dietary supplements are safe for consumers to use, let alone are beneficial to their health. Products can be 100% natural yet deliver a deadly payload, as have some in the past. Lacking regulation of such ingestibles, there is no protection afforded consumers, and authoritative-looking labels are no guarantee that what is being vended in those bottles they envelop is not harmful. Under current law, dangerous supplements get onto the market and stay there, with serious physical harm resulting among those who use them, as was the case with ephedra, which caused strokes, heart attacks, and upwards of 150 deaths before the Food and Drug Administration was finally able to get it out of the stores.

In 2004, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, almost one in five Americans (19%) reported using a supplement, which means the pool of folks at risk is great. Yet the incentives are there for the dietary supplement industry to keep on doing what it has been doing: in 2002, it reported $18.7 billion in sales. With so much profit at stake, there is little desire on the part of manufacturers to police themselves or their products all that carefully.

It's not just about inherently dangerous substances being sold to the unwary as the latest miracle answer for what ails them — even when dietary supplements contain nothing obviously harmful, the current lack of regulation results in improperly manufactured or contaminated products reaching the public. Quality control is missing. Absent regulation, consumers have little reason to trust they are getting the dosage they believe they are taking. ConsumerLab.com, an independent laboratory that tests dietary supplements, found that some name-brand products contain only small quantities of the active ingredient on their label. "Some have none, some have 80 percent, some have 20 percent," Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of the lab, told ABC News. Also, some contaminated supplements reach the market and thus fall into the hands of unknowing consumers. In December 2004, pesticide was found in ginseng being vended on the East Coast, and heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic were discovered in herbal supplements.

Two bills put before Congress in 2003 looked to regulate dietary nostrums by imposing quality and safety standards on them, and giving the FDA the ability to take them off the market before a great number of folks have been harmed by them. In March 2003, Senator Richard Durbin introduced bill S. 722, the "Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003" in the U.S. Senate. The purpose of this legislation was to "protect consumers from dangerous dietary supplements such as ephedra and other stimulants by requiring manufacturers to submit proof that their product is safe prior to bringing it to market." The bill would require manufacturers of the most dangerous types of dietary supplements (stimulants) to submit proof of their products' safety prior to bringing them to market. The bill also expands the FDA's authority to require from any dietary supplement maker proof of its product's safety if that agency has received information suggesting the product is causing death or other serious adverse health effects. It would also require manufacturers to report serious adverse health events (e.g.; heart attack, seizure, stroke, death), to the FDA no later than 15 calendar days after they learn of them. The bill also looks to close a loophole in current law that, according to Senator Durbin, "has been exploited by many dietary supplement manufacturers, allowing anabolic steroids to be sold widely as dietary supplements" by clarifying that anabolic steroids are not dietary supplements and are subject to regulation that restricts their availability under the Controlled Substances Act.

In October 2003, Representatives Susan Davis (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (DMI) introduced bill H.R. 3377, the "Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act" in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would increase the FDA's authority over dietary supplements, enabling that agency to monitor the health risks of dietary supplements and take appropriate action if problems develop. The proposed law was not intended to have any impact on the regulation of vitamins and minerals, which are specifically excluded from the bill. In addition, for dietary supplements that contain herbs, amino acids, and other botanicals, the bill will ensure that FDA has basic information about who makes them and the products' ingredients. It would also require dietary supplement manufacturers to provide FDA with information about all adverse events, so that the agency could spot warning signs and investigate if necessary. It further allows the FDA to prohibit sales to minors of supplements that may cause significant harm to children. Finally, it allows the FDA to demand safety information from a manufacturer if the FDA has evidence that a particular supplement may pose serious risks.

Getting back to the e-mail's claim that a foreign regulatory body is behind all this, we address the claim that:

Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1962 by two United Nations organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. It is the body of government representatives and non-governmental organizations charged by the United Nations with establishing international guidelines on food law. This commission is empowered to set standards of operation for the health industry and is working to control such things as the sale of dietary supplements for preventative or therapeutic reasons and the potency of natural remedies. It also seeks to convert definitions of many supplements to drugs and to make its rules binding on every U.N. member nation.

However, what it seeks and what it can do are very different things. It has no power to force its will on any nation. Codex standards are voluntary, which means if the U.S. doesn't adopt them, they will not govern the regulation of vitamins, minerals, or dietary supplements in the USA.

In November 2004, the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) reached agreement on the definitions and regulatory guidelines for the worldwide use of vitamins and minerals in food supplements and will present its "Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements" to the Codex annual meeting in Rome in July 2005 for formal approval. Once approved, countries are expected to consider these new guidelines in developing or modifying their national food laws.

The Codex guidelines form a key reference point in case of international trade disputes in the area of food supplements. That, in a nutshell, is the extent of its teeth.

The e-mailed exhortation to rise up against Codex claims that commission's guidelines regarding dietary supplements "will over ride U.S. law." That's just plain wrong. United States law governs trade within the United States. Codex standards come into play only when American manufacturers of dietary supplements look to vend them on the international market, and even then only when the other nations involved have incorporated Codex guidelines into their food laws.

Claims that in various European countries vitamins are now selling for a horrendous amount or are available only by prescription are strawmen, because the U.S. (as does every other nation) makes its own laws, and the new laws it is proposing in S. 722 and H.R. 3377 specifically and deliberately omit mention of vitamins or minerals, both of which are already adequately regulated.

Barbara "vitaminimized" Mikkelson

 

yup!

 

Yes, we do have an index called "Arzneimittelbuch", ("book of medicine") where every substance, natural and synthetic, and even things that are just marginal in treatment (for example cotton) registered and to be able to be sold as medicine product, they have to meet certain quality standarts that ensure their healing effect.
But, that does not mean, you can't get hold of these things, especially herbs, in other qulity, for other purposes or whatever. This is not a restriciton. Usually the herbs in the defined quality are more expensive, but you get something that has been researched and prooved good. I'd just say good quality has it's price.
Also, one has to keep in mind, that even though a lot of herbs are harmless and nothing can go wrong, others just are dangerous, especially with the use of children and babies, because the content of the active ingredient usually has a big span, from barely anything to too much....
And let's face it, some people just are not as smart as others, using for example poppy seeds as sleeping aids for their babies. Of course baking poppyseeds, from the supermarket, not an indexed version from the pharmacie that has been tested for it's active incredients, and the result: dieing babies, for using something "natural" and "harmless". (An adult would not have been hurted a bit)

Sorry, but TOTAL BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I*ve never seen a monthsupply package for more then 6 euros, and that's like...hmm 8 $?

As for the vitamin intake, germany has never been so vitamin supplement concerned as it is the case in the US. And you can buy every vitamin supplement you possibly want to take over the counter in a supermarket (!!) next corner..... (and they're not expensive either... my folic acid supplement costs for a month 3 euros.... )

Here it is rather said that the artificial vitamins are brought up by the pharmaceutical industrie, to sell stuff people don't actually need, if they had a balanced diet. The way vitamin supplements are advertized on tv....

And Doctors do prescribe a lot of herbs. It depends on the doc you go though. Many of them are so smart to start with something else then a shot of antibiotics, if it is possible. And, you as a patient are advised to speak up if you are against antibiotics, and if there are appropriate alternatives, they will give it to you.

 

Thank you so much, Kasten, for letting us know what is really going on in Germany about this issue. You are MUCH appreciated.