July 10, 2006
We were picked up and taken to the Mangalore Press Club where photographers, journalists and TV crews were waiting for us. Dr. Hegde gave an oration which held everyone in the room rapt except us: we did not understand the Indian language in which he delivered it. So we were introduced by an enthusiastic colleague who set the stage for us … but we could not see the stage setting since it was in a language we do not speak. General Stubblebine introduced our topic, health and health freedom, and our mission here in India and then I spoke. The first thing I told the press was that we deeply honored by Dr. Hegde’s decision to accept the Chairmanship of Natural Solutions Foundation – India and that by having such a distinguished health freedom fighter head our foundation in India we were strengthened and guided by a brilliant and wise man.

I then discussed both the problem (multinational anti-health decisions at Codex and country levels) and the solution (the International Strategy supported by legal opinion and our new Codex White Paper on what Codex really requires of nations (soon to be available on www.HealthFreedomUSA.org). The cameras were grinding and flashing and the reporters were writing madly. Afterwards we took questions for quite a while and departed. By the way, NOT air conditioned. The Hindu, a national paper, had already run a major article on the Natural Solutions Foundation mission in the context of the international food quality and choice problems and the International Strategy which we bring to interested countries. Following the press conference, footage appeared on at least 5 TV stations in support of our information and mission. We were thrilled.

Lunch was at a lovely restaurant which has a delightful and varied buffet. While enjoying a lovely salad, I looked down and saw that an uninvited guest, and a pretty large one at that, had come to join us on, not at, our table: a shiny sub-continent sized cockroach!

After we changed tables (did that really help or was it primarily psychological?) the Buffet Chef came out to meet us. He is a graduate of a technical college with a BA in Catering Technology and Hotel Management. We told him about Codex and pointed out that every chef in India should care about the loss of nutrients in food, contamination of the food supply and the degradation of health which it will lead to. He immediately “grocked” it and said that he would share the information on our website with his class, with his schoolmates, etc.

This committed young man pointed out, as everyone does here in India whom we have spoken to, that healthy food is a foundation stone of the Ayurveda way of health and life. Food IS medicine and medicine includes food. Contaminated food will degrade Ayurveda’s power to treat and cure all maladies and diseases and therefore it is a matter of Indian national pride and patriotism to maintain her food supply, and traditional medicines, for her posterity. When we pointed out that according to our reading of Codex, although herbs were “given” to WHO at the suggestion of Dr. Beth Yettley, the US Codex Delegate when too many countries were objecting to treating all herbs as untested drugs, the active molecules and complexes still fall under Codex and, because of that, they are subject to the WHO-supplied definition of a nutrient-related adverse event: “any change in a bio marker” he was appropriately horrified. Herbs are the birth right of his countrymen and the great Indian traditions must be protected, he said.

Then we did a little [very wet] wandering and went back to the club for dinner and hours and hours of email. By the time I got my computer plugged in I was falling asleep there in that hot, cramped mosquito “breedery”!

Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director