Taking away our right to Vitamins?

[ghchealth]

What a relief to be able to write to you! Today I finally got to a working computer which would allow me internet access! To all of you whose emails have bounced, please accept my apologies. With no internet for the past two weeks and more, I felt as if my hands had been chopped off in East and Central Africa since internet contact was not possible under the circumstances of our travel and stay. Miraculously, they grew back when we reached Ghana once again and I can tell you what has been happening here in Africa since my last email to you.

Briefly: every meeting with every single person that we have had has been a resounding success. One country has already promised to pass the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (RVMG) designed to replace the pro-illness one ratified by Codex with a pro-optimum nutrition one which we presented to them. This RVMG is step 1 in the strategy needed to protect themselves from the deadly impact of the Codex VMG. That country has also vowed to take the second step as well: the passage of the enableing legislation, based on the incredibly precious and important DSHEA legislation which considers nutrients to be food. This legislation will allow them to protect their consumer rights to any dosage of any vitamin, mineral or other nutrient that they wish to take while protecting themselves from the unbearable burden of World Trade Organization sanctions. We have brought to these countries a strategy which will allow them to protect their people and they have listened carefully and amazingly receptively. Of course, the same strategy can be used to protect their people from any other danger represented by Codex. There has been universal high level and consumer acceptance of our input and great welcome for it.

In short, we are helping to turn 2006 into the Year of the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline here in Africa! We have met and shared our materials with Ministers of Health and their high level technical advisors in their home countires spread from North Africa to the southern tip of the continent, from East Africa to the West of her land mass and in the context of a regional African national association meeting of Ministers of Health. Not only did we visit 6 countries in Africa, but we have participated in the East, Central and Southern African Regional Association meeting of Ministers of Health and, against all protocol, were given the opportunity to present to those Ministers about health dangers facing their people and the natural options readily and inexpensively available to them.

To make things even better, we have met with numerous members of national Codex Committees, national consumers organizations, the African policy director for one of the world's largest consumer organizations, developed the foundation for a formal relationship with one of the African Regional Associations covering a quarter or more of the continent, and on and on and on.

And, oh, by the way, we have survived with no apparent harm from the various things that go bump in the night and in the GI tract.

Another major development: we have founded our first regional center:

Natural Solutions Foundation - Africa. More to come on that important development in the next few days. This center will propagate pro-health developments here in the African context.

Speaking of pro-health developments, everywhere we went we were asked to bring the power and simplicity of natural medicine to countries where every health dollar is hard won and urgently needed. I have asked my colleagues in the world of natural medicine to work with us in developing a 2 day course for doctors in South Africa (open to all who wish to participate, of course) and a more detailed 6 day course in Tunisia.

They understand well that without the protective 2 step strategy in their countries they will not be able to continue to obtain and use nutrients as part of their medical practice and they do not want to loose that freedom. So, along with the consumers, the Codex Committees of these countries, the Ministers of Health and the academics we have begun to work with, we also are partnering with a powerful and well-repsected constituency: the doctors we have begun to engage in an educational and political process to keep nutrients available to their people.

In every country and meeting, every official or advocate we talked with (including the heads of national Codex Committees and other members) were surprized and delighted that they had options to what Codex is deciding for their people. And they welcomed those options universally. Not bad for a month!

So what's next?

First of all, we need to remember that our precious act, DSHEA, is under attack and protect it. The Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (http://www.tinyurl.com/92sdt)
offers nations, including ours, a protective alternative to the loss of high potency, clinically effective dietary supplements. Tell the US Government that you support (http://www.tinyurl.com/cjp6f) this powerful pro-health initiative here in the US and abroadWrite to your Congressmen and women NOW and tell them that any weakening of your right to take whatever nutrients you choose must NOT be interfered with or they will not return to Congress. Visit http://www.HealthFreedomUSA.org/download and make sure that your voice is heard loud and clear on each and every bill threatening our right to make our own natural health decisions. It's all very well to protect the rest of the world but we still need to guard our health freedom in the US while we do it.

Second, it is urgently important that you spread the word so that everyone you know does the same. Use your email lists and church groups and social settings, health food stores and natural health providers to spread the word. Show "Nutricide: The DVD" (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/aboutcodex/dvd.shtml) at as many gatherings as you can and alert people to what is happening well below the radar screen. Get your local health food store to stock it so that people understand the problem and the solution, too.

Third, donate (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/action/donate.shtml). This trip will cost in excess of $55,000 US. Industry did not pay for it. You and we have done that. We traveled with 4 people around the African continent meeting the right officials and advocates, offering information with nothing at all to sell, speaking only truth. That is the proper way to share information: with no financial gain from it. But there is a cost and we ask you to share it with us so that we can continue to do this productive and vital work.

In fact, I noticed today that the number of emails on our list just about equals $1 per person on that list! If each person on the list who has not yet made a contribution donated, say, $10 or $25 or more, we would be able to cover both this last trip and the next one (to South East Asia in about 2 months). Think about it: isn't giving this optiion to the world worth it? We believe it is. The stronger the pro-health contingent globally, the stronger the global community and the global strength of nutritional options here at home. In essence, it's globalization for health rather than for negative outcomes.

If you prefer, you can make a tax deductible donation through our umbrella 501-c-3, the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy (NISLAPP). Please make your check out to NISLAPP, write "Natural Solutions Foundation" on the memo line and mail it to

Natural Solutions Foundation

88 Batten Road

Croton on Hudson NY 10520


We are thrilled to be able to share these wonderful developments with you. Please pass them along to your circle of influence and help to make 2006 the Year of the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline.

Yours in health and freedom,

Rima E. Laibow, MD