From the January 2005 Idaho Observer:

HEALTH FREEDOM ALERT

While Americans are preoccupied with stories and images of wars and tsunamis abroad, largely unreported is a cataclysmic domestic event that may hit home by August, 2005.

by Wallace Heath, Ph.D.

Your right to choose what vitamins, minerals and other supplements you want to take may end in August, 2005. After August, U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Codex Alimentarius (stringent food/ supplement regulations) is setting the food and nutritional supplement standards for all countries in the WTO. Codex standards are to be enforced by the WTO and will supercede U.S. law. The U.S. president and Congress agreed to this take-over when the WTO treaty was signed. Violators of Codex and other WTO-sponsored international laws will be punished by WTO trade sanctions.

Codex drastically restricts our free access to vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements. The International Codex Commission met secretly in November, 2004, and finalized "Step 8 (the final stage)" which is scheduled for implementation seven months from now. Under Codex, no supplement can be sold for preventive or therapeutic use; any potency higher than RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance - minimal strength) is a "drug" requiring a prescription and must be produced by drug companies (over 5,000 safe items now in health food stores will be banned, terminating health food stores as we now know them); Codex regulations enforced in the U.S. will be internationally binding; new supplements will be banned unless the developer is willing to endure a very rigorous and expensive Codex approval process.

Codex standards, as currently enforced in Norway and Germany, caused the price of zinc tablets to rise from $4 per bottle to $52; echinacea, an herb used for immune system enhancement, rose from $14 per bottle of 100 capsules to $153. Both zinc and echinacea are only available by prescription since they are now classified as "drugs." Vitamin C above 200 mg, niacin above 32 mg, vitamin B6 above 4 mg are only available by prescription. Essential amino acids such as arginine, lysine, proline, and carnitine; essential fatty acids (such as omegas 3, 6 and 9) and other essential supplements such as DMEA, DHEA, CoQ10, MSM, beta-carotene, will NOT be available for purchase unless prescribed by a licensed physician. These Codex rules are not based on real science. They are regulations influenced by pharmaceutical giants who have used the Codex model to take control of vitamins and supplements in order to protect the lucrative pharmaceutical drug industry.

In 1993 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and drug corporations tried to put all supplements under restriction and prescription, but over four million outraged Americans demanded that Congress and the President protect their freedom to purchase essential health supplements without a prescription. As a result, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed in 1994. But unless health-conscious consumers worldwide get involved, DSHEA will be trumped by Codex and the World Trade Organization.

What can be done at this late hour? (1) Spread the word as much as possible by making copies of this article and sharing with others on talk radio shows, (2) Go to the following websites, become fully informed and contribute what you can to this life saving cause: www.iahf.com, www.alliance-natural-health.org , www.ahha.org (3) Contact your legislators, telling them to oppose bills S.722 and H.R.3377. These support the CODEX restrictions with U.S. laws harmonizing with them, in effect repealing DSHEA. (4) Support H. R.1146, The American Sovereignty Restoration Act that repeals the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 and other specified related laws so that WTO sanctions and CODEX will not apply to the U.S. (6) Contact multi-level health marketing groups that can mobilize their significant numbers to inform their representatives in government. (7) Send donations, however small, to the British Alliance for Natural Health (ANH - see web site above). It has succeeded in challenging many Codex directives in World Court. The ANH challenge in the European Court of Justice is due to be heard on January 25, 2005. ANH is also leading initiatives to offset proposed limits on dosages and health claims through Codex legislation.

These critical events in Europe are ever more likely to lead to restrictions in the U.S. and elsewhere, as there is considerable political and commercial pressure for trade harmonization and regulation at a global level.

Decide NOW what it’s worth to protect your right to natural healthcare.

Codex and the FDA are attempting to "protect" us by controlling supplements in the same way they do prescription drugs. With the latest Vioxx scandal, a drug that was FDA approved, do you trust their approval methods? A study of prescription drugs by three medical scientists was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998—Vol. 279, No. 15, p. 1200: "…Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR’s) was found to be extremely high." Covering 30 years (1966 to 1996) it was found that in the U.S. an average of 106,000 hospitalized patients per year (290 per day) die from ADR’s and 2,200,000 need more hospitalization for recovery. These were FDA approved drugs, properly administered by competent professionals in hospitals—none were considered malpractice. This is the number four cause of death in the U.S. When combined, these account for 7 percent of all hospitalized patients. This is equivalent to the deaths on 9-11 occurring every 10 days.

Due to the pharmaceutical/government controlled media, if a death occurred due to consumption of an over-the-counter nutritional supplement, the news would be on every front page. There is no need for more FDA control of supplements than is already in place, which is substantial. Instead of drastically restricting supplements, why doesn’t the FDA better control and restrict the extremely dangerous pharmaceutical drugs which are now killing us at the rate of a major airline crashing a 757 every day?