Day 12: June 23, 2006
Today we had another full day of meetings and had the same level of success at each of them in this bustling African commercial capital. What a day! For reasons that you will instantly understand, we cannot tell you exactly where we are but you can be assured that it is hot, difficult to arrange anything, complicated and thrilling. Today, in addition to the editors and reporters from two of the largest newspapers in this country we have seen people who know either nothing or quite a lot about Codex but who have not thought about it from our view point. Each one listens with great interest since each one appears to genuinely care what happens to the nutritional status of his or her countrymen. This is a unique and thrilling aspect of these countries: there are problems which we in the US cannot even begin to comprehend, poverty at breath taking levels, corruption in many places at a level we almost never contemplate and yet civil servents and public advocates, activists and business people, Members of Parliament and Ministers of Health are truly interested in listening to what we are saying and in making changes to further public nutrition!
Of course, we shall see what the actual actions their delegates take are during the Codex meeting. At this level, however, we are dealing with people who genuinely seem to want their countries to do the right thing. We think American can learn a thing or two!
Day 13: June 24, 2006
A major newspaper in this country runs a full page story on the importance of our stand on Codex and health freedom! We will scan it and share it with you AFTER the Codex meeting. It urges the country to take care to protect its access to healthy and natural options! In color, no less!
Then we get word that a major African country has apparently shifted its position to support South Africa’s superb initiative for the implementation of the WHO Global Strategy at Codex. Again, we shall see, but it would appear that the shift is because of the work that we have been doing! We are thrilled: hot, tired, exhausted but thrilled!
I have gotten bitten by at least 3 mosquitoes (all of which are presumed to carry malaria) and so I begin taking Artemesia annua and ionic silver to prevent the development of malaria. No one else got bitten who was near me. That’s the way it usually is, by the way.
Then a large and festive meal with our supporters in this country and off to the airport for a flight to Geneva.
Day 14: June 25, 2006
The flight started out fine but sometime during it I became sicker than I have ever been. Every orifice which could empty itself did so repeatedly. And then again and again. I assume that the problem was food poisoning since I recovered after many, many hours of sleep both in the airport waiting for connecting flights and then in the hotel room. UGH! Bert was fine. Go figure.
Oh, by the way, someone stole my Blackberry from our hand luggage so if you wanted to call me, you can’t!
Day 15: June 26, 2006
After some more extended recovery (that equals sleep), we had a leisurly day during which I went through several thousand emails. If I have not gotten to you, please be patient! We are preparing a White Paper on the Codex issue of national options to hand to the delegates whom we will be continuing to meet with with the help of our outstanding legal team.
Let me tell you, even sitting in a hotel room in Geneva is easier, but the work that we have done in Africa has gone so well that I would gladly do it all over again! Thanks for your letters of support and your donations.
This is a very expensive proposition and if you have not given generously yet, please, please do so.
We have a lot to do before us, but what we have done so far on this trip can, just possibly, change the world!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Don’t forget to sign the Citizen’s Petition and visit www.EatSafeEatSmart.com! REL
Day 4: June 15, 2006
Today we are in the commercial capital of this bustling city meeting with government officials. We meet the Food and Agricultural Number 2 man (who comes from this country) and watch his body language: “I need to entertain these useless people because my boss is too busy to do it. Let’s get it over with!” We listen to his take on Codex (“Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful”) and wonder whether he really does not think about the policies he participates in implementing or if he is masking his reality with balsamic platitudes. It is hard to tell since he is closed emotionally and verbally.
None the less, we plunge ahead and tell him what we believe Codex has in store for the land that he loves. We tell him about the results of an adulterated food supply and the impact of chronic under nutrition on the already nutritionally vulnerable people of his country. He is shocked and argues with us saying that is not what HIS Codex will bring. Citing specific examples we note that his body language and verbal language as well have changed: he is now leaning forward in his chair seeking more information and asking probing questions. His forehead is deeply furrowed now where before it was smooth. His expression is deeply concerned, too, where before it was smug.
By the time we leave, Mr. FAO is asking how he can help us to protect his country. We give him a hard copy of the Codex eBook (http://drrimatruthreports.com/resources/books.shtml) and a copy of Nutricide: the DVD (http://drrimatruthreports.com/aboutcodex/dvd.shtml) and leave with his fervent handshake and promise to spread the word in the government and FAO circles he works in.
Next, the head of the Codex Committee of this country. He is also the head of the Bureau of Standards. He is going to Codex but he does not care about it. He listens to our presentation while looking at his watch, accepts our materials (still looking at his watch) and makes it clear that he is not really interested in much of what we have to say. He will be the Codex Delegate from his country at the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) meeting coming up in Geneva next month (July 3-7, 2006). We leave. He is relieved. So are we.
That afternoon we visit the head of a major humanitarian Foundation in-country who is also a significant cattle rancher and farmer. Codex, food purity, domestic and international standards are of great significance to her. We discuss options and receive her enthusiastic support for our program. She suggests high ranking people whom she will contact on our behalf.
Our guide and networking support person (a beautiful, talented young woman who is working on transforming both women and her country in an inspiring way), tells us that a scientist whom we met at Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (November, 2005, Bonn, Germany) and whom we admired for his intelligence and determination to make his points despite the hostility and intimidation of the Chair) has agreed to meet with us over dinner.
This gentleman had previously not replied to any of our emails and we had given up hope on having him as an ally. When we meet with him that evening he tells us that he was watching to see what we could accomplish without his help. Now that we have made major strides in our goals, he is willing to work with us.
In fact, not only is he willing to work with us, he is willing to bring together a team of countries to support our positions at CAC! And he is in the process of doing just that! Day 4 was a breakthrough day.
Day 5: June 16, 2006
We fly to South Africa to visit with a dear friend and catch up. Dinner, loving conversation, a home cooked meal. Life is good tonight!
Day 6: June 17, 2007
More catch up and dinner with a South African doctor and his lovely wife who believe that Natural Medicine is the answer to his country’s major health problems. He has formulated a spectacular meal in a pouch for HIV positive patients with outstanding results. However, the unscrupulous activities of a German MD in South Africa have made any natural health option highly suspect and his effort is meeting with knee-jerk opposition to its deployment. We discuss possible strategies for developing his advance in clinical nutrition and the significant threat to the needy that harmonization with Codex (for example, the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline) would mean to his people.
Also at dinner: a microbiologist and her husband. Her work is on the benefits and importance of probiotics and we discuss her struggle to get recognition for their central role in health and recovery from illness. She, too, has developed a remarkable set of products and we talk about how important these two advances are for all immunocompromised patients, HIV/AIDS and other and, as usual, the impact of Codex on them internationally and, through harmonization, within South Africa unless both are modified.
Our materials leave after dinner in their hands and it is clear that we have new allies in the health and health freedom struggles! And they are people you really want to have dinner with!
Day 7: June 18, 2006
Another dinner, this time with a husband and wife who are representatives of a very large, very influential Chinese nutrient company. We discuss in some detail how their company and our Foundation see our challenges and opportunities with Codex and realize that we have very close alignment. The Chairman of this company will now receive our materials and will be informed of how close our visions and issues are so that we can talk together about developing a common communication strategy either by our going to China or by our coming back to South Africa if his visit and our schedule coincide. Another set of materials walks out the door and we have new comrades in arms (and dinner companions for the future, too).
Day 8: June 19, 2006
We wake up at 4:30 AM to leave the house so that we can catch a very early flight to Capetown, South Africa. We make the plane but the plane doesn’t make the landing. Hours later, we have circled long enough to use up our gas and landed to refuel because Capetown sits in a bowl surrounded by steep mountains on all sides but the sea and, although the surrounding area is totally clear, Capetown is socked in by thick fog. I fell asleep during this circling in a holding pattern and woke up when we landed. I asked where we were and the lady across from me said, “East London”. I was terribly confused: How could I have been asleep long enough to fly to the UK and not know it? No, no! East London, South Africa, only halfway back to where we had taken off!
More fuel, more circling and then we are in Capetown, only half a day late along with 12 other plane loads of people who could not land until then, too. Bags? Luggage carts? Not easily had.
Finally we emerge with our luggage and meet the people who have come to collect us: a farmer with a passion to feed his country with supplemented, healthy, clean food and a highly influential traditional healer who is also an MD (or perhaps an MD who is also a traditional healer).
We detail exactly what Codex is and what it means to them and their people. They are appropriately concerned and, material in their hands, the day ends with new friends and new allies. These are influential decision shapers and are important in our efforts to spread the word about health and health freedom into new communities. Both understand that Codex is a threat to nutrient based health strategies and are willing to work hard to protect their people and their families. And they are a delight to have dinner with, too!
Day 9: June 20, 2006
We are still in Capetown and we are picked up from the in-town home of the farmer by a brilliant analytic chemist who is also an MD (or is it the other way around?). He is an expert on the precise evaluation of food components which are related to allergies like genetically modified DNA from GMO foods and we have a tour of his lab and meet his staff. Over lunch we discuss Codex and its allegedly “Science Based” standards and guidelines. We agree that under nutrition and an adulterated food supply are major health threats presided over by Codex although we also agree that there are aspects of Codex which can be utilized to help humanity (which as the appropriate upgrading of lab standards and facilities).
The proprietor of the lab drives us to the airport and agrees that he, too, needs to spread the word of what is happening to health freedom. This time the air portion of the day is uneventful.
We are met by the representatives of the Chinese company from two days before and returned to our host’s home bone weary, but enlivened from the excellent conversations and commitments we have participated in.
Day 10: June 21, 2006
We fly to a huge, populous and highly influential African country where we are met by a physician whom we came to know only 1 month ago at a seminar in New York! He said that he would bring us to members of the Government of this country who would take our cause up in Codex and make a difference. In this case, we are deeply concerned about the importance of implementing the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health in a manner consistent with South Africa’s 11 principles for doing just that.
We hope for the best and get nearly no sleep because we have to leave the hotel long before dawn to fly to the capital city to meet with ministers and other high ranking officials tomorrow.
Day 11: June 22, 2006
BINGO!!!!! Ministers, Senators and Members of the House of Representatives meet us. Codex representatives who work for the Food and Drugs Board but who believe in natural medicine as essential to national health meet us. The Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on Health and Public Health meet us. The most powerful politician in the government meets with us. Virtually all of these men are physicians who, surprisingly to those of us from the US, really understand the crucial role of nutrition and are duly horrified by what Codex can mean to their people.
The Consumer Protection Agency Director General (who reports directly to the highest authority in the country) meets with us along with her legal advisor and really, really get it! They are members of the National Codex Committee and promise to bring our material and our information to that body.
We give them each of them our materials and they all willingly promise that they will take the Global Strategy very carefully at the Codex Committee Meeting prior to the CAC next month. They were unaware of how important the Global Strategy was to them and promised to examine that very carefully.
Then off to the airport to fly back to the commercial capital of this country from its political capital. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Hours and hours later, we get on the plane (dinner? lunch? breakfast? Don’t be ridiculous! I was packing a few power bars and we shared them as we dashed from one fabulous meeting to another. )
We wait and we wait and we wait. And we sweat. It is unbelievably hot and humid. I hate heat. I hate humidity. It does not really matter. We need to be here doing this and I can get cool next January, if I am lucky, I suppose.
General Stubblebine is wilting, too, in business attire. Hot, sticky, no air conditioning, no food, but a day of nearly unbelievable success.
We get on the plane at last and there is no air-conditioning. In fact, there is no air moving at all. We sit there dripping and wondering what is going on when the pilot cranks the engine. RRRRRR, RRRRR, RRRR, RR, R, no power and the engine dies. More brutal heat and humidity, another series of unsuccessful cranks and, wonder of wonders, it catches. Let me tell you, flying on a plane under those conditions made us all sweat even when the temperature cooled down.
We land, stagger off to our hotel for a few hours’ sleep and begin again: we are up very, very early because we have an interview with the first of the two leading newspapers in the country. We do an interview and the editor and reporter are mesmerized and promise to run the story right away.
(Breakfast? Did I mention breakfast? No? Guess why!)
Then off to interviews with highly significant people (including the Codex Point of Contact of this nation). Her body language (like that of the FAO man in another country) was closed when we began but, by the end of our several hours together, we were laughing, considering, and working together on a profound redefinition of the problems posed by Codex which had never presented themselves clearly at this level because the problem areas are so beautifully wrapped up in shiny gift wrapping with “Science Based, Science Based” printed on it. They are tied up with a bow tied by the PR skills of the multinational interests but, pulling on the strings, we show what is inside and neutrals and enemies reorient to become friendlies and allies.
Tomorrow we fly off again. Stay tuned. Codex will, this year, be attended by national representatives who just might act as a coalition and make a difference that can benefit every man, woman and child on the planet!
Stay tuned! There’s a lot more to come!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Codex has some new rules: the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Exercise and Health (GS) IS going to be implemented, despite the efforts of Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, pro-illness Chairman of the important Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses.
This week, the South African delegate to Codex, Antoinette Booyzen, suceeded in introducing a series of principles which compell Codex to implement GS whether it wants to or not. It was a great potential victory for our side BUT if we do not get our ducks/resources/strategy in line pretty quickly, we will loose this opportunity.
We’ve got a huge up hill climb ahead of us, but with the new Codex implementation of the Global Strategy forced upon it, and shaped by South Africa’s courageous delegate to the Codex Committee on Food Labeling this week in Ottawa, the terrain just changed in our favor. Now is the time for action.
Here are 5 steps which I hope that you will take right now and tell your friends and contacts about, too. We have an unparalled opportunity. Let’s take it!
1. Raise Natural Solutions Foundation’s rank in the search engines. Put this link on all of your websites (remove the fifteen * signs in this link before you mount this link. They have been added to prevent link from becoming active in this format):
*< *p*>*< *a href*=*"http://drrimatruthreports.com"*>*Stop Codex Alimentarius and Protect Health Freedom!< */*a>*< */*p>*
2. Become an information source.
a. Download the highly informative Codex eBook and learn how the protective International Strategy works.
b. Watch Nutricide: the DVD and recommend it to your friends
3. Join the legal challenge to US Codex Policy on supplements. Sign the Citizens Petition and ask your friends to do the same
4. Make a generous tax deductable gift to the Natural Solutions Foundation so we can continue protecting your health freedom. Consider a regular monthly donation so we can anticipate our income.
5. Purchase your organic snacks, chocolate, Zeolite, cosmetics GMO free products from our sister site, www.EatSafeEatSmart.com. When you do you are supporting organic, GMO-free products AND the Natural Solutions Foundation at the same time. Every purchase helps support us. Tell your friends, too!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
What do the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, BioRenew and Freedom Club USA have in common?
Each organization has taken a bold step that you can take, too. Each one of them has endorsed
-the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline which when ratified, will overturn the deadly impact of the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline.
These endorsements are extremely important and I urge you to read the Citizen Petition, the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (we’ve provided a marked up copy so you can easily see the difference between the Codex guideline, which mandates under-nutrition, and our Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline“>Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, which pushes for optimal nutrition).
Here’s the strategy: If countries are not Codex compliant (that is, their domestic laws do not match Codex regulations), they will loose in the World Trade Organization Dispute Resolution process if another country accuses them of creating a barrier to trade by violating a Codex guideline, standard or regulation. If they loose, the penalties are enormous: trade sanctions can run several hundred million dollars per year or more until the country caves in. Not only that, the sanctions are imposed on any economic sector it pleases by the prevailing country. If the two countries are competitors in, say, electronics, although the dispute was about, for example, turkey breasts, the sanctions could be applied to that contested electronics industry to do the most economic harm to the loosing country.
Is it any wonder, then, that the nations of the world are racing to adopt the Codex standards as fast as possible, despite the terrible impact it will have on health and longevity?
Our Codex working group, was greatly assisted by two brilliant and dedicated lawyers, Jim Turner and Jim Fucetola examined just what makes a country compliant and came up with a unique and powerful approach: we have created the first of a series of Revised Codex documents which, when adopted by a country, keeps the country in Codex compliance but stands the destructive impact of the Codex version on its head. In other words, the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline extends the principles of DSHEA world-wide and makes them the global strategy, rather than a localized American anomaly. The impact on world hunger and disease will be staggeringly positive.
I urge you to read and compare the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, which is based on the premise that nutrients are toxins, and our Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, which states that biochemical individuality is crucial for optimal nutrition and that individual requirements vary widely and must be permitted. Countries which are not tied to the Pharmaceutical Death Apparatus (the real PH D A) are searching for a way to protect their people and avoid the enormous sums of penalty money the WTO keeps nations in line with. Adoption of the Revised VMG allows them to do just that.
Other Revised Codex standards, etc. will follow.
Public support gives this strategy “legs” as they say in Congress, in two ways
1. Every person who signs the join-in letter counts as 13,000 constituents in the mind of Congress. So although you may believe that your voice has no weight or meaning, it is not true. Hundreds of thousands of letters will send a clear message to Congress: these people are serious and their health freedom is a serious concern to them. I’d best listen up! Remember, this is not a simple grocery store petition. This is a serious legal challenge to the United States Government position and policy on Codex.
2. Endorsements by individuals though joining the legal challenge known as the Citizen Petition or by organizations which pass resolutions of support for the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline tells Congress here at home and countries friendly to health freedom that there is a movement which has power and strategic thinking behind it with which they can safely align themselves.
Can Codex counter attack? Of course they can. Will they? Probably. But with a growing constituency of support both at home and abroad, the terrible damage done by mandating chronic under-nturition world-wide is averted. The Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline does that.
General Stubblebine and I are leaving later today to attend the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses in Bonn, Germany.
You can bet that we will be following up with the people we met in Rome who, when asked if they understood what using Risk Assessment would mean to their pregnant women, their elderly, their cancer rates, etc., did not. We explained that Risk Assessment is a discipline of toxicology designed to determine doses so low that they have no discernable impact on humans. We further pointed out that Codex has declared nutrients to be toxins and treats them as such. They quickly saw, when it was presented that way, that the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline has nothing to do with promoting health but everything to do with promoting widespread illness with its resultant dependence on expensive, dangerous and ineffective drugs to treat the chronic degenerative diseases of under-nutrition. And then, to a man or woman, they asked for help.
The Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline is the first part of that help. We need public support to generate Congressional support. We need Congressional Support to generate international support.
So please, get active, get your groups active (churches, coops, ladies clubs, student clubs, professional clubs, all are welcome!)
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
We get to tell our story to Congress on September 20, 2005 and you are invited! The Natural Solutions Foundation will participate in a Congressional Briefing on Codex Alimentarius in room 2220 in the Rayburn Building. We would love to see you there. We would also love to see Congress there! They will come if you tell them that you, their constituent, urge them to go. That’s how it works. This is a critical opportunity to make the pro-health side of the Codex story clear to Congress since it is Congress that can protect or overturn DSHEA and it is Congress that can allow or prevent harmonization with other Codex standards here in the US.
Congress is our bulwark and Congress knows almost nothing about Codex. The Natural Solutions Foundation has called and written to every member of Congress and spoken to their health aides (or tried to). There are a few Congressmen who “get” Codex like Representatives Ron Paul, Peter DeFazio, Dan Burton, Dana Rohrabacher and others.
The vast majority of Congress, however, has either never heard of Codex or only has the “Consumer Protection” line to hold on to. We know, of course, that consumer protection has nothing to do with Codex. We know that you cannot trust Codex with either your health or your wallet. Congress, by and large, has no idea about the real nature of Codex. So we will tell them.
Here’s your part: there are lots of Congressional briefings. Congressmen and their staff members only go when they have a reason to go. The most compelling reason to go is because you tell them to!
Here’s what you need to send them (you can cut and paste this letter or write your own):
It is urgently important that you and your staff attend the Congressional Briefing on Codex Alimentarius on September 20, 2005 in room 2220 in the Rayburn Building. Codex Alimentarius has the potential to eliminate access to high potency vitamins currently protected by DSHEA, lower the quality of food due to significant adulteration and, as a consequence, increase preventable disease and deaths in this country.
Despite inaccurate information to the contrary, Codex Alimentarius is not protective of consumer needs, rights or interests. Instead, it is a form of global corporate welfare with dire consequences to the health and well being of America’s people and environment.
I do not trust Codex with my health or my wallet and I look to you to protect my them for me since you are in a position to do so.
Thank you in advance for your attendance at this vitally important briefing. I particularly want you to hear what Rima E. Laibow, MD, Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, has to share during this briefing.
Thank you,
your name
your address
Cut and paste that into the form that you will reach by following this link: Contact Congress , enter your zip code and click on “Elected Officials”. Your Congressional Delegation and the President of the US will get the email you send.
Please ask everyone on your email list join you in urging Congress to attend this briefing. Give them the link and the instructions above and suggest that they send a letter like the one above to Congress, too. Only grass roots will win this battle. But grass roots CAN win it!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director