National Health Federation

VETERAN’S DAY DISGRACE

VETERAN’S DAY DISGRACE

PRESS RELEASE

Written by National Health Federation
Category: Codex
Published: November 2007

 

November 15, 2007

On this Veteran’s Day 2007, many of you were assaulted with a libelous e-mail that attacks the National Health Federation and the efforts it is making on behalf of health freedom at the 29th session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) here in Bad Neuenahr, Germany.

Talking to you, her audience, in her usual, patronizing tone that appears to credit you with limited intelligence, treating you not much differently than a two-year-old (“Here in Codexland”), the latest pronouncements from the self-assumed throne of the “Lady of Natural Solutions” may reflect not so much her outrage on behalf of health freedom, but rather her ire at not having been made part of the NHF delegation to Codex.  The NHF delegation is after all the only delegation at Codex working proactively within the Codex system to protect vitamin consumers and health-freedom interests around the World.

However, as you will discover towards the end of this piece, there is another possibility.  And this possibility, strengthened by accounts in a recently published book by a high-profile medical doctor, suggests something a lot more sinister.  Read on and make your own mind up.

Ignorance in Action

Why was Codexland lady never made part of our delegation?  Because her reputation for twisting facts and misstating the obvious is legend.  Remember that in April 2005, she was telling everyone how Codex was going to remove all vitamins and minerals from U.S. healthfood-store shelves by July 31, 2005?(1) Well, the last time we looked it was still possible to buy those supplements.

Remember, too, that later she changed that date to December 31, 2009(2), in both cases completely confusing the deadlines confronting Europeans through their onerous Food Supplements Directive with the as-yet non-existent deadlines of the Codex Guidelines for supplements. The health-freedom community’s repeated requests to her to correct such flat-out, inaccurate information on her website resulted in blank stares and no satisfactory changes.

Then, at a very critical time when we were all working to try to defeat the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), for a large number of reasons but primarily because of its language reinforcing restrictive Codex guidelines on supplements, this “Codexland” lady glibly told everyone that CAFTA was not a threat to health freedom or Codex.(3) CAFTA passed by a mere handful of votes.  Now – well after the fact – she’s telling us that CAFTA is a threat after all.  Thanks – for nothing.

The list of misstatements issued by the ex-psychiatrist’s anti-Codex machine goes on and on and on.(4) As Goethe once wrote, “There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.” But let’s be charitable and chalk up all of her misstatements and inaccuracies as simply “ignorance” and not something deliberate. Yet, still, there is a vicious maliciousness in her latest press release that gives us valuable insight into what, in our opinion, may be her true nature and intent.

Pushy, Instant “Expert”

Remember, her organization is the one that suddenly sprang onto the health-freedom scene out of nowhere some three years ago with an “expertise” on Codex born not of experience but from a pile of papers that she claimed to have read. At the time we in the health-freedom community thought it bizarre – even suspicious – that a complete stranger and neophyte would attempt to push and shoulder her way to the presidency of a health-freedom coalition that was just then being started by the American Association for Health Freedom with the support of the NHF, the Dr Rath Foundation, the Alliance for Natural Health, MayDay, and other important health-freedom organizations. She failed in her push for the presidency, but, on the back of her medical (psychiatry) credentials, managed to persuade enough people to give her the sop of the vice presidency. Those of us with many years of experience in the health-freedom movement instinctively recoiled, and for good reason as it has later turned out. To us, she was just too slick and too quick.

Now, two-and-a-half years later, with Codexland lady’s organization still excluded from participation in Codex meetings and even specifically refused official International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) status by Codex,(5) she has resorted to gate crashing Codex Working Groups where she knows that she can neither speak nor submit written comments. She can only pretend to be outraged, as she parlays her “outrage” into yet another internet marketing ploy to separate you from your money with donations to a “foundation” that some have even wondered whether or not it is able to accept tax-deductible donations.

Lack of Positive Influence at Codex Meetings

Of course, she will claim that the reason she is excluded from Codex meetings is that she is so incredibly effective at representing health freedom and thus is a threat to Codex’s implementation. Those of us who have been regularly attending Codex meetings year after year – even long before Codexland lady appeared on the scene – have seen her in action at these meetings and it is not impressive. To our eyes, her lobbying consists of nothing more than obvious psychiatry-heavy, psychological manipulation conjoined with repeated broadcasts of artificial smiles, disingenuous arguments, and tight, calculated laughs.

The result of her heavy-handed lobbying at Codex is predictable: lots of damage control required by NHF and others to distance ourselves from her and her false “health-freedom” message. This is what this essay is about. We have been forced to respond to Codexland lady – and in fact a good few of our members have asked us to. This is our response.

On To Sunday’s Meeting

One must wonder about someone who compliments the Food and Drug Administration(6) and then attacks the health-freedom community. Yet that is what the Codexland lady has done. What did she claim?

    • That NHF did not oppose Upper Limits for Supplements (I). Oh, really? The NHF did everything within its powers on the lead up to the finalization of the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines in November 2004.  At that time, the NHF and South Africa were the only ones to argue strenuously against the adoption of the Guidelines and the Report of the 26th session of the CCNFSDU attest to that.  Yet, this is meant to have been one of the documents Codexland lady had read – and rather an important one at that.  Then, at the July 2005 meeting in Rome, Italy of the parent Codex Alimentarius Commission, the NHF was actually the only delegation at Codex to argue against the adoption of the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines by the Commission; and NHF did so all alone in the face of some 200 delegates.  So, for this armchair general to then come in after the battle against adoption has already been fought and lost and then argue that we – the NHF – did nothing to protect health freedom is an absolute obscenity . . . and anyone who fails to see the logic of that deserves such an armchair general to lead them into battle.
    • That NHF did not oppose Upper Limits for Supplements (II). So, with the ignorance of a neophyte, Codexland lady then claims that at Sunday’s meeting of the Electronic Working Group on Risk Assessment, the NHF scientific advisor spoke about ranges of upper limits and did not oppose upper limits.  Yes, how clever of her to beat us up over a battle that has already been fought and lost at the Codex level . . . does she really believe that this is still the forum to fight that battle?  Codex has moved on beyond that discussion and anyone bringing up the subject at this stage would be immediately stopped from further discussion as it’s now a non-starter issue.  Our job is to now create the best possible outcome for risk assessment, which, contrary to what the Codexland lady says in her blog of today, is not illegal in the USA and has been used by the Institute of Medicine for many years to create their own Upper Levels(7) (which are not too dissimilar to those being used in Europe).  Perhaps Codexland lady is a little confused about the difference between “risk assessment” and “risk management,” the latter being the really deadly step that allows policy-makers (i.e., governments) to set restrictive levels that are generally even lower than Upper Levels.  This step, we would agree, is presently illegal in the USA for nutrients.(8) Does she want us to refight the Battle of Waterloo too?  Her approach at this stage is utterly naive and way-too-late for this forum; but, unfortunately, it is just perfect to fool her donors and prospective donors into ponying up yet more money for her “health freedom” fight on a battle already fought.  To our way of thinking it appears to be nothing more than another slick marketing ploy to profit from consumers’ ignorance about how Codex works.  Indeed, at this stage of the game – at the Codex forum – NHF is acting to minimize the damage of the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines by striving to get either no Upper Limits set through the use of a prioritization model (a strategy of which Codexland lady appears to be ignorant) or at least to get the limits set as high as possible by altering, at a very fundamental level, the way in which risk assessment, which is now a condition of the Guidelines, is undertaken. In this situation, this is a commendable approach.  Would you rather that NHF vainly rant against the structure of Upper Limits that has already been set when there is at least the opportunity to minimize or even avoid the harm they pose?  Anyone with a room-temperature I.Q. or higher very well knows the answer to this question.  And for those who don’t, they probably deserve Codexland lady leading them down a blind alley anyway.  For NHF’s Scientific Advisor to argue in favor of ranges is an argument that will, if accepted, at least minimize the harm that the Guidelines will do to those persons with genetically-driven, greater-than-normal requirements for nutrients, or those from particular ethnic groups, who might be unfairly discriminated against by bad-science, overly restrictive Upper Levels of nutrients.  But, then again, this argument and approach might be too subtle for Codexland lady who is still fighting at Waterloo.
    • The Conscience of Codex. Codexland lady claims that the NHF’s legal counsel shared with her a conversation he had had when Chairman Grossklaus had called the legal counsel the “Conscience of Codex.”  This is another complete fabrication.  First of all, given the harsh exchanges between the Chairman and NHF’s legal counsel and Codex delegate over the five years of NHF’s involvement as an INGO delegation, the Chairman never would have said such a thing.  This is one of her goofiest lies.
    • Nutrient Risk Manager.Yet another misstatement.  Getting used to it?  NHF’s Scientific Advisor never discussed the Nutrient Risk Manager.  And to compound Codexland lady’s lie, she proceeds to shoot herself in the foot by claiming that his organization had sued the European Food Supplements directive (How do you sue a law?) and over the issue of maximum permitted levels in supplements (which directive had yet to set any levels, maximum or minimum).  The lady’s so-called facts are again erroneous.  The case she refers to was initiated by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), the natural health organization to which our scientific advisor acts as scientific director.  The case actually challenged the UK government, which was responsible for the flawed UK statutory instrument that was at risk of banning 5000 or so supplements in the UK alone.  When the case was successfully referred to the European Court of Justice, although the Queen and UK Secretary of State for Health remained as the key plaintiffs, it was the European Commission, the key originator of the law, that was the primary respondent.  But we would like to remind anyone who has been misinformed that the case challenged the validity of the directive and the composition of the EU list of allowed vitamins and minerals, which excluded hundreds of nutrients, especially the natural ones.  Levels were not on the menu as they still haven’t been decided by the EU rule-makers.  And that’s the subject of another hot and current health-freedom battle.
    • The Codex Two-Step Process. A catchy title, no?  Like “fat-free food” or “sugar-free food,” it could lure you into thinking that something is actually being done, in this case about Codex.  Enact DSHEA-like domestic standards, she promises, and a country will – voila! – magically be inoculated against the global Codex standards that that country has already signed on to accept.  Does that make any sense?  Not to anyone we know with a semblance of rational thought.  Yet, this lady claims, this time, that Dr John Hathcock of the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) told her that the Codex Two-Step Process is a “valid process.”  Interested in testing the validity of Codexland lady’s statements, the NHF’s legal counsel took the opportunity in Monday’s Codex meeting to ask Dr Hathcock face-to-face whether he had ever said such a thing to the lady in question.  He said, perhaps not so unsurprisingly, that he never recalled saying anything like that at all.  It appears that this is yet another fabrication.
    • Rearranging the Cushions. Finally, in her blog, the ex-psychiatrist attempts to land a low blow by trying to use the analogy first used by NHF’s legal counsel in an article he had written three years ago about Codex, called “Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic.”(10) That article must have made a great impression because the lady of Natural Solutions uses the analogy frequently. Yet, if any cushions are being rearranged, it is surely under the seat of the “good lady,” who is currently taking pleasure in relaxing in the luxury of the expensive Steigenberger Hotel here in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Choosing luxury hotels seems to be order of the day for her. The NHF delegation, in contrast, uses much-cheaper accommodations away from the Codex meeting site in an effort to save their organization’s funds. The lady of misstatements travels around the World with her elderly husband, staying at nice hotels. No wonder the constant requests for donations from her e-mail list.

In short, as you can see from the above, this lady’s seemingly vicious attack on the NHF really amounts to nothing.  Perhaps hoping to fool her list of well-meaning, well-intentioned health-freedom advocates, she sees this as an attempt to try to discredit the NHF and its partners while engaging in yet another round of lucrative fundraising?  She certainly is not shy about asking for money, time and again, as regular readers of her blog will themselves be able to testify.  But what she has done is absolutely disgraceful.

Diversion and Disruption

This, dear readers, is when things get somewhat darker.  Yes, we move into a zone of greater speculation, but there are a series of facts that cannot be denied.  It is you, the reader, who must do your own research and make a decision for yourself.  We, the NHF and its partners, cannot continually engage in defending ourselves against attacks while we work at protecting health-freedom interests.  We have genuine health-freedom work to attend to – and, at critical times in our work, like now, the lady and her husband have become a significant diversion. – We – that is you and us – cannot afford these diversions.  The Beast is upon us and we have limited resources and time.  Few analogies describe our plight better than that of David and Goliath.  So, cutting to the chase, we in the health-freedom community cannot help but wonder if there are other reasons for the lady’s motives, reasons that are perhaps explained by a series of events that began some 15 years ago . . . .

From UFOs to Health Freedom

When Codexland lady and her retired, ex-US Army Intelligence Major General of a husband crash-landed into the health-freedom World in early 2005, at one of the biggest meetings ever of international health-freedom leaders who had come together in Washington, D.C. to specifically strategize on ways of dealing with Codex, we all had an open mind and welcomed any positive contributions.  During this meeting, the two operatives managed to persuade a majority to elect “you-know-who” into the vice presidency.  Soon, though, most wondered what had hit them and begun questioning the motives behind the anti-Codex newcomers.  There was no way of moving forward except to disband the international Codex group because it had seemingly been infiltrated.  The questions over their activities and motives have become increasingly searching.

It has become apparent to many in the health-freedom community and beyond that the General and his side-kick psychiatrist may have done this all before.  From their descriptions and actions, it appears that they may be the very same couple who managed to create havoc in the world of UFOs, attacking and discrediting some of the most plausible workers in this very different field, including Doctor Steven Greer, M.D.

Dr Greer, who has appeared on Larry King Live and other primetime television shows, resigned his post as Chairman of Emergency Medicine at Caldwell Memorial Hospital in North Carolina to spend all of his time and energy exposing what he saw as a massive corporate-government cover up of extraterrestrial contact that has been kept under wraps for decades.  As Dr Greer recounts in his 2007 book, Hidden Truth – Forbidden Knowledge (available at http://www.disclosureproject.org/hiddentruth.htm), two persons (who fit the description of the General and his psychiatrist wife impeccably) parachuted some years earlier into the Dr Greer’s world – and created havoc.  To protect himself, Dr Greer codifies the name of the retired, former head of Army Intelligence, as General “T.E.”  It is perhaps no surprise that ‘T’ is the last letter of the General’s first name, while ‘E’ is the last letter of his surname.  Is this a coincidence?  You decide.

Regardless of one’s views on the existence or non-existence of UFOs, the following extracts from Dr Greer’s book should be of interest:

“Once word of this CE-5 [UFO] in Florida got out, it was a feeding frenzy. A few weeks later I was invited to a conference, in Atlanta, that had a whole group of spooks (covert intelligence operatives) present. They had heard what had happened and wanted to learn the details. It was a quasi-public conference that was run by a group as a front operation to gather intelligence for the covert programs dealing with UFOs. (This is not unusual.)

I arrived in time for the main banquet of the conference on Saturday night. They had put a place for me between the former head of Army Intelligence, General T.E….[and others]….There were also NSA people and other intelligence operatives there. I knew something was fishy – there was also present a slippery shadowy ops psychiatrist who was a side-kick of the general….”

After the General failed to stop Dr Greer’s work, which aimed to expose the cover-up, things got heavy.  Dr Greer continues:

“After rejecting these advances by the general, within thirty days the entire internet had websites set up and messages being sent out to the public attacking me. They unleashed all the dogs within the UFO civilian community, within the press, everywhere. I was called everything from a cultist to a demonic communer with extraterrestrial sinister forces to a fraud. Then they released the lie that I wasn’t a medical doctor. Here I am at the hospital and they have put out there that I am not even licensed to practice medicine! I have to then release to the public my medical license and degree to show that I am actually a medical doctor! The psychological warfare and harassment was intense – and continues to this day. For 14 years it has been a relentless string of attacks, character assassination, defamation of character, and every kind of dirty trick.”

Like Dr Greer, we take a risk exposing this information and the apparent, possible linkage.  But we believe we are left with little option.  If there has been one force over the last two-and-a-half years that has taken the minds of those few, highly-effective individuals who represent the global health-freedom community off the ball, it is Codexland lady and her Major General of a husband.

Their operation appears to want to “draw on” as many unsuspecting consumers and government delegations as it can, with the purpose of calling for donations, criticising other organizations’ health-freedom strategies and instigating diversionary tactics that attempt to confuse the focus to the maximum possible degree.  She and her husband have become the smoke bombers of the health-freedom World.  How better to starve the real health-freedom movement of much needed funding and call into question its critically important, time-sensitive work?  But, of course, it is ultimately for you – the reader – to decide.

In the meantime, we can only speculate as to what their next assignment might be ….

———————————–

    1. See, http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/aboutcodex/indepth/letter.shtm
    2. See, http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/resources/marketingmaterial/Codexflyer2.pdf.
    3. See, e.g., http://blog.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?year=2005&monthnum=07&day=26&name=a-thorn-is-a-thorn-is-a-thorn&page=&year=2005&monthnum=07&day=26&name=a-thorn-is-a-thorn-is-a-thorn&page=
    4. See, e.g.,http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/Events/codex-beware.htm.
    5. See,www.codexalimentarius.net/download/report/661/al2903Ae.pdf, p. 14, item 109, as confirmed by the 30th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in July 2007. (ftp://ftp.fao.org/Codex/CAC/CAC30/if30_02e.pdf).
    6. See,http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php/?p=440.
    7. Food and Nutrition Board, “Dietary Reference Intakes: A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Upper Intake Levels for Nutrients“, 1999. Institute of Medicine, USA.
    8. If the lady wants to educate herself on this complex subject, we suggest she read the powerful critique and deconstruction of European risk assessment in the recent position paper of our ANH partners.  ANH position paper (October 2007) on risk assessment and EU Maximum Permitted Levels:
      http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_290.pdf
    9. It is of course still possible to fight the Upper Levels concept at the American domestic level and the NHF, as its members know, has been doing that quite strongly for many years.
    10. “Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic,” at http://www.thenhf.com/codex_09.htm.

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