WHY S.830 IS SO DANGEROUS:

S.830, the FDA Modernization and Accountability Act of 1997 is hazardous to your health and must be stopped, here's why:

• S.830 tells the FDA to HARMONIZE America's food and drug law to the laws of the European Union. (The EU treats vitamins, minerals, and botanicals as DRUGS ans is planning on making its regulatory structure even worse in the future.) So what they are really talking about is making our laws match theirs. The FDA is bad enough. The EU system is even WORSE.
• S.830 gives a single manufacturer the right to turn a dietary supplement into a drug.
• S.830 endangers the current status of dietary supplements as foods by creating a classification that won't hold up under emerging international law.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO NOW:

We estimate that S.830 will come up for a vote in the Senate shortly after October 1st, but it could come up for a vote even sooner. Write, fax, email, and phone your Senators now and say: "Vote No on S.830."

Write to the Senate Labor Committee and ask the Senators to request that the chairman not report S.830 out of committee. The address for the Senate labor committee is:

Senate Labor Committee
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC, 20510

Senator Harkin must especially be called on this because he intends to attach the Access to Medical Treatment Act to this legislation and it would be _TRAGIC_ if we shot ourselves in the foot by pushing it through with a trojan horse of this sort in it!

One offending section is Sec. 202 "Sense of the Committee regarding mutual recognition agreements and global harmonization efforts."

This section, which can be found at the url listed in the subject line, states:

"It is the sense of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the Senate that--

1. the secretary of Health and Human Services should support the Office of the United States Trade Representative, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, in efforts to move toward the acceptance of mutual recognition agreements relating to the regulation of drugs, biological products, devices, foods, food additives, and color additives, and the regulation of good manufacturing practices, between the European Union and the United States;
2. the Secretary of Health and Human Services should regularly participate in meetings with representatives of other foreign governments to discuss and reach agreement on methods and approaches to harmonize regulatory requirements; and
3. the Office of International Relations of the Department of Health and Human Services (as established under section 803 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 USC 383)should have the responsibility of ensuring that the process of harmonizing international regulatory requirements is continuous.

The problem with this section is that if our food and drug laws are "harmonized" (made the same as) the European Union, American consumers would be subject to the same ludicrous restrictions on dietary supplements as Europeans are. In the UK, they have just banned B-6 above 10 mg without a prescription. Someone in England just sent me the proof of this in he form of correspondence from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The letter was signed by SD Banks of the RSD Nutrition Unit (B) of MAFF, tel. 0171 238 6000

Americans need to be aware of what is happening in the European Union right now with regards to the "Green Paper" on which a comments period ends at the end of September. The Green Paper is pushing for stringent regulations on dietary supplements, to reduce available dosage limits to very low doses such as 10 mg for B6. On the same day that the draft copy of the Green Paper became availabe in England, the media launched a propaganda campaign against vitamin B-6 stating that doses above 10 mg put people at risk of peripheral neuropathy, which is patently absurd. The only two countries in Europe holding out against the Green Paper are the UK and Holland. I hope American consumers can see from this emerging trend that we _MUST_ remove the section below from S.830.

Please call Senator Jeffords, the sponsor of the bill at 202-224-5141, fax 202-228-0338, Vermont@JEFFORDS.SENATE.GOV Also call the Senate Labor Committee, and your own Senators and Congressment regarding this, otherwise, we will have _BIG PROBLEMS_. (See list of email addresses below):

Committe on Labor and Human Resources
428 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

202-224-5375

Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121

Committee's web home page: http://www.senate.gov/committee/labor.html

Committee members and E-Mail addresses are:

Republicans

Democrats

For member inquiries:

Office of Senator (Name)
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

For member e-mail access:

http://www.senate.gov/senator/membmail.html#[enter first letter of the senator's state, e.g., "a" for Arkansas]

For Committee inquiries:

(Name of Committee)
United states Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

It has been said that "politicians don't SEE THE LIGHT until they FEEL THE HEAT!" Let's all turn up the heat and "roast those turkeys," before they "spoil (us)."

Donations Needed- Am One Person Working Alone
International Advocates for Health Freedom
John C. Hammell, Legislative Advocate
2411 Monroe St.#2 Hollywood, FL 33020 USA
800-333-2553, 954-929-2905, FAX 954-929-0507,
FAX ON DEMAND 954-927-8795,jham@concentric.net
www.iahf.com