IAHF List:
No matter what country you live in, please read the article below to keep abreast of the frightening situation developing in the UK. If you live in the UK- it is IMPERATIVE that you attend this demonstration if you value access to vitamins, and spread the word to more people via any means available to you! The UK has joined the EU, and that was a serious mistake. Unless you protest in sufficient numbers, your MPs are on the verge of harmonizing your laws to EEC 65/65, via which any substance with a therapeutic effect is regulated as a "drug". This sort of "harmonization" is going to keep on happening, world wide, unless we all rise up to stop it. I just visited the website of Prince Charles http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/ from which you can send him messages. He is against genetically engineered food. Thats great, but we also need his help to defend vitamins, and herbs. No matter what country you live in, please join me in writing to him, and urge him to visit http://www.iahf.com Codex Oversight section.

MARCH FOR FREEDOM OF CHOICE

If you've been reading these pages, you've heard me ranting on about MLX 249, the proposed amendment to give the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) a broad new range of powers over herbs and vitamins. Under this new regulation, which the MCA is now seeking to put into effect this summer, the agency would have the right to decide itself, with no consultation or right of appeal, whether a vitamin, a herbal product or an oil is medicinal in nature and so in need of a very costly licence.

Although this proposed legislation was born in Europe as part of a proposed EC directive to regulate dietary supplements, MLX 249 is clearly the most draconian legislation of any EU countries.

The MCA has been quick to deny that this legislation would not clear the shelves of most supplements. "I want to reassure you that the proposals would not change the status of products which are correctly classified now as food supplements", wrote the Inspection and Enforcement Division of the Borderline Unit of the MCA (the portion of the agency that deals with "borderline" substances like vitamins) to one of the several individuals who have publicly protested this move on April 29.

The big question of course is what do they mean by "correctly classified"?

As the Vibrant Health Centre wrote in a press release, "The wording assumes that products currently classified as food supplements are correctly classified. This is classic spin!"

There is no doubt that this proposal will affect not only herbal products, but also cosmetics and toiletries which contain vitamins, herbal extracts or aromatherapy oils - even, conceivably, herbs for cooking.

It's a virtual certainty that the adoption of MLX 249 will virtually demolish the health supplement and natural medicines industry overnight and put many alternative practitioners out of business. Most worryingly, it is giving the MCA the power to be, in effect, a law unto itself - answerable to no one for its decisions, allowed to presume guilt before innocence is proved.

Most sobering of all, it railroads all of us into one method of health care - modern medicine, with its checkered and unproven track record. As has been noted by protesters of this move, last year 20,000 deaths occurred as a direct result of people taking medicines licensed by the MCA. The equivalent figure for food supplements is zero.

Up until now, the government has been steamrolling forward with the threat of passing this into law in spring. We now have a reprieve. It has just been announced that MLX 249 cannot get passed before the summer recess.

That delay has given us time to organise a backlash. A grass roots organisation supported by members of the alternative medicine community, health enthusiasts, and various health food manufacturers and suppliers is organising A Freedom to Choose March on 20 June, at 11.45 am from Hyde Park (Cumberland Gate) to Trafalgar Square. To get the press coverage that has so far eluded this issue, the March must be massive. The organisers - which include Consumers for Health Choice, the Health Food Manufacturers Association and the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine - recomend that you take three friends with you, and have them invite three friends of their won. They are expecting a crowd of at least 15,000 people. There is growing support for this initiative among many important companies, MP's and health authorities.

Be there or realise that you will need these pages more than ever, only form of health care available to you will be dispensed by the NHS (National Health Service).

Lynne McTaggart

JOHN - This is the first I have heard of any major protest or organised effort. The last time this happened was over the attempts to ban vitamin B6 and it succeeded then.

I took the liberty of e mailing Prince Charles' web site about Codex. He has recently stood out publicly on the issue of GM crops. No reply, but if he was prepared to take on Monsanto and the Government over GM, you never know.

Regards

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