Maybe you take weight loss supplements and maybe you don’t. But protecting them, and the claims that the FDA recognizes are appropriate for them, has become a matter of urgency since GlaxoSmithKlein (GSK)has attacked the entire supplement industry through direct threat to our supplements and the entire supplement industry. GSK is using two arrows aimed at the heart of the supplement industry. A copy of the GSK attack is reprinted below this blog entry.
Two Pronged Assault
1. Restrict the information that helps people understand what a product does for them (and cripple the First Amendment while you are at it) and
2. Medicalize a category of concern for people taking the supplement and then make sure that the health indications and claims, as well as the supplement are “oozed over” into the drug category, raising their prices and driving their manufacturers out of business while more expensive drugs take their places in the customer’s shopping cart.
In my lecture “Nutricide ” ( http://tinyurl.com/2kvnvt ), I defined Nutricide as
1. The death of the body of knowledge of the relationship between health and food and
2. The death of large populations through the manipulation of the food supply.
GSK vs. The People
GlaxoSmithKlein, a large drug company, has decided to use the powerful tool called a “Citizens Petition” to attack both free speech and the supplement industry. The Citizens Petition is the same type of document that the Natural Solutions Foundation has filed twice with the US Government).
Sign the first Citizens Petition here ( https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=184 ) to demand the FDA stop illegal “HARMonization”. Our second Citizens Petition, like the current GSK one, has not been assigned a Docket Number (and, for that matter, has ours?) so you cannot comment on it yet. We will tell you how to do that shortly.
(By the way, if you are a supplement manufacturer and you are not very happy with the lobbying representation you are getting on Capital Hill, send us an email (ralph.fucetola@usa.net) with “PROTECTION” as the subject line to join the Health Freedom Alliance, a Wellness Industry 501 (c) 4 organization we have created just for you!)
By asking the FDA to define weight loss products as disease claims, they are protecting their failed over-the-counter weight loss product, alli , while striking a blow at the continued existence of the entire supplements industry. Once weight loss is a disease, not a condition, it will be treatable only through the use of tested drugs. Will insurance companies increase your rates if you need weight loss products? Possibly. After all, we understand that many insurance companies are co-owned by Big Pharma. More diseases, more drugs. More drugs, more profits.
Click here ( http://tinyurl.com/4txv62 ) to let Congress know your right to free speech and information about the relationship between health and supplements are important to you!
(If you want a copy of “Nutricide: the DVD”, click here ( https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=156 ).
Supplements Under Attack – Again!
GlaxoSmithKlein (GSK) makes drugs like Paxil and Avandia, the highly questionable diabetes drug which the FDA knew nearly 5 years ago increases heart attacks by nearly 43%. Covering itself, the FDA recently issued a warning to GSK about supressing data about the dangers of this supposed “block-buster” drug. Not long before that, the Senate Finance Committee found that GSK intimidated and coerced a well-known critic of Avandia to silence him from speaking out against it. And not long before that, there were serious allegations that GSK had supressed data on Paxil-related adult suicides.
GSK is also the maker of alli, the first over the counter weight loss drug. Alli has been associated with the development of aberrant crypt foci, widely believed to be associated with the development of colon cancer. It is also associated with fecal leaking, “wet gas”, diarrhea, and a sudden event where you could at any moment have an uncontrolled accidental bowel movement. Natural products are not associated with these hazards. So it would seem that anything GSK could do to silence the natural competition and grab a new market share would be welcome to its management and its shareholders.
In fact, here is what www.FDAlawblog.net has to say about the GSK Citizens Petition:
“the Citizens Petition asks the Agency (i.e., FDA, ed. ) to prohibit structure/function claims for dietary supplements that expressly or impliedly reference weight loss. In addition to claims that expressly reference weight loss, the petition contends that the following categories of claims should be prohibited: energy expenditure, modulation of carbohydrate metabolism, increased satiety or suppression of appetite, increased fat oxidation or reduced fat synthesis, and blockage of fat absorption. The petition acknowledges FDA’s longstanding position that weight loss claims are permissible structure/function claims. However, the petition urges FDA to change its position on the ground that: (1) recent evidence establishes that overweight is a risk factor for disease; (2) consumers believe that there is a relationship between weight loss and a reduction of risk of disease; (3) claims that a product will reduce a risk factor for disease are disease claims; (4) the use of ineffective therapies can divert consumers from safe and effective therapies such as GSK’s weight loss drug Alli; and (5) manufacturers of weight loss supplements should be forced to substantiate their claims through health claim petitions before going to market. Although the petition targets dietary supplements, the action it requests also would affect conventional foods.
The potential marketing value of the weight loss market and the food and dietary supplement industries’ major investment in weight loss products ensures that the petition will receive strong drug industry supported and vigorous food and dietary supplement industry opposition. Although the petition contends that the requested action will not require rulemaking, there are arguments that would support the need for rule making given FDA’s longstanding position that weight loss claims, as opposed to claims to treat obesity, do not imply disease treatment or prevention.”
Taking advantage of the tremendous power of the Citizens Petition, GSK is asking the FDA to classify weight loss claims made for dietary supplements as disease claims. While the distinction may seem small, what it means to your supplement access could be very bad, indeed. If the FDA finds for GSK, it will make it much easier to classify nutrients as drugs and much harder to make truthful and honest statements about the health benefits of supplements.
This is just another thrust to find yet another way to destroy the supplement industry NOT because it is bad or dangerous, but because just the opposite is true: drugs are dangerous and kill people. They are also very expensive.
Supplements are relatively cheap, very safe and do not kill people. They are, however, the greatest economic competitior to drugs and therefore the drug companies want them to disappear. They are, of course, very willing to help them do just that!
The rapidly growing weight loss sector of the supplement market in the US is about $1.3 Billion, or about $1 of every $25 spent on supplements and herbs annually. Many supplement companies depend upon these products for significant sales and staying afloat in a challenging market place.
I find it hard to see it as a coincidence that the alarming ” Trilateral Cooperation Charter ” ( http://www.fda.gov/oia/charter.html), signed February 27, 2004 fusing
* Health Products and Food Branch,Health Canada
* US Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services
* Federal Commission for the Protection from Sanitary Risks, Secretaria de Salud, Mexico
has decided that one of its very first priorities is eliminating so called health fraud by “enforcement action on Fraudulent weight loss products” ( http://www.fda.gov/oia/charter.html#appendixc ). The Trilateral Cooperation Charter defines fraud as “the false, deceptive, or misleading promotion, advertisement, distribution, sale, possession for sale, or offering for sale of products or provisions of services, intended for human use, that are being represented as being made safe and/or effective to diagnose, prevent, cure, treat, or mitigate disease (or other conditions), to rehabilitate patients or to provide a beneficial effect on health.” If you are hearing that as an invitation to destroy the supplement industry in the US, Mexico and Canada (also known as the North American Union/Security and Prosperity Partnership), you are hearing right.
Given the battle raging a round the right to make true and honest statements about the healing benefits of foods or food components, it would appear GSK’s attempt to silence its competitor is simply more of same. Codex wants to classify sharing any information about the health benefits of food and food components as “advertising”. The FDA wants to stifle the same information by calling it “health claims” or, in this case “disease claims”. The net result, if we allow them to have their way? Regulatory duct tape over our collective mouths if we dare to share information about how to get well and stay that way with natural products. Not today, not tomorrow and not any time after that!
Opportunity
Did I mention that the Natural Solutions Foundation is gearing up to go to the Codex Commission Meeting in Geneva in late June? Not only will we be there, but we expect to serve as advisers to a coalition of health friendly nations who have been preparing for the “push back” against the US on the issue of mandatory, species specific GMOs labeling.
As you know, the US forbids – FORBIDS – labeling any GM Foods. Most of the rest of the word is fiercely determined to have such labeling. The health friendlies are on the march!
We need your help to get there, though. Take a few minutes to send us forward to Geneva for the Annual Codex Commission meeting.
Click here to make your tax deductible donations ( https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189 ).
Thanks for your continuing support! We are the largest and most effective health freedom force in the English speaking world! We make a great team!
Day 15, May 1, 2008
We are here in Ottawa during a free day when nothing formally related to Codex happens. The Codex Committee on Food Labeling has concluded its work for this year and what happens next is that today, Thursday, is the day that the Codex Secretariat spends preparing a report which will reflect (supposedly) what happened at this meeting. This report will be available tomorrow at 8 AM for everyone to read and then, from 9 AM onwards, the fun starts.
Since the Secretariat has compiled all of the dialogs and proceedings, amendments and corrections (remember, this is a commission that will spend hours fighting over the insertion of a comma – literally) into a draft report, countries and organizations which take exception to what the report says or what it does not say, or how it says it, or the innuendos of the way something was written, or whatever, have the opportunity on Friday, May 2, to go over the report in deep detail. DEEP detail.
Usually, this is simply an exercise in pedantic “place holding” but when the issues are hot and there has been no consensus, despite the assurance by Chair that “I believe we have reached consensus” on the issue, this final session of each meeting gives the participants a final opportunity to play a round of psychological and legal chess by creating a document more to their liking than the discussions may have been or, sometimes, more in keeping with the reality than the report is!
I have spent the day feverishly trying to catch up on emails (I now have 5329 unopened emails in my private email box – none of them spam!) and other issues which require my attention (like laundry!) but have been ignored because of the pressure of events, including reading the huge amount of documentation produced at a Codex meeting. Late in the afternoon, with Canadian Springtime beckoning outside my window, General Bert and I walked over to the market area behind the Rideau Conference Center where the meetings are held each day. There, in a rebuilt market building I saw a group of magnificent hand painted silk blouses, jackets, scarves, etc., in all the colors I love. Alas, unlike the years when I had an income because I was the Medical Director of a successful drug-free medical practice the wonderful textiles were out of reach for me. In years past, I would certainly have bought some of these marvels to take with me. General Bert and I have given up our home, our practice, our income and our personal comfort to become warriors for that most precious of possessions, freedom, specifically, health freedom. And when we have a week like we had this week at this meeting, with real forward movement for a life and death issue like the mandatory labeling of GM food, it is clearly worth it. In case you did not catch it, you might want to take a look at the Press Release that the Natural Solutions Foundation issues about the heavy handed (and, in the end, unwittingly productive for our side) imperial behavior of the US. Here it is: http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm.
This atrocious attitude on the US’ part led to a strong determination of the African countries to develop their own requirements without waiting any longer for Codex to give it to them.
Once other countries start demanding mandatory labeling, we can, too, because our manufacturers will not want to have two labels, one for the US and one for the rest of the world, we will have a much better shot at getting our food labeled, too. Remember, this will be a BIG battle since the corporate friendly FDA has made it clear that they know consumers reject GM food (with good reason!) and will try to keep it from being labeled. That’s the situation now: it is illegal to label food with GM components!
The tide is turning and, if we ride it right, we can ride it in to a safe harbor where our food is clean, safe and labeled! But we have to start now. When the campaign begins, it is essential that we are not hundreds of thousands strong, but millions strong! You know that this is true for every one of our issues – no forced vaccinations, medical privacy, the right to truthful health claims backed by science, the right to know what our food contains and has been exposed to (e.g., pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, irradiation), the right to food that is clean and unadulterated, etc.) – the more of us there are, the more impact we have, not just in a linear motion, but an exponential one!
Therefore, I am asking each person reading this to take a few moments and send an email to your friends, neighbors, contacts, etc, and ask them to visit our website, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and ask them if they will join the free, secure distribution list for the Health Freedom eAlerts by clicking on the orange tab on the upper right hand corner and filling in your information (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=187).
And while we are on the topic, let’s talk about getting here and to the next place and the next one after that, having the resources to do this work and keep on doing it.
General Bert and I take no salary or compensation of any kind for the work we do. We devote our selves much more than full time to defending your freedom and ours. When there have been short falls, we have made them up so that our reserves, retirement funds, etc., have gone into this battle as well as our skills and capacities. And we have, in fact, built the largest health freedom organization in the world. More than that, we have created alliances inside the US and outside of it to bring about the structural, legislative, awareness and social changes which will defend those freedoms from the massive forces threatening them.
But that is expensive. Let me be frank: this meeting, at which we have been an important part of the forward motion (unintended by the US and its corporate and globalist allies, of course, was one which we would not have been able to attend for you if we had not received, pretty close to the last minute, a generous donation which covered our airfare. Well, a pledge, really, since we have not yet received the money, just the verbal assurance from people we trust that the money would be transferred to us soon enough so that we could pay for this trip. Since the donors are honorable people, we trusted them and bought our air tickets and booked our hotels on the basis of their pledge.
This constant worry about where the money is going to come from to keep your freedoms – and ours – protected diverts energy and time from the battle which needs to be waged. Many of you are generous supporters, giving what you can give and giving it more and more through a recurring donation. We appreciate your support enormously and it is the only reason that we can do what we are doing. The larger the list, the more effective we are at getting heard. And the larger the list, the more effective we are at raising the funds to make all of this possible. Very simple, very elegant, very real.
If you are already a supporter making a regular recurring donation, THANK YOU! If you are an occasional donor, thank you, as well, and won’t you consider making another donation today or turning your occasional donations into a recurring one. And if you are one of the folks who has not given your financial support, large or small, to the Natural Solutions Foundation, now is the time. Click here (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189) to make sure that the most powerful voice in health freedom, yours, is there to speak for you in effective and on-going ways!
I cannot think of many times in which such an effective battle for freedom has been waged by so few with so few resources with such high impact. Keep it going! Please! Donate generously. Oh, did I mention that all of your donations are tax deductible? They are! Act now for us all!
Day 16, May 2, 2008
Travel day today, but first I attended as much of the Report session of the CCFL as I could. The draft reports are distributed at 8 AM and then the discussion starts at 9 AM. This time, when the discussion of Agenda Item No. 5, Labeling of GM foods, began, there was blood on the floor. Although the rule is that no new information or discussion can take place and that this process is only to assure accuracy in the final report when there is a hotly contested area of debate, this is another fertile ground for getting things to read the way you want them to read.
The amount of backing and forthing, corrections and dissections this topic aroused was remarkable, just remarkable. There was a prolonged discussion in which the exact wording of a sentence about how the co-chairs of the Ghana Working Group on labeling of GM foods had presented their reports which went on for close to an hour. And it went on and on and on and on.
Finally, I had to leave because we had to catch a plane (I had allowed several hours extra to make sure that we would be present for the full report session, never imagining that it could possibly take as long as it did!). Three hours later, we learned from another delegate who also was leaving to make a plane that the discussion was still stuck on the same section!
Although this seems absurd, the reality is that it is very, very good news for our side.
After all, it means that people are not being bullied. Of course, the US was fighting for every comma, period, jot and tittle of territory it could find to make sure that the strength of the pro-GM labeling folks was mitigated. But our side was doing a good job of playing the same game to mitigate the US position to prevent labeling, as it does so effectively in the US.
More to follow!
Now we are flying to New York to take a plane very early in the morning to Panama. We will hook up with Ralph Fucetola, one of our trustees, and with Tyson Phillips, a member of our team, to fly to Panama for a meeting with people interested in becoming participants in the demonstration project there. If you are interested in that project, which is part of the Natural Solutions Foundation’s International Decade of Nutrition, visit www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org.
Day 17, May 3, 2008
We left JFK (New York) at 6:31 AM (which meant we had to be there at 4:30 AM – YUCK!) and arrived in Panama at about 10:35 AM. We took a taxi to the Country Inn and Suites Hotel and learned, to our pleasure, that our reservations were being honored. This has not always been the case here, I can tell you! So we took our bags up to the rooms and started planning for this week coming in which people will be gathering who are interested in the Santa Clara project.
After we got settled in, we met with our Panamanian lawyer and had a very good meeting lasting several hours in which we asked all of our unanswered questions and got knowledgeable and useful answers. We are very much encouraged about how this project can be put together from the legal and regulatory point of view.
This was a lunch meeting that went on for several hours so none of us were particularly hungry. But all of us were desperately tired and wound up wishing we were asleep long before we were!
We could not go to sleep, however, because we were in the midst of a very interesting meeting shortly after the first one ended. We met with an architect who is VERY concerned over organic and natural issues and is highly supportive of our project. She works for the Government and knows exactly whom we need to talk to and what we need to do. That is great news. Even better news is that she feels that the project as we see it is exactly in line with what the Panamanian Government wants to encourage and that we will not have any difficulty with setting it up from the regulatory point of view.
The Panamanian Government will conduct the Environmental Impact Statement we need and she suggested that we should work with Panamanian Universities to get a great deal of what we need done. We had not thought of that but were very grateful for her suggestions. We will certainly stay in touch with her! Good meeting. By the time it was over, though, all of us were moving through a fog of fatigue which we could barely see through. My bed was sweet to lie in!
Day 18, May 4, 2008
Tyson, General Bert, Ralph and I spent the entire day conferencing on Natural Solutions Foundation issues until Tyson suggested, wisely, that we needed a handbook for the people coming down for the Santa Clara Project. We realized that he was right and set to work to produce one. (Members of the NSF-Panama Forum can see it under “Files” in electronic format). We raced off to the nearest mall to get copies made and bound and got back just in time to meet with two of the people who had come to Panama for the gathering, had dinner with them and then raced back to do the Sunday Conference Call for the Santa Clara Project.
The ability to demonstrate and teach sustainable agriculture and to create a community around that agriculture is an important part of the concept of reclaiming the production of food and the Natural Solutions Foundation is proud to be creating this community as part of its health freedom work. Interested? Send an email to Ralph Fucetola at ralph.fucetola@usa.net with “PANAMA” as the subject line and ask for an invitation to the NSF-Panama Forum. We’ll send an invitation and you can join the discussion to become a part of this amazing project.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedomUSA.org
www.Organics4U.org
The US outdid itself at this Codex meeting. It actually bullied another country into withdrawing its submission because the paper South Africa submitted in favor of Mandatory GM Labeling was so strong and under cut the US position that no labeling should ever be permitted. South Africa is a sovereign nation, with its own concerns, laws and issues, but it was forced by US bullying to rescind its submission because of the international tantrum that the US threw. Read about it here (http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm).
The US DOES NOT want anyone to know if there is GM food in what they are eating under any circumstances. Once the US became aware of South Africa’s paper (apparently before it was generally available to the rest of the meeting), they jumped all over them electronically. This was a major affront to national sovereignty, African and the concept that Codex is anything but a mouth piece for the multinational corporations which the US represents! Africa, however, decided that they have had enough!
Although I am very sorry for the personal and national humiliation which South Africa has been subjected to by the outrageous hubris and imperialism demonstrated by the US, the US may actually have done the world an unintended favor. Their behavior appears to have galvanized the African nations, who have been demanding that Codex supply them with Mandatory GM Labeling for over 15 years, and now see that Codex is not going to do that for them so they will have to do it for themselves. Swaziland, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa and a host of other African countries came together to express their determination to emerge from CCFL with progress at this meeting for a Codex requirement for Mandatory GM Labeling of foods. South Africa’s submission was part of the discussion.
Once the Agenda item came forward, however, Mama Duck US and her usual band of ducklings following right behind (Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.) quacked the same old song: These items are safe because they have been exposed to extensive safety testing (not true – see Attachment II of our Press Release (http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm) to read the FDA’s official position refusing to consider or conduct any safety testing of GM products), that Codex is not about consumer health and safety anyway (not true – see the first Codex mandate (http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp), that this issue has already been on the floor for many years and no forward progress was possible so it should be dropped (not true – see the report of the Oslo and Ghana Working Groups (Click on CX/FL 08/36/8 on web page http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/current.jsp?lang=en) to see the proposals which emerged for forward movement on this issue).
The African nations were unanimous in their support for mandatory labeling. Japan, EU, Switzerland, Norway and other countries once again stated their commitments to Mandatory GM labeling. The CCFL discussion concluded with an agreement to scrap previous labeling documents which were at an early stage of the approval process and instead substitute an appendix contained in the report of the meeting in Ghana on this issue. Although this is a very weak document as it stands now, it does offer the opportunity to keep working on the issue and was thus opposed by the US. This strategy was nonetheless adopted by the CCFL.
Astonishingly, the next morning, AFTER the discussion was completed, the South African paper was withdrawn on the direction of the South African government because of the extra procedural shenanigans of the US through its pressure on South Africa!
That over reaching act of economic imperialism may be the beginning of the end for unlabeled GM foods and crops! The pro-labeling nations of Africa – all of them – were SO incensed that they called another meeting again and determined that they would create their own requirements and adopt them en bloc with, or without, the permission of the Codex Alimentarius Commission! The Natural Solutions Foundation has been asked to continue to provide technical and scientific support, which we will, of course, be very happy to do, as you may imagine.
We are deeply gratified that our work of the past 3 years in Africa and at Codex urging solidarity is coming to fruition. We believe that this change could spread throughout Codex. Apparently, so does the US which has been telling delegates not to speak to us! Imagine! The US has nothing better to do than warn pro-health delegations off listening to us. Could we imagine a better confirmation that what we are doing is having an impact?
Of course, we continue to need your support to make this happen. Please make a tax deductible recurring donation (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189) to keep health freedom moving forward. Natural Solutions Foundation is the most effective voice of health freedom and it speaks for you.
Thanks for your help and support!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.Organics4U.org
Day 13, April 29, 2008
Today was a day that could, ultimately, turn out to have changed the course of Codex and perhaps the history of the world. And we owe that to South Africa’s courage and determination. You can read the story here (http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm)
Virtually every one of the African nations has a policy of extreme caution, or downright rejection of unlabeled GM organisms. So does Norway, Japan, Russia, and the entire 27 countries of the EU. And with good reason. Look at the second attachment to the press release above for a quick compendium of horrors associated with GM food. Then consider why, here in the US, of course, our policies are so corporate friendly that we support them to the death (perhaps ours) while we eat unlabeled GM food.
A good deal of the rest of the world is quite convinced that IF you allow GM food, you MUST label it.
South Africa put her excellent paper in to Codex today. http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm. This paper lists several compelling reasons that Codex MUST have mandatory labeling of GM foods, unlike the US which prohibits any mention of GM ingredients. You can read her excellent paper as the first attachment in this press release:
Early in the day, at 8 AM, the African nations met to work out their policy on this issue. There was total agreement that they would stand united against the US policy of unlabeled GM foods and united for a policy of mandatory labeling. After all, they said, we do not have the laboratory capacity to test these foods at our border and labeling is the only way we can have some protection from them and give our consumers the choices they need and deserve.
But the US does not play fair – it plays big. Read on.
Day 14, April 30, 2008
South Africa withdrew its document, CRD 21 today at the start of the meeting. How did that happen? Where did the sovereign rights of another country to express its views if they differ from those of another country? How about the fact that Codex is not supposedly about one country bullying all the others to get what they, and they alone, want?
Pshaw! Of course it is. At least up until now. On issue after issue after issue, that is EXACTLY what Codex is about. For the past 3 1/3 years, General Bert and I have been traveling the world to deliver the Codex Two Step (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6QNg3MD6BxM&feature=PlayList&p=BF9BBB69479D44EC&index=5)
and the message that only by uniting and standing together can the developing world protect its food, its health and its people – to say nothing of its freedom.
This process took another step forward today when the African countries, having had a meeting yesterday in which each one declared that they are adamantly determined to have mandatory labeling on GM foods held yet another meeting this afternoon. This one was to say, “Let the US say what it wishes, Africa WILL have mandatory GM labeling. And we will do it by determining what is important to us and adopting it en bloc, all of us!
Sweet fresh wind blowing! Sweet words! Of course the Natural Solutions Foundation will provide its support, scientific and technical capacities. Of course, with your tax deductible support (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189), we will be at Codex in Geneva to help move that process forward. Of course, being here is critical to the forward motion of the process. There is no possible way we can have the impact we are having unless we are here and on the home turf of the countries involved to meet their decision makers, stay abreast of their developments, etc. And the ONLY way we can do that is with your generous participation through, 1. Donations (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189) and 2. your joining the ranks of the Mouse Warriors.
To do that, you need to make sure that you are on the Health Freedom eAlerts distribution list (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=187) and enlist as many people as you can to get involved as well. That last item, enlisting other people, is absolutely key since each person taking our action steps adds strength to that voice we are raising to speak truth to power!
Speaking of speaking truth to power, this evening I did a 1 hour radio show hosted by Steve Shenk. We’ll be putting up the link shortly! Watch for it.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthStrategy.org
www.Organics4U.org
Day 7, April 23, 2008
This morning we met with Dr. Col. Denis Mikode, Beninese Codex Contact Point and asked if there was some way that he would be able to go to Codex if the Natural Solutions Foundation paid for his trip. He clearly was moved that we cared so much about the ability of Africa to determine its own future in relationship to Genetically Modified foods but, alas, was not able to get either a Government Mandate for the meeting on such short notice or a Canadian visa. For that, he would have had to go to Ghana for the visa and, if it failed, come home or, if he should succeed, would be able to continue. Of course, there were no airplane tickets for him at that point, etc.
We told him that we would take care of all that but he felt that the only way Benin could be represented was if a miracle occurred. Long story short: no miracle on that one.
Later that day we got ourselves packed and set off for the airport to make the grueling flight from Cotonou to Paris to Newark to Ottawa – all in economy seats. General Stubblebine is well over 6′ tall. Tyson hovers right around 6′. I am merely uncomfortable: they are really, really uncomfortable on these long haul flights.
While we were waiting in the Cotonou airport, Tyson got talking with a fellow whom, when we staggered off the airplane to spend 6.5 hours in the Paris airport at 6 AM, he decided to wait for on the jet way. Tyson introduced us to Jeff, a semi-nomadic Environmental Engineer who had just finished a solo 3 month bike trip through West Africa. JEFF DOES NOT SPEAK FRENCH!
Tyson and Jeff were going to take the train to Paris and asked if General Stubblebine and I wanted to come. Of course I wanted to come! It was a magnificent Spring day and we got out of the subway (“Metro”) directly opposite Notre Dame Cathedral as the bells were chiming and the clear sky provided a backdrop of perfect cerulean. Jeff led us on a stroll down the boulevards and streets until we came to a perfectly charming side walk cafe (with heaters – it was a tad nippy so early in the day) and we had double espressos and the most perfect croissants I have ever tasted.
But the best part of the feast and ramble was Jeff. He is a lovely, earth-sensitive free spirit who, like so many other exceptional people, is very interested in the Panama project. One of his specialties is environmental impact studies! Perhaps, if all goes well, he will be able to do some or all of the environmental impact statement required by the Panamanian Government before we build the actual project!
Then Tyson reluctantly got back on the train to return to the airport and find General Stubblebine buried under our hand luggage, all of which we left with him. About 6 hours after we started out, we were back in Charles de Gaulle airport, ready to take off on the next leg of our trip.
That was not only a delightful break, but some sort of a forward propulsion in the coming-together of the Santa Clara Project (www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org).
Day 8, April 24, 2008
MMMMMMRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR That’s the sound of an airplane engine humming for 7 hours. When we landed in Newark Airport we had been traveling for two days and we were not finished yet! But our good friends Nicholas and Marie drove to the airport, took us to their nearby home, fed us a wonderful homemade dinner and took us back to the airport again JUST in time to make our plane to Ottawa.
We got there, found our bags and bought round trip tickets on the hotel shuttle which took us to the front door of the lovely bed and breakfast we like to stay in here in Ottawa when we attend the CCFL (Codex Committee on Food Labeling) meetings. Then sleep.
Day 9, April 25, 2008
Finding an Apple repair store in a city we do not know without a car to get to the store (my brand new computer was going black for longer and longer and finally I could not turn it on when it was off or off when it was on: time to consult the computer doctors!). Eventually we succeeded, found a place for dinner and crashed.
Day 10, April 26, 2008
Today the pre-CCFL meeting started. The activity today is a workshop deciding, once again, how the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Exercise (GS) was to be implemented by Codex. This strong document (not perfect, it is true, but strong) was presented to the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) in 2005 as something which the WOULD implement and the way it was to be implemented was left to the Codex Committee of Food Labeling (CCFL) and the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) to decide. Strategies were to be presented to the CAC on a strict time line.
The foot dragging and shenanigans to avoid doing this have been mind boggling and I have reported on them since the first time CCNFSDU’s Dr. Grossklaus moved the agenda item on the to the very end of the meeting and made any meaningful discussion impossible (2005). Since then, things have not gotten a whole lot better and the implementation so far comes down to endless argument over which nutrients should be labeled and which should not be and how they should be represented.
Now, labeling in important to consumers and does, in fact, contribute to reformulation of products (“What? You put THAT in something you expect me to eat?”) and in risk assessment and post market surveillance (“Everyone who ate lot number 27449X2 of the product got sick and 42% of them had to be hospitalized.”) and are thus good things.
But labeling will not, in my opinion, take care of the serious concerns which caused the GS to come into existence: preventing the non communicable diseases of UNDERNUTRITION.
The Codex strategy of considering all nutrients as toxins which need to be limited – limited! – through the process of Risk Assessment as if nutreints, and not terrifyingly high levels of pesticides or anti-nutrients caused by genetic modification of plants and animals, free radicals caused by irradiation of food and all the other dangers to which Codex blithely exposes us WITHOUT LABELING OF ANY KIND were a danger to human kind!
Outrage in my words? Yes, outrage. While diddling with Nutrient Labels for years on end (important though they be), nutrients are being taken off the shelves in the EU, threatened in Canada through a terrible bill and LIMITED as if they were risks through Codex all over the world. Make no mistake: the US will be next, again, if we do not do something about it before it happens so we are not fighting a rear guard action.
Recall for a moment the disastrous FDA Guidance whose comment period ended on April 30 last year. The FDA proposed to make all nutrients and objects used for health purposes unlabeled drugs and devices. That would mean that healthful foods like cherry juice (the first subject of their attack) could not be used with a health intent or the FDA would classify it as an untested drug.
The FDA provided no website for your comments. They told the Natural Solutions Foundation that snail mail was not tallied. The Receiver of Dockets gave us her personal email and so 588,000 people were able to use our web site to access the only working email address available to tell the FDA to back off in no uncertain terms. Well, only about 198,000 people actually got their message through because our site was constantly being hacked and attacked at that time. Even with “only” 198,000 voices, the roar was deafening: the FDA backed off, at least for the time being.
The WHO/FAO, parent organizations of Codex, makes the point in its document on the cause and prevention of chronic degenerative diseases: they ARE the diseases of UNDER nutrition. The number of people who die from over nutrition is so small as to be equivalent to zero. The number of people who die from under nutrition is in the billions:
Cardiovascular disease including stroke, diabetes and obesity are diseases of under nutrition. They are preventable through nutrition, which includes supplements. They are the major killers of the industrialized and, as it moves toward our disastrous diet of prepared and degraded food, the developing world. (Of course, properly used drugs are the other major killer of those unlucky enough to be able to afford them!)
So what is Codex planning? Nutrient Reference Values, upper limits beyond which nutrition may not go, are being established even as we speak. Just as the solution of Congress in dealing with a totally failed FDA was to throw much more money at it in the last session of Congress with S. 1082. So Codex wants to treat the chronic degenerative preventable diseases of under nutrition by restricting nutrition. Logical? Not at all. But that’s what passes for Codex logic!
So half way through the meeting I was pretty well disgusted and saying to myself that we needed a miracle to deal with Agenda Item 5, labeling of GM Foods, when I turned around and there was our miracle, Antoinette Booyzen, the Delegate from South Africa.
Antoinette is fearless and knows nutrition and Codex very, very well. She fights tirelessly for what is right, regardless of what the politics might be. In fact, for her decade of dedication to optimal health and what is good for people, not profits, the Natural Solutions Foundation awarded Ms. Booyzen with the coveted Linus Pauling Health Freedom heroes Award in 2006.
I knew that we could rely on Ms. Booyzen to use her position as a National Delegate to further the good of the world’s eaters if she could, not the position of the world masters.
Day 10, April 27, 2008
After a good deal of highly pleasurable reunion talk (our emails have been interfered with so being in contact has been very difficult) we started to talk about GM labeling in South Africa and Africa. We talked and talked and talked and the net result was a South African paper demanding, for a variety of reasons, mandatory labeling of all GM foods.
Day 11, April 28, 2008
Today was the first day of the Codex meeting and we sat through the requisite speeches of welcoming telling us what a great bunch of people we were and how important our would would be to the world. Now, you can take that two ways: either the meeting’s lack of action would have a huge impact on the world through degraded food standards, degraded food and degraded health or 2., that if Codex actually did something positive, it would have a huge impact on human health.
However they meant it, the droning banality started in the morning and continued on and on and on and on.
By today, Monday at 1 PM, Antoinette has put her paper on compulsory mandatory labeling in as a Conference Room Document. You can read her document here (http://www.prweb.com/releases/GM_Labeling/Codex/prweb909004.htm):
There was a reception in the evening where we could lobby, if we wanted to, for mandatory GM labeling, which would likely come up tomorrow. We decided to skip it, though, since we were all so tired and we know that the food served there is exactly what we would put in our bodies: in fact, food served at the receptions is a perfect example of why we cannot let Codex run the food world!
Stay tuned!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.Organics4U.org