Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Our thanks to Greg Scandlen for his analysis of the impact of the “stimulus” bill on Health Freedom IT,
“The health care system sorely needs better management tools and better application of technology. There is currently a vast amount of entrepreneurial energy, innovation, and money being invested in developing, refining, and marketing the tools the system needs to come into the twenty-first century…The danger is that massive federal intrusion will bring all that innovation to a screeching halt. Systems work best when they are developed from the ground up, not imposed from on high.”
Full article below.
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Guest Blog Entry from Consumers for Health Care Choices
Research & Commentary: Health Information Technology
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By Greg Scandlen (February 23, 2009)
As part of the federal government’s economic stimulus package, Congress has authorized spending about $20 billion on health information technology (Health IT) and another $1 billion on comparative effectiveness research. These provisions achieved wide bipartisan support in Congress and in the health care industry, based on the hope that the investment will help improve efficiency, cut costs, and result in better care. The reality is likely to be far different.
Proponents of this spending rely heavily on a short RAND Corporation analysis from 2005 that predicted $77 billion in annual savings and improved outcomes. RAND estimated “implementation would cost around $8 billion per year, assuming adoption by 90 percent of hospitals and doctors offices over 15 years.” It said, “The benefits can include dramatic efficiency savings, greatly increased safety, and health benefits.”
Unfortunately, RAND assumed an error-free system that is quickly and enthusiastically adopted by virtually the entire health care system. That might happen, but it is an absolute best-case scenario. Even then, instead of “dramatic savings,” the $77 billion hoped-for savings amounted to a mere 4.5 percent of total costs, placed at $1.7 trillion by RAND.
Far more likely is that every penny of the $20 billion will be wasted on systems that don’t work and can never be implemented. That was the outcome of federal attempts to upgrade technology at the IRS, the FBI, and the air traffic control system. And these are all relatively simple enterprises involving single federal agencies. Health IT is vastly more complex and must include hundreds of thousands of private organizations that have invested in legacy systems that work reasonably well and are as varied as there are providers.
This also has been the experience of the United Kingdom, which has been trying to adopt a similar information technology upgrade for its National Health Service (NHS) since 2002. This plan was far less ambitious than the U.S. version, involving merely 30,000 physicians and 300 hospitals, all of whom are already employed by the NHS. Originally estimated to cost 2.3 billion pounds, it is already at 12.7 billion pounds-$18.4 billion, or about as much as provided in the stimulus package for the entire United States. A recent report to Parliament admitted the program is four to five years late and may never be implemented as envisioned. The project has lost two of the four vendors who were working on it, and some of the elements that have been installed are not meeting expectations.
This is not to say health IT is a bad idea or that hopes for it are unwarranted. Quite the opposite. The health care system sorely needs better management tools and better application of technology. There is currently a vast amount of entrepreneurial energy, innovation, and money being invested in developing, refining, and marketing the tools the system needs to come into the twenty-first century.
The danger is that massive federal intrusion will bring all that innovation to a screeching halt. Systems work best when they are developed from the ground up, not imposed from on high. In ground-up development, flaws can be detected and eliminated without much systemwide damage. Poor vendors can be removed without disruption to the whole system.
We do not yet know what the optimal system will be. Imposing federal standards on health IT in 2009 means the entire system will be locked in to those standards for very long time to come and innovation will not be rewarded.
The RAND study said “market forces” are an obstacle to health IT. Just the opposite is true. The market is the best way to test and refine new ideas. The process of repeated testing and refinement may seem slow to people who want instant solutions and shortcuts, but the failure to engage in that process often results in massive mistakes and wasted billions.
The following articles address some of these concerns and examine health IT from a free-market perspective.
(Thanks to Scot Silverstein, MD of Drexel University and Linda Gorman of the Independence Institute for helping develop this listing).
Can HIT Lower Costs and Improve Quality?
RAND Corporation, 2005
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9136/
This is a short issue brief from RAND that is the basis for most of the estimates of systemwide cost savings. It does not look at the possible difficulties at all and claims the cost savings could reach $77 billion a year in 15 years
The National Programme for IT in the NHS: Progress since 2006
The Public Accounts Committee of the UK
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmpubacc/153/15304.htm
“By the end of 2008 the Lorenzo care records software had still not gone live throughout a single Acute Trust. Given the continuing delays and history of missed deadlines, there must be grounds for serious concern as to whether Lorenzo can be deployed in a reasonable timescale and in a form that brings demonstrable benefits to users and patients. Even so, pushing ahead with the implementation of Lorenzo before Trusts or the system are ready would only serve to damage the Programme.”
Health IT: Intelligent Evolution
Health Affairs Blog by Esther Dyson
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/08/21/health-it-intelligent-evolution/?source=promo
Esther Dyson, the well-known technology investment guru, argues health IT can help bring about improved health care, “But government standards efforts (or magical thinking) won’t make it happen. Rather, I think it will pretty much happen by itself-or rather by the decentralized efforts of millions of people and the slightly more centralized or at least clustered efforts of hundreds of companies, mostly start-ups but eventually some larger ones, too.”
Health Information Technology: A Few Years of Magical Thinking?
Carol Diamond and Clay Shirky
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.27.5.w383
Argues that the current push by the federal government to perfect standards on health technology has it exactly backwards. “If you computerize an inefficient system, you will simply make it inefficient, faster.” The authors write, “[T]echnology and standards alone will not lead to health IT adoption, let alone transform health care. There are serious structural barriers to the use of IT that have nothing to do with technology.”
Sociotechnologic Issues in Clinical Computing: Common Examples of Healthcare IT Difficulties
Blog by Scot M. Silverstein, M.D., Drexel University,
College of Information Science & Technology
http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=home
Dr. Silverstein has developed a Web site that summarizes scores of case studies documenting how various forms of health IT have wasted resources or endangered patient care. He concludes, “The appropriate levels of critical thinking and skepticism essential in a demanding area such as introduction of computer automation in medicine appear largely absent.”
Safely Implementing Health Information and Converging Technologies
Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals
http://www.jointcommission.org/SentinelEvents/SentinelEventAlert/sea_42.htm
“Any form of technology may adversely affect the quality and safety of care if it is designed or implemented improperly or is misinterpreted. Not only must the technology or device be designed to be safe, it must also be operated safely within a safe workflow process.”
Current Approaches to U.S. Health Care Information Technology Are Insufficient
National Academies of Science
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12572
“Many care providers told the committee that data entered into their IT systems was used mainly to comply with regulations or to defend against lawsuits, rather than to improve care. As a result, valuable time and energy is spent managing data as opposed to understanding the patient.”
Australian Health Information Technology
Blog by Dr David More MB, PhD, FACHI
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2007/10/hospital-computing-why-is-it-so-hard.html
“This blog provides a commentary on the progress (or not) of e-health in Australia from the perspective of someone who has worked in the field for over 20 years and has become a bit jaded with the lack of apparent progress in a very important field.”
Electronic Health Record Use and the Quality of Ambulatory Care in the United States
Archives of Internal Medicine, 2007
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/167/13/1400
A large study of 1.8 billion ambulatory visits in 2003 and 2004 found no difference in 14 of 17 quality indicators between using electronic health records (EHRs) and not using them. The use of EHRs resulted in significantly better quality in two indicators and significantly worse quality in one.
Role of Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems in Facilitating Medication Errors
Ross Koppel, Ph.D., et al.,
Journal of the American Medical Association, 2005
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/10/1197
This study found that using Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) Systems increased 22 types of medication errors.
Bad Health Informatics Can Kill
European Federation of Medical Informatics
http://iig.umit.at/efmi/badinformatics.htm
Summary of 33 separate studies from 1985 to 2009 showing that health IT was the cause of or a significant contributor to medical errors.
Preventing Chronic Disease: An Important Investment, But Don’t Count On Cost Savings
Louise B. Russell, Health Affairs, 2009
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/42
“Over the four decades since cost-effectiveness analysis was first applied to health and medicine, hundreds of studies have shown that prevention usually adds to medical costs instead of reducing them. … Careful choices about frequency, groups to target, and component costs can increase the likelihood that interventions will be highly cost-effective or even cost-saving.”
Disease Management for Chronically Ill Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare
David M. Bott, Mary C. Kapp, Lorraine B. Johnson, and Linda M. Magno, Health Affairs, 2009
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/86
“Since 1999, the CMS has conducted seven DM [disease management] demonstrations involving some 300,000 beneficiaries in thirty-five programs. … Final evaluations on twenty programs found [only] three with evidence of quality improvement at or near budget-neutrality, net of fees. Interim monitoring covering at least twenty-one months on the remaining fifteen programs suggests that [only] four are close to covering their fees.”
For further information on the subject, visit the Health Care issue suite on The Heartland Institute’s Web site at www.heartland.org.
Nothing in this message is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of The Heartland Institute. If you have any questions about this issue or the Heartland Web site, you may contact Greg Scandlen, director of Consumers for Health Care Choices at The Heartland Institute, at greg@chcchoices.org.
Contact Information
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email: greg@chcchoices.org
phone: 301-606-7364
web: http://www.chcchoices.org
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Copyright 2009 Consumers for Health Care Choices
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For more information about Natural Solutions Foundation, please visit our web site at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Dr. Laibow and Gen. Stubblebine are in Europe, where they spoke to an important meeting of over 2,000 freedom advocates. Dr. Laibow received an email from her colleague, Dr. Wilson. She asked me to post the letter and her comments.
Ralph Fucetola JD
NSF Trustee
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Dr. Laibow:
Dr. Wilson is a friend and colleague, as well as Past President of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine – www.AAEM.com – and its long time Education Director.
He is a vigorous advocate of health freedom. Read his words about what you and your right to choose the health strategies of your choice are facing, now, today.
North Carolina is only a heartbeat away from your state legislature.
Act NOW!
1. Click here to send open letters to President Obama and your Congressmen and Women.
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2096
2. Click here to support the Natural Solutions Foundation, your health freedom champions. Wait a bit and there may be nothing left to defend. Remember, the “Stimulus Plan” makes any medical care which is not approved by the new Super Bureaucracy in Health And Human Services a forbidden treatment or option.
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189
3. Click here to join our new Food and Farming Forum — link up with others who want to defend organic and family farms and ranches, as well as natural and organic foods, supplements and remedies:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/natural-solutions-food-and-farming/join
Are you prepared to surrender your right to natural health to Codex, to President Obama and to the Pharmaceutical corporations? If you are, please, please do nothing.
Oh, by they way, your reproductive rights are next. Did you hear about what is happening in the Netherlands. A new law that would give bureaucrats the power to “temporarily” force woman to become non-reproductive. Who owns your body? You or the state? If Holland goes, can the US be far behind?
Check back on this blog and look out for our Health Freedom Action eAlerts for more about this breaking story.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
PS – As you may know, Bert and I presented at the AZK anti censorship coalition conference in Chur, Switzwerland. Approximately 2000 filled the City Hall of Chur where leading truth and freedom movement activists and whistle blowers spoke to a rapt crowd. Corruption in the Economic and Pharmaceutical worlds were detailed by insiders. General Bert and I offered a detailed and comprehensive look at Codex and its Genocidal agenda, past and future.
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Dr. Wilson:
Dear GSMC Friends and Patients,
As we told you in an email last year, the pattern of harassment of NC integrative Medicine physicians is escalating. About 20 percent of Integrative Medicine physicians are under investigation by the NC Medical Board for “crimes” such as providing IV vitamins and minerals. Alternative medical treatments for Lyme disease, autism and cancer have been especially affected, but no diagnosis can be considered to safe from the Board’s discriminatory regulation. If allowed to continue, your alternative healthcare options will cease to exist in North Carolina.
A bill will soon be introduced in the NC legislature to tighten the Medical Practice Act and make it more difficult for the Board to circumvent the law and discriminate against Integrative Medicine practitioners. We are very pleased to have two excellent sponsors for our bill: Senator Martin Nesbitt and Representative Julie Howard. A big “thank you” to both of them is in order – sponsoring a bill is a lot of work for a legislator. Even though a number has not yet been assigned to our bill, educating legislators about this issue NOW is very important, and no one can do that more effectively than their constituents. If you value your access to healthcare alternatives, we are asking that you send an email to your Senators (we’ll let you know when to contact your Representatives) asking them to rein in the NC Medical Board’s discriminatory actions against licensed integrative medicine practitioners. Include your health story if you want – make it brief or it will be less likely to be read.
“Strength in numbers” is critical in getting legislation passed. Please forward this email to others you know who value their access to healthcare alternatives. If you haven’t already done so, consider joining other healthcare consumers in a grassroots organization that support access to medical alternatives – Carolinians for Healthcare Access (CHCA) at: www.caroliniansforhealthcareaccess.org. Joining supports the few people working tirelessly to educate legislators in the legislature in Raleigh. If you have already joined or donated, we sincerely thank you!
Scroll down for the list of Senators and their contact information by county. You can copy and paste the email address into your message. Sending your comments to one Senator by name is most effective, but you can send a copy addressed “Dear Senator” to several Senators at once. There is not a form letter because a short personal note is much more effective. Topics ideas are below. (A thank you for sponsoring this bill and a short statement of the personal reason you appreciate his sponsorship will be adequate for Senator Nesbitt – he’s already in our camp.)
Educate Legislators: Use any of the following points you wish.
· Your personal health experience about the importance of your choice and its effectiveness.
· Many patients have sought treatment by multiple physicians before finding an Integrative Medicine physician and successful treatments. Tell your experience, briefly.
· Discuss how much you and your health insurer spent for prevailing treatments that didn’t work before you found an Integrative Medicine physician.
· Research shows that a majority of prevailing treatments are not scientifically proven to be effective. In 2008, the British Medical Association’s Clinical Evidence assessment of prevailing treatments: only 36% beneficial; or likely beneficial; 64% are a trade-off between benefits and harm, unlikely to be beneficial, likely to be ineffective or harmful, or unknown effectiveness.
· The National Institute of Health continues to identify Integrative Medicine treatments effective; ones that the N.C. Medical Board has opposed for more than 23 years.
· The Medical Board should focus on incompetence and patient harm, and not restrict the choice of millions of patients by disciplining Integrative Medicine doctors.
You can also find links to the Senate members listed alphabetically by last name at: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=Senate. If you identify one Senator and click on their name, all of your legislators’ names appear as links that have all their contact information – email, snail mail, FAX, etc.
Thank you!
Sincerely.
John L. Wilson, Jr., M.D.
Eileen M. Wright, M.D.
Pamela A. Shuler, D.N.Sc., F.N.P.-B.C.
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Health Freedom Action eAlert
March 6, 2008 – Farm Threat Update: https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2246
February 19, 2009
Friendly Food Farmers Under Attack…
* eAlert Action: eMailing the President & Congress
* Health Freedom Webinars and Webinar Video!
* Video of the Week: Health Freedom is Our First Freedom!
* The General’s Communiqué – Farm Crisis
* Dr. Rima Recommends – Save Our Farmers, Save Our Food!
Remember: Check our Health Freedom Blog on our website, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org. New items are posted frequently like
HIV: Scientific Fraud Concocted to Cover Up GMO’s Deadly Impact? https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2076
FDA Files: HHS Inspector General Finds FDA Scientists/Science Riddled with Conflict of Interest
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=1884
GMO Files: Monsanto’s Rural Cleansing: Hall of Shame https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=187
Send Action eAlert
Open Letters to President Obama & Congress
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2096
Index
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The General’s Communiqué
Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine III (US Army, Ret.)
Farmers Under Attack…
” These bills will industrialize all farms and insure the farmers are forced to buy chemicals and drugs. Organic is dead. As well as human control over the food supply. As well as health.”
Linn Cohen-Cole
I have asked our correspondent, Linn Cohen-Cole, to bring you the following urgent and time sensitive message. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that food freedom and safety – real safety – is essential to any real health or freedom.
Like the freedoms under attack through the urgent – and stealthy – creation of the comprehensively invasive spy system $3.5B ” Smart Grid” – http://rfdamerica.com/?p=333 – rushed into implementation within 60 days of the signing of the Stimulous Bill, so the freedoms of our farmers and our food rights are under massive, well organized attack.
Please read what Linn writes and then take action as the Mouse Warriors which we need to be to secure our food, our freedoms and our health:
“We have less than two weeks to stop the take over of all farms and ranches, including Organic ones.
“We need to rally immediately, reaching out to friends, contacts, customers, etc.
“The new administration is pushing new farm controls through Congress as fast as possible and have coordinated the bills so there will be no debate and the committee meetings are closed.
“Transparency, change, undoing Bush’s regulations, giving the public time to comment, grassroots anything? Our entire food system and thus our health is being decided without the public knowing [precisely as the Economic Stimulus Package and its horrific contents were rushed through Congress – Gen. Bert] and those who do know have zero access and the media is absent and they are moving at warp speed to sew this up.
“We need to put this information out, showing the article as you do so people are more likely to read it. What we are doing is explaining how the game is going to be played. We are not seeing a direct, frontal assault on organic farming but an insidious process of “infecting” organic farming…
“Example: imagine Joel Salatin’s wonderful organic farm under the direction of the USDA, with detailed instructions on what he must feed and when, how he must medically “treat” his animals and with what, what he must “spray” and when … you get the picture.
“These bills will industrialize all farms and insure the farmers are forced to buy chemicals and drugs. Under these bills “Organic” is dead. As well as human control over the food supply. As well as health.
“Schoolmarm approach to punishing farmers out of farming.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090214-935.html
Bills being rushed through Congress, set to destroy organic farming.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-bills-being-rushe-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090217-758.html ”
Thanks, Linn. Natural Solutions is always ahead of the pack protecting your freedom because you are always there to act. We thank you. These bills are dangerous in the extreme to health AND to freedom.
Here is the Action Item so you can send an unmistakable message to your representatives in the Senate and the House. Please click your Mouse and take action NOW!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
You know how much we need your help to continue this fight. Please make your most generous deductible donation at:
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189
Recurring donations of whatever size, are especially helpful.
Index
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Congress, the President and other decision makers must get your message loud and clear! Now that Health Freedom made it among the Top Ten social issues on Change.org and Change.gov, we are ready to push even harder. That’s where these Health Freedom Action eAlerts make a difference. Please take these actions:
1. Tell Congress “No” on the farm control bills! HR 875
We’ve set up an Action Item for you to send an unmistakable message to your representatives in the Senate and the House. We must educate Congress that you do not want organic and small farmers regulated out of existence.
You do not want “Big Agra” regulations, perhaps necessary to protect the public when dealing with large scale agra business, applied to organic and small family farms and ranches or to natural and organic food products including Dietary Supplements.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
2. Tell the President about Change: Health Freedom is Our First Freedom!
You made “Health Freedom Is Our First Freedom” one of the top 10 items on America’s mind with your votes to Change.org. Now we have to make that message resonate through the White House halls.
Will the new President listen? Only if we tell him, in our hundreds of thousands! We need your help in making this campaign “go viral” to “infect” the Internet with health freedom! Please forward to your entire list and ask them to ACT NOW!
Click here to tell President Obama that we want real change — which means more freedom and choice in our lives, not more control over needed medical treatments by yet another overblown, impossible to approach Federal bureaucracy!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26671
Click to send an Open Letter to the President and Congress
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2096
3. Right to Use ~ Right to Choose Use Nano Silver
Thanks to Mouse Warriors, the Deadline for Comments has been extended to March 20, 2009 by the EPA. We won that skirmish, but the war is still raging.
Retain the Right to Choose Nano Silver. Tell EPA Not to topical Ban Nano Silver of Any Type. Whether you use Nano Silver or not (and we certainly do!), let’s make sure that we have the right to make that choice!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26405
Want to know more? Read Defending Nano Silver :
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=1773
4. Divest FDA/USDA of Food Regulation Authority
– and all government agencies of their often misused power to deny us access to wholesome nutrition and natural remedies. Protect Food from FDA/USDA Regulation!
Congress is about to create a new agency for “Food Safety”. Our analysis is that it will be worse than both FDA and USDA combined. We need to get food out of Federal hands, and quickly. Just think what the new farm bills, coupled with a new industry-controlled, agency will do to your food, your health and your freedom. Having contemplated that horrific outcome, take action and ask everyone you know to do the same.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26314
5 . Please join the Natural Solutions Foundation’s new Food and Farming Yahoo!Groups forum.
Check it out at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/natural-solutions-food-and-farming/
And here’s an invitation to join our other very active and informative forums:
NO to GMO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no-genetically-modified-foods/join
No Forced Vaccinations
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no-forced-vaccination/join
Index
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What Does
Freedom in a Cup™
Taste Like?
Mmmm! Do You Want Your Friendly Food™ Whole or Ground?
Valley of the Moon™ Coffee is Certified Friendly Food™
Friendly to You, the Environment, the Workers!
Why Coffee? How are Coffee and Farms and Freedom and Health linked?
Because Natural Solutions Foundation understands that the food we eat is the food we grow and unless we take back – globally – the production of food, there can be no health freedom. Literally.
How does that work? Check out www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org to learn more and get involved. And while you are doing it, try sipping and supporting. Do both at www.Valley of the MoonCoffee.org
Sipping Valley of the Moon Coffee, our first Certified Friendly Food, produced by the Natural Solutions Foundation in our quest to find solutions to the problems farmers try to solve by using dangerous chemicals, and then teach others to produce wholesome products for their markets – that’s us, in this case, the coffee drinkers. More foods – and techniques for clean foods – to come.
Supporting because each bag you buy (or sell – see below) supports the work of the Natural Solutions Foundation. You see, we work on many fronts at the same time and we need your support to protect your freedoms.
Tomorrow General Bert and I will be flying to Germany to participate in some documentary filming on the Codex/Health Freedom battle and present “The Genocidal Feast” to a large and important meeting in Switzerland.
This Powerpoint presentation will be available on a free webinar soon. Your coffee purchases and donations at www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org help make trips like this possible. And the next trip, of course, is to Codex. We’ll need to fill up the coffers a bit so that we do not miss this next, important, meeting in Canada this coming Spring the way we missed the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) in South Africa late last year.
I forgot a word in my list, true, you can sip and support, but you will find that we should add “savor” to the list.
EVERYONE who has tasted our Valley of the Moon™ Coffee agrees that it is outstanding. www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
1. For each donation of $25 we’ll say “Thank you!” with an 8 oz bag (plus shipping) of Valley of the Moon™ Coffee AND a $20 tax deduction certificate. Order 4 or more bags to the same address and we’ll throw in the shipping.
2. Order a minimum of 2 bags of coffee per month (no donation credit) for $19.95 per 8 oz bag (plus shipping) we will send your coffee to your cup!
3. Your organization, shop or store can sell Valley of the Moon Coffee™ Coffee as a fund raiser or great “customer pleaser”. Contact Gail Coba, marketplaceinfo@gmail.com – to find out how!Visit
now and get some of the best coffee you’ve ever tried while you support the Natural Solutions Foundation. And while you savor Health Freedom in a Cup™
Index
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Video of “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom”
Counsel’s Corner
Ralph Fucetola, JD
Part One: http://www.youtube.com/v/uWZQD_0ZMDc&hl=en&fs=1
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/v/tJldQiJKfzM&hl=en&fs=1
Natural Solutions Foundation has prophetically been ringing the warning bell about the importance of the relationship between farms, food and freedom for several years now. That’s why we set up the revolutionary, and very necessary, Valley of the Moon™ Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, in Panama to help correct the abuses of our food and our freedom globally.
The new “Food Fascism” bills under consideration which will control all food production here in the US should make it clear why we chose to set this project up outside the US – we saw this coming.
Tragically, our warnings of the centrality of this connection and the attacks on both our food and our freedoms, to say nothing of our health, are proving very accurate, indeed, as the new administration, backed by “Advisors” like Tom Daschel and members of the Administration like Secretary of Agriculture Vilsek, an old “Monsanto” hand, are proving both accurate and critically urgent.
Part of the battle for our health and freedom is through our food. But the issues are even more complex, as you know if you have been following our Health Freedom Action eAlerts and Health Freedom Blog for any time.
I was honored to address a Health Freedom Rally in New Jersey recently and was able to share the current state of the battle with the Health Freedom Advocates (and perhaps the infiltrators there.
The resulting two part film is an educational tool which I invite you to watch and share widely. My new 2 part video made while I informed other health freedom advocates at a Health Freedom Rally – Hunterdon Central High, Flemington, NJ can be seen now at:
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/02/health-freedom-is-our-first-freedom.html
Now that you have watched it, please send this video, and this Health Freedom Action e Alert, to your entire list.
Let people know that they can sign up for their own copies of the Health Freedom Action e Alert at https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=187 . This information needs to become a “Freedom Virus” and we, the Mouse Warriors, can make that happen.
And please take a look at this important article by the former Lt. Governor of New York, about how Health Freedom is being limited by new laws being passed in Congress including the one signed earlier this week by President Obama: https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=2060
Thanks!
Index
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Health Freedom Action Webinar
Current Webinars
Webinars are a new, efficient and entertaining learning experience. We’re bringing together experts who can provide valuable information, practical advice and leading-edge knowledge. They will be teaching about discovering, demonstrating an implementing natural solutions. Here are some of the initial Webinars you are invited to attend on the Internet. (details below):
1. Valley of the Moon Eco Community: Free – Archived
2. Ethical Considerations for CAM Practitioners
Live Online – $99 – 02/26/09
Want to know more?
Watch this Video Introduction to this ground breaking course:
3. Protecting your IRA – Sustainable Living
Live Online – $49 – 03/07/09
4. Bringing New Natural Products to Market – April
Webinar updates
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=2002
Be sure to bookmark this page and check it frequently!
Our Webinars are live, interactive learning experiences where you’ll hear us, see powerpoint images and be able to ask questions. Webinars are archived for subsequent retrieval.
Index
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Dr. Rima Recommends:
If Not Now, When? If Not We, Who?
Tell it to the President – And Congress!
Using Action Alerts to Defend Food, Freedom
There does seem to be so much happening all at the same time. We at Natural Solutions Foundation do not think that is an accident. The momentum of the new administration is even more dangerous than the lame duck deregulation momentum of the Bush administration seeking to leave presents for their supporters and funders, Big Business, before they left office.
The new White House is determined to extend and expand that gifting by driving all doctors out of the business of independent thought or service to their patients through the new super bureaucracy which will determine your health options – all of them, while removing any shreds remaining of your health privacy.
For that matter, any other privacy you might have had will be dissolved in the acid brine of the Smart Grid proposed for implementation within 60 days.
And any persistence of Organic Farming is slated for extinction, too, just like your access to Nano Silver and other health options.
We know you don’t want that and neither do we. That’s why we are sending you more emails than usual. We need your help and your vigilance. Now and in the future.
In the Action Item section of this emailing we list about a half dozen actions you can take to help educate the new President and Congress about your need for health freedom so we can find natural solutions to many pressing issues.
Recently I wrote about the psychology and physiology of brainwashing and what you can do to resist mind control misinformation aimed a persuading you that your loss of health freedom doesn’t matter.
You know it matters! If you haven’t read that article, please do. https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=1940
And here are our two most recent Action Items. Taking these actions matters too.
1. Tell the President:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26671
2. Tell your Congressional Representatives:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
Copies of our sample letters to the President and Congress are here:
https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?p=2096
Change.org continues to promote Health Freedom as one of its Top Ten Ideas for Change! We can help them by clicking onto their site, taking a look at the NEW BLOG and VIDEOS we’ve posted, and commenting on them. Thanks!
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom
Nano Silver: Big Market Buster
Why Would Nano Silver Be Attacked by the Government?
1. Nano silver is cheap, safe and effective. That’s good for us, but takes power and income out of the hands of the Illness Control Industry. You’ve noted how tightly your doctor and you will be controlled in all of your health choices in the new legislation which was just signed. Natural Medicine will, under this tyranny, be eliminated, Nano silver along with it.
2. More than 50% of all antibiotics are used in rearing sick animals for food. They are packed so closely together and so badly fed and treated, that they would die before you had a chance to eat them without these antibiotics. This is an enormous market and Nano silver can eliminate it.
3. Whatever plague is thrown our way by the genetic geniuses who are weaponzing organisms (or by the insanity of modern farming and weapons development) will likely be susceptible to Nano silver, making it useless as a population control mechanism.
So, while you still can get it, we recommend some really great Nano silver here:
www.nutronix.com/naturalsolutions
Go to Products and then scroll down to Silver Solutions (bottom of left side menu).
Have you considered the possibility of using this great product to replace or augment your income? If this is an interesting idea, go to www.Nutronix.com/naturalsolutions and click on the “Opportunities” tab.
Why not assist the people you know in getting an outstanding product and make some income while doing it? You’ll be supporting your customers, your income and the Natural Solutions Foundation at the same time.
One of the issues in any sales situation, of course, is support. Obviously, the Trustees of the Natural Solutions Foundation would love to provide product support for you, but we are otherwise occupied.
So the founders of Nutronix, the Bremners, have graciously agreed to do that for us. That means that if you do decide to become a distributor of the Nano Silver product (and others on their site, of course, if you like them), the people who run the company will be your upline support. We really appreciate their help in this matter and know you will enjoy working with them, as we do.
Nano silver has a very long shelf life, years really, so you can safely lay in your supply NOW!
General Bert told you that we are speaking at an important conference in Europe. Make no mistake: we never, but never, leave home without silver. We believe that it is one of the most important reasons that we virtually never get sick and if we do, get better very, very quickly.
Please share this health freedom information with your friends and contacts and ask them to help protect food and freedom, too. Let them know that they can get their very free subscription to the Health Freedom Action eAlerts at https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=187.
Thanks!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Copyright 2009 – You may reproduce this message in it entirety for distribution, with attribution and a link to www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
First, here is the open letter being sent to the new President by thousands of Natural Solutions supporters (below is the letter to Congress)
To send the open letter to the President:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26671
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Dear President Obama,
Natural Solutions Foundation, the nation’s premiere “net roots” Health Freedom association alerted me to the threats to Health Freedom hidden in H.R. 1 EH, the economic stimulus law and also found in the pending Food Safety Agency bill, H.R. 875 (and its Senate companion bill).
“Health Freedom” was one of the “Top Ten” social issues on Change.org and was included in the President’s Briefing Book on the official Change.gov web site. We demand that Health Freedom be taken seriously and that Health Fascism — as exemplified by the hidden provisions of the “stimulus” bill and the potential harm of the Food Agency bill — be stopped NOW.
We are concerned that language in the “stimulus” bill will restrict our health care choices, our medical privacy, and course of treatment or therapy that may benefit. We are concerned with what the new Federal bureaucratic overlords of “Health Care” will authorize for us, at our age, and at our financial ‘worth’ to society.
One commentator sited specific page numbers (refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version) as examples:
“The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system…. But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners…” (Bloomberg, February 9, 2009)
So what is an unprecedented Congressional grant of power over health care to the bureaucracy doing in an economic “stimulus” bill? And why does Congress think a new bureaucracy should make life-and-death health care choices for us?
We are further concerned that H.R. 875 will be applied to organic and small family farms and ranches, as well as natural and organic food products, including Dietary Supplements, in ways that will greatly harm these areas of the economy. They are not part of the food safety problem which is essentially a problem of big agriculture businesses.
President Obama, this imposition of what could be termed Medical Fascism on the People is NOT real Change. Sneaking it into the “stimulus” bill is just plain old “politics as usual.” Creating a new bureaucracy, even if called “Food Safety” is not helpful if the new bureau will hurt family farms and ranches, natural and organic products.
Please use your authority as President to make it clear that these new powers granted by Congress will not be used to restrict Healthcare Freedom of Choice and local food production.
We PETITION you to clearly instruct the Federal agencies, including the FDA and other agencies involved in restricting healthcare freedom of choice to reverse all policies that restrict access to natural, alternative and complementary healthcare modalities and natural or organic food products.
We request that you formally adopt the Definition of Health Freedom from Change.org and your Briefing Book, “Health Freedom means the right to control what happens to your body, choosing your own health path, making your own health choices as you see fit.” as the definition to be used by all Federal agencies.
You need to regulate the regulators — we call upon you to instruct the bureaucracy to respect the rights of doctors and patients, to ensure that the United States fully respects the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki – http://www.wma.net/e/policy/pdf/17c.pdf – and does not impose on our Citizens restrictions against health care choice, especially when those choices involve nutrients and natural remedies.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter. “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom!”
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To send a message to your Federal Representative:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
And below is the Open Letter to Congress:
Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, as part of its efforts to educate Congress regarding the inestimable benefits of health care freedom of choice, asked its hundreds of thousands of supporters to let our Congressional representatives know about our concerns for the protection of organic and small family farms and ranches from new legislation and regulation that is more properly applied to large-scale agricultural businesses.
Our concern focuses on pending legislation to establish a “Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services.” This bill is H.R. 875 and the Senate is considering a similar bill, S.425. While we do support DIVESTING THE FDA and USDA of their often mis-used food authority, we do not support these bills.
If Congress insists upon passing these bills, it is very important that Congress write into these bills specific language protecting organic and small family farms and ranches. These enterprises and all natural products, including organic and natural food products and Dietary Supplements, must be exempted from the controls of these bills.
Such products and such farms and ranches are not part of the food safety problem. The problem is with mega-farms and agra business facilities.
We demand that our natural and organic food products, Dietary Supplements and their producers be protected from the increased regulation of food producers provided in these pending bills and any similar enactments.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. “Health Freedom is Our First Freedom!”
We have Another Friend in Congress!
Powerful Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) has adopted a position in line with what the Natural Solutions Foundation has been calling for over the last months: the FDA cannot regulate drugs and their major economic competitor, foods. She also applauds our oft-repeated assessment of the FDA’s performance in food safety is beyond dismal and cites the recent – and damning – Government Accountability Office (GAO) study to document just how dismal it is.
Up to now, the solution of the Federal Government to repeated exposure of how dangerous, corrupt and damaged the FDA is has been two fold: either Congress took away powers and responsibilities to set up new agencies (e.g., EPA, Consumer Protection Agency, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, etc.) or they passed new legislation which gave the failed, and deadly, agency more money and more power to do a worse job with (e.g., 2008 FDA Reorganization Act). The current food safety crisis, with melamine approved for infants, GMO foods and cloned meats and milk approved without scientific studies showing they are safe, fluoridation of water permitted and encouraged despite massive scientific evidence documenting its dangers, irradiation of everything it can find a way to irradiate, including raw nuts and salad greens approved regardless of rational thought, growth hormones, pesticides, veterinary antibiotics permitted in outrageous doses, a relentless assault on dietary supplements, herbs and other non-drug health strategies, multinational servitude in Codex with disastrous results to the world food supply, etc., etc., etc., must be laid solely at the doorstep of one of the most dangerous and corrupt agencies in the history of the United State.
It is time to stop the losses and get food out of the dirty hands of the FDA. The same, of course, is true of the USDA. How? By giving food regulations back to the States where the local interest influences of consumers and the impact of local certification programs can help us to reclaim the production of safe, wholesome food and make it accessible for all of us once again.
Industrial food is killing us.
Let’s kill the messenger and get government out of food and food out of government.
Visit www.HealthFreedomUSA.org to sign up for the Health Freedom Action eAlerts (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=187) so you can add your voice to the netroots telling Congress and President Obama that Health Freedom Is Our First Freedom and the FDA threatens our health and our freedom.
Click Health Freedom IS Our First Freedom; Divest the FDA of Food Regulation I‘ ><a href=\'http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/02/health-freedom-is-our-first-freedom.html\' >Health Freedom IS Our First Freedom; Divest the FDA of Food Regulation I</a> (Health Freedom IS Our First Freedom; Divest the FDA of Food Regulation I) to watch Natural Solutions Foundation’s Trustee Ralph Fucetola’s stirring address on Divesting the FDA and click here (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189) to make a tax deductible recurring donation to help Natural Solutions Foundation divest the FDA.
Now scroll down to read Congresswoman DeLauro’s stinging condemnation of the FDA.
Thanks for your support.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the Moon GMO-Free Coffee
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
International Decade of Nutrition
Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Food Safety Mustn’t Be Left In FDA’s Hands
Congresswoman ROSA L. DELAURO
February 8, 2009
For years now, the American people have learned to live with the possibility that their food may not be safe. The list of incidents has grown month after month, from spinach to shellfish from ground beef to peppers.
Now, a devastating salmonella outbreak has been tied to the Peanut Corp. of America and its Blakely, Ga., plant. It has killed eight people and sickened more than 500 people across the country, and a criminal investigation is underway to determine whether the producer knowingly sold a dangerous, contaminated product.
But this is not just a case of one bad actor. This salmonella outbreak is just the latest — and it represents the full-scale breakdown of a patchwork food safety system. When we look at recent headlines, it is hard not to see a food safety system in crisis — a dysfunctional federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration. unable to perform its mission and protect the American public.
Last month, the Government Accountability Office deemed that the regulatory activities governing food safety continue to pose a “high risk” to the economy and public health — the consequence of a fragmented legal and organizational structure with insufficient authority and too few resources to protect the American people.
While innocent people continued to get sick from contaminated peanut butter, the case lingered in jurisdictional limbo between the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, causing critical delays. And when the salmonella’s source was finally identified, FDA officials had to wait for industry approval before they could go live with the recall. That is not how a fully functioning regulatory agency is supposed to operate.
To truly fix inherent problems in our food safety system, we must fundamentally restructure the food safety bureaucracy at the FDA. Today, food safety is divided among multiple, separately managed units at the FDA — the Office of the Commissioner, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the Center for Veterinary Medicine, the field force (Office of Regulatory Affairs) and the National Center for Toxicological Research. As a result, there is no one single individual to be held accountable for food safety at the FDA or anywhere else at the federal level.
Separating food safety regulation from drug and device approvals would go a long way toward restoring the balance that has long been missing at the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and give food safety the attention it deserves. By establishing a Food Safety Administration within Health and Human Services, headed by its own commissioner, we can give food safety experts and researchers the room and the resources to do their jobs.
Because we need an agency fully committed to actively preventing food-borne illness, not just reacting to it, I have introduced the Food Safety Modernization Act. In addition to establishing a new, separate Food Safety Administration, this legislation would provide the regulatory tools to access important records, recall products and penalize companies for knowingly selling tainted products. It also would require traceability, mandate regular inspections, demand that imported food meet our safety standards and require companies to take preventive measures.
While these are not new ideas, the push for change could not be more urgent. With every recall, the American people grow more concerned and the momentum for reform grows. I know this is an important issue for many of my colleagues in Congress and I look forward to working with them to ensure food safety is a priority.
Ultimately, though, it starts at the top. For eight years, our food safety system has been crippled by disinvestment, mismanagement and a failure to meet its most basic regulatory responsibilities. True reform is going to require strong leadership from our president.
I am confident, at last, that we have a government that understands its obligation to its citizens and is ready to modernize our food safety system to better protect public health.
• U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-New Haven, represents Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District and serves as the chairwoman of the Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee.
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-delauro0208.artfeb08,0,41679.story