Will the government take away our vitamins and Supplements?

[ghchealth]

Dear Consumer,

Apart from the rash of European directives and regulations that are set to impact massively on the future practice of natural healthcare, there are moves afoot in the US and other countries that are likely to have similar impacts in the future.

DSHEA

The liberal DSHEA (Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act) regime in the US, now in its 10th year was won as a result of the actions of millions of consumers in 1994. Part of the stimulus for these demonstrations was the clamp down by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on practitioners who were using natural products rather than drugs as their mainline intervention in delivering healthcare. As far as the FDA was concerned, these natural products were drugs, because they were being used to treat diseases.

Foods or Medicines?

In Europe, just like in the USA, and virtually in all other countries, it remains an offence to claim that a food can correct, modify or restore physiological functions in the body. This is deeply irrational given that all foods and even water very clearly do alter the body’s physiology. This legislative problem is right at the heart of ANH’s concerns and continues to be one of the most important aspects of our overall campaign.

Dr Wright’s Newsletter

We are sending you this mailshot to let you know that one of the US’s most well known practitioners, himself raided by the FDA prior to the passage of DSHEA, has decided to publicise the problems and highlight the need for consumer action both in the US and in Europe. He highlights the importance of US citizens getting in behind our European campaign which has global implications. Dr Wright is ringing the alarm bell and it is time for all those US citizens with interests in natural healthcare to heed his warning.

For those outside the US, the problem is just as serious, given the importance of the US as the world’s most important centre for Research & Development for this budding and vital natural products industry.

We draw your attention to the September issue of Dr Jonathan Wright’s newsletter, which says it all. Dr Wright is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Michigan Medical School (1969), and has been practicing natural and nutritional medicine at the Tahoma Clinic in Kent, Washington, since 1973.

Dr Wright’s conclusion in his newsletter reads as follows:

“Please make a donation-of any size-to the Alliance for Natural Health as soon as you can. Then, please write, call, fax, and e-mail your U.S. Senators and Representative as often as you can, telling them to oppose S. 722 and H.R. 3377, and to support American freedom by voting for H.R. 1146.

For further information on the European Union Directive on Dietary Supplements and on the Codex Alimentarius legislation, contact the American Holistic Health Association (www.ahha.org), the Alliance for Natural Health (www.alliance-natural-health.org), or the International Advocates for Health Freedom (www.iahf.com).

Don't wake up next August to find your supplements gone for good. Join me in taking action now, and recruit everyone you can to join the battle. While our troops are fighting for your freedom and mine overseas, you and I can literally fight for American freedom right here at home.”

For the full article (including a printer friendly version), please refer to Dr Wright's Nutrition & Healing Newsletter (September 2004), downloadable from the following site:

http://www.wrightnewsletter.com/nah/nahindexie.shtml

We are fundraising now not only for the final leg of our legal challenge, but we are also about to commission a top flight PR firm to help us roll out a high profile public awareness campaign on these issues. For this we again need your support.

Please help us to wake people up around the world to what is really going on. Please encourage as many people to join the ANH as possible so that we can ask for your support and keep you informed. We quite possibly won’t get the chance again.


In health,


Dr Robert Verkerk
Alliance for Natural Health