To: "Health Freedom, Codex Issues
Subject: To EU Parliament: Re EU Vitamin Directive - An Anti Public Health Initiative & Insult to Thinking People World Wide
From: "I A H F" jham@iahf.com
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 19:38:01 -0500

EU Parliamentarians: Please see my letter to you below regarding extreme concerns pertaining to the EU Vitamin directive which must be SCRAPPED. (Scroll down past my opening comments to my distribution list subscribers to see the letter to you.)

IAHF List: See my letter below to key officials at the EU Parliament re the Vitamin Directive which they'll be voting on on Feb 20th.

I have modified the form letter that I sent out to you previously which was actually drafted by a British citizen, Paul Taylor, and am sending it in this modified form to the EU officials listed here. I encourage vitamin consumers world wide to join me in sending it in, and feel free to modify it in any way you want just as I have, or copy mine verbatim, but please send it in as the EU's actions threaten to impact our vitamin laws in the USA (and world wide) via the impact of their actions on the Vitamin Standard under development at the UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission and our membership in the WTO.

Americans: Please cc the below letter to your Senators and Congressmen in order to increase their awareness of the threat posed by the EU Vitamin Directive and Codex to our domestic vitamin laws, and the need for our complete removal from both the UN and the WTO. The EU Parliament must realize that the EU Vitamin Directive is a Mindless attack on the public health of people all over the EU, and is not something people can respect anywhere in the world.

People Outside the USA: Please copy this to your elected officials. People inside the EU: See the alert at http://www.lef.org on the front page.

Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Cliff Richard, Phil Collins, and actor Jon Cypher (Hill Street Blues) are among the growing list of celebrities who oppose the EU Vitamin Directive and the Codex initiative to destroy consumer access to dietary supplements as sheer madness. No matter what happens on Feb 20, our coalition will keep growing in size and power, and the EU will be massively discredited world wide if they insist on shoving this madness down the throats of their people. The same fate will also befall the UN unless THEY also BACK OFF. This is especially true here in America where we have 75 Million heavily armed people.
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TO:

Romano Prodi (President of the European Commission) romano.prodi@cec.eu.int
Fax number 011 32 2 295 8532

Robert Coleman (EU Director-General for Health and Consumer Protection)
robert.coleman@cec.eu.int Fax number 011 32 2 299 6298

David Byrne (EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection)
David.Byrne@cec.eu.int Fax number 011 32 2 298 1499

Basil Mathioudakis (whose job it is to steer the Directive through the
European Parliament) basil.mathioudakis@cec.eu.int Fax number 011 32 2 296
0951

Re: The EU Vitamin Directive- An Anti Public Health Initiative That Is An
Insult to Thinking People World Wide

Dear Sirs:

You may have received some of these form letters from the USA and other countries outside the EU opposing the EU Vitamin Directive, but this is a modified version of it so please read the entire thing because I'm forwarding it to vitamin consumers all over the world including thousands inside the EU.

I am an American citizen and a consumer of food supplements, and have been following with great concern the progress of the EU Food Supplement Directive. Quite apart from the fact that the directive completely ignores both individual freedom of choice and individual nutritional need, I am disturbed to learn that should this restrictive directive be implemented it will influence the deliberations of the Codex Alimentarius committee. Thus, your legislation will therefore be having an influence not only on Europe but on world-wide trade, and in non European markets such as the USA. My own rights to buy the food supplements of my choice could therefore be directly affected by this directive.

The Food Supplement Directive as it is currently proposed does not treat consumers and food supplements in a way that encourages good health; unlike the US DSHEA for example, where President Clinton himself attributed the move toward legislative and regulatory reform for dietary supplements to a growing interest on the part of the American public in the use of dietary supplements. In signing DSHEA into law, he stated:

. . . in an era of greater consciousness among people about the impact of what they eat on how they live, indeed, how long they live, it is appropriate that we have finally reformed the way the Government treats consumers and these supplements in a way that encourages good health.

President Clinton's statement, and the US DSHEA itself, are in stark contrast to the proposed EU legislation, which rather than protecting the rights of consumers to buy and consume the supplements of their choice will instead tightly restrict both the availability and dosages of all nutrient ingredients. This goes against all of the latest nutritional and scientific research, which shows clear and unequivocal benefits to human health and longevity from the consumption of high-dose food supplements.

Please be aware that IAHF regards your actions in the EU to be an indirect attack on American vitamin laws which we, the People, pushed very hard for-generating the largest volume of mail to our Congress in the HISTORY of Congress. If you push the Vitamin Directive through the EU, it threatens to impact CODEX, and Codex threatens to impact US law. Thus, through your actions, you are threatening to set up a Trade War via the WTO over dietary supplements.

Be aware that IAHF is enlisting opposition of celebrities and famous musicians world wide, to assist Paul Taylor of England who is doing the same, and this effort to oppose the Vitamin Directive and Codex in this way will continue even AFTER the vote on Feb. 20th. You should know that Taylor has gotten the the support of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard, Sir Elton John, Phil Collins, and other famous musicians, and I have the support of actor Jon Cypher (Hill Street Blues) and we're both working to alert more celebrities,musicians, and athletes to the mindlessness of the EU Vitamin Directive, and Codex. Moreover, please view the more than 26,000 signatures of vitamin consumers from 114 countries against the EU Vitamin Directive and Codex at http://www.laleva.cc

The only sensible thing to do in the face of the evidence is to harmonize the EU to the USA's vitamin laws, so that European consumers can enjoy the same level of freedom and good health that we do from passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Edcuation Act of 1994. If you fail to do this, it will lead to a trade war with the USA over dietary supplements, and that would be a no win situation for the EU. You had better think twice before you enslave your people in the way that you are considering. They just might revolt against the EU en masse. This promises to be an extremely unpopular measure, so I urge you to tread VERY lightly and give SERIOUS thought to what you are about to ram down people's throats.

I stand in solidarity with Irish Naturopath Martin Forde who courageously went to Brussels to lobby against the Vitamin Directive and whose MEPs got Amendment One introduced which scraps the Directive if adopted, and it should be. I also stand in solidarity with Italian health freedom organization La Leva di Archimede, a group endorsed by vitamin consumers all over the world as you can see by the signatures on their website against the EU Vitamin Directive and Codex.

I therefore urge you to now abandon this directive, and consider the rights of consumers of nutritional supplements, who have not asked for, nor do they want, their individual freedom of choice in health-care to be restricted by this directive.

Yours sincerely,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
POB 625 Floyd, VA 24091 USA
http://www.iahf.com