Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
My last two broadcasts “Vitamins to be Banned Worldwide…“, and ““Big Pharma” Controls US “TV News”… have generated a major response. They seem to have been forwarded everywhere, and I can’t keep up with the volume of email questions I’m getting – so I’ll answer the questions here…
Yes, it’s true that the “Codex Alimentarius” commission in Rome, July 4th,2005, passed restriction of supplement guidelines that would, in effect, destroy the supplement industry in it’s entirety – except for that controlled outright by “Big Pharma.”
Yes, it’s true that the “CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement)” legislation currently being rushed through the US Congress contains, within its language, the mechanism to force “harmonization” of US laws to “Codex” requirements destroying the protection afforded under the1994 DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act) law.
Yes, it’s true that “Big Pharma” is behind this move – they have that much power and money
Yes, it’s true that we MIGHT be able to stop CAFTA – but it’s unlikely – this time. There is too much at stake – and too little time for us to react – and too much money being spent to buy Congressional votes, by the opposition. We must try, but if we don’t succeed at first, we’ll have to go at it again, until we get what we need.
We’ve been “Pearl Harbored…”
The dismantling of the “health” industry, and the surrounding “health freedom” movement, worldwide, by force, has begun. The “German Model” of health care will now be the law of the land – in every land.
We’ve lost this battle – period.
Be prepared for even more attacks. It is going to get worse. “Big Pharma” is tired of having its will thwarted, and is calling in its markers.
The US FDA, over the last few months, has LITERALLY, with automatic weapons in hand, and body armor in place, massively attacked at least two US practitioners who espouse alternatives to “drugs, drugs, and more drugs,” seizing everything in their offices, their bank accounts, the titles to their homes, cars, and personal property – and screaming at them, on the way out “Hire an attorney, asshole, because we’re going to put you in jail forever…”
How do you hire an attorney when the FDA has just seized everything you have, shut down your business, and scared the crap out of your patients with their fingers on the triggers of laser-sighted machine guns?
The US television news media, in one of the most obviously bigoted assaults, perhaps in American history, has attacked America’s leaders in the fight for changes in health care. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. felt the wrath of “Big Pharma” recently, when he came in out in Rolling Stone magazine exposing the “thimerasol (mercury) in vaccines” issue, and the cover-up. Actor Tom Cruise, after pointing out “Big Pharma’s – drugs, drugs, and more drugs” approach to health care – was openly attacked on TV network news.
And, more… even scarier: I make no secret of the fact that I’m an Orange County California Conservative Republican. Frequently, I get asked “How can you be a health activist and support George Bush, seeing how much money he took from “Big Pharma” during his election campaign?” Well, I’ll tell you why – and the answer will frighten you more than anything else I’ve said, or will say, on this newsletter, today. Both presidential candidates, and both major political parties took ungodly sums from “Big Pharma” during the election. If either candidate, Republican or Democrat, had come out against “Big Pharma” during the election, that same “Big Pharma,” with their money and power, would have elected our President. For “Big Pharma” controls our TV media.
Think about that.
So, now what?
Can we recover from this loss? Yes, but we have to change our thinking. We have to work together, and “no more mister nice guy.”
Two things: (1) We have to understand why we lost this battle – and do something about those reasons. (2) we have to put an action plan in place – and execute that plan. Now.
Why did we lose this battle? (1) “Big Pharma” is well organized, ruthless, cares not at all for human life, has lots of money to hire people to get things done, and has been working on their plan for a while (since World War Two, I think). (2) The worldwide health freedom movement was lulled into comfort – thinking that everything was just fine. (3) The worldwide health freedom movement has divided itself into factions, run on egos, that can’t agree on tactics, information, and strategies. (4) The worldwide health freedom movement was infiltrated by “fifth columners” who have been using their positions to say “everything is OK – don’t worry.”
So, what’s the action plan? Keep in mind, when I explain this segment, that, professionally, I’m a Crisis Management Consultant – so I tend to think organizationally. I’m a Dwight David Eisenhower type – who plans warfare – just like Eisenhower, and his team, planned the assault in Europe to grind down the Nazi war machine. So. I’m going to explain what needs to be done in terms of solving the REAL problems. First. I’m going to give you a list of each thing that needs to be done. Then I’ll explain why we need to accomplish each step.
Privately, within the “Health Freedom Movement” we need to identify friend and foe. The Council For Responsible Nutrition (CRN) is NOT a friend of health freedom – it is an enemy. Its membership is Phizer, Bayer, Monsanto, etc. – manufacturers of some supplement INGREDIENTS, not supplements. Ignore what they say completely.
The National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA), although having a significant membership, is living in lah-lah land. I believe they are getting their legal advice on “Codex” from the attorney firm that ran the Aspartame approval through the FDA. Think about that. So, for now, my recommendation is to ignore what they have to say.
Publicly, primarily to Congress, we need to do several things.
(1) We need to stop CAFTA, and any other attempts to cancel the US Constitution in favor of a big business controlled world government. If we can’t stop it in this first go-around, then we’ll have to do it the second time, or the third time.
(2) We have to remove “Big Pharma’s” right to advertise directly to consumers.
(3) We must criminally prosecute industry executives for the deaths, and damages, of, and to, Americans. Merck, and Vioxx, knowingly killed 55,000 Americans, in the name of profit. Thimerasol in even more insidious. Mercury fillings in teeth have been accepted far too long.
(4) We need to push to get the Bush administration’s new “Health Insurance Guidelines” for America into effect. The Bush Administration, recognizing the overburdening of health care costs to American industry and its employees (the cost for health insurance for an American family of four is now $14,700 per year), wants to change the requirements for “Health Insurance Coverage” from “Full Coverage” to allowing Industry to offer “Catastrophic Coverage Plans” – with employees putting tax-free money into “Choice” plans, where they can spend their health dollars wherever they want…
(5) We must ask Congress to pass a bill creating a “Health Czar,” for a five year period to investigate, and straighten out, the US Hospital system – the number one annual killer of Americans. This agency must be given the power to criminally prosecute Hospital Administrators, and doctors, responsible for this calamity.
(6) We must ask Congress to put laws in place stopping the revolving door between “Big Pharma” and the US FDA. We need the FDA to do what “we the people” intended it to do – not what “Big Pharma” wants it to do.
(7) We must ask Congress, and the Bush Administration, to investigate, and vigorously prosecute, the “Quackbuster” conspiracy to suppress innovation in health care.
So, why do we need to do ALL of these things?
In essence, we need a Health Care “Nuremberg…” We cannot, as a society, permit what’s happened to our health care system to continue, or to be able to resurface any time soon.
(1) So, why not except CAFTA? Easy answer. Why should we? Why would Americans want to turn over their carefully created set of freedoms to some set of snivelling “New World Order” bureaucrats? As IAHF president John Hammell says
“The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) Treaty will require the U.S., a member of the World Trade Organization, to revise our food laws and regulations based on Codex decisions. CAFTA would force harmonization of our dietary supplements and regulations to international standards, overriding the DSHEA Act of 1994.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the even-broader Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) are both modelled after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These agreements are typical bureaucratic monstrosities of “managed” trade that masquerade as free trade and would expand NAFTA to include first Central America and then the rest of the Americas in an economic “union.” True free trade would take a few pages of written text to enact (“eliminate these barriers to trade and these tariffs,” etc.); all three of these agreements encompass thousands of pages of bureaucratic textual garbage sprinkled liberally with rules, regulations, and special-interest benefits.
Buried in the language of CAFTA is Section 6 that would require of all its members that they form a Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) committee for the purpose of insuring ongoing harmonization under the terms of the SPS Agreement in the World Trade Organization (WTO). You can find that text at the following website:
http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/CAFTA/CAFTA-DR_Final_Texts/Section_Index.html.
If you then look at Article 3 of the WTO’s SPS Agreement, you will read the following words: “To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, Members shall base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations.” (emphasis added) And as you all know by now, Codex sets the international standards for food safety including vitamins & minerals.
So, CAFTA, which is set for a vote in the House of Representatives any time after they reconvene July 11th, 2005, is another critical link by which health-freedom haters hope to bypass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 and obligate the United States and Canada by treaty to harmonize to the harshly restrictive Codex vitamin-and-mineral standards. They cannot be allowed to succeed, and we at the NHF completely oppose these two treaties that would put a knife in the back of our health freedoms.”
But that’s not all. Rima Laibow MD was at the Rome event and had this to say:
It’s Official: The Vitamin War Was Declared at CODEX Today!
Today was a bad day here in Rome. The US supported the Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines and betrayed US law and you. But that’s not all that happened here in the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission meeting today. No, that’s not bad enough. There’s a whole lot more. Here is what the United States participated in and helped to happen in just one day (don’t let the helpful sounding names fool you):
The dangerously elevated pesticide levels for a variety of poisonous chemicals were ratified. A win for Big Chema!
Hygienic Practices for Meat were ratified (don’t let the name fool you). A win for Big Agra.
Code of Practice to Minimize and Contain Antimicrobial Resistance was approved (don’t let the name fool you). Another win for Big Agra and one for Big Pharma, too!
Veterinary Drug Maximum Residue Limits Draft approved. Wins for Big Pharma, Big Agra, Big Chema!
Maximum Levels for Cadmium in Wheat Grain; Potato; Stem and Root Vegetables; Leafy Vegetables; and, Other Vegetables was approved.
Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of Aflatoxin in Tree Nuts was adopted (don’t let the name fool you).
I could go on, and on, and on. And today was only the first day. But instead of listing all of the really awful standards which were approved or advanced to higher steps in the 8 step ratification process, let me turn your attention to betrayal.
America has, once again, been betrayed by the people who should have been protecting her most precious resource: her people. The US CODEX Office’s US CODEX Policy look to me like they have been sold to the highest bidders: Big Pharma, Big Chema, Big Agra, Big Biotechna and Big Medica. These high minded-wounding standards and codes are nothing short of the triumph of corporate greed at your expense and mine.
Let me ask you to think about America on this sad and sorry End-of-Independence Day. Our CODEX Policy is in the process of taking America apart, illness by illness, and selling its sovereignty to the highest bidder.”
(2) We have to remove “Big Pharma’s” right to advertise directly to consumers. Why? Three reasons: (1) “Big Pharma” is controlling US TV news media. A New York Ad agency tells the TV news media what is acceptable and what isn’t. Half of TV news media advertising is from “Big Pharma.” (2) In 1999 when “Big Pharma” went to the FDA to get permission to advertise directly to the consumer, the average monthly prescription cost was $30. Now the average price, for the exact same prescription, is $140. (3) “Big Pharma” is using the money from the increased cost to fund their nefarious projects while damaging the American fabric, and economy.
(3) We must criminally prosecute industry executives for the deaths, and damages, etc… This is simple logic. I’m appalled that our TV media spends all day, and night, covering the subway bombings in London, and the deaths of 50 people, and outright ignores the 55,000 deaths caused by Merck’s Vioxx, the thimerasol issue, or the mercury amalgam tooth filling issue. We have health atrocities going on, worldwide, that have perpetrators that need punishment. So, lets get to it.
(4) We need to push to get the Bush administration’s new “Health Insurance Guidelines” for America into effect. This also is an easy explanation – people who are given CHOICES make them…
(5) We must ask Congress to pass a bill creating a “Health Czar…” Why? Because the broken American Medical System does not, and will not, police itself.
(6) We must ask Congress to put laws in place stopping the revolving door between “Big Pharma” and the US FDA. We need the FDA to do what “we the people” intended it to do – not what “Big Pharma” wants it to do. No explanation needed.
(7) We must ask Congress, and the Bush Administration, to investigate, and vigorously prosecute, the “Quackbuster” conspiracy to suppress innovation in health care. No explanation needed.
Opposition is already gearing up for beginning of the battle if you are interested in getting in on the first round, the stopping of CAFTA – (click here). if you’re writing to Congress give then all seven things to think about.
This is a battle between “We the People,” and the free world’s biggest, and worst, enemy – ever – “Big Pharma,” and we’re just getting started with the counter-attack.
Stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate