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Mike Adams, a good friend and fellow freedom fighter, is now saying publicly what I have been saying for months: the US is set for mandatory vaccinations, despite their denial of any such intent. They will call them “voluntary” because you can take them or accept involuntary quarantine instead. That is called “duress” in the law and invalidates any agreement you might make under that condition. How does that work? Very well if we let it! Read Push Back Truth and the Ministry of Lies, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=3279, for more detail on this DoubleThink deceit.
Try telling that to the trooper or military person who is hauling you off to a prison or FEMA camp after you said you did not want a vaccine with 1 million times more squalene than the vaccines that felled so many healthy young men and women with Gulf War Syndrome after they were injected with Vaccine A by the military in a heinous experiment from which hundreds of thousands of young men and women have suffered and died. 1 million times more.
Make no mistake. The H1N1 “Pandemic” is only the first of many. You will hear again and again that there is another “mystery” plague which we need to be vaccinated against or it will kill hundreds of millions of people. Medicago, for example, is testing a new type of vaccine for Avian Flu (we are anything but done with that one!) and the bonanza will continue, pushing poison into us and our children while we sicken and, oh-so-profitably die. http://www.lsblog.org/blog/?p=6980
The first of the blatant fascist States, given an excuse to become an anti Constitutional land of terror by the absurd and possibly non-existent H1N1 “pandemic” is Massachusetts. Please read what my good friend, and fellow freedom fighter, Mike Adams, has to say about the evaporation of your freedoms, in MA, and outside of it.
Once a cradle of liberty, today a bill awaiting passage by the MA House of Representatives could signal the rapid and final collapse of the Constitution of the United States.
Tyrannies always cloak their misdoings in high-minded words meant to delude and mislead the gullible. This time is no exception. Violating one Amendment after another, authorizing warantless search and seizure, incarceration without trial, punitive fines for protecting your body’s integrity, the list goes on and on. And it is, of course, all for the best purpose: for protecting you from the “deadly” “pandemic” H1N1 virus.
Except it is not deadly. It may not even exist, since I have yet to find a solid, unbiased scientific paper which documents that it actually exists, it certainly is not diagnosed with any accuracy by any available means (which would make good sense if it is a total hoax, a complete fraud) and the untested, unnecessary and unsafe vaccines which are being touted – at gunpoint, it would seem – to either prevent or treat it are far worse, according to UK and Australian doctors and nurses, than the supposedly lethal disease.
New York Nurses, too, state that they see no need for the jab in light of the nature of the disease (trivial) and the risks of the squalene-laced vaccine.
Please take a few minutes to read the full article below which, although it pertains to Massachusetts, actually is a blue print for every State in the Union.
This bill conforms nicely to the State Emergency Medical Health Powers Act, of which nearly every state has already passed some version. As previously reported in these health freedom blogs, under these acts, warantless invasion and property seizure is permitted, mandatory forced vaccination or incarceration are permitted and the closure of all roads into or out of cities, towns and states are permitted. That is precisely what the MA law sets up.
Take action while there is still time. Organize signing events in your community to get every person you can reach to sign the Action Item demanding the right to reject this false and diabolical “choice” of either accepting a potentially deadly vaccine or being incarcerated for an indefinite period.
Click here, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27275, to take action to demand the right to say “NO!” to forced vaccination or quarantine and here, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27791.
Once these laws are passed in your state, and the CDC is shipping vaccines, there will not be any legal action you can take. Time is extraordinarily short.
Act now. Mobilize your neighbors. Now.
And, while you are thinking about it, please make a tax deductible recurring donation to the Natural Solutions Foundation, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189, to help defray our costs, including our legal costs.
If your donation ends in “$6” we will know that it is for legal defense. That’s $5006, $16, $256 or whatever you can afford. It’s your health. It’s your freedom. Health Freedom IS your First Freedom.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
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PS – In case you think we are going off the “deep end” here, take a look at this Federal Government web page that has a form on it for the States to use to force you from your home, violate your Right to Self Shield and, in general, set up the apparatus of Medical Fascism:
http://www2a.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/Facility%20Quarantine%20Order%20novelflu%20filled%20in%204-30-09.pdf
The CDC “recommends” the jab and then the States mandate it… all quite legal and all very fascistic.
——————————–
Forced Vaccinations, quarantine camps, MA Senate reportedly passes “Pandemic Response Bill 2028”
Natural News | August 29, 2009 | Natural News Staff
NaturalNews) The United States of America is devolving into medical fascism and Massachusetts is leading the way with the passage of a new bill, the “Pandemic Response Bill” 2028, reportedly just passed by the MA state Senate and now awaiting approval in the House. This bill suspends virtually all Constitutional rights of Massachusetts citizens and forces anyone “suspected” of being infected to submit to interrogations, “decontaminations” and vaccines.
It’s also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel. You can read the text yourself here: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st02/st02028.htm
Here’s some of the language contained in the bill:
(Violation of 4th Amendment: Illegal search and seizure)
During either type of declared emergency, a local public health authority… may exercise authority… to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises; to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility; to destroy any material; to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(Violation of 14th Amendment; illegal arrest without a warrant)
…an officer authorized to serve criminal process may arrest without a warrant any person whom the officer has probable cause to believe has violated an order given to effectuate the purposes of this subsection and shall use reasonable diligence to enforce such order. [Gunpoint]
(Government price controls)
The attorney general, in consultation with the office of consumer affairs and business regulation, and upon the declaration by the governor that a supply emergency exists, shall take appropriate action to ensure that no person shall sell a product or service that is at a price that unreasonably exceeds the price charged before the emergency.
“Involuntary Transportation” (also known as kidnapping)
Law enforcement authorities, upon order of the commissioner or his agent or at the request of a local public health authority pursuant to such order, shall assist emergency medical technicians or other appropriate medical personnel in the involuntary transportation of such person to the tuberculosis treatment center.
$1,000 / day in fines
Any person who knowingly violates an order, as to which noncompliance poses a serious danger to public health as determined by the commissioner or the local public health authority, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 30 days or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars per day that the violation continues, or both.
Forced vaccinations
Furthermore, when the commissioner or a local public health authority within its jurisdiction determines that either or both of the following measures are necessary to prevent a serious danger to the public health the commissioner or local public health authority may exercise the following authority: (1) to vaccinate or provide precautionary prophylaxis to individuals as protection against communicable disease…
Forced quarantine for those who refuse (illegal imprisonment without charge)
An individual who is unable or unwilling to submit to vaccination or treatment shall not be required to submit to such procedures but may be isolated or quarantined pursuant to section 96 of chapter 111 if his or her refusal poses a serious danger to public health or results in uncertainty whether he or she has been exposed to or is infected with a disease or condition that poses a serious danger to public health, as determined by the commissioner, or a local public health authority operating within its jurisdiction.
Arrest for refusal to be “decontaminated”
If an individual is unable or unwilling to submit to decontamination or procedures necessary for diagnosis, the decontamination or diagnosis procedures may proceed only pursuant to an order of the superior court… During the time necessary to obtain such court order, such individual may be isolated or quarantined pursuant to section 96 of chapter 111 if his or her refusal to submit to decontamination or diagnosis procedures poses a serious danger to public health or results in uncertainty whether he or she has been exposed to or is infected with a disease or condition that poses a serious danger to public health.
Interrogation
When the commissioner or a local public health authority within its jurisdiction reasonably believes that a person may have been exposed to a disease or condition that poses a threat to the public health, in addition to their authority under section 96 of chapter 111, the commissioner or the local public health authority may detain the person for as long as may be reasonably necessary for the commissioner or the local public health authority, to convey information to the person regarding the disease or condition and to obtain contact information… If a person detained under subsection (1) refuses to provide the information requested, the person may be isolated or quarantined pursuant to section 96 of chapter 111 if his or her refusal poses a serious danger to public health…
Forced isolation and quarantine
An order for isolation or quarantine may include any individual who is unwilling or unable to undergo vaccination, precautionary prophylaxis, medical treatment, decontamination, medical examinations, tests, or specimen collection and whose refusal of one or more of these measures poses a serious danger to public health or results in uncertainty whether he or she has been exposed to or is infected with a disease or condition that poses a serious danger to public health.
Forced entry into any home or building…
There’s a lot more in this bill, including language that allows Mass. police to enter any home or building without a search warrant, to destroy any object or building they suspect may pose a threat to public safety, to order the closing and / or decontamination of any facility using highly toxic chemical decontamination agents, and to arrest, detain and interrogate anyone who gets in their way.
Meanwhile, all state law enforcement and medical personnel are granted complete immunity from prosecution for their part in violating your Constitutional rights. So if they violate your right to due process, or they accidentally destroy your home, or they kill your family dog because they suspect it might be infected, you have absolutely zero recourse.
Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it. It’s all written, clear as day, in this law: The citizens of Massachusetts will have no rights, period. The Constitution is ancient history. You are now the property of the State.
Kiss your freedoms goodbye Massachusetts, it seems, has never met a vaccine it didn’t like. This is the same state that rounded up the parents of schoolchildren who hadn’t been vaccinated, then corralled them into a courtroom (with attack dogs standing guard outside) and forced vaccine injections onto all the schoolchildren under the threat of jail time for parents who resisted.
Remember, readers, that this is all taking place in the “land of the free,” a nation that former President George Bush claimed was so envied around the world that terrorists attacked America because they “hate freedom” and wanted to destroy our way of life. But terrorists need no help attacking freedom as long as Massachusetts is in the vaccine game, because this latest form of “gunpoint medicine” destroys freedom for everyday Americans in a way that terrorists could have never hoped to accomplish with all the bombs in the world.
Massachusetts, it seems, has done what terrorists could not: It has turned “free” Americans into medical slave subjects who no longer have any freedom to decide the details of their own medical care. All options have been stripped from them but one: The Big Pharma option. That’s the one that involves using untested, unproven and potentially dangerous vaccines that could paralyze you or even kill you. All to defend you against a virus that’s so weak, almost anyone with decent levels of vitamin D and basic nutrition can resist the virus without incident.
But Massachusetts, as you’ll see below, is just the beginning. It turns out that the whole nation could soon find itself under a similar forced vaccination policy…
Isolation camps, forced vaccinations and more In 2006, former President George Bush signed into law the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP). It gives power to the Secretary of the U.S. government’s Health and Human Services department (HHS) to declare any infectious disease a “national emergency” and therefore require mandatory vaccination of the entire population. Because of the existence of this PREP Act, the entire population of the USA is now but one pen stroke away from being subjected to mandatory swine flu vaccinations at gunpoint.
Those who resist such vaccines will be arrested and taken away for “isolation” in domestic prison camps. They can’t just leave vaccine refusers free to live among the population, of course, because that would send the message that anyone can refuse the vaccines without consequence. So they’ll arrest those who refuse the vaccine, labeling them “a threat to national security” (enemies of the state) and imprison them without trial, without charges and without any legal representation whatsoever.
Meanwhile, all those who take part in enforcing these crimes against the American people will be granted complete immunity. From the HHS website: “[the Secretary may] issue a declaration… that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency…”
There are other laws already on the books that strip Americans of virtually all Constitutional rights in a “pandemic emergency” scenario. One such act is The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (S. 3678), which probably merits another article altogether.
Have no illusions: At the stroke of a pen, the Constitutional rights of all Americans will be immediately suspended. Mandatory vaccinations and “decontaminations” will kick in and the mass arrest of resisters will begin. There will be no court, no trial, no jury and no due process. Your actions will be dictated to you by a law enforcement officer or a health care worker who has been granted complete immunity, so if you just happen to get kicked around a bit (or shot), there’s really nothing you can do about it.
Some might argue these are necessary actions to save a nation from a deadly pandemic. And yet they forget that the pandemic has been intentionally allowed to worsen by censoring information about vitamin D and natural remedies that could stop it. Somebody at the top, in other words, wants this pandemic to get really bad, perhaps because it allows them to invoke precisely the draconian response I’ve outlined in this article. Seizing power in a Democracy cannot be accomplished by simply declaring war on the rights of the People. Rather, a situation must be engineered where the People are so desperate that they beg to be controlled. Releasing a pandemic into the wild is the perfect way to accomplish precisely that.
Timing
None of these laws will be invoked before the vaccines are ready in large numbers, of course. Part of the purpose in all this is to prop up Big Pharma profits with massive vaccination efforts, so until the vaccines are actually available, don’t expect to see any declarations of a public emergency.
It might take until October or November before the vaccines are readily available in sufficient quantity to inject just half the U.S. population. But once that milestone is reached, a declaration of a pandemic emergency is imminent. Trust me on this point: They won’t let all those hundreds of millions of vaccines sit around unused; they’ll make sure they get injected into the People as soon as possible, because that’s the only way to justify making more.
So the sequence of events we’re likely to see here are:
#1) Waiting on vaccine manufacturing to procure at least 150 million doses in the U.S. Probable time frame = October.
#2) Hyping up a few local swine flu breakouts in schools in order to justify step #3. Probable time frame = November / December.
#3) Declaring a full-blown national emergency and announcing mandatory vaccinations for everyone (to use up the vaccines that are now available). Probable time frame = January / February / March.
#4) If the disease continues to spread, this is when you’ll see forced entry into homes and buildings, forced “decontamination” sprayings, widespread arrests and forced quarantine of resisters, Martial Law and a complete crackdown on freedoms (especially in the inner cities). This will likely continue through the winter until Spring arrives, bringing the sunshine that will suppress the virus around the May 2010 time frame.
All this is written in black ink. It’s already part of the pandemic response plan. Body bags, FEMA camps and much more.
Two years ago, this was all the domain of conspiracy theory “wingnuts.” Now it’s State law. Now it’s being openly discussed in security conferences and health care meetings. What will we do when the hospital beds are full? How will we accomplish the “involuntary transportation” of those who are infected? Are there enough zip-tie handcuffs to go around? How do we disarm and arrest citizens who refuse to be vaccinated? How do we prevent National Guard troops from becoming infected themselves?
These are the questions circulating now at high levels, all across the world. And the answers are always the same: Abandon freedoms. Strip the People of any rights. Dictate from the top down and arrest anyone who gets in your way.
Welcome to the Land of the Free. I hope you are prepared for what looks to be coming, because this isn’t America anymore, folks. This is Amerika, and the Constitutional rights you thought you had are about to be written right off the books.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327811/posts
NAIS in Sheep’s Clothing
Natural Solutions Foundation
Donate to Keep Health Freedom Free. All donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189
Take this Action Step NOW for every member of your family/household and mobilize everyone you can reach to do the same: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
Visit your Senator to tell him/her how strongly you insist that he/she protect both your food and your freedom. Here is a printable fact sheet you can use to either send to people in your emails or hand out to your Senator and people in health food stores, community members, etc.: http://www.lifespirit.org/FoodSafetyBills-leafletFINAL.pdf
The Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about the coming of Codex to our food supply, with its degradation of every aspect of our food freedom and quality for quite some time. We are so concerned about this food and freedom issue that we are creating the innovative Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, in Volcan, Panama, to teach farmers and non farmers alike how to reclaim the production of food. But meanwhile, the US is loosing its food freedom and its freedom all at the same time.
HR 2749, and its sister bill which the Senate will consider when it reconvenes in September brings it all back home. The article below is long, detailed and vitally important to you and your family. This is not simply a technical bill for technocrats. This is real life food slavery for you and for your family unless we act now.
HR 2749 takes giant steps forward in bringing what none of us want to see into being. HR 2749’s sister bill must NOT pass in the Senate if you value the health that comes from food, value your freedom to grow and source the type of clean, unadulterated food you value and if you do not want to see, eat and be, a global food slave. To date, as I write this, some 876,996 emails have been generated to tell Congress to safeguard, not destroy, our health and our food supply, as well as our freedom. It is imperative that we make sure that the Senate understands that this is not a request, it is a demand. If you have not generated emails to stop this invasion of the Constitution, your health freedom and your food and pets, do so now.
The article below focuses on just one aspect of that program, the National Animal Identification System or NAIS.
There has been a long and powerful battle in the US against NAIS, a regulatory and chipping system which would place extraordinary burdens on small farmers, raising costs of “traceability” and farming practices so high as to drive them out of business, leaving the field to the industrial giants, the Codex Criminals who want food produced cheaply enough to make them even richer – and care nothing about health, safety or the future of either food or your family.
HR 2749, passed under great pressure by the House of Representatives on July 31, 2009, just as it went on August recess, is a disastrous bill for food, for freedom and for farmers. It is a disastrous bill for you. If you keep pets, it is a disastrous bill for them, too.
When we gained successful push back when Congresswoman Rosa Delaurio (CT-D) agreed not to fund NAIS in Committee, we knew that the issue would be back around. And here it is.
Please take the Action Step in our Three for Liberty Campaign, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=3262, right now, once for each member of your family. Then let every single person you know or can reach that it is urgent that they do the same IF they believe in their right to clean, unadulterated food, do not want Codex’ international globalization standards implemented, want to support small and organic farmers, do not want their pets chipped (yes, their pets!) with devices which have been shown to cause cancer, do not want the FDA to be able to declare martial law (!) and seize property in cases of food contamination and want to be able to grow their own gardens without having to adhere to Codex standards, complete with PIN number!
This is not the United States we believe we live in. This is global food fascism, nothing more and nothing less. Don’t let it happen. It really is up to us.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the Moon Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Welcome to the Global Plantation: HR 2749 Authorizes International Take-Over of Domestic Food Production
© Doreen Hannes 2009
Published by permission of the author
HR 2749 AUTHORIZES NAIS and OTHER INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Congressional staffers have been telling people that HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, does not authorize the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Many organic groups have agreed with them. However, this is misleading. Though HR 2749 does not name “the” National Animal Identification System, it still authorizes the program. It also does not state that it legally authorizes Good Agricultural Practices, or GAP, partially comprising Codex guidelines on traceability and food safety, and the OIE’s Guide to Good Farming Practices including auditing, certification and inspections, disincentives for not participating in the form of fines, penalties, and loss of access to market, but it does. Is it possible that Congress was not aware of what it voted on? The bill was changed three times in a 24-hour period before passing the House 283-142 on July 30, 2009.
Are these assertions about HR 2749 wild and unsubstantiated? Proving them is fairly easy—just understand “Good Agricultural Practices” (GAP), how the agencies of the World Trade Organization operate within member countries to achieve them and what comprises the actual jurisdiction of the FDA and USDA. A brief explanation follows, along with substantiating quotes from HR 2749.
First we look to jurisdiction in HR2749….
“Nothing in this Act or any amendment made by this Act shall be construed to alter the jurisdiction between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, under applicable statutes and regulations…” (p.3&4)
Then, tossing our preconceived notions to the wind and looking to law instead, we find that congressional testimony of the FDA on establishing a single food safety agency and a myriad of other sources including the FAO (Food and Ag Organization of the UN), the FDA statements on the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, and many books on food law affirm that FDA has jurisdiction over live food animals:
“FDA is the Federal agency that regulates 80 percent of the nation’s food supply-everything we eat except for meat, poultry, and certain egg products, which are regulated by our partners at USDA. FDA’s responsibility extends to live food animals…”(Cfans Director, March 2004 Congressional hearing)
So then what is the authority of the USDA? It is over agricultural disease, animals in the slaughter channel or transport, marketing (like grading of eggs and certification of processes) and the end product of many (but not all) food animals; meat. This is why NAIS always had to be “about disease” because the USDA couldn’t run it otherwise! The exemption section on USDA regulated products is a dust up. Most people think the USDA has authority over live food animals, but it is the FDA after all. They surrender “cow, sheep or goat for milk production”, but the FDA retains authority of the fluid milk and when the animal is no longer productive for milking, it’s into the slaughter channel (under USDA) or out to pasture (back to FDA) anyway!
“Livestock and poultry that are intended to be presented for slaughter pursuant to the regulations by the Secretary of Agriculture under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act are exempt from the requirements of this Act. A cow, sheep, or goat that is used for the production of milk is exempt from the requirements of this Act.” (p.5 of HR2749)
HR 2749 is 160 pages (July 29 version) and contains the following references to international standards and guidelines (emphasis added for clarity) (all page numbers refer to the PDF file):
“(B) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS.—In issuing guidance or regulations… the Secretary shall review international hazard analysis and preventive control standards that are in existence on the date of the enactment of this Act and relevant to such guidelines or regulations to ensure that the programs…..are consistent……with such standards.” (p. 35)
“CONSISTENCY WITH INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS.—The Secretary shall apply this paragraph consistently with United States obligations under international agreements.” (p. 81)
“The Secretary shall issue regulations to ensure that any qualified certifying entity and its auditors are free from conflicts of interest. In issuing these regulations, the Secretary may rely on or incorporate international certification standards.” (p. 82)
This means that there will be a layer of auditors, certifiers and inspectors over every aspect of food production in this country and that these inspectors and certifiers will be trained in ISO (International Standards Organization) management program certification. The ISO has been working with Codex Alimentarius on Food Safety Standards and, in particular, a technical standard for Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) which is a consortium of the seven largest food retailers in the world, and that is ISO22000:2005. All traceability (read NAIS) falls under the purview of Codex, the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) for global trade agreements.
The following excerpt from HR 2749 shows the fully interoperable global network already in existence regarding food and its production:
“Development of such guidelines shall take into account the utilization of existing unique identification schemes and compatibility with customs automated systems, such as integration with the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and the International Trade Data System (ITDS), and any successor systems.” (p. 142)
So it is clear that international standards and guidelines are implicit in this legislation. Note the usage of the command form SHALL. This isn’t a ‘might’, ‘may’ or in anyway a voluntary issue on the part of the Secretary. Then there is the section on Traceability. This is a code word in the National Animal Identification System and when one reads Sec.107 of this bill, it describes specific components of NAIS down to 48-hour trace-back, which cannot even be fantasized about with out individual animal identification.
“…..the Secretary shall issue regulations establishing a tracing system that enables the Secretary to identify each person who grows, produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, holds, or sells such food in as short a timeframe as practicable but no longer than 2 business days.” [note that it says “grows”] (p. 70)
and…
“……use a unique identifier for each facility owned or operated by such person for such purpose…” (p. 69)
So we have PIN (Premises Identification Number) and 48-hour traceback harmonizing with international standards and guidelines along with this:
“….‘‘(C) COORDINATION REGARDING FARM IMPACT.—In issuing regulations under this paragraph that will impact farms, the Secretary ‘‘(i) shall coordinate with the Secretary of Agriculture; and ‘‘(ii) take into account the nature of the impact of the regulations on farms.” (p. 71)
Now that I’ve killed you with legalese, it’s time to let you find out just what these international standards and guidelines mean to those engaged in agriculture in this country.
“GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES”
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are not a standard in and of themselves. They are a combination of standards and guidelines set forth by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO), through both the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) and IPPC to meet the certification and auditing side of the international trade aspects of the standards set forth. The OIE and Codex are charged with setting global standards and guidelines for the member countries of the WTO to meet and satisfy the SPS (Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary), TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) and Equivalency agreements of the WTO for participation in international trade. Both the OIE and CODEX have guidelines for traceability that, with the passage of HR2749 into law, would be written into regulations governing all interstate commerce within the boundaries of the United States. The components of traceability are the pillars of NAIS that many of us have become so familiar with in the course of the battle over the past several years. Those being 1) Premises Identification 2) Animal Identification and 3) Animal Tracking. You can’t have traceability under international standards without having those three components.
One of the main issues in the implementation of these standards and guidelines within a member nation of the WTO is that they must have a legal framework through which to regulate and enforce these guidelines and standards. HR 2749 would meet the criteria for that legal framework by way of the excerpts from the bill above.
In the OIE’s “Guide to Good Farming Practices” the management of a livestock facility are clearly spelled out. Some of these recommendations that would become defacto law in the US under agency rule-making on passage of HR2749 (GGFP delineates international guidelines for food safety at the farm level) are:
– For each animal…Require and keep all commercial and health documents enabling their exact itinerary to be traced from their farm or establishment to their final destination…
-Keep a record of all persons entering the farm…..
-Keep medical certificates of persons working with the animals……
-Keep documents proving the water you give to the animals meets specific criteria
-Keep samples of all feed given to the animals
-Keep all documents from official inspections
-Keep records of treatment and procedures on all animals (castration, disbudding, calving, medications, etc.)
-Prevent domestic animals (cats and dogs) from roaming in and around livestock buildings
-Place all these documents at the disposal of the competent authority (Veterinary Services) when it conducts farm visits.
Some of the other guidelines and standards that would come into play after the implementation of traceability for all agricultural products would be : (from FAO COAG/17 “Development of a Framework for Good Agricultural Practices”) “the adoption and implementation of international standards and codes for which Codex food safety standards and guidelines have been designed, and the associated capacity building, training, development and field implementation in the context of the different production systems and agro-ecozones. These include: Enhancing Food Quality and Safety by Strengthening Handling, Processing and Marketing in the Food Chain (214A9); Capacity Building and Risk Analysis Methodologies for Compliance with Food Safety Standards and Pesticide Control (215P1); Food Quality Control and Consumer Protection (221P5); Food Safety Assessment and Rapid Alert System (221P6); and Food Quality and Safety Throughout the Food Chain (221P8).”*
To be certified as meeting the requirements of “GAP”, which is synonymous with being in compliance with international standards and guidelines, we can check out GlobalGAP.org. This is “the” certifying methodology for international trade in ag products. Here are a few excerpts from their 122-page general regulations booklet that has links to checklists for those who would be certifiers and auditors under the principles of GAP. This is an organization, not a governing body under WTO agreements, but working with nations and businesses to meet the criteria regarding these GAP practices for international trade. Here is a bare minimum of excerpts from their regulation document:
-(ii) Developing a Good Agricultural Practice (G.A.P.) framework for benchmarking existing assurance schemes and standards including traceability. (iii) Providing guidance for continuous improvement and the development and understanding of best practice. (iv) Establish a single, recognised framework for independent verification.
-Production Location: A production unit or group of production units, covered by the same ownership, operational procedures, farm management, and GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) decision-making activities.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracing product from the producer’s immediate customer back to the producer and certified farm.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracking product from the producer to his immediate customer.
In simple English, which appears to be highly lacking in all these guidelines, it means NAIS for everything, and for anyone who wishes to be engaged in agriculture….Remember the “grows” phrase from the earlier excerpt from HR2749. Now let’s look at some of the ‘exception’ clauses in HR2749. This bill is a terrifically crafty piece of legislation that is designed to cloud the reader’s understanding of the impact of the law being proposed in it. All of the exception clauses give the exception under this Act so long as you are ready to be regulated under a different Act. We’ll just look at a couple of these clauses to allow you to get the gist of the lack of exception available through the exceptions….
“EXCEPTIONS”
Farms- A farm is exempt from the requirements of this Act to the extent such farm raises animals from which food is derived that is regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or the Egg Products Inspection Act.
‘‘(I) such an operation that packs or holds food, provided that all food used in such activities is grown, raised, or consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership;
‘‘(II) such an operation that manufactures or processes food, provided that all food used in such activities is consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership; (pages9 and10)
Thus, if you grow everything you feed and consume everything you grow, and use no minerals or salts that you don’t mine yourself, you may be exempt. Or, in plain English, don’t even try to make a living in agriculture if you won’t comply with these rules.
One more exception to contend with here is:
‘(A) DIRECT SALES BY FARMS- Food is exempt from the requirements of this subsection if such food is–
‘(i) produced on a farm; and
‘(ii) sold by the owner, operator, or agent in charge of such farm directly to a consumer or to a restaurant or grocery store. (page 71)
This sounds good. However, there are several problems with this that are not evident without some knowledge of how things are done in the traditional avenues open for market to growers. First of all, cattle, whom you may recall as the primary target of the NAIS Business Plan, are often sold either at auction barns or via potload to feedlots. It is illegal to sell beef directly from the farm to consumers in every state that I know of. People often will sell a calf ready to butcher in halves or quarters to people and deliver the calf to the slaughter facility for the consumer, but this is far from the normal route of commerce in cattle or other species of meat animal. Even if you can securely wedge your operation into this particular exemption, they get you later via the record keeping section of this bill:
‘(E) RECORDKEEPING REGARDING PREVIOUS SOURCES AND SUBSEQUENT RECIPIENTS- For a food or person covered by a limitation or exemption under subparagraph (B), (C), or (D), the Secretary shall require each person who produces, receives, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, distributes, or holds such food to maintain records to identify the immediate previous sources of such food and its ingredients and the immediate subsequent recipients of such food.
‘(F) RECORDKEEPING BY RESTAURANTS AND GROCERY STORES- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), restaurants and grocery stores shall keep records documenting the farm that was the source of the food.
‘(G) RECORDKEEPING BY FARMS- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), farms shall keep records, in electronic or non-electronic format, for at least 6 months documenting the restaurant or grocery store to which the food was sold.’ (pp. 74-75)
So being exempt means you are required to keep records. Keeping required records means you could be required to release those records. So how exempt can a person get under this legislation? Especially when the slaughter facilities will all be regulated unless the USDA already regulates them?
PENALTIES AND FINES
Then of course, as with any law, there are the fines and penalties. These are from $20,000 to $1,000,000 per violation. (p. 122)
NO JUDICIAL REVIEW
There is also the change under the seizure section that takes away judicial overview…(double quotations indicate amending language)
…….procedure in cases under this section shall conform, as nearly as may be, to the procedure in admiralty; except that on demand of either party any issue of fact joined in any such case shall be tried by jury, “”and except that, with respect to proceedings relating to food, Rule G of the Supplemental Rules of Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions shall not apply in any such case, exigent circumstances shall be deemed to exist for all seizures brought under this section, and the summons and arrest warrant shall be issued by the clerk of the court without court review in any such case””…… (p. 116)
So we can just throw out that pesky Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of probable cause as well via this wording from page 117:
by striking ‘‘credible evidence or information indicating’’ and inserting ‘‘reason to believe’’;
There are many other dangerous aspects to HR 2749, like seizures, quarantines, and licensing and whistle blower provisions, but this should leave no doubt that this bill will indeed affect farms and has the potential to affect even home food production if an agency decides to apply the international risk analysis schemes to that venue. This bill opens a huge regulatory nightmare that is only evident when one knows what the international guidelines and standards consist of in regard to agriculture. Understanding those, it is highly unlikely that they will issue regulations that keep things as they are now.
Now, the questions that everyone involved in agriculture, meaning everyone who eats, must ask themselves are these:
Can regulating, fining and destroying the freedom of people to grow food create food safety?
Have the impacts of so-called “Free Trade” on this nation been beneficial for the citizens of this country?
Have food safety concerns increased or decreased since we have begun to import more food under these trade agreements?
And ultimately, does the US Constitution provide for the voidance of the Bill of Rights to participate in global trade?
My copy of the Constitution clearly does not allow for any law to void the Bill of Rights which is unalienable and Constitutionally guaranteed. It’s time to let our Federal representatives know in no uncertain terms, that everything to do with governance ultimately comes down to the consent of the governed, and we will not consent to being run by international agencies.
========end==========
My deep thanks to Paul Griepentrog, who helped in going through the legislation and many of the ramifications and amendments to current law under this Act.
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
Helping Self-Quarantine and Self-Shielding “Go Viral”
There is no action more critical at this moment in time than for health freedom advocates to demand further legal protection for the right to shelf-shield. See the proposed PASS Act at: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2888
We’re reproducing here an email one patriot just sent to his email list, as an example of what we mean by “making it go viral” — we need you — the new independent media — to get the message out, across the world. Here is how it’s done:
———- Original Message ———-
From: “mepatriot@juno.com”
To:
Subject: 2 HOT ACTION ITEMS: From Major General Stubblefield
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:40:15 GM
Dear General Stubblebine and Dr. Laibow,
It was a true pleasure speaking with both of you briefly this morning. I am sending you by way of this forward a copy of a mailing that I just sent out to all of my email lists.
God bless your efforts in Europe, and I will look forward to speaking with you when you get back to Panama.
For the Republic,
Steve
———- Forwarded Message ———-
From: “mepatriot@juno.com”
Subject: 2 HOT ACTION ITEMS: From Major General Stubblebine
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:37:32 GMT
Hey everyone,
I just got off the phone with Major General Albert Stubblebine (US Army, Ret.) and also his wife, Dr. Rima Laibow. General Stubblebine is one of the real American heroes among our retired Military. He is an outspoken signatory to, and participant in, the “Oath Keepers” program, as well as one of the highest ranking former military people to publicly question the government story about 9-11. I caught both of them just prior to their departure to Rome for the CODEX meetings where further strident steps are underway to remove our rights to self-help health, to alternative medicines and supplements, etc. He will be a guest on my radio program (The Aroostook Watchmen) in a few weeks.
They both pleaded with me, stridently, to please share these two action items with all of my friends in the patriot community. According to both of them, if we lose these two battles, America will be finished as we know it, and I agree.
The first deals with the right to self quarantine in the event of a declared “national health emergency.” There is extensive information about this issue at their primary website (www.healthfreedomusa.org) and the specific action step on this information may be found here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27275
Please help spread the word about the PASS Act and help me to brainstorm ways to drum up support for it. I will start by leading off the radio show tomorrow with this information, but that touches just a certain circle of listeners in northern Maine. We must do more.
The other item is to urge our elected representatives to work against several new bills under consideration right now that would wipe out small farmers–even gardeners, and restrict private citizens’ access to the means with which they could provide for their own food supply. The information and the form to send on this action item is found here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27134
PLEASE TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION ON THESE TWO ITEMS and network with me on what else we can do to spread the word.
Thanks everyone!
For the Republic,
Steve Martin
Host, Aroostook Watchmen Radio Program, WXME-AM 780, Monticello, ME
Maine State Republican Committee Member
Organizer, 911truth.org
Amity, ME
207-532-3635
mepatriot@juno.com
___________________________
My reply:
Dear Steve,
General Stubblebine (which means “stubble field” in German, by the way) and I both thank you sincerely for your help in disseminating these Action Items.
This is the Minute Man Spirit that we need so urgently in our country!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
PS: Please visit our site, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, and sign up for our Health Freedom Action eAlerts so you will be up to the minute on these issues from our perspective. And you can follow us on Twitter, at: www.twitter.com/healthfreedomus or www.twitter.com/drlaibow
Thanks!
REL
That’s how it works. You reach out to every circle of influence and impact you have, share what you know and empower the people you can reach to take action. It’s that simple.
Now Push Back for Health Freedom!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.FOODFreedomeJournal.org
www.WelcomeHomeRaffle.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Health Freedom is Our First Freedom
Mandating No HARMonization with CODEX, Food Safety and Food Regulation
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
April 3, 2009
A Natural Solutions Foundation White Paper
Regarding U.S. Codex Office and Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for
Adoption of Codex Committee Policies by the U.S. Codex Delegation and FSIS
in Harmony with the Dietary Substances Health and Education Act (DSHEA),
19 USC 3512 (the Anti-Harmonization Statute) and other Statutory and Case Law
Weaponized Pandemic Viruses – Weaponized Mandated Vaccines…
Forced Industrialization of the Food Supply…
Action Item: Tell your members of Congress “NO! to forced industrialization of food” — DEFEAT the fake “Food Safety” bill HR 2749 or to amend to protect us all! Click here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
Index
Introduction – The Foundation
Introduction – Purpose
Requests for Congressional Action
Statement of Grounds – Facts
Statement of Grounds – Legal
Recommended Findings of Fact
Conclusions
Sharing this White Paper
I. Introduction-A – Who Are We?
The Natural Solutions Foundation, founded in 2004, is an international NGO (Non Governmental Organization) focused on health freedom. We are active and registered in several countries and are a not for profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States.
The Mission of the Foundation is to discover, develop, demonstrate and disseminate natural solutions to the problems facing us and threatening our health and freedom, achieving and maintaining a healthy self, community and world. Since its founding, the Natural Solutions Foundation has pursued a vigorous program on many fronts, including educating Congress and decision makers about natural solutions to significant social problems involving health and wellness.
We consider health freedom to be an essential part of those solutions and have, for example, spearheaded a powerful citizens’ initiative to have “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom” recognized as one of the Top Ten Social Issues on http://www.Change.org. Once this was accomplished, “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom” was then accepted into President Obama’s official Briefing Book on http://www.Change.gov.
We have also developed an international presence, in part by attending Codex Alimentarius meetings around the world, helping to ban the use of fluoride in infant formulas intended for healthy infants by providing powerful scientific information to Codex delegates who were eager for ways to help their infants at the Codex Committee for Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU, Chaing Mai, 2006), shared vitally needed health-focused information with Codex member states and provided leadership to Codex member states on how to protect their country’s food supplies without running afoul of the World Trade Organization’s draconian trade sanctions.
The Natural Solutions Foundation understands that threats to health and freedom are both domestic and international, as are the solutions. We have well over two hundred thousand people on our Action eAlert supporter list. Individuals and other organizations are welcome to participate in our many programs and action options so that netroots and decision makers share the same information and conclusions about the solutions to problems touching us all.
Among the innovative solutions we are pursuing are “Mouse Warrior Campaigns” which allow everyone with Internet access to communicate their opinions and need for “Health Freedom as Our First Freedom” to members of Congress, executives, health and food quality/safety officials around the globe and other people making decisions about health freedom and health freedom policy. We urge everyone to join our free, secure Health Freedom Action eAlerts by visiting our home page, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org or our international page, http://www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and signing up there. Our efforts include the International Decade of Nutrition Program and an alliance among Health Conscious Nations expressed through international cooperation at Codex (the World Food Code) and the creation of Valley of the Moon™ Eco Demonstration Project (VotM™) with its Beyond Organic, BioDynamic, Zero Emissions™ (BO-BD-ZE™), ecologically sound communities and schools for farmers and non-farmers alike. VotM™ exists to share high impact, low technology, natural solutions to permit economically and environmentally sustainable, chemical free farming and other sustainable techniques for health and economic stability. Among these solutions, we consider Fr. Godfrey Nzamajo’s UN Center of Excellent-recognized Songhai Community in Benin to provide an outstanding example. VotM™ has formed a strategic alliance with the Songhai Community, sponsoring and teaching BioDynamic methods testing in several countries including the Republic of Panama. See: www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org.
II. Introduction-B: What Does This White Paper Accomplish?
This White Paper addresses the urgent need for Congress to adopt further assurances that American access to clean, biologically effective, health promoting and wholesome nutrition will not be compromised by “HARMonization” with new Federal food safety laws (including HR 2749, 875, 759, S. 425, etc.) or domestic or international rules, regulations or standards such as the Guidelines and Standards ratified and promulgated by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the World Food Code). Such assurances already exist in US law but are flagrantly ignored by those attending Codex Alimentarius. Reigning in that disregard is essential to the food safety and security of the United States. And, since nutrients and nutrition are essential to health, halting such disregard of the law will improve the national health and the national bottom line at the same time by reducing expenditures for health care and diet related illnesses, currently accounting for at a minimum of 1 out of every three dollars spent on health care. Diabetes, a disease of under nutrition, and its heartbreaking (and often lethal) consequences accounts for 1 out of every seven dollars spent in the health care sector in the US.
US participation in Codex Alimentarius and similar international activities drives food toward the unsustainable, the toxic, the non-nutritive and the undisclosed. It supports forced industrialization of food, denigrating natural and organic standards while placing unsustainable burdens on non-industrialized, family, home, private association food production, including home businesses, farms, ranches and gardens.
The assurances needed are that these assaults on local food production will change — we recommend protections built on the basis of the protections already enacted in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), the Anti-Harmonization Act, 19 USC 3512, the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 USC sec 203 (s) (2) and the DSHEA savings clause 1011 of the 2007 FDA reorganization act, as well as the First Amendment since full disclosure and free dissemination of information about the relationship between health benefits and food components is illegally suppressed by the FDA through its claims policies and other regulatory measures.
The FDA was documented to be a failed agency by the November 2007 Report of the Subcommittee on Science and Technology, “FDA Science and Mission at Risk.”
That report concluded that FDA a failed agency because:
1) The FDA cannot fulfill its mission because its scientific base has eroded and its scientific organizational structure is weak.
2) The FDA cannot fulfill its mission because its scientific workforce does not have sufficient capacity and capability.
3) The FDA cannot fulfill its mission because its information technology (IT) infrastructure is inadequate.
4) FDA does not have the capacity to ensure the safety of food for the nation.
5) The development of medical products based on “new science” cannot be adequately regulated by the FDA.
6) There is insufficient capacity in modeling risk assessment and analysis.
7) The FDA science agenda lacks a coherent structure and vision, as well as effective coordination and prioritization.
8) The FDA has substantial recruitment and retention challenges.
9) The FDA has an inadequate and ineffective program for scientist performance.
10) The FDA has not taken sufficient advantage of external and internal collaborations.
11) The FDA lacks the information science capability and information infrastructure to fulfill is regulatory mandate.
12) The FDA cannot provide the information infrastructure support to regulate products based on new science.
We would add:
13. The FDA does little or nothing to control or prevent conflicts of interest leading to decision which impact the public health which are based, in whole or in part, on the financial and professional advancement and advantage of the decision-makers who are thus unable to act impartially.
In 1994 Congress unanimously adopted DSHEA, signaling a new approach to allowing Americans the freedom to develop the most advanced and dynamic nutritional marketplace in the world. Memorializing the essential concept that nutrients are to be treated as foods, and, as such, cannot be limited or controlled in their dose or combination any more than eating, for example, lamb flavored ice cream could – or should – be regulated, DSHEA created a legal climate which allows natural remedies, therapies that may benefit and medical treatment to flourish through the active participation of over 90% of the US population.
However, that expression of the People’s will has been continually undercut by a clear Federal agency [FDA, IOM, EPA, USDA] prejudice against natural, wholesome, non-industrialized food and nutrition. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), EPA, IOM, NIH and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) all fail the Public trust in this regard.
Nonetheless, the Dietary Supplement industry has responded with growth and expansion to massive consumer demand since the adoption of DSHEA. Much of this growth may be attributed to the thriving free market in Dietary Supplements established by DSHEA. As U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell stated in Nutraceutical Corporation and Solaray, Inc. v. Lester Crawford, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Case No. 2:04CV409 TC, USDC, Utah Central Division, “the legislative history of the DSHEA indicates that Congress generally intended to harmonize the treatment of dietary supplements with that of foods when it added the dietary supplement subsection…”
Many people in the health and wellness industries, Health Freedom Advocates like the Natural Solutions Foundation and consumers fear that the Federal agencies’ avowed adherence to “HARMonizing” our laws and regulations to the Codex Alimentarius process (starting October 11, 1995, Federal Register and continuing unabated since then) is, over time, reversing these positive, and widely supported developments. There is great public consternation and well-earned concern that these agencies are seeking to HARMonize United States Standards, Guidelines and Codes of Practice with the restrictive rules and practices prevalent in certain countries outside the United States. These restrictive, anti-high-potency nutrient standards are consonant with Codex standards and guidelines such as the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG – ratified by Codex Alimentarius Commission July 4, 2005, Rome, Italy to the public jubilation of the US Delegate, despite the fact that this Guideline violates US law in both principle and fact), rather than with the freedom of access to nutrients and other wellness products protected and guaranteed by DSHEA.
Because of DSHEA, most of the world’s Dietary Supplement consumption and demand takes place in the United States, meaning that US law should be the basis for international HARMonization rather than the other way around. The United States has far more experience with the strong positive [and virtually absent negative ] consequences of free consumer access to nearly unlimited health supports than any other country and understands fully the importance both to health and to freedom of health choice embedded in this access pattern. The United States also has developed a wide clinical experience with diverse nutrients and substances which supports the conclusion that nutrients at levels chosen by consumers and the practitioners who use them for their patients are enviably safe and free of toxic effects and dangers. In fact, deaths from these products are virtually unknown, while their competitors, pharmaceutical drugs, are noted by the American Medical Association and others as constituting a major cause of death, even when used according to professional guidelines and recommendations.
Congress must reject the position stated by FDA in the US Federal Register (October 11, 1994) that it would “HARMonize” [emphasis added] our laws and regulations to international standards, even when those international standards were not yet completed. Further, Congress must mandate that delegates and participants in international standard setting bodies, of which Codex is only one, may ONLY support and ratify those standards, guideline or regulations which are directly supported by US law
In addition to the highly restrictive VMG, the Codex Committee on General Principles has prepared, among other things, “Proposed Draft Working Principles for Risk Analysis for Food Safety (Guidance to National Governments) [and] Proposed Amendments to the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius” [and] “New definition of risk analysis terms related to food safety.” These principles include the definition developed by a World Health Organization Workshop on Application of Risk Analysis to Nutrients of an adverse event caused by nutrients as “any change in a bio marker” [emphasis added] regardless of the beneficial impact of those nutrients – http://www.who.int/ipcs/highlights/nutrientraproject/en/. The Codex Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling should consider the proper science and methods to apply to Dietary Supplements and nutritional products. Risk Assessment without regard to benefit is advised by the aforementioned Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline. National “Nutrient Risk Managers” are advised to use population data when it is available to set limits that prevent this bizarre class of events called “adverse events” which translate to “any change in a bio marker regardless of the beneficial impact of those nutrients”. When such population data are not available, this class of bureaucrats is advised to pool data from desperate populations and literally guess what those limits would be. If no data exist to be pooled, then they are advised to follow the same non-science-based process to set limits.
These principles and practices leave the health of whole populations literally subject to collapse. No such limit setting for nutrients is permitted under US law.
The same document also refers to “safe upper limits” for nutrients despite the fact that under DSHEA specifically exempts nutrients from upper limits of any type. Science makes it clear that biology concurs with US law in this case and the dangers of taking any type of supplement are virtually non-existent while the dangers of taking pharmaceutical drugs, whose sales are significantly impacted when people are free to use nutrients, are so great that the American Medical Association and other organizations have listed the unintended effects of properly used drugs as a major cause of death in the developed world.
Laibow, RE, et. al., Codex Book, Natural Solutions Foundation, 2005
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Frame/FrameRedirect.asp?main=http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/2006-0004.htm
III. Congressional Mandate and Protective Clause Request
We urge Congress (1) to mandate to the U.S. Codex Office. FSIS (or its successor) and all other agencies and government instrumentalities, all delegates to Codex or other national or international standard setting bodies that they shall adopt as the policy of the U.S. Codex [or other agency] Delegation and Agencies support only for harmonization of Codex Standards, Guidelines and Codes of Practice, or other international standards and regulations, that conforms to United States law and practice, and (2) to adopt DSHEA (and family/organic/small enterprise, church, school, club, garden, farm, ranch, seed saving and similar food-related enterprise) protective language in any food safety bill or other bill relating in any way to food (closely patterned after the “Rule of Interpretation” protecting DSHEA products added to the 2007 Kennedy FDA enabling act, Section 1011).
First, with respect to the agencies and delegates representing American interests internationally, they must be instructed specifically to:
1. Reject any international standard that is inconstant with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or any other part of the US Constitution, DSHEA or with 19 USC 3512 or any other US law, statute or regulation,
2. Support the Congressional determination that vitamins and minerals are foods, not drugs or toxic chemicals, and, therefore,
3. Support the rejection of any regulation, standard or agreement which imposes upper limits on nutrients. Since optimal intake levels of nutrients is the result of biochemical individuality and may vary (based on complex, shifting, interdependent and interweaving factors such as age, diet, nutrient absorption capacity, the presence or absence of co-factors, genetic makeup, underlying nutritional status, disease state, toxic body burden), no maximum intake levels or upper limits for nutrients have biological significance and must not be determined or fixed by government policy, regulation or agreement. Nutrients are not toxins and must not be regulated as if they were. Nutrient combinations and doses have been demonstrated, through 14 years of US consumer and practitioner experience, to be remarkably safe at any desired level. In the same way that liver ice cream should not be prohibited by government legislators or regulators, so nutrients must not be the subject of such regulations since they pose no risk to consumers, although their hazards to the expensive illness care industry, which is widely acknowledged to be playing a significant role in helping to bankrupt the US economy, are significant.
Risk Assessment is a wholly unnecessary and a totally inappropriate mechanism for determining safety and dosage of nutrients although it is highly significant as a tool for limiting exposure to toxins. In their documents dealing with the use of Risk Assessment for nutrients, both WHO and Codex make note of the fact that Risk Assessment is a tool of toxicology and that its use for substances which are essential for survival is both untested, unproven and has never been subjected to either professional scrutiny or peer review. Given that Codex is supposed to operate strictly on a “Science Based” principle, this makes the use of Risk Assessment for determination of any aspect of nutrient policy totally inappropriate.
4. Support the biochemical reality embodied in DSHEA’s protection of all supplements and categories of nutrients which Codex, through the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline and other texts, violates when it states that the principal nutritional value of foods comes from its vitamins and minerals. Food world wide is demineralized and diminished in nutrients, including the vitamins and other co-factors, including helpful and essential factors, many of which have yet to be identified in a laboratory but whose absence can be detected through the clinical problems and diseases which result.
Exemplary and abundant scientific and clinical evidence supports the importance of essential fatty acids, oils, complex plant residues with physiological impact in foods, flavinoids, antioxidants, amino acids and other vital factors, sisosterols, and many other compounds which are essential to health and which are found in food. All of these compounds are protected under DSHEA, but ignored or limited by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Further, World Health Organization guidance in the above referenced Workshop document makes it clear that nutrients are treated as toxins and any effective biological activity is to be considered an adverse event.
In other documents, the World Health Organization identifies under-nutrition as the cause of the epidemic, preventable, non-communicable diseases which are the principle killers of the developed world:
Cancer
Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke
Diabetes
Obesity.
DSHEA allows nutrients to be used to protect against, mitigate, treat, or cure these conditions of under nutrition. Codex makes this impossible for any country following its guidelines, thus assuring massive under-nutrition. US delegates and agencies must be prevented from supporting anything which defies US law and supports massive under-nutrition. These guidelines, standards and other agreements stand in stark contradistinction to both the principles and intent of DSHEA.
5. The agencies must “Take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3, United States Constitution) as established by DSHEA that, as foods, nutritional supplements of any type do not require safe upper limits, maximum potencies, maximum permissible upper limits or similar constraints on their use and that any such limits are antithetical to the legislative intent and guarantees of DSHEA.
6. Furthermore, the Natural Solutions Foundation urges support for the position, already enshrined in US law, that:
(a) Nutients are foods and should be regarded as such.
(b) Toxic burdens (industrial chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, fungicides, food additives, artificial colors, preservatives and flavors, etc.) are well known to increase nutrient requirements to levels which cannot be met by food alone.
(c) High nutrient density dietary supplements may be required to counteract the deleterious effects on health of toxic burdens.
(d) Natural source dietary supplements present no significant health hazard, based on sound scientific analysis and a 14 year history of a self-imposed experiment by the American people who have taken massive amount of supplements and nutrients with no harm or negative consequences to their health although it can be argued that there has been harm done to the bottom lines of the industries that profit from their ill health.
(e) Synthetic/GMO source synthetic nutrients provide the only hazards associated with nutrient ingestion at any level which people select for themselves. Appendix 3 to the Final Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Foods Derived from Biotechnology, approved by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 2008 makes it clear that neither the safety nor bio-availability of nutrients derived from Biotechnology (GMO)s) is known and that such compounds may actually function as “anti-nutrients”, interfereing with metabolism, absorption and enzyme function. The Final Report recommends testing their impact on large human populations, although involuntary testing, such as already being carried out through unlabeled GMOs in the food chain, violates both US and International law.
(f) Compounds which are, in fact, toxic, like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, GMOs, industrial toxins and veterinary drug residues should be reduced via the principles of Risk Analysis and the Precautionary Principle, to levels which have no discernible impact on any human or animal system. Toxicology supports this principle for toxins while biochemistry refutes it for nutrients.
(g) Compounds which fail to pass the Ames or similar cancer protective tests should be banned from the human food chain as already required under US law.
(h) Optimal health should be the stated public policy goal of the world’s food standard setting bodies, including Codex Alimentarius, and of the United States. Delegates and representatives to all such bodies must be clearly instructed to support and endorse only those items which further this goal.
(i) Preservative techniques which increase free radical concentrations and/or which result in the degradation of food components to toxic or carcinogenic compounds [e.g., irradiation] should be globally banned.
(j) All known or suspected toxins which are applied to food or created through its farming, growth, processing, packaging, shipment or treatment should be clearly labeled to allow consumers optimal choice in their food supply.
(k) No US delegation shall permit persons with any type of financial, professional or personal ties to the industries involved in the deliberations. Any other type of conflict of interest shall bar persons from participating as delegates. No private consultations with industry representatives or others who stand to gain from the particular outcome of any deliberation or action shall be permitted. All such contacts shall be open to the public and matters of clear public record.
(l) No US regulator or bureaucrat shall be permitted to take employment, remuneration, subsidy or support of any type from the industry with which that regulator or bureaucrat has been involved while on the public payroll for a period of 5 years following termination of their employment by the US or State governments, agencies, foundations, organizations or other bodies. Financial, professional or other conflicts of interest between government employees and industries which they are involved in regulation shall result in immediate dismissal and the possibility of civil or criminal charges.
Second, regarding all pending (sic) “Food Safety” bills, the Natural Solutions Foundation strongly recommends that public health and personal liberty require protective language, such as the following, be enacted in any such bill, whether the bill divests the FDA of food safety authority (as HR 875 would do, creating a new Food Safety Agency) or would further empower FDA (as HR 759 would do) [this language is patterned after the DSHEA protective clause, Section 1011, of the 2007 FDA act.]:
“Rule of Interpretation
“No provision of this act shall be deemed to apply (a) to any home, home-business, homestead, small farm (including organic or natural) agricultural activity, social club, association, church, school or other local organization, (b) to any family farm or ranch, or (c) to any natural or organic food product, including dietary supplements regulated under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.”
Another version of the protective language that has been suggested is:
“Rule of Interpretation
Whereas Congress has determined that local, family and similar agriculture does not have a significant impact on interstate commerce with regard to food safety issues, and
Whereas large-scale industrial agriculture in the United States and elsewhere is the primary source of food contamination and food-borne illness,
No provision of Federal law or regulation, nor any expenditure of Federal funds shall be interpreted or used to interfere in any way with the food (including seed) related activities of
(a) any home garden, home-business, homestead, non-industrialized, family or owner operated, or organic or natural, agricultural activity (including organic or natural agricultural activity, social club, association, church, school or other local organization,
(b) any family farm or ranch, or
(c) any natural or organic food product, including dietary supplements.”
We also note the language of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 USC sec 203 (s) (2) which provides, “(2) Any establishment that has as its only regular employees the owner thereof or the parent, spouse, child, or other member of the immediate family of such owner shall not be considered to be an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce or a part of such an enterprise…” Language such as this would be helpful to allay our concerns.
If the FDA Center for Food Safety is to be moved into a new Food Safety Agency, then Dietary Supplements, regulated as foods under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) should be included in such agency, with the proviso that such substances, as foods, are deemed safe when used as directed.
We agree with the Public Statement of the Ad Hoc Alliance of health freedom advocates, consumer groups and family farm, home and natural food producers –
“We reject all forms of food dictatorship.
“We oppose all deceptive attempts to industrialize the food supply under the guise of “food safety.” Current bills before Congress such as HR875, S425, HR759, etc., lack any producer protective language patterned after Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 USCsec 203(s)(2) and DSHEA protective language of the 2007 FDA act, Section 1011.
“They are unacceptable to the members of a free society and must be defeated.
“Government or corporate entities must not infringe on a citizen’s land, their right to own, produce, sell, or use food, seeds or healing substances … , nor should any threat of war, emergency, or disease be used to abrogate or limit these rights.”
Action Item for Ad Hoc Public Statement:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27134
For well researched details about the potential threat posed by the (sic) “Food Safety” bills pending in Congress, see independent investigative reporter Linn Cohen Cole’s writings on this subject, which have been widely reprinted, including by the Foundation, for example, A Solemn Walk Through HR 875 by Sue Diederich and Linn Cohen-Cole: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2287
These two sets of recommendations are predicated upon the clear expression from hundreds of thousands of Americans, representing the views of millions, that “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom.”
IV. Statement of Grounds
A. Factual Grounds
The Codex Alimentarius Commission has adopted Standards, Guidelines and Codes of Practice are based on regulatory principles that will, if the United States “Harmonizes” with them as announced, but despite US law, over time, limit access to nutrients, complementary therapies and dietary supplements of consumers in the United States, and that will significantly restrict access to clinically effective vitamin and mineral supplements worldwide. This will have a markedly deleterious impact on liberty and an equally significant one health, if the definition of the major killers of our time as preventable diseases of under-nutrition by the World Health Organization is be believed.
Based on evaluation of its contents and the public statements of the Chairman of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), Bonn, 2004, it is the intent and understanding of that Committee (which promulgated the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline, which was then ratified by the Codex Commission in full (July 4, 2005, Rome, Italy) that, despite the limited title of the Guideline, it will, because of the legal structure under which the Codex Alimentarius Commission operates, restrict all classes of nutrients, not just those classed as Vitamins and Minerals. While Codex texts, including this one, are voluntary, countries which deviate from them without following very specific steps, are liable to enormous WTO trade sanctions.
Furthermore, since the guidance offered by the aforementioned WHO Workshop makes it clear that high potency nutrients are to be considered as producing adverse events when their ingestion results in any change of a biomarker in any direction leading to change, no matter how beneficial, this guidance means that high potency nutrients will be unavailable in any HARMonized country, enhancing under-nutrition and the burden of suffering and death caused by preventable sub-optimal nutrition. High potency nutrients, absence of anti-nutrients and foods free from toxins are the antidote.
The US must not support restrictive and, under our laws, illegal, measures such as those ratified by Codex, with the US delegation’s vigorous approval and leadership.
If the Codex Alimentarius Commission continues to support restrictive measures, such as the Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines, Codex will restrict access to wholesome nutrition in several ways:
1. Setting so called “upper safe limits” (maximum potencies, maximum permissible upper limits or similar limitations) for each vitamin and mineral based on inappropriate scientific risk assessment from the science of toxicology, not the science of nutrition; this violates scientific sense and clinical experience. “Optimum levels” which carry no legal weight and are not used to restrict access to nutrients are a much more reasonable, clinically and scientifically supported standard and must be individually determined for each individual.
2. Setting any upper limits on supplements and nutrients; this directly violates US law by violating the legislative intent and provisions of DSHEA which hold that Dietary Supplements are Foods, not Drugs.
3. Marginalizing and eliminating nutrient supplement access for the nearly 1 billion people worldwide, who, by international standards and the assessments of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, now experience devastating widespread under nutrition and go hungry on a regular basis. Declines in IQs for the world’s hungry and under-nourished children are but one of the devastating results. Why would the US, which spends so much money in foreign aid, adopt or support positions which put the world’s most vulnerable into an even more vulnerable, but completely preventable, compromised position? In addition, the population-based Codex standard, which represent no strong science whatsoever, as made clear by the directions to National “Nutrient Risk Managers” under-appreciate the nutritional status of the world’s hungry 4.6 billion people, most of whom lack the recommended amount of one or more essential nutrient every day of their lives.
4. Creating, through setting maximum permitted vitamin and mineral consumption limits, an approach to regulating dietary supplements which is consistent with and leading the way toward, if not itself directly establishing, prior restraint, illegal under the US Constitution.
5. Substantially restricting the amount of nutrition and health information about vitamins and minerals consumers will be allowed to receive, asserting that only drugs can contain label claims for products that are suitable for the prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of disease, disorder or particular physiological conditions; this violates the US Right of Free Speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.
6. Fostering the incorrect worldwide health assumption that adequate levels of nutrients can be found in a regular diet since the ideas of nutritional sufficiency and “average expectable daily diet” are totally unsupported by nutritional science while an abundant body of scientific literature and clinical experience as well as the repeated findings of international organizations like the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Food and Agriculture Organization confounds these assumptions. Were either idea true, there would be no widespread malnutrition or under-nutrition in the world.
7. Continuing to fail to implement the WHO/FAO “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health” which explicitly supports better health through better nutrition, including dietary supplementation, to address the epidemic of “preventable diseases of under-nutrition” including major killers like Cancer, Heart Disease and Stroke, Diabetes and Obesity.
American health consumers (otherwise know as “people”) are becoming active and organized to protect and expand their health rights. The threat to dietary supplements which DSHEA corrected in 1994 mobilized more letters to a pre-internet Congress than any other issue in the history of the United States, including the Viet Nam War.
Worldwide health is being significantly undermined by the Codex-created limits to nutrients available in many countries and regions when they make their regulations and laws “Codex Compliant”, according to official documents prepared jointly by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Codex, by itself, cannot change U.S. law unless U.S. agencies adopt its regulations. To do so, US regulatory agencies would need to supersede US law. Indeed, FDA has done so on several occasions, most Codex’s upper potency limits, established for vitamins and minerals, will restrict U.S. consumer access to high-potency vitamins and minerals to which they are accustomed since US policy, legal or not, has been to “HARMonize with international standards in preference to US ones as articulated in the FDA statement on harmonization in the US Federal Register (October 11, 1995). “In a notice published in the Federal Register of October 11, 1995 (60 FR 53078), FDA articulated its policy regarding the development and use of standards with respect to the harmonization of various national and international regulatory requirements and guidelines” – http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/fr970707.html . Some U.S. companies are already choosing to “dumb down” their potencies to mirror their international formulations.
FDA’s highly restrictive and by their own analysis, crushingly expensive for small companies, unnecessary imposition of Current Good Manufacturing Procedures on the industry, more akin to drug industry rules than food industry in a sector which is filled with small Mom-and-Pop business providing innovation and leadership at low financial return, furthers this process. These cGMPs will become fully effective over the next year. FDA has admitted that about 2/3 of small nutrient companies will go out of business because of the cost and burdens of this imposition.
Codex Alimentarius standards and guidelines are enforced at the international level via trade sanctions imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) through its dispute resolution process. However, there is grave concern in many quarters that statements such as this, from the WTO web site, “the SPS Agreement explicitly permits governments to choose not to use the international standards. However, if the national requirement results in a greater restriction of trade, a country may be asked to provide scientific justification,” – http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsund_e.htm – make it incumbent upon each member nation of the WTO to bring its domestic standards into conformity with Codex standards and guidelines in order to avoid the creation of hidden barriers to international trade. This would violate both DSHEA and with 19 USC 3512. Codex misapplies an inappropriate toxic chemicals risk assessment model to regulate helpful nutrients which have virtually no known toxicity and therefore, present virtually no consumer or environmental danger. Any assessment of vitamin and mineral usage should evaluate nutrients using nutritional science rather than with toxicological science which is properly used to evaluate toxin and dangerous industrial chemicals. Since supplements, including vitamins and minerals, are defined as foods under DSHEA, upper limits of any type are inappropriate, unnecessary and violate US law. They should therefore be opposed by the United States with vigor both in Codex meetings and otherwise rather than enthusiastically endorsed in violation of US law.
The Natural Solutions Foundation has publicized what we refer to as “The Codex Two Step Process” showing how any country can lawfully opt out of Codex restrictions to protect its national nutrition and food traditions, without WTO sanction. See our short video on the subject at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QNg3MD6BxM
A fully developed template of just how this would work, called the “Codex Book”, is available from the Natural Solutions Foundation at http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=220.
An essential principle to remember here is that, despite propagandistic junk science to the contrary, nutrients have no meaningful toxicity. The human body is able to rid itself of excess doses of nutrients or store them for future use in times of shortfall, whereas it is not able to rid itself adequately of toxic and dangerous chemicals. This difference, coupled with differential impact of nutrients and detrimental impact of toxins, is precisely the distinction upon which the determination that the latter are, in fact, toxic while the former are clearly non-toxic. The Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG) disregards the unique biological individuality which determines the basic nutritional needs of each individual. Biological requirements can vary widely (by orders of magnitude) during the life span since nutritional requirements are affected by climate, dietary supply, genetics, energy output, toxic load, emotional, organ and immune health, electromagnetic and geopathic stress as well as normal and pathological aging processes and enzymatic decline with aging. Codex disregards this and all other short and long term biological individuality. Codex fails in this fundamental requirement by erroneously disregarding biological, physiological and pathophysiologic variation in nutrient needs.
Codex was founded upon the initiative of pharmaceutical executives who stand to profit from under nutrition because it leads to diseases they make treatments for. It was not founded by nutritionists or humanitarians.
The US delegation to Codex is packed with representatives of, and people representing the interests of, corporate concerns who manufacture and market drugs for humans and animals, agricultural chemicals, industrialized food supply companies whose and other industrial sectors whose interests run counter to health and consumer protection. Consumers and health professionals are scant on Codex delegations and their positions are given virtually no weight either in the Codex deliberations or the preparation of US Codex positions.
Codex documents make it clear that the process of risk assessment does not properly apply to nutrients and that the process must be modified to account for the differences between nutrients and toxins. But whether or not Codex continued with its wrong-headed approach, the US is violating its own law when it presses for these strategies, approves them, does not oppose them and seeks to implement them at home.
The procedures employed to accomplish that modification are untested through scientific or clinical evaluations and are entirely theoretical. Their devastating impact upon the earth’s population, however, is easily predicted and devastating.
Briefly, Codex fails in its fundamental requirement of protecting consumers, as stated in its Mandate, by erroneously applying toxic chemical risk assessment principles to nutrients which are foods, not toxins, erroneously asserting that
1. Nutrients should be treated and evaluated as toxins.
2. Such evaluation requires and relies upon novel, non peer-reviewed and untested procedures whose accuracy and utility have not been evaluated through appropriate studies and trials.
3. Dietary Supplements, including vitamins and minerals are toxins, not foods, and therefore require upper limits on ingestion
4. Foods and nutrients are not useful in treating disease.
5. Dietary supplements have little value because people can get the limited amounts they need from food.
6. The nutritional quality of foods is due primarily to the vitamin and mineral content of those foods.
7. Rigid, low limits should be set for vitamins and nutrients because nutritional requirements do not change with biochemical, age-related, genetic and other assaults and do not vary from person to person, despite abundantly documented genetic and environmental variations within and between populations.
8. Theoretical reference values are more important than unique individual nutrient needs and clinical requirements.
9. Toxicology science is preferred to individual choice as the best control on access to foods such as Dietary Supplements.
10. Dietary Supplements require control on access despite the fact that they are foods under DSHEA.
The well documented safety of Dietary Supplements, as foods, is documented by La Leva di Archimede at http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/english/ronlaw_eng.html, with particular reference to http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/ron_law_tables/tabella.html, http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/ronlaw/australia_societal_vs_individual_risks2.pdf, http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/medical_injury_law.pdf, http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/ronlaw/leape_relative%20risks1.pdf, http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/ronlaw/relative_risk_boeing72.pdf , http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/ronlaw/relative_risks_bubbles3.pdf) and Dr. Andrew Saul’s presentation to the Canadian Parliament, “Where Are The Bodies?”, http://www.doctoryourself.com/testimony.htm .
Codex reinforces, in its Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines, related documents and positions, and numerous other texts, its already existing prohibition on preventing truthful information about the ability of foods and nutrients to treat, diagnose, prevent, mitigate and cure disease and prohibiting the truthful association of health benefits and food components. Codex prohibits supplemental nutritional feeding world wide with disastrous potential results and the dissemination of information on the positive impact of nutritional supplementation and support on chronic, degenerative disease. Codex rejects without scientific basis or support the position supporting access to nutrients strongly documented and endorsed by a vast scientific literature and numerous joint publications of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which detail the essential contribution of nutrition to the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases in both the developing and developed world. World hunger experts recognize that nutrient supplementation can be extraordinarily useful in improving world health and eliminating disease (vitamin A supplements in developing countries can offer 30 times as much social improvement as millions of dollars of development aid), a fact the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG) and related texts ignore without scientific support or validation for their position. Shockingly, the US is clearly the driving force behind this position, despite the fact that it violates US law.
Codex ignores the WHO-documented high costs of under nutrition in loss of life, degraded quality of life and economic loss created by the chronic diseases of nutrient-deficiency which are so abundantly documented in clinical, biochemistry and epidemiological literature. The human and economic impact/costs of under nutrition are recognized by the World Health Organization and the Food and the Food and Agriculture Organization who document that chronic disease (e.g., heart disease and stroke, diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc.) is a non-contagious epidemic problem which can be prevented, treated and cured through adequate nutrition. These sources further document that nutrition often cannot be provided by diet. Clinically necessary nutrient intake is, however, prohibited under the proposed Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline.
At loggerheads with the US positions at Codex and similar bodies, The United States Supreme Court has spoken forcefully, enforcing consumers’ right to truthful information about health care issues. See: Thompson v Western States Medical Centers – 535 U.S. 357, where Justice O’Connor wrote,
“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that regulating speech must be a last – not first – resort. . . We have previously rejected the notion that the Government has an interest in preventing the dissemination of truthful commercial information in order to prevent members of the public from making bad decisions with the information. . . Even if the Government did argue that it had an interest in preventing misleading advertisements, this interest could be satisfied by the far less restrictive alternative of requiring . . . a warning that . . . its risks were unknown.”
The basic rule, announced by the case, to determine constitutionally permitted government restrictions on Commercial Speech (speech that makes or is about an offer for a transaction, such as the sale of Dietary Supplements) is a Two Prong Test: the first prong is to ask two questions: (1) is the speech in question about unlawful activity and (2) is the speech misleading. If “no” to both, the speech is entitled to protection unless the Government can carry its burden and prove (1) the governmental interest involved is “substantial”, (2) the regulation must “directly advance” the governmental interest and (3) the regulation of Commercial Speech cannot be “more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest” (quoting Central Hudson v Public Service, 447 US 557, at 566).
B. Statement of Grounds – Legal Authority
1. The primary Legal Basis for the actions Congress should take to mandate a policy that “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom” is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the . . . the right of the people . . .to the Freedom of Speech..” and of Association.
2. A further Legal Basis for the Proposed Policy is Section 3512 of Title 19 and specifically, 19 USC 3512(a)(1) and (a)(2) as applied to the protection of human life through DSHEA.
Section 3512. Relationship of agreements to United States law and State law
(a) Relationship of agreements to United States law
(1) United States law to prevail in conflict
No provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have effect.
(2) Construction
Nothing in this Act shall be construed –
(A) to amend or modify any law of the United States, including any law relating to –
(i) the protection of human, animal, or plant life or health,
(ii) the protection of the environment, or
(iii) worker safety, or
(B) to limit any authority conferred under any law of the United States, including section 2411 of this title, unless specifically provided for in this Act.
3. Additionally, the Statutes authorizing the various agencies involved contain general provisions that support the actions needed. Federal Law includes provisions that grant the relevant Secretary broad authority to promulgate rules and regulations “necessary to carry out the Act[s].”
4. Codex Alimentarius (“Codex”) is the World Food Code, an international agency under the joint sponsorship of WHO (World Health Organization) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), two primary organs of the United Nations.
According to its Statute, the purposes of Codex are “protecting the health of the consumers and ensuring fair practices in the food trade.” (Codex Statute, Article 1(a)) Codex does this by promulgating standards, codes of practice and guidelines. Codex General Principles, 1 reads:
“The Codex Alimentarius is a collection of internationally adopted food standards presented in a uniform manner. These food standards aim at protecting consumers’ health and ensuring fair practices in the food trade. The Codex Alimentarius also includes provisions of an advisory nature in the form of codes of practice, guidelines and other recommended measures intended to assist in achieving the purposes of the Codex Alimentarius. The publication of the Codex Alimentarius is intended to guide and promote the elaboration and establishment of definitions and requirements for foods to assist in their harmonization and in doing so to facilitate international trade.”
Finalized standards, after “acceptance by governments” are published by Codex. (Codex Statute, Article 1(d)) It is clear from this language that Codex guidelines, being only advisory, do not impose any requirements on marketers unless and until they are adopted by individual national governments.
V The Findings of Fact that Congress Should Adopt
In acting to protect the Public from “HARMonization” to further protect Health Freedom as Our First Freedom, we urge Congress to find:
(a) The Vitamin and Mineral Guideline adopted by CODEX on July 4 2005 uses inappropriate science (i.e., Risk Assessment procedures [Toxicology]) rather than appropriate science (i.e., Nutritional Science [Biochemistry]) which is very likely to inappropriately mandate maximum permissible levels of nutrients so low that they are, by intention, without impact on any human being, the intended outcome of Risk Assessment procedures; a Fact Hearing must be, and petitioner hereby requests that a fact hearing be, held to determine the scientifically factual and appropriate basis for the use of Risk Analysis [Toxicology] rather than more appropriate nutritional [Biochemistry] scientific standards in all decisions pertaining to nutrition.
(b) Codex has accepted the use of Risk Assessment procedures for nutrients. However, Risk Assessment is a methodology relevant only to toxicology and both irrelevant and antithetical to Nutritional Science and biochemistry. The Risk Assessment methodology employed by CODEX has been arbitrarily modified without scientific validation or professional consensus to restrict permissible dosages of nutrients essential to life to levels which can, by intent, have no impact on any human being, no matter how sensitive. This misapplication, distortion and misconstruction of Risk Assessment is in clear contradiction to the principles of toxicology and scientific Risk Assessment procedures which have been developed to determine the highest dosages of dangerous industrial and natural toxins to which humans can be exposed to without discernible effect. For this reason, instead of evaluating vitamin and mineral upper limits using inappropriately modified and unscientific Risk Analysis, US Policy must further the use of Nutritional Science to support the liberal access to nutrients enjoyed under legislative protection in the US. Under the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act, passed by unanimous Congressional consent in 1994, while a nutrient may be dealt with by the FDA if it is shown to pose a significant risk to health and safety, nutrients are treated as foods which, as such, may have no upper limits set upon their use.
(c) The United States has failed to oppose the use of these scientifically unsupported and unverified Risk Assessment techniques in the CODEX Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. It has failed to note or oppose these procedures on the basis of the substantial Conflict of Interest represented by the publicly acknowledged personal, professional and financial involvement in commercial Risk Assessment by the Chairman of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses as the head of the BfR, a commercial Risk Assessment company. The United States has failed to oppose the classification of nutrients as toxins in 1994, by that same committee despite the clear violation of US law which that classification represents. And, since 1994, the United States has failed to present any opposition to the use of Risk Analysis and other attempts to limit access to nutrients in order to prevent the restrictive (and illegal under US law) Vitamin and Mineral Guideline from reaching Step 8 and from being ratified on July 4, 2005 at the 28th Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting in Rome, Italy, contrary to DSHEA (Dietary Supplement health and Education Act of 1994) and the unanimous determination of Congress that Dietary Supplements are Foods, not toxic substances and, as foods, can have no upper limit set upon their intake or use.
(d) U.S. District Court Judge Campbell stated in April 2005 (Nutraceutical Corporation and Solaray, Inc. v. Lester Crawford, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Case No. 2:04CV409 TC, USDC, Utah Central Division),
“…the legislative history of the DSHEA indicates that Congress generally intended to harmonize the treatment of dietary supplements with that of foods when it added the dietary supplement subsection…”
(e) The CODEX Technical Report discussing the application of Risk Assessment to nutrients makes it clear that this procedure does not apply to nutrients because, unlike drugs, they have minimum intake limits that are required for life and health. Risk Assessment procedures were modified for application to vitamin and mineral supplements without scientific validation, peer review or clinical testing.
There is a considerable body of established scientific literature supporting the nutritional harm caused by low-level intake of essential and vital nutrients. Has the United States held a public fact finding hearing to determine if this jerry-rigged statistical system has any applicability to Nutritional Science and what the risks to the US and global population are when Risk Assessment is applied to nutrients? If not, why has the US supported the use of this technique in the nutritional determinations made by the CCNFSDU when so many lives are at stake in this issue, estimated by public health scientists to exceed 3 Billion consequential deaths world-wide? Why has the US supported and adopted this scientifically, biologically and factually indefensible Policy which should be abandoned in favor of a Policy which supports and promotes nutrients as foods, as DSHEA mandates, as the domestic and international standard which are so strongly supported by both science and US Law? A fact Hearing must be, and petitioner hereby request that a fact hearing be, held to determine the impact on public health in the United States from the use of Risk Analysis [Toxicology] rather than more appropriate nutritional [Biochemistry] scientific standards.
The Natural Solutions Foundation entered a Citizens Petition and Comments to the USDA and FDA on this topic in 2005 and 2006. The Media Release of June 9,2006 stated:
“Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine III (US Army, Ret.) announced today that the Natural Solutions Foundation is Petitioning the U.S. Codex Office and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) – Docket No. FSIS-2006-0004 (both agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture) to adopt support for international nutrient regulations (and any other international harmonization) only as it conforms to United States law and practice as the policy of the U.S. Codex Delegation.”
Neither USDA nor FDA responded to the Petition of the Citizens concerned with this issue, although several hundred thousand messages were sent to the agencies in support thereof.
Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/06/prweb397379.htm
(f) The Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA), 1994 classifies supplements as foods which therefore may have no Safe Upper Limits, Maximum Permissible Upper Limits or other restrictions upon their use.
(g) FDA has improperly adopted a policy of harmonization with International Standards, even where those standards are not finalized when those standards are in violation of US law or regulatory practice. “In a notice published in the Federal Register of October 11, 1995 (60 FR 53078), FDA articulated its policy regarding the development and use of standards with respect to the harmonization of various national and international regulatory requirements and guidelines” – http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/fr970707.html .
(h) The adoption of the Risk Assessment Model and the anti-DSHEA harmonization Policy are ultra vires and premature; have occurred without sufficient Public Hearings and in direct contravention of the Public Policy of the United States as enacted by Congress. The appropriate US agencies must therefore assert a Nutritional Standard as the only lawful alternative to the inappropriate and unscientific use of toxicological Risk Assessment with regard to Dietary Substances. It is incumbent upon the United States therefore to ensure that the proper science is presented and considered in the process of attempting to set upper limits for nutrient supplements and to vigorously support the reopening of the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline to correct its scientific deficiencies since the science upon which it is based, relying on toxicology while ignoring the appropriate science, biochemistry, is flawed, creating a position that is contrary to US legal requirements and domestic (as well as global) health and well being of every man, woman and child on the planet.
Because the US delegations to Codex have consistently acted against the interest of US law and the public interest, and because on the issue of the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline the science used to support it is deeply flawed, and because the science which supports the use of high potency nutrients is abundant, Congress should direct the US delegation at Codex to call for the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline to be reopened and further direct it to press for adoption of a DSHEA-like standard to allow the world to harmonize to a health-promoting standard of nutritional sufficiency. Access to wholesome nutrients should not be restricted under the guise of (sic) “Food Safety” bills that merely force the industrialization of all food production.
VI Conclusions
The Natural Solutions Foundation urges Congress to take urgent action with regard to CODEX and the International Food Safety Agency:
Specifically, Congress should hold Public Hearings on following Questions of Fact:
1. Whether or not the use of Toxic Risk Assessment to determine the allowable forms and dosages of Vitamins and Minerals will promote public health. We believe it will not, as the use of Risk Assessment is inappropriate science with reference to Foods, including Vitamins and Minerals
2. Whether forms and dosages of Vitamins and Minerals determined through Toxic Risk Assessment will adversely impact on the health and well-being of the residents and Citizens of the United States.
3. Whether Codex delegations acted against US legislative and regulatory policy and, if so, upon whose authority, whether Codex delegations should be free of industry personnel and include health, consumer and health freedom personnel and whether standards, including the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline and related texts, should be reopened upon application by the US to bring these standards into line with both science and US law.
Thereafter, Congress should adopt appropriate legislation further protecting the inalienable right of the People to “Health Freedom as Our First Freedom.”
The policy of FDA and the USDA in the various Codex Committees (and in other multinational arenas, such as the (sic) “North American Union”) should be a policy of strict support for the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA) food-based standard as the international standard for vitamin, minerals and all other dietary supplements as well as all other US laws. Additionally, all standards and regulations promulgated by the US should facilitate consumer choice and protection.
DSHEA, passed unanimously by the U.S. Congress in 1994, recognizes and protects the value of individuals making personal nutritional and health choices in a way that is rejected by the Codex guidelines. It also protects all speech concerning health benefits associated with nutrients or food. Any attempt to restrict or limit dosages, potency, information or access to supplements or information about nutrition, food and supplements denigrates their classification under DSHEA as foods and, hence, without need for access restriction.
The culmination of 50 years of U.S. legislation and litigation has refined the supplement policy of the United States ensuring that individual choice and desire play a key role in ensuring private and public health. The Codex guideline subordinates individual choice to scientifically inaccurate and unsupported, supposed professional expertise. The DSHEA balances professionals, science and people.
Members of the public have continually warned United States policy makers that pending international regulations fail to meet both the standards of United States law and the requirements of the international law.
See for example, Public Citizen’s comments regarding harmonization:
http://www.citizen.org/trade/harmonization/comments/articles.cfm?ID=4394
And the National Health Federation, “Codex Breaks its own Rules” http://www.thenhf.com/codex_may_2005_nhf_press_release.htm
Also, the European Alliance for Natural Health Submission on Risk Assessment at:
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_120.pdf
See also these Media Releases from the Foundation:
June 3, 2005
Natural Solutions Foundation files Emergency Citizen Petition to Support DSHEA in CODEX Crisis
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/06/prweb246972.htm
July 5, 2006
Codex Chairman Seeks to Thwart Natural Solutions Foundation Pro Health Codex Initiative
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/07/prweb406560.htm
October 10, 2006:
US Urged by Natural Solutions Foundation to Alter Codex Course, Support WHO Global Strategy to End World Hunger, Promote World Health
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/10/prweb444957.htm
We therefore urge Congress to mandate that the U.S. Codex Office, FSIS and all other Federal agencies adopt as Public Policy support only for regional, multinational and international Standards, Guidelines and Codes of Practice that conform to United States law and practice, which support consumer choice and natural well-being and specifically the provisions of DSHEA through 19 USC 3512, “United States law to prevail in conflict – No provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have effect.”
We further urge Congress to direct the US Codex Office and all future delegations to call for a reopening of any Codex standard, guideline or other text which violates US law.
Finally, Congress must include clear and unambiguous protection for homes, farms, ranches, small businesses and natural products from enhanced food safety laws (such as H.R. 875 and 759) and regulations that may be applied to industrialized agriculture but which would have a chilling effect on local and natural food and nutrition.
“Health Freedom is Our First Freedom” and the People must be free to engage in farm and food activities that enhance their health and prosperity.
Dated: April 2, 2009
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
This White Paper has been published at: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2394
Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine III (US Army, Ret.)
President & Trustee
Rima Laibow, MD
Medical Director & Trustee
Ralph Fucetola JD
Vice President – Legal & Trustee
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The Natural Solutions Foundation has just learned that outraged Senator Karen Johnson, 18th District, Arizona, sent this letter to the head of the USDA when she learned that the National Animal Information System (NAIS) is about to become USDA regulatory policy despite public opposition and State Laws which prohibit compulsory animal chipping and database compilation. Such policy has the force of law once enacted by a Federal Agency.
We opposed mandatory animal chipping for many reasons including the certainty that if this “trial balloon” flies, human chipping will be next.
In the next week, the Natural Solutions Foundation will issue a special Action Alert. Please watch for it and make sure that you take the action step included to tell the current occupant of the White House, the newly elected President, and your State and National legislators that you oppose any form of mandatory chipping, whether for animals or humans.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
KAREN JOHNSON
DISTRICT 18
State Senator
FortyEightth Legislature
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007-2890
PHONE (602) 926-3160
TOLL FREE 1-800-352-8404
FAX (602) 926-3429
E-MAIL kjohnson@azleg.state.az.us
COMMITTEES:
Education Chairman
Appropriations
Judiciary
Natural Resources
October 31, 2008
Mr. Donald Butler, Director
Arizona State Dept. of Agriculture
1688 West Adams Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Dear Director Butler:
During the 2007 legislative session, I sponsored a bill (SB1428) that prohibits forced participation in the National Animal ID System (NAIS) in Arizona. Governor Napolitano signed that bill and it has been the
law now for more than a year. (See ARS 3-1207 and ARS 3-1214).
I recently received a copy of a Memorandum (attached) issued by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture which indicates that veterinarians who visit a property are to collect the defined data fields in order to assign
a PIN, as defined in the National Animal Identification System Program Standards.This pin is to be the location identifier for all Veterinary Services disease program activities and according to the
memo must be assigned, with or without the consent of the property owner.
I am sending a letter to Attorney General Terry Goddard asking him to intervene with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in this matter. I expect the law to be enforced in the spirit intended when it was drafted.
I would like to know how you intend to deal with this, since we have a law in place that prohibits forced participation in NAIS? I should tell you that I have been contacted by various Arizona residents telling me that they are being forced into premise registration, especially the cattlemen. I am calling on you to do everything in your power to see that this law is respected and that animal owners in Arizona are not
compelled to “register” their property in a government data base.
Please advise me on how you plan to handle this.
I look forward to hearing from you in a timely manner.
Best regards,
Senator Karen S. Johnson
cc: Attorney General Terry Goddard
Source: http://madcowhorses.blogspot.com/2008/11/nais-to-become-mandatory.html