Posted on 07/12/2005 11:15:48 AM PDT by Jenny Hatch
EU Limits Dietary Supplement Sales NewsMax.com Wires Tuesday, July 12, 2005 BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union's high court upheld proposed restrictions on the sale of food supplements on Tuesday despite objections from trade organizations that claimed the rules would ban popular vitamin pills.
The European Court of Justice said the EU law was "appropriate for securing the free movement of food supplements and ensuring the protection of human health."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
This socialists views are not mine, in terms of what the answers are for south america, but he is right that CAFTA is about Globalization...
And it is a line in the sand....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071000995.html
Jenny
July 6, 2005
"Although the U.S. Senate approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on June 30th, we still have a real chance to defeat this anti-American
swindle in the U.S. House next week. The vote is expected to be extremely close.
We must effectively use the limited time we have to convince House members to
say "no" to CAFTA.
But it won't be easy. The upcoming vote on CAFTA promises a replay of the
mafia-style tactics used to coerce votes from reluctant House members on the
Medicare prescription-drug bill. Already, arms are being twisted; deals and pork
payoffs are being made (with your tax dollars); political threats have been
issued -- and that’s only the beginning.
When the 15-minute vote on CAFTA finally takes place, expect the House
leadership to hold the vote open for hours if necessary. Remember, the vote on
the Medicare bill wasn’t even begun until 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and
after the usual 15-minute time limit, the House had rejected the Medicare bill! So
the leadership held the vote open for nearly three hours more until a few
sleep-deprived, bleary-eyed members could be pressured into changing their
votes from "no" to "yes."
We saw our elected "public servants" in action during the Medicare battle. We
must be prepared for the same ugly tactics during the CAFTA vote.
Every credible source in Washington agrees: CAFTA will be decided by as little
as three or four votes -- just like the Medicare bill was. That means every single
member’s vote counts and now is a good time for you to act. Why? Because
your House member is away from the Washington pressure cooker, back home
with you in the district for a week-long recess.
Instead of calling your U.S. representative's D.C. office, call his district office.
Press him to publicly announce his opposition to the sovereignty-busting, bogus
"free trade" agreement, CAFTA. Better yet, attend a function in your congressional
district and speak with him in person.
Remember, CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids. We've had over a decade of costly
anti-American decisions made by NAFTA tribunals to know what to expect from
CAFTA tribunals. CAFTA will create another layer of unaccountable world elites
who will tell America what we can and cannot do."
http://www.thelibertycommittee.com/update07.06.05.htm
Jenny
"According to John Hammel access to supplements and herbs as we have known it for previous decades, and as needed for any kind of supplement therapy, orthomolecular therapy, life extension program or complementary medical practice, stands now at a turning point.
If CAFTA is not defeated in congress then USA trade practices will be under the influence of the fascist, rich corporate murderers. We won't be able to grow or buy milk thistle or gingko biloba if they don't want us to. And our individual "member state" (the USA) wont have a say in these "trade practices." (Loss of national sovereignty and democratic representation.)
We can eat processed GMO poptarts and radioactive Quaker Oats with partly hydrogenated corn oil and aspertame, and for vitamins we will be alowed by the rich to buy Vitamin C that is 60mg - maximum legal potency - produced by the company of their choosing - and we can bloody well live and die when they want us to - perhaps from a plague of genetically engineered organisms as in Africa. The whole world will be waco, wounded knee, ruby ridge, the Ludlow massacre, and the Irish Potato famine.
Of course destroying real medicine, violating our right to truthful medical information and access to real medicine, is only one part of this our future."
http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-88943.html
"and we can bloody well live and die when they want us to"
The thought has crossed my mind -- this is their solution to the problems of Social Security and Medicare, have people keel over dead at age 60, problem solved (from the "global perspective")
"To win passage, the White House promised hundreds of millions of dollars to monitor CAFTA labor standards and help the region's farmers, and more aid to U.S. sugar growers. U.S. sugar producers, currently protected by import tariffs, oppose the deal."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-30-senate-cafta_x.htm?csp=34
Our tax dollars at work....propping up sugar....I guess this will be the legacy of this bill....americans can eat sugar, drugs, and foods produced by big corporations, but if we want to eat whole foods, take supplements, and use herbs for healing...Tough luck.
Jenny
From the Newsmax article...
"The court did insist that procedures for rejecting a product from the approved list must be "consistent with the principles of sound administration and legal certainty."
It said a product should be refused only "on the basis of a full risk assessment, established on the basis of the most reliable scientific data."
And who is it that decides wether scientific data is "reliable" or not??? Pharmaceutical companies control all of the research.....Hmmmmm...
Jenny
Big Brother is so solicitous of our health....
From the newsmax article...
"This is a directive designed to open the internal market and boost growth while ensuring a high level of protection of public health," said EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou."
Wow, I feel better knowing so much concern and loving help is being shoved in my general direction. Perhaps the first product that should be scientifically approved could be called Soma. You know? They could make soma candy, soma breakfast cereal, Soma Bread, Soma ice cream. It could be the main food produced and sold to us poor ignorant little people of planet earth...
Jenny
"Soma and psychiatry in Huxley
The term "Soma" was used in Aldous Huxley's dystopic novel Brave New World (1932) in which it describes a drug. This is an 'opium of the people' that replaces religion in an oppressive futuristic science-based society. Soma is a pill consumed as an anti-depressant by workers who lead emotionally repressed and regimented lives. The use of the term satirically refers to the revived interest in ancient Aryan culture at the time. Huxley's society is caste based, like that of Brahminical India.
Huxley's soma was taken by the Anti-psychiatry movement in the 1960s as a model for their claim that anti-depressants and other drugs functioned to emotionally control people whose distress and mental illness arose from the oppressive nature of modern society."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma
Jenny
Those who say "it can’t happen here" also said that about property before the recent Supreme Court Decision.
http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/consumer_alert_070605.htm
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2005/jul2005_awsi_01.htm
"The EU supports duty to die it appears."
Yeah, duty to die, and pay as you go....
http://www.thenhf.com/eu_issues_28.html
“SAFETY” IS THE EXCUSE TO KILL FREEDOM IN EUROPE:
A REPORT FROM DENMARK
by Tamara Thérèsa Mosegaard
www.mayday-info.dk
March 2005
Danish legislation covering food supplements is notorious for being harsh and restrictive. Yet, as harsh and restrictive as Danish food-supplement legislation has been, at least it was limited to Denmark. That is now changing in a dramatic way as Europe adopts a virtually continent-wide set of rules and regulations governing food supplements that is extremely harsh and anti-health freedom.
Jumping the Gun in Denmark
It was in 1999 that Danish supplement users first heard of the Food Supplement Directive (FSD), which was introduced in the European Union (EU) with the intended goal of removing barriers to European trade and creating "free movement" of dietary supplements within Europe by "harmonizing" the various national rules, or so European supplement companies and consumers were told. Yet, soon enough, European supplement users learned that the FSD’s new positive list would exclude up to 300 safe vitamin and mineral substances that had been in many instances safely used for decades. Also, the FSD proposed to establish new (and very low) "maximum limits" for the few, remaining vitamins and minerals. These unnecessarily harsh rules are to come into effect in half a year’s time.
But not content to wait until August for the FSD to take effect, the anti-supplement Danish Food Administration (DFA) recently jumped the gun by issuing an even stricter regulation than the forthcoming FSD, as the DFA has anticipated the EU Pharmaceutical Directive (PD), which, with its new medicinal definition, would soon place all substances or combination of substances with any physiological effect under medicinal law. This directive is probably the most dangerous joker in the whole deck of cards."
Jenny
I think it is really interesting that when you google the title of the Newsmax article, this supposedly big story that showed up on the AP today, is not posted ANYWHERE else. Perhaps tomorow. we shall see. It is all just so interesting to see how much power Big Pharma has over the Media.
Jenny
Please, everyone, get the facts before you act. This is just nonsense. This bill will not curtail anyone's access to vitamins or supplements because U.S. law supercedes Codex. So much for the idea of world government taking your vitamins away.
I don't know why Jenny refuses to believe this but it is true.
"Those who say "it can’t happen here"
are of questionable repute here at free republic....At least to me...
Poor Poor little Merck....you just have to feel sorry for them...NOT!
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIOXX_TRIAL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-07-11-17-30-27
They just don't want to be responsible for all those heart attack deaths from their little pills....
But you can only fool so many people for some of the time....
Wonder why the FDA is so dang gullible???
Jenny
From the above link...
"Her lawyer, Mark Lanier, plans to argue that Merck knew Vioxx could be lethal years before the company pulled the lucrative drug from the market.
Merck claims no studies link Vioxx to arrhythmia, and therefore Vioxx couldn't have caused Robert Ernst's death.
The jury pool was to return Wednesday for lawyers to question them, and opening statements were planned for Thursday, according to state District Judge Ben Hardin.
Lawyers will spend Tuesday hashing out what expert testimony jurors will hear.
Last week Merck asked Hardin to postpone the case for two months because pretrial publicity - primarily stemming from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's June 30 lawsuit alleging Merck falsely touted the safety of Vioxx - could have tainted the jury pool.
Hardin said he would forge ahead with jury selection Monday and would examine answers to the jury questionnaires to gauge any bias before ruling on the request for a delay in the trial.
About 20 million people took the anti-inflammatory drug prescribed for arthritis and acute pain since it came on the market with great fanfare in 1999. In 2000, a study found that some Vioxx users suffered five times as many heart attacks as users of the older painkiller naproxen, sold under the brand name Aleve.
In 2002, the FDA added warnings to Vioxx's label. Follow-up research showed Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for 18 months or longer, which prompted Merck to pull the drug."
"So much for the idea of world government taking your vitamins away."
http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/PA_NEWA69691121104201A0000?source=PA%20Feed
Jenny
"They've sold themselves to whichever lobby group will pay them the most."
"The surprise decision goes against an opinion delivered by the same court's advocate-general in April, advising that the rules should be scrapped because they contravene basic EU principles of "legal protection, legal certainty and sound administration".
The article claims this decision today was a "surprise". Correction. I am NOT surprised by this decision. I have more hope for Congress though, in not passing CAFTA....but nobody seems to be talking about the CAFTA vote right now, even though it is probably going to take place tonight, under a veil of secrecy, and in the dead of night, and then in the morning...whammo....American Sovereignty....it is just....DEAD. I know I know, they have been wacking away at it for decades, but this is a really big whack.
Jenny
"I don't believe that our congressmen listen to their constituent's any more."
Ever watched Mr. Smith goes to Washington?...Nothing new under the sun.
Henry Lamb has a good piece today...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44713
The Codex Alimentarius Commission sounds like one of those shadowy, sinister organizations conjured up by one-world-government nuts to scare people.
Truth: It is!....
..."The Codex Commission will be meeting in Rome July 4-9 to adopt the final rules on dietary supplement use. Dr. Carolyn Dean, president of Friends of Freedom International, will attend this meeting and return to the U.S. just in time to present her report to the Sixth Annual Freedom 21 Conference in Reno, July 14-16.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission's reach is much broader than dietary supplements. Its committees are also working on standards for pesticide residue, labeling of all kinds of foods, food additives and nutrients, veterinary medicine and drugs, as well as standards and methods for analysis. The function of this organization is to establish standards for all food worldwide and to enforce those standards through the power of the World Trade Organization.
Few people know that there is such a thing as the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It was created to promote food safety in international trade. It is on the brink of becoming an Orwellian bureaucracy – far worse than the worst fantasies of the one-world conspiracy theories.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is neither fantasy nor theory; it is real."
Matt Drudge finally linked to it, so maybe the Blogosphere will clue in that this is really happening...
Jenny
Wall Street Journal on CAFTA...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006937
"Why this protectionist turn by Democrats? Opponents claim that this deal is somehow worse on labor and environmental protections than Nafta and other bilateral trade accords, but in fact any differences are nominal. If anything, the Bush administration has made too many protectionist concessions to U.S. sugar growers, among others, in an attempt to appease Democratic concerns.
A more honest explanation may be pure partisanship, as Democrats hope to deny President Bush a legislative victory. But this is still troubling, since trade has long been more of a regional than partisan issue. Mr. Clinton would never have passed Nafta through a Democratic Congress without the support of 34 Republicans in the Senate and 132 in the House.
Perhaps Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Biden and the rest are all eyeing each other as they maneuver for 2008 and want to make sure no one can get to their left with Big Labor. Or perhaps they all believe they have no choice but to march to the orders of MoveOn.org, the Daily Kos and other liberals who are threatening primary challenges for any Democrat who supports Mr. Bush on anything. The latter theory is supported by Ron Brownstein's article in the latest National Journal about the rise of this Bush-hating, but rich and mobilized, Internet-based left.
Whatever the explanation, this Democratic turn against free trade is bad for the country."
Why? In what ways? How is this bad for the country??? Could it be that it will be bad for Big Pharma if they are not able to move in and control the supplement industry?
As they face lawsuit after lawsuit for the death and dismemberment they have thrust upon individual people, I can understand WHY they would want to step in and control something that is non-toxic and actually works. But do they deserve to freeload for one more day much less as long as it takes to reverse the decisions that are being made, perhaps even as I type??? (it is 5:30 PM in DC right now. Has the vote happened? Anyone watching C-span?
I think it is wrong to think that all republican all the time ensures freedom. Well, I'm pooped. Time for a nap. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Jenny
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