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The days when the dietary supplements industry is allowed to regulate itself may be numbered following release of a federal report addressing growing concerns about dietary supplement industry. The report, issued this month by the Government Accountability Office, calls on the Food and Drug Administration to expand adverse event reporting and increase its efforts to educate the public about the safety, efficacy, and labeling of these products. The GAO investigation into supplement safety was made at the request of Congress. According to the 77-page report, the FDA should be tracking all levels of adverse events related to the use of...

Tracking pages of ancient Hebrew Bible Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across borders in the Middle East hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing - about 40 percent of the total - and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail. Researchers representing the manuscript's custodian in Jerusalem now say they have leads on some of the missing pages and are nearer their goal of making the manuscript whole again. The Crown, known in English...

Vitamin pills 'increase risk of early death' By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/04/2008 Popular vitamin supplements taken by millions of people in the hope of improving their health may do no good and could increase the risk of a premature death, researchers report today. They warn healthy people who take antioxidant supplements, including vitamins A and E, to try to keep diseases such as cancer at bay that they are interfering with their natural body defences and may be increasing their risk of an early death by up to 16 per cent. Antioxidants, including vitamins A,...

BERLIN, DEC. 22, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Codex Sinaiticus, one of the most ancient existing texts of the Bible, will be virtually reunited on the Internet by 2009. A document signed this week in London greenlighted a project that will reunify the divided manuscript by posting digitally reproduced images of the manuscript online. The Codex dates from A.D. 350 and contains all of the texts of the Bible, including the first Greek version of both the Old and New Testaments. For centuries the Codex Sinaiticus, one of the oldest manuscripts of the Bible in the world after the Codex Vaticanus, remained...

The Washington Post religion section recently had an article about the Gnostic gospels. What are they? — A reader in SterlingThe Gnostic gospels are attributed to the work of a community known as the "Gnostics," which existed in the early Church. (Gnosis in Greek means "knowledge.") However, before addressing the issue of the Gnostic gospels, we must first understand more about the Gnostic community and the heresy entitled "Gnosticism." The origins of Gnosticism are unclear. The first traces of Gnosticism arise centuries before Christianity and are rooted in the ancient religions of Syria, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Persia, and in the...

NATIONAL HEALTH FEDERATION A NOT-FOR-PROFIT HEALTH ORGANIZATION                                                            PRESS RELEASE   ALERT America As You Know It May Soon Be Over   OPPOSE The North American Cooperative Security Act (NACSA) (S.853 & H.R.2672) by Cheri Tips January 19, 2006   This urgent alert is being sent to all Congress Members.     Even I, as a hardened health-freedom fighter, became physically ill putting this information together to alert you, the reader, to one of the most damning acts against America and its citizens. If you are a true American, the information that I will convey, should make your blood...

"Note: In the few short days since its release (June 27, 2005), 'WE BECOME SILENT' has become incredibly popular with huge numbers of hits from all over the world." "International award-winning filmmaker Kevin P. Miller of Well TV announced the release of a new documentary about the threat to medical freedom of choice. 'We Become Silent: The Last Days of Health Freedom' details the ongoing attempts by multinational pharmaceutical interests and giant food companies — in concert with the WTO, the WHO and others — to limit the public’s access to herbs, vitamins and other therapies. 'We Become Silent’ is...

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."

"Vitamins to be Banned Worldwide... Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen Monday, July 4th, 2005 "Big Pharma" won a major victory in Rome, Italy today. Vitamins and minerals, for over-the-counter sale will be phased out, almost completely, in every country on Planet Earth. The "German Model" of health care will now be the law of the land - in every land. Below is a press release from Diane Miller JD of the National Health Freedom Coalition, detailing the action. Diane is in Rome at the meeting. Press Release - National Health Freedom Coalition: Codex Full Commission adopts Codex Guidelines for...

Vitamins to be Banned Worldwide... "Big Pharma" won a major victory in Rome, Italy today. Vitamins and minerals, for over-the-counter sale will be phased out, almost completely, in every country on Planet Earth. The "German Model" of health care will now be the law of the land - in every land. Below is a press release from Diane Miller JD of the National Health Freedom Coalition, detailing the action. Diane is in Rome at the meeting. Press Release - National Health Freedom Coalition: Codex Full Commission adopts Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements in final form July 4,...

The U.S. Delegation to Codex has just issued a formal written statement to the Codex Alimentarius Commission that the United States, during the July 4-9, 2005, meeting in Rome, will support compulsory rules created by this international organization directly overruling U.S. law regarding access to vitamins. The U.S. law that is about to be vanquished is the Dietary Supplement, Health and Education Act of 1994. Codex is a joint venture between the United Nation’s World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization. (WHO/FAO) The World Trade Organization (WTO) has already stated that it will enforce Codex “guidelines” as the world...

MOUNT SINAI, Egypt (Reuters) - The world's oldest monastery plans to use hi-tech cameras to shed new light on ancient Christian texts preserved for centuries within its fortress walls in the Sinai Desert. Saint Catherine's Monastery hopes the technology will allow a fuller understanding of some of the world's earliest Christian texts, including pages from the Codex Sinaiticus -- the oldest surviving bible in the world. The technique, known as hyperspectral imaging, will use a camera to photograph the parchments at different wavelengths of light, highlighting faded texts obscured by time and later overwritings. It should allow scholars to understand...

Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations trade committee, a decade ago began working on “harmonization” of the worldwide sale of supplements. It decided in November 2004 that vitamins, minerals and all other types of medicinally useful supplements, commonly also found in foods, should be traded only as pharmaceuticals. Paradoxically, the committee decided that health claims must not be made for any of them, and in large dosages they must only be available by prescription. Codex requires that, as of August 1, 2005, all supplements have to be subject to pharmaceutical-type regulation, which requires establishment of toxicity levels and maximum/minimum dosages, before...

READ THIS VERY IMPORTANT HEALTH MESSAGE BELOW AND CONTACT EVERYONE. Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS (Food Code) is setting the supplement standard in all countries in the WTO. They will be enforced by the WTO and will over ride U.S. laws. The U.S. President and Congress agreed to this take-over when the WTO Treaty was signed. Violations are punished by WTO trade sanctions,...

Our Big Bro knows best! Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS (Food Code) is setting the supplement standards for all countries in the WTO. They will be enforced by the WTO and will over-ride U.S. laws. The U.S. President and Congress agreed to this take-over when the WTO Treaty was signed. Violations are punished by WTO trade sanctions. CODEX drastically restricts vitamins, minerals, herbs...

A DECADE AGO, Congress passed a law shielding makers of dietary supplements from regulatory scrutiny. The consequences of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 were entirely foreseeable: largely uncontrolled sales and marketing of vitamins and herbal remedies without advance approval of their safety and effectiveness. According to a new report by the Institute of Medicine, the foreseeable has come to pass. The report deals broadly with alternative and complementary medicine, which has become a giant industry in America, worth $27 billion a year; visits to alternative-care providers now exceed visits to primary-care doctors. --snip-- An estimated 15...

MORE DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS TO BE REGULATED? Dec 20, 2004 - FreeMarketNews.com by Michael A. Morning FMNN Health and Nutrition Correspondent SPECIAL TO FREE-MARKET NEWS NETWORK, DEC. 20, 2004 -- In the past year, two significant federal dietary supplement legislations have banned previously legal supplements. But these initiatives are just the beginning of a renewed effort to actively pursue legislation against the dietary supplement industry. In Congress right now are three bills with much more far-reaching implications than the two passed this year. There are those who oppose this trend, arguing that individual consumers should have the right to choose among...

Vitamin supplements used by thousands of Britons, from pregnant women to people warding off winter colds, are to be swept from shop shelves from the new year under controversial European Union safety regulations

Written by Jonathan V. Wright You've taken supplements for years. You're out of vitamins C and E. You go to your natural food store, but you can't find the kind you want on the shelf. You ask a clerk to find them for you. She says you can't get your vitamin E as mixed tocopherols (the best natural form) anymore, and asks if you like your vitamin C in the 100 or 200 milligram size. The 1,000 milligram size, you say. "Where have you been?" she asks. "Asleep since 2004? It's 2007 now! The types and sizes of vitamins you...