Crisis In Alternative Health Choices

[Guest]

I received this in an email from an old doctor's office of mine and wanted to pass it along to the forum because I feel it is important. I suggest following the link and sharing your personal stories when sending a message to help out.

 

Carolyn

 

 

There is a crisis in health choices. On April 30, 2007 the FDA will close the public comment period on a "Guidance" which will classify every alternative practice as medicine so that only licensed physicians can carry out the procedure AND vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc., will potentially become "untested drugs" which will be forbidden. This could eliminate complementary modalities like massage therapy, acupuncture, Reiki, Healing Touch, etc., unless performed by a physician! It will also prevent you from getting your nutritional and other supplements!

 

Public outcry can stop this assault on your health and your freedom. The FDA tried to do this last year too, but was not able to ignore the citizens of this country! Naturally, big pharmaceutical company money is behind this! PLEASE spread the word! Tell everyone in your circle of influence, professionals, alternative practitioners, nutrient and herb companies--everyone! Let them know how important their participation is to make sure the FDA does not take this repressive course. You can check out more info and complete the formatted letter at http://tinyurl.com/2u7ghc. Simply fill out the fields highlighted in yellow and submit. Thank you so much for your help!

 

We were just informed that the link associated with the web site given above has been broken several times. In the event that the link is not working when you try to submit your input, you are encouraged to send your comments to dr.laibow@gmail.com with “Submit” in the line and your full name and address in the body. Data entry people have been hired to submit your comments for you.

 

It is important that we all do our part to inform the FDA that we do not want these changes, and that we have the right to choose what services and products we want to use for our own health benefits.

 

However, in the event that we are not successful in this, and similar efforts, we now know that there is an alternative available through the courts to force the government to honor our constitutional rights. Jack and Margy Flynn are true Americans who have successfully used the power and authority of the Constitution to win over “300 cases” in New Mexico . They “WIN” because they establish the Constitution for what it is: The Supreme Law of the land. Their Constitutional methods are very effective!

 

For more information please visit their web site at:

 

www.CitizensoftheAmericanConstitution.org

[kim]

Carolyn,

 

I hope everyone here takes the moment to submit their name.

 

This is an issue that is so important.

[Chemar]

absolutely agreed!

 

thanks for posting to remind all to add their voice Carolyn...sometimes it is that one extra name that tips the balance!

[kim]

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4971.cfm

 

FDA's Attempts to Slip its CAM Guidelines Under the Radar Fail; Deadline for Public Comment Extended to May 29

 

 

http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/consu...lert_042707.htm

 

U.S. Health Freedom on Verge of Collapse

 

Major Expansion of FDA Powers will Target Dietary Supplements

[kim]

May 2 2007

 

FDA hoodwinks public over CAM Guidelines comment period, slams door shut

on public comments one month early

 

by Mike Adams

http://www.newstarg et.com/021824. html

 

The FDA has slammed the door shut on accepting public comments over its

contentious "CAM Guidelines" that threaten to destroy natural medicine by

classifying virtually all health-enhancing foods, juices, nutritional

supplements and functional foods as "unapproved drugs." NewsTarget has

acquired emails from an FDA employee and key author of the CAM Guidelines.

This email contains statements that directly contradict the FDA's own

website and reveal a tactic designed to silence public commentary by

retroactively declaring the comment period to be closed even while the

FDA's own documents state the period should continue for another 30 days.

 

Check it out yourself: The FDA website says the comment period ends May

29, 2007 (click here to see the screen capture). But in an email received

today by NewsTarget, the FDA's Philip L. Chao claims "...the entry (for

which you provided the link) was mistakenly changed by an employee in

mid-April, and we will correct that error soon. Thus, internet media

reports claiming that FDA has extended the comment period to May 29 are

NOT correct."

 

Thus, the public comment period for CAM Guidelines is now closed, one

month ahead of what the FDA's own website provides as the comment closing

date. And this is explained as being due to a "mistake" by an FDA employee

that will be retroactively corrected, only after the public comment period

has been officially closed.

 

Covert tactics at the FDA

NewsTarget editors believe these actions on the part of the FDA are not

merely accidental. They are deliberate, and they follow a pattern of

deception that appears to be designed to sneak CAM Guidelines under the

radar and avoid public scrutiny. Consider this:

 

• The first draft of the CAM Guidelines was issued by the FDA on the day

after Christmas, 2007, but the agency waited until February 26 to post

them in the Federal Registry.

 

• The Guidelines state the public will have a "90 day comment period" in

which to post comments on the proposal, but the initial closing date for

public comments was posted as April 30 -- leaving just two months for

comments, not three as explained in the Guidelines themselves.

 

• When the public learned of these documents thanks to investigative

reporting by the health freedom community (credit goes to Rima Laibow,

Ralph Fucetola and others who are staying on top of this issue), and filed

tens of thousands of complaints with the FDA, the agency initially

capitulated and changed the comment period to May 29. This is the comment

period shown in this screen shot (click to view), taken May 1st.

 

• But even as the health freedom community was rallying its efforts to

encourage further public comments on the CAM Guidelines, the FDA today

announced the May 29 extension was a "mistake" and the window for public

comments is now over.

 

It's a tactic much like rigging the electronic voting machines to make the

voters think their opinion counts. At the FDA, the top priority seems to

be creating the illusion of openly listening to the public while, in

reality, using every means possible to thwart the public's will. By

relying on deceitful tactics like the one being reported here, FDA is

clearly operating in bad faith.

 

The FDA appears to be subject to no law

This is how the FDA operates: Deceive the public by making them think the

agency is listening to reason, then suddenly change the rules and leave

the public out to dry. The agency operates as if it is subject to no law,

rule or regulation of its own. It lies to the public, defends the profits

of pharmaceutical companies, and ultimately operates with apparent legal

immunity.

 

In fact, U.S. lawmakers think the FDA is doing such a great job that they

are about to reward the agency with even more money, expanding its powers

and deepening its financial ties with Big Pharma. The bill in question

(click here for the story) is being renamed on practically a daily basis.

It started as the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, was renamed the FDA

Revitalization Act of 2007, and has just now been transformed into the

Enhancing Drug Safety and Innovation Act of 2007.

 

Does it all seem bewildering? A little too much to track it all? That's

the whole point: Distract the public and then steal away the health

freedom of Americans under the cover of confusion. It's a brilliant

strategy, given that so many Americans have so little time to actually

investigate these issues, much less take action on them. And while

lawmakers, Big Pharma and the FDA are popping smoke to conceal their

tactical movements, the citizens of our so-called "free" nation are having

their freedoms systematically stripped from them, right under their noses,

spearheaded by the very lawmakers they elected to "represent" them.

 

(Most NewsTarget readers already know this, but true public

"representation" in Congress is a joke. Lawmakers only represent

commercial interests, not the public. There are a few exceptions such as

Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Charles Grassley who are both fighting the FDA on

many fronts.)

 

The bottom line from this event is simply this: We have learned today

that, yet again, we cannot trust the FDA's own statements on its website.

Everything the FDA says or posts is apparently subject to retroactive

change, without notice, and without any oversight whatsoever.

 

What we need right now is an FDA Office of Internal Affairs -- an Eliot

Ness of modern medicine... someone who can march into the quagmire of

modern medical corruption and start making criminal arrests. Until that

happens, we are all going to continue to live under a system of FDA

tyranny, where the truth is outlawed, free speech is censored, and natural

health practitioners are increasingly attacked for daring to help patients

heal.

 

Thanks goodness for the internet, or you'd never hear a word about any of

this.

 

Diane L Moreau, CLP

Sr. Lotus Notes Developer

NYLIM Retirement Plan Services

690 Canton Street

Westwood, MA 02090

Tel: 781-619-2124

[kim]

Got this email this morning

 

 

 

 

 

Good News Travels Fast!

Your activism just saved supplements from being turned into "untested drugs"! Big Pharma will be back, but today, we can do a victory dance!

 

Thank you 435,005 times. That's the number of people who used our site to submit their comments to the FDA on their dangerous CAM Guidance through our site. 182,484 succeeded but, since our site was interfered with several times, 252,521 people did not. We were working feverishly to submit those comments manually.

 

 

 

Ready for Some Great News?

 

 

 

Although the FDA denied our request to extend the comment, failed to update its site or its comment tally, extended the comment period and then resinded the extension (!), our collective voice won us a huge victory in Congress today. Because we rallied behind our health freedom and access to natural health products, every member of the Senate voting today heard us loud and clear and acted -- without a single dissenting voice -- to protect our health freedom!

 

Read what "the Vitamin Lawyer ", Ralph Fucetola, has to say about the impact of our activism in an email on the topic today:

 

"And some very good news: Congress has accepted the following amendment to S.1082 - Enhancing Drug Safety and Innovation Act of 2007 - from Sen. Durbin.

It appears that Congress heard our concerns! Hundreds of thousands of messages to FDA no doubt reverberated through the halls of Congress. The

amendment was adopted by the Senate 94 to zero.

 

Sec. X08. Rule of Construction

Nothing in this title (or an amendment made by this title) shall be construed to affect--

(1) The regulation of dietary supplements under the Dietary Supplement

Health and Education Act; or

(2) The adverse event reporting system for dietary supplements created

under the Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act.

 

Like many victories in Congress, you hardly ever get everything you want. Leading supplement industry lawyer, J. Emord, originally proposed exempting all

"foods" from the new law (Counsel stated: "It is a fundamental tenet of food and drug law that foods and food ingredients are presumed to be safe and have

to be established to be adulterated only if they present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury." This approach would have offered even greater protection for natural products, but we are grateful that enough members of Congress heard the loud shout from the public and responded so quickly to at least protect DSHEA products -- the power of Internet politics at its best."

 

 

 

Internet Politics at its best: That's YOU!

 

And Now the Same Process is

 

Taking Place in Codex!

 

 

 

 

The same thing is happening on the International level, in Codex Alimentarius. There is a roaring tide of empowered voices saying "We decide how we want our freedom served, thank you!"

 

When the US once again tried to kill further consideration of mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods and ingredients (GMOs) at the Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL) here in Ottawa, Canada, they got a rude surprise. Instead of letting the US/Canada/Australia/New Zealand/Argentina/Mexico/Brazil bloc of GMO grain exporters have their way and kill any international requirement for such labeling, which would be consistent with the US refusal to allow suceh labeling in the US, and very, very good for its friend, the Biotech industry, the story played out rather differently.

 

False and Misleading Truth

 

Continuing to work on the premise that the truth about GMO food would be false and misleading, the US has been trying to extend its own domestic policy of prohibiting GMO labeling to the rest of the world.

 

The issue of labeling has been on CCFL's docket for 14 years. For that entire time, the hugely powerful US has prevented any forward progress toward required mandatory labeling of GMO foods in international trade.

 

 

 

Mad as ###### and Not Taking It Anymore!

 

 

Last year, at the CCFL, the US proposed discontinuing any effort to reach an agreement on the labeling of GMO foods since no consensus had been reached (thanks in large part, of course, to the US). That would have meant that there were no international standards to which any biotech-importing country's products could be held and developing countries, without laboratory capacity to check food, would have no way of knowing what their people were getting.

 

Norway, which has a strict non GMO policy, was not happy with that idea and proposed a Working Group to meet in Oslo early in 2007. The Natural Solutions Foundation attended that meeting (so did a representative of Monsanto and the Biotech industry group -- AS A MEMBER OF THE US DELEGATION) at which the desire of many countries not to allow the flawed US policy to determine its food safety in this area crystallized.

 

 

In the US, as you know, GMO foods undergo NO mandatory government (or 3rd party) safety testing -- NONE -- and are permitted -- unlabeled and therefore untraceable -- in the food supply by the FDA and USDA. Their industry-friendly rationale was explained at that meeting. GMO foods are presumed to be safe according to FDA's Dr. Barbara Schneeman although their safety has not been tested. FDA and independent research, she said, consistently shows that consumers would not buy GMO foods if they knew they were genetically altered. Therefore, she explained, to keep consumers from making the "wrong decision" and rejecting GMO food, the FDA prevents labeling GMO foods to protect the consumer from "false and misleading information". This US policy was accurateley characterized by the EU delegate as "weird"

 

 

(I kid you not! The Supreme Court of the United States, by the way, has ruled that the FDA cannot do that when it was considering a similar case. Undeterred, it does so anyway.)

 

A Different Menu at

 

Chez Codex This Year!

 

 

This year, however, possibly because of the Working Group's strong report, things did not turn out the way the US was expecting. Instead of dropping the whole issue, the developing countries used their massive collective strength just the way we did in controlling the FDA's attack on our health freedom.

 

 

Since they rightly regard knowing whether their food is genetically modified or not, the developing countries rose up en mass to protect their rights and health. Barbados, Benin, Gabon, C'ote D'Ivoire, Mali, Switzerland, Sweden, Vanuatu, Sudan, Nepal, India, Guyana, Ghana, Thailand, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, the European Union as a whole, on and on and on went to roll call of developing countries that said they wanted an international policy on this issue to protect their people. The consumer rights group (like Consumers International) supported the right to know and, over the objections -- the strenuous objections -- of the US and its GMO buddies, the collective voices of the developing world and (its allies on this issue at least) prevailed.

 

There WILL be a working group on this issue next January in Ghana. The Natural Solutions Foundation WILL be there! And, in the meantime, we will be providing scientific and legal input to the health friendly nations to assist them in their public policy development and their laboratory capacity (a critical issue).

 

My Food Is Killing Me!

 

 

Our food is globalizing so the higher the standards for that globalized food supply, the safer every forkful of food becomes. And the cleaner and more nutritious that food supply is the more people are spared the human tragedy of preventable non communicable diseases of under nutrition here and abroad. What you eat helps determine if you will suffer and die of cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, etc., according to the World Health Organization. What's killing most of us in the developed world? Once you take out properly used prescription drugs (the leading killer of people in the developed world*), food related diseases are killing us. Add to that the diseases of immune suppression which develop when nutritional levels are

inadequate and you have a perfect recipe for global disaster. Codex has, in our opinion, been cooking up exactly just such a disaster since its inception in 1952 by the former head of the German industrial war machine, IG Farben and its first committee meetings in 1963.

 

 

The recipe for disaster is definitely being spoiled by the health friendly chefs who raised their voices collectively at Codex in precisely the same thrust that voters did in the US over this last month.

 

 

My compliments to the Freedom Chef!

 

Next the Natural Solutions Foundation is off to the Open International University of Complimentary Medicine in Santa Fe to share the good word: we, collectively, ARE powerful and our voices DO make a difference! Thanks for your freedom shouts!

 

Yours in health and freedom,

 

Dr. Rima

 

 

Rima E. Laibow, MD

 

Medical Director

 

Natural Solutions Foundation

 

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

 

 

PS: Have you considered making a recurring tax deductible donation (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation? Monthly donations of as little as $10 per month allows us to predict our income and budget accordingly. Just as your voices are strong collectively, your donations are, too! Health Freedom isn't free and your help is a critical element in allowing us to keep on keeping on! Thanks, Dr. Rima

 

 

* Death by Medicine: http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar200...si_death_01.htm

 

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