HEALTH FREEDOM WATCHDOG HEALTH FREEDOM WATCHDOG
In Germany, the trains run on time and the beer is unsurpassed, but pharmaceutical companies like Hoechst are working overtime to drive small vitamin companies out of business in an effort to take over the supplement industry. Hoechst's vehicle is the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is developing international standards for dietary supplements.
The motives of the pharmaceutical companies are revealed in a letter by Matthias Rath, M.D.(Fig. 1) to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and members of the German Parliament. The letter is entitled "The Health Interests of Millions of People Are More Important Than The Stock Price of the Pharmaceutical Corporations".
In his letter, Dr. Rath, who is a German living in California, noted that a German proposal before the Codex Commission is being heavily pushed by Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF -the three companies formed when IG Farben was disbanded after the Nuremberg War Trials because of their role in manufacturing the poison gas used in the Nazi concentration camps.
Eradicating Cardiovascular Disease
Dr. Rath notes that he has developed a scientifically sound nutritional protocol for eradicating human cardiovascular disease, but that this protocol threatens the interests of Hoechst, Bayer and BASF -- all of which manufacture dangerous, ineffective, and outrageously expensive heart medications.
Clearly, through their support of the Codex Commission, Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF, are contributing to the death of millions of people -- as heart disease is the world's number one killer. More than 12 million people will continue to die worldwide every year from premature heart attacks and strokes if they are denied access to affordable preventive therapies.Advancing The German Proposal.
Regrettably, the German government ignored Dr.Rath's impassioned plea, and held the Codex meeting in Bonn anyway. Moreover, they continued to advance the German proposal that could one day severely restrict your access to dietary supplements. They jumped from step 3 to step 5 during this meeting. In two years when they meet again, they could jump from step 5 to step 8 and finalize things!
In addition, the Codex Executive committee might allocate funds in June for the creation of an "expert panel" on herbs which might create a "negative list" that could limit consumer access to these products internationally. The formation of this "expert panel" was advocated by Canada, and seconded by a majority of the delegations present. Obviously we will need to monitor this very closely and will attempt to be a part of the expert panel. We also encourage people such as Roy Upton from American Herbal Pharmacopoeia to participate. They have developed approximately 300 highly objective monographs on botanicals including Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Western herbs that are commonly in use in the United States- and are pro consumer.
Do you want your favorite supplements replaced by expensive, patented, over-the-counter and prescription drug?
Unless a much bigger international coalition can be formed within the next two years to save our health freedom, we will see it stripped from us as the drug companies play a game called "boiling the frog slowly."
Report From Bonn
I am writing this from the Hotel Europa in Bonn Germany because The Life Extension Foundation sent me here to report on the 20th meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission's Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use. I just sat through a week's worth of meetings as part of the U.S. delegation, which was one of 39 member countries comprising a total of 187 participants.
Prior to coming to Bonn, I worked with Suzanne Harris,J.D. of the Law Loft in Johnstown, Colorado to draft comments on the German proposal for dietary supplements and other issues discussed at the meeting. (Our Codex comments can be downloaded from our web site (www.lef.org) on the Internet. Pat Stern in our information office will mail these extensive comments to anyone making a donation of $25. or more.
Ron Birckhead and I reported on the Codex International Threat to Health Freedom in the February and April issues of Life Extension Magazine, however before I outline what happened in Bonn and what we must do to save health freedom, I will summarize the nature of the problem we are facing.
What Is The Codex Alimentarius Commission?
Codex Alimentarius is latin for "food code." The Codex Alimentarius Commission is an FAO/WHO United Nations entity whose purpose is to "create a set of international standards to guide the world's growing food industry and to protect the health of consumers."
Germany has been attempting to manipulate the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use to further the interests of the German pharmaceutical industry, by raising regulatory standards so that only the big drug companies like Hoechst, Bayer, BASF, Degussa, Fresnius, Rhone-Poulenc, Sandoz, and Novo Nordisk can survive.
The purpose of Codex is "...to guide and promote the elaboration and establishment of definitions and requirements for foods, to assist in their harmonization and, in doing so, to facilitate international trade."
Since being established in 1962, codex has produced 28 volumes of standards, guidelines and principles, including 237 food standards and 41 hygienic and technological practice codes. Codex has resulted in evaluations of the safety of over 700 food additives and contaminants and the setting of more than 3,200 maximum residue levels for pesticides. As of 1994, Commission membership included 146 countries.
The Problem
The German "Proposed Draft Guideline for Dietary Supplements" calls for the following:
1. No dietary supplement can be sold for prophylactic (preventive or therapeutic) use;
2. No dietary supplement sold as a food can exceed potency
(dosage)levels set by the commission;
3. Codex standards for dietary supplements would become the
reference international standard under GATT, and a reference international
standard under NAFTA.
4. The current trend is for countries to adopt the international
standards either individually or in regional compacts. If that
happened in the U.S., all new dietary supplements would automatically
be banned unless they conform to Codex standards- (which would
require going through a very expensive drug like approval process.)
The Delaney clause, which used to protect us against carcinogens
in our food supply, has already been "harmonized" to
a Codex standard which favors pesticide manufacturers, and not
a single member of Congress protested against this.
What It's Like In Germany
All anyone needs to do in order to grasp the motives behind the German proposal is to visit any German health food store and pharmacy (called an "apothecary").
In a German health food store, you simply don't find the shelves filled with vitamin products that you see in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or Australia. You won't find a single product by Twinlab, Standard Process Brands, Solgar, Solaray, or any of the other usual brands.
What you WILL find is little besides health food. You'll find organic vegetables, macrobiotic staples, herbal shampoo, skin creams, Birckenstock sandals, books on massage, and only a handful of multi-nutrient formulas in OTC drug form such as "Alsiroyal", a royal jelly, vitamin E and ginseng.
Where You Can Get Supplements In Germany?
The answer is that you really CAN'T! The closest thing to the products available to Americans and can only be found as high priced, prescription and over-the-counter drugs found in pharmacies called apothecaries, such as the "Apotheke im Stadthaus" on Berliner Platz in Bonn where I went with a list of the products I usually take.
The first thing that struck me about the "Apotheke im Stadthaus" was that I was BLOCKED from even accessing the products I was looking for by a long counter that extends the full width of the store. BEHIND that counter, standing GUARD over the products was a phalanx of registered pharmacists wearing white lab coats.
I told one of the pharmacists, a woman named Christi Himmelfahrt, that I was moving to Germany for 6 months, and needed to stock up in the states on supplements before returning.
She asked me a slew of annoying questions, and gave me a lot of unwanted advice regarding my supplement program. I cut her short by informing her that I just wanted to price a few products and be on my way, and that I wasn't used to not being able to look at the products myself. She stared as if in shock at my "impudence"and proceeded to pull boxes containing various OTC drugs off the shelves lining the wall behind the counter.
All the products available in a German apothocary are listed in a "PDR" like volume called "Die Rote List" (ISBN 3-87193-167-5). There one can find a complete listing of international pharmaceutical firms that manufacture patented analogs of dietary supplements sold as OTC and prescription drugs. Through this you can see who the companies are that are trying to manipulate the Codex process.
German Rip-Off Prices!
Here is an example of how OTC drug prices at "Apotheke im Stadhaus" compare The with Life Extension Foundation's supplement prices:
LEF: Vitamin C, 250 caps, 1,000 mg, $22.50, cost per gram: 0.090 cents.
GERMANY: Vitamin C not available in 1 Gram caps, only in a quantity of 20, 1 Gram effervescent lozenges (Merck) which cost 6.45 DM or $4.19 U.S. (U.S. dollar=1.5263 DM). Cost is .209 cents per mg). German cost is more than double LEF cost.
The largest sized tablet of vitamin C in Germany is 250 mg (Merck)(a huge, hard-to-swallow tablet -- they don't have capsules). Their price for 30 tablets is 18.89 DM or $12.27 US (cost is $1.63/gram in Germany vs .09 cents per gram for the Life Extension Foundation product. The German cost is 18.11 times HIGHER than the LEF cost
I consume 20 capsules/day of C, or 20 x 365 = 7300 capsules/year. My cost at .09 cents per gram (73,00 capsules x 1 gram or 7,300 grams x .09/gram = LEF cost of $657/year.
If I consumed 7,300 grams x $1.61 cents/gram, my cost per year in Germany would be a whopping $11,899/ year-- or FAR more than I can afford to pay for vitamin C, ESPECIALLY when I figure the cost of the OTHER supplements I take! The German price for 1 gram of vitamin C is 18.11 times higher than the LEF price!
North American Pharmacies Move In On Supplement Market
Americans and Canadians had better wake up because on Oct. 14, 1996 a press release announced the publication of "The Natural Pharmacist," a new magazine exclusively for retail pharmacists who will vigorously pursue business that has traditionally been the province of health food stores.
This magazine was distributed at the annual meeting of the National Association for Retail Pharmacists (NARD) in New Orleans, and was sent to over 40,000 pharmacists in the U.S. and Canada. With the German Codex proposal pending, no consumer can afford to be complacent about the drug companies efforts to monopolize the sale of natural products.
Control Of Supplements In Norway
In Norway, drug companies currently control 70% of all dietary supplement sales. These products are being sold at grossly inflated prices as patent protected prescription and OTC drug analogs -- when they are available at all.
In Norway, the you can only make a health claim for a natural product if it is licensed with the government as an OTC drug. Thus, in Norway, Shering Plough can make a health claim on "Echinagard" (a patented analog of an echinacea tincture), while supplement companies are excluded from making the claim. In Norway, there are only a handful of herbs that can still be sold in health food stores. The drug companies are making it illegal to sell them in order to pave the way for the sale of their OTC drugs.
Hoechst, Shering-Plough and other European drug companies which have been taking over the European market are now eyeing the rest of the world, with efforts to pass the German Codex proposal.
Jamaica And Spain
In Jamaica, the Holistic Health Association has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Health, which is attempting to require a cost prohibitive "drug approval process" for herbal products.
In Spain, a royal decree on Aug. 2 banned advertising of natural products unless they have undergone a cost prohibitive drug approval process. Life Extension Foundation member Vance Lannaman is spearheading the lawsuit against the Jamaican government, while LEF distributor to Spain, Manuel Tevar, is trying to help coordinate a lawsuit against the Spanish government.
The Adoption Of A Flawed Preamble
In Bonn, discussion on the proposed draft guidelines for dietary supplements (agenda item #7), got off on the wrong foot from the start with the adoption of the following incorrect and highly biased preamble:
"Most people who have a balanced diet should usually obtain all of the nutrients that they require from their normal diet. People should therefore be encouraged to select such a balanced diet from food before considering any dietary supplement."
The delegate from India attempted to amend this preamble by proposing the following third sentence: "However, people who do not have access to a balanced diet may need access to vitamins and minerals to safeguard their health." The committee however agreed to leave the preamble unchanged, (reflecting the pharmaceutical industries influence on the whole proceedings.)
Recommendations For Daily Intake
The Committee did not agree on the proposal of the German delegation to refer to "recommendations for daily intake or estimated values of safe and adequate intake by recognized scientific authorities" and this was left in square brackets for further comments. The French delegation expressed the view that a distinction should be made between toxicological and nutritional aspects when safety limits were considered, and that the Committee should primarily address nutritional concerns.
No Agreement On Minimum Or Maximum Nutrient Levels
The Committee could not agree on minimum nutrient levels and the level of 15% of the RDA was left in square brackets for further discussion.
Some delegations were opposed to the definition of a maximum level of 100% of the RDA. The Committee agreed to a proposal by the U.K. and Canada for alternative wording, setting the limit "to a level that is considered safe as determined by appropriate risk assessment methodology taking into account all sources of the nutrients in the diet", recognizing that nutrient interaction was one aspect in the assessment process. Both proposals were put in square brackets for further consideration.
Status of The Proposed Draft Guidelines
The U.S., supported by Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Japan pointed out that, since there was no consensus on many aspects of the Guidelines, and further detailed consideration of the process put forward at the session would be required, the text should be sent back to step 3 for additional comments on the amended version.
However, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kuwait, South Africa, and Poland disagreed, and by simple majority moved for adoption of step 5 of the procedure. This decision was vehemently objected to by the delegations from the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan -- but to no avail for the other side had their simple majority.
The chair cut off voting once a simple majority was reached. If not for that, many other countries would have backed the Germans, and the vote would have been much worse than 10-7. Greece, Spain, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland were just a few of the countries that would have voted with Germany if the chair hadn't stopped the voting.
Health Freedom Efforts In Other Countries
The Life Extension Foundation extends thanks to Jason Sebeslav or Alive Magazine, Vancouver, Canada for helping with the grass roots effort in Canada. In Australia we extend thanks to John Lesso of Consumers Against Fraudulent Medical Research for helping get the word out there. In New Zealand we especially thank LEF member Dr. Kenneth Mc Iver for his tireless organizing. In the U.K., hats go off to Tom Potter of the Feelgood Factory.
In Norway we owe Ron Birckhead a tremendous thanks, and I hope we receive enough donations that we can once again obtain Ron's valuable services. It was Ron who first alerted us to the Codex threat, and his insight is very badly needed- especially as events unfold in Europe pertaining to the EC supplement regulations and to Codex.
We hope to meet the Netherlands activists who carried the battle there, along with activists from Japan who spurred that nation to oppose the German proposal.
Regarding Japan's opposition to the German proposal, we note that in the Sep. 1996 issue of Nutrition Business Journal, on p.23, there is an announcement about a booming Japanese vitamin market. "According to Japan's Health Business Magazine, 1995 domestic sales for vitamin products are expected to reach $3 billion. In 1996, sales are expected to increase substantially due to recent deregulation of nutrition supplements from medicine to foods. This will make them more readily available at department and convenience stores at more affordable prices.
What Is Needed Now
The Life Extension Foundation is the leading organization in the world concerned with defending consumer access to natural products. We need your help in building an international coalition to oppose the German proposal and send it back to step 3 in two years when the committee meets again. We will be working with organizations in the U.K., Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand to help insure that this happens, but need monetary donations on an ongoing basis in order to conduct this vital health freedom networking.
We will be updating Codex information to our site on the worldwide web (www.lef.org), including translations into other languages) and we need your assistance.
All of this costs money. We need you to join us, and if you have already joined, please urge your friends to! It cost a lot of money for LEF to send me to Germany to the Codex meeting.
We need money to conduct a think tank analysis (to identify the market and political forces at work which bear on these proceedings in order to assist us in planning strategy. We need to be able to fund a full time lobbyist on Capital Hill, as well as a roving lobbyist who can take our message abroad. Please help us keep Suzanne Harris in motion, and help us bring Ron Birckhead back on board!
Checks can be made out to "Life Extension Foundation" and sent to Pat Stern, LEF Information Office, PO Box 229120, Hollywood, FL 33022 USA. For donations of $25. or more, we will send you a copy of our highly comprehensive, 23 page Codex Comments which were submitted to the Codex Alimentarius Commission after careful preparation by Suzanne Harris, JD of the Law Loft. Thank you for your badly needed assistance.
John Hammell, Political Coordinator, The Life Extension Foundation
800-333-2553, 305-929-2905, 954-929-0507 FAX
john@lef.org, http://www.lef.org/
Updated Codex Form Letter in Our Website Now
LEF Codex Comments in our Website Now
***FREE Copy Life Extension Mag available upon request***
© 1996 John Hammell, Hollywood, FL
Health Now
387 Ivy St.
San Francisco, CA 94102, USA
FAX 415-851-9821
http://www.healthnow1.com/
info@healthnow1.com
Dear Chancellor Kohl,
Dear Members of the German Bunderstag:
With this letter I would like to draw your attention to one of the most important decisions of your public office: your decision will directly effect the life and health of every human being in Germany and hundreds of millions of people world wide.
Over the next months a Commission of the United Nations World Trade Organization named "Codex Alimentarius" will meet in Bonn, Germany and other capitals. This "Codex" Commission is overwhelmingly composed of representatives of German and international pharmaceutical corporations, and its aim is to set world-wide guidelines for vitamins, amino acids, minerals and other dietary supplements. Spearheaded by the German pharmaceutical corporations, this "Codex" Commission plans to ban, on a world wide scale, any health statements in relation to vitamins, be it preventive or therapeutic. Moreover, the only vitamin formulas which would still be available would have to meet the arbitrary restrictions of the "Codex" Commission. The nations that do not comply with these restrictions are faced with economic sanctions.
These plans of the pharmaceutical corporations and the "Codex" Commission are in direct opposition to the overwhelming importance of vitamins and other essential nutrients for human health and in particular for preventing cardiovascular disease. As the physician and scientist, who led the breakthrough in vitamin research which can eradicate heart disease, I felt it is incumbent upon me to address this important matter. Animals do not get heart attacks because they produce their own vitamin C and clinical studies with vitamins show that coronary heart disease can be stopped in its early stages, long before a heart attack occurs. My books, Eradicating Heart Disease, and America's Most Successful Cardiovascular Health Program, show the perspective of this medical breakthrough: heart attacks and strokes will essentially be unknown in future generations. It is also with this background that in August 1994 the U.S. Congress passed laws specifically allowing health claims in connection with vitamins. Moreover, the American Heart Association, the world's largest association of cardiologists, in a press release distributed world wide, supported the importance of vitamins in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
With this background, the attack of the "Codex" Commission is a desperate act by the pharmaceutical companies to protect their world wide drug market against naturally effective and much more affordable vitamins. Particularly disturbing is the spearheading role of the German pharmaceutical corporations within the "Codex" Commission. Once before in this century, a German pharmaceutical and chemical corporation, I.G. Farben, became responsible for the deaths of millions of people and consequently, was dismantled in 1946 by the Nuremberg Tribunal and split into Bayer, BASF and Hoechst. With the current plans of the German pharmaceutical companies, the predictable dimension of the unnecessary and premature death of millions of people is unavoidable. If the "Codex" Commission is allowed to obstruct the eradication of heart disease by restricting access to nutritional supplements, more than 12 million people world-wide will continue to die every year from premature heart attacks and strokes. Within the next generation alone, this would result in over 300 million premature deaths, more than in all the wars of mankind together.
Chancellor Kohl and Members of the German Bundestag, I strongly urge you to:
* Cancel all meetings of the "Codex" Commission on German soil!
* Stop politicians and representatives of the pharmaceutical companies from participating in this Commission!
* Declare publicly that you will protect the health interests of millions of people world wide against the plans of the German and International pharmaceutical corporations!
* Immediately pass laws that guarantee free access to vitamins and other nutritional supplements for every one in Germany!
* Make every effort within the European Community to abolish all barriers restricting free access to dietary supplements!
* Support the eradication of heart disease, now possible through advances in vitamin research, by all means available!
Sincerely Yours,
Matthias Rath, M.D.
E-mail us at mystic@castle.net.
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