CODEX/Pharma-Friendly Legislative Assault Threatens US Health Freedom: Nutrient 'Adverse Event Reporting' Distorts Supplement Safety, Ignores Drug Dangers
Are Pharma-friendly Congressmen introducing bills clearing the path for harmonization with pro-illness provisions in CODEX by making supplements unavailable either directly or by stealth? The remarkable safety of inexpensive and effective supplements is a direct market threat to dangerous and expensive drugs. Four bills and an amendment designed to end Americans' access to nutrients and supplements have been introduced into Congress.
(PRWEB) July 27, 2005 -- Are Pharma-friendly Congressmen introducing bills
clearing the path for harmonization with pro-illness provisions in CODEX by
making supplements unavailable either directly or by stealth?
The
remarkable safety of inexpensive and effective supplements is a direct market
threat to dangerous and expensive drugs. Four bills and an amendment designed to
end Americans' access to nutrients and supplements have been introduced into
Congress.
Rima E. Laibow, MD, Medical Director of the pro-health freedom
Natural Solutions Foundation notes that "The continuing corporate assault on
natural medicine choices has taken a dangerous twist via coordinated legislative
attacks in Congress on American's right to make natural health choices.
Americans use nutritional supplements in chronic degenerative diseases like
cancer and cardiovascular disease. These killer diseases are poorly prevented or
treated with highly profitable drugs while natural approaches usually offer
better outcomes and more relief than drugs can without side effects and
toxicity."
She estimates that every dollar of the $20 billion supplement
industry probably costs Big Pharma $40 in direct and indirect lost revenue.
"No wonder Big Pharma lobbies Congress at nearly $1 Billion per year:
healthy people are bad for their business!" she said.
Pharma-friendly,
CODEX-ready legislation has been introduced into Congress which directly or
indirectly guts the legislative protection classifying nutritional supplements
as foods (for which no upper limits are permitted as unanimously enacted by
Congress in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 [DSHEA).
Once the DSHEA's protection is removed, there will be no barrier left to
harmonization with CODEX standards like the recently ratified Vitamin and
Mineral Guideline.
Amendments to appropriations (e.g., Sen. Durbin's SA
1379) and bills (e.g., Pallone's HR 2510 and Davis' HR 3156) call for, among
other things, an "adverse events reporting" requirement for nutrients despite
the fact that no such system exists for much more dangerous drugs. This system
would give the nutrient-hostile FDA ammunition to remove supplements which have
supposedly been potentially harmful.
Davis' bill explicitly gives the
FDA power to remove nutrients from the market if there is a theoretical risk
even if no harm has ever been associated with the item. No such reporting
requirement exists for drugs, including deadly ones like Vioxx (which the FDA
blames for 55,000-188,000 American deaths), despite drug toxicity and dangers.
Laws that protect access to nutrition, like DSHEA, undercut
pharmaceutical profits. Dietary supplements have an astonishing safety record:
there are no deaths conclusively associated with any supplement despite hundreds
of millions of doses while complications associated with even "properly used"
pharmaceuticals are the fourth leading cause of death in the US while
pharmaceutical "medical misadventure" causes more U.S. deaths than heart
disease, the number 1 disease-related killer. (http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm).
Additional
bills (e.g., Burton/Pallone's HR 2485 and Gregg/Frist, et. al, S 3) attack
nutrients in other ways. HR 2485 calls for "full implementation of DSHEA" which,
despite its supplement-friendly sound, would implement excessive "good
manufacturing practices" which are more stringent than those to which
pharmaceutical companies are subjected. This would drive most small and
medium-sized manufacturers out of business.
S 3 eliminates
pharmaceutical liability and removes much-needed legal remedies for people
harmed by vaccines, including autistic children.
The Natural Solutions
Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, is a leading health freedom advocacy
organization. They have mounted significant opposition to these pro-illness
bills through grass-roots campaigns. More than 80 percent of Americans used
nutritional supplements to deal with premature aging and chronic diseases of
under nutrition like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke,
auto-immune diseases, asthma and arthritis. These diseases are increasingly
common and produce huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Despite this,
the safest, cheapest and most effective approach for each of them is nutritional
supplementation, not pharmaceutical treatment.
Big Pharma's nearly $800
million Congressional lobbying investment has apparently bought enough friends
to create this legislative assault on natural health choices. Just as in the mid
1990's when millions of health-focused Americans flooded Congress to assure
passage of DSHEA, the tide of public health concern is rising against this
Congressional assault on its health freedom.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb266134.htm