From the National Health Federation
This week of November 2-6, 2009, the 31st Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) met in Dusseldorf, Germany to continue its work in developing standards for global nutrition. Some 260 delegates were in attendance, comprised of various countries’ functionaries and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) representatives. Never one to disappoint the crowd, Dr. Rolf Grossklaus returned for his final, farewell performance as the CCNFSDU Chairman.
The Committee covered various topics, among them methods of assaying fiber and the establishment of Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD)./1 At the special Saturday meeting of the CCNFSDU Working Group on Nutrient Reference Values for Non-communicable Diseases, the NHF was represented by its president Scott Tips and was very active in making its pro-freedom views known. (See our previous release athttp://www.thenhf.com/press_releases/pr_01_nov_2009.html.)
At both meetings (that of the Working Group and the Committee), NHF especially took to task the God-like aura given to the “expert consultations” of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO). These are pre-selected groups of experts with a pre-determined outcome to their “consultations” and are hardly scientific. Along with other delegations, the NHF succeeded in retaining language in Codex standards that ensured that Codex would not just look to FAO/WHO expert consultations for scientific knowledge.
Amazing Victory
But the real battle and amazing success took place on Tuesday, November 3rd, during the general session, when the two agenda items covering the NRVs for non-communicable diseases, including the “Proposed Draft Additional or Revised Nutrient Reference Values for Labelling Purposes in the Codex Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling,” were discussed by the Committee.
The CCNFSDU was all prepared to rubber-stamp its approval on the “Proposed Draft Additional or Revised Nutrient Reference Values for Labelling Purposes in the Codex Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling,” which had been pushed by the delegation of the Republic of Korea and others.l
This document was so astoundingly anti-vitamin and mineral it infuriated the NHF representative, who had to restrain himself from using harsh and insulting words when it came NHF’s turn to speak. Appendix 2 of the document is only two pages, but contains already-low values for each of the Vitamins and Minerals listed in the Appendix (except for Fluoride, which of course has an excessively high value). (To see the document, go to www.thenhf.com/press_releases/Appendix2photo11-09.pdf)
For example, the “scientific” values assigned to Vitamin C were being reduced from an already-low 60 milligrams to an even-lower 45 milligrams! The NRV for magnesium was to be cut from 300 milligrams to 240 milligrams. Niacin’s value was to be chopped from 18 milligrams to 15. These were, and are, absurd numbers, based upon nutritional ignorance.
Over a one-hour period, the NHF took the floor repeatedly to lambast the document and to insist that its adoption would be a public-relations nightmare and make Codex the laughingstock of the World. If anything, NHF said, these numbers must be drastically raised. The argument swirled around the room with the NHF holding firm against comments from many other country delegations, especially Australia (which calls harsher standards "an extra bit of comfort"), all of whom thought that these numbers were perfectly normal! Had NHF not challenged the document, there would have been no sustained opposition to its passage.
Instead, NHF kept unrelentingly hammering at the points it had first raised and answered at every chance the counter-arguments of the document’s proponents. Finally, the Chairman, perhaps in exasperation, suggested that the Committee not advance the document to its next step because there was no consensus! This “compromise” was supported by NHF but opposed by others until, with it still hanging in the balance, the Indian delegation firmly stated its support for NHF’s position and against it advancing. India’s timing was impeccable. That was enough for the Chairman, who quickly concluded the debate and held the document back.
But for the National Health Federation, India, and also Costa Rica and Iraq, this document would have advanced towards a more final, fixed form. Now, it remains in a malleable form that will let it be corrected at next year’s CCNFSDU meeting.
Increasingly recognized at these Codex meetings, NHF appreciates the support it has been given by other country-member and INGO delegations. Most of all, though, NHF appreciates the support its membership has given it, financially and morally, that enabled this victory to happen at all.
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1 Not to be confused with Maximum Upper Permitted Limits, Nutrient Reference Values (“NRVs”) are nothing more than souped-up RDAs. These are numerical values assigned to each nutrient so as to reflect the mythical typical person’s nutritional needs for that nutrient. By referring to the NRV for, say, magnesium, the consumer is supposed to get an idea of whether he or she is getting an adequate (or in European bureaucratic eyes, an excessive) amount of magnesium. If a consumer, for example, sees that he is getting 100% of his daily requirement for Vitamin C, he will almost certainly mistakenly think that he need look no further to supplement his diet.; he is, after all, getting his full needs met, even though 100% will be defined as 60 milligrams! These values are supposed to be set according to rigorous scientific evidence; but, as NHF has long contended, “science” at Codex levels is far more political than scientific.
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*** PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING SO THAT WE MAY CONTINUE OUR FIGHT AT CODEX.
THE NHF EXISTS TOTALLY ON MEMBERSHIP FEES AND DONATIONS. ***
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For further information on Codex, please visit the NHF website (Codex):http://www.thenhf.com/codex.html NHF Codex Book -
NHF Codex Overview (May be used as an article or printed as a handout to educate on Codex) -
NHF-UK Codex Overview (May be used as an article or printed as a handout to educate on Codex) -
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As the oldest and best-respected health-freedom group on Capitol Hill, the NHF continues to be the credible source of objective assessment of, and proactive actions on, Congressional legislation and FDA matters that have material impact upon our freedom-of-health choices and access to dietary supplements and nutritional foods.
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Click here for the permanent link to this press release, use this link to inform others.
National Health Federation: Established in 1955, the National Health Federation is a consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals' rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements and use alternative therapies without unnecessary government restrictions. The NHF is the only such organization with recognized observer-delegate status at Codex meetings. www.thenhf.com
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P.O. Box 688, Monrovia, CA 91017 USA ~ 1 (626) 357-2181 ~ Fax 1 (626) 303-0642Website: www.thenhf.com E-mail: contact-us@thenhf.com
Don't speak of a honeymoon--that's long gone. That's over. That's a thing of the past.
Liberal blogger Jane Hamsher goes after the Obama Administration and the Congress:
There’s a shit storm going down on TV right now on CSPAN as the health care bill hits the floor of the House.
Thank you Democrats, for making women take a punch in the throatfrom a bunch of old men who have spent the better part of the last century avoiding their own problems. So Rahm and Obama (who did nothing to stop it) can have their “w”:
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered a critical endorsement to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.
“Passing this amendment allows the House to meet our criteria of preserving the existing protections against abortion funding in the new legislation,” the Bishops wrote in a letter to individual members. “Most importantly, it will ensure that no government funds will be used for abortion or health plans which include abortion.”
Well, you have to give the culture warriors something, so they can go around cheering about the big victory that they got in this bill. So happy to have the chance to line it all up for you all.
Thank you, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, from the bottom of my heart, for sitting on your hands and enabling this shit. Hope you have fun at all those Common Purpose meetings, those cocktail parties at the Pelosi’s.
You own this one.
There's no way a Republican could write or say anything worse about this administration. That's a devastating attack from the base, and it is the kind of attack that should make a sensible incumbent fear for their job.
I firmly believe that 2011 will be spent pandering to the liberal base to try to make up for days like today. Whether that will do any good is anyone's guess. Will there even be a thing called blogging in 2011? Is it going to become micro-blogging or something like Tumblr? Yes, I did figure out Tumblr. Now, I cannot stop. I just...cannot stop. It possesses my soul now, like some religious artifact from a long-dead religion based on fear and evil.
Wait, who were we talking about?
Republicans are learning an unpleasant lesson this morning: The only thing worse than having no health-care reform plan is releasing a bad one, getting thrashed by CBO and making the House Democrats look good in comparison.
Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that ...17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.
But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.
The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.
The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), according to the latest World Health Organization figures. We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland.
The Congressional Transparency Initiative is a great program trying to make government more open and accountable. I consider myself an Independent, and I hope that increasing transparency in Congress is something that both Democrats and Republicans can support.
Their beliefs:
- Read the bill
- Ban "Phantom Amendments"
- Show the votes
- Open health care negotiations to the public
- Bring sunlight to the Rules Committee
What do you think?
From: Croft Woodruff [mailto:croft.woodruff@gmail.com]
Sent: November 5, 2009 12:36 PM
Subject: Alternative Cancer
© By Peter Barry Chowka
(October 18, 2009) Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D., the subject of a two part interview series published in September 2009 in Natural Healthline, has informed me that an hour long program he taped one week ago on Larry King Live is scheduled to run on CNN during the week of October 19, 2009 – most likely on Tuesday 10/20 or Friday 10/23 – at 9 PM EDT with replays at 12 midnight ET and 3 AM ET.
The main subject of the program is actress and best-selling author Suzanne Somers. A long time proponent of alternative medicine, Somers has written a new book, Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer--And How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place (Crown), which is being published on October 20, 2009 and, as of this writing, is #188 on Amazon.com.
Also appearing on the program, according to Gonzalez, are Stanislaw Burzynski, M.D.,Ph.D., and two alternative cancer therapy “antagonists.”
On March 28, 2001, Somers, then 54 years old, appeared on Larry King Live to announce that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 but had chosen to use primary alternative instead of conventional treatments.
As I reported on April 1, 2001:
Somers, a high-profile celebrity and author of best-selling diet and fitness books who initially rose to fame on the ABC-TV sitcom Three's Company in the late 1970s, said she was going public after a year-long private battle with cancer in order to counter the National Enquirer's recent reports that she had undergone liposuction because her much-hyped diet program had failed. On the CNN program, Somers confirmed that she had undergone procedures at the Lasky Clinic in Beverly Hills but said that “What I had done [there] had to do with my breast cancer.”
Somers said her cancer was diagnosed in April 2000 after which she had surgery (she implied it was a lumpectomy and not a mastectomy) followed by radiation therapy. She then went against her doctors' wishes, she said, and declined chemotherapy — and she started taking the alternative treatment Iscador, a mistletoe extract. Iscador is popular in parts of Europe but relatively unknown in the U.S. Somers incorrectly described Iscador as “homeopathic.” In fact, it is an herbal therapy that is part of Anthroposophical Medicine, based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, PhD (1861-1925), a European philosopher, scientist, educator, and the founder of Anthroposophy.
Back in 2001, Somers’ decision to go the alternative therapy route was immediately challenged by the medical Establishment. A feature article in People magazine on April 20, 2001, “A Matter of Choice,” described Somers’ treatment and the ensuing controversy.
On May 1, 2001, I reported at length on the story and on a new study of Iscador, published May 1, 2001 in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. My article included an interview with the journal’s editor, David Riley, M.D.
Regarding Burzynski, I wrote about him at length in an article originally written in 1993 and later published in 1997 in Nutrition Science News. Some excerpts:
Stanislaw Burzynskii, M.D., Ph.D., Houston, TX, 2007 at the 30th Anniversary Celebration of his work
Stanislaw Burzynski, M.D., Ph.D. Burzynski is one of the leading contemporary pioneers in the field of nontoxic cancer therapy. His therapeutic discoveries are interesting, and his personal story is fascinating and instructive. Burzynski's work was reported on positively on the probing network television investigative series 20/20 (ABC-TV, October 22, 1981) and Street Stories (CBS-TV, July 23, 1993), and more recently, ABC-TV's Nightline and CBS This Morning (April and March, 1995, respectively).
One of the youngest and brightest M.D.-Ph.D.s in his native Poland, Burzynski left home in 1970 in search of personal and professional freedom in the non-communist West. What he found instead in the U.S., he has said, was a situation reminiscent of the authoritarian one-party state he had left behind -- a scientific system in America that was run like a Communist politburo, where true innovation and independent discovery were frowned on and where pioneering thinkers were relegated to a “medical gulag.” Through the mid-1970s, Burzynski was an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The research projects he worked on received funding from traditional sources including the federal government. Burzynski's decision in 1977 to leave Baylor and start up his own small research and treatment facility where he and his colleagues could pursue their myriad ideas and discoveries and treat late-stage cancer patients free of bureaucratic rigidity and interference, however, did not sit well with the medical powers that be. Before he left Baylor but especially after he began working independently, Burzynski and his associates published numerous scientific papers on antineoplastons -- his term for the nontoxic urinary peptides that he discovered and that form the basis of his novel approach to treating cancer. Burzynski followed the accepted practice of publishing scientific papers on his discoveries, which he initially tested in laboratory tissue cultures and later in animals and humans. Typical of Burzynski's extraordinary results were the outcomes for early groups of advanced cancer patients treated with antineoplastons: 60 percent enjoyed objective remission, 47 percent experienced complete remission, and 20 percent survived for over five years without cancer. These and other results are far superior to anything reported then or now for standard cancer treatments. (For example, in 1985 interleukin-2 was heavily promoted by orthodoxy, supposedly as a highly promising new treatment after a single study showed it to have been associated with a complete remission from cancer in only one patient out of twenty-four treated -- a positive response rate of only four percent!) By choosing to work indepedently, on his own, outside of a mainstream institutional setting, Burzynski ran up against the closed mindsets and vested interests that dominate orthodox cancer research and treatment. In 1983, the influential American Cancer Society (ACS), without actually testing Burzynski's therapy or even visiting his facility, added Burzynski's antineoplastons to its list of “unproven” or “questionable” methods -- a kind of blacklisting that typically represents the first step in official marginalization. In the view of journalist [Robert] Houston and other independent observers, it is highly unlikely that a scientist whose name appears on this list can ever succeed in gaining official funding or recognition of any kind. “It's like trying to get out of hell,” Houston quips.
The entire article including more about Burzynski can be read here.
In 2007, Burzynski was a honored at a 30th anniversary celebration attended by 600 guests including long term recovered patients marking his three decades of work curing cancer with alternative methods. Julian Whitaker, M.D.’s account of the event was published in 2008 in The Townsend Letter.
Peter Barry Chowka is a writer and investigative journalist who writes about politics, health care, and the media.
Every week I receive an email from Medscape with the latest health information. This weeks' top bill:
