The FDA is attempting to redefine all vitamins, minerals, supplements, herbs, and natural remedies as "medicine." If they succeed, we will all need prescriptions to buy any of these things. But even doctors will not be able to prescribe most of them, since any medicine must go through a set of rigorous tests that only pharmaceutical companies can afford. This will effectively shut down all small producers - the only vitamins available will be low dose expensive ones produced by the big drug companies.

So what exactly is the FDA and what is their function? The FDA's purpose is the regulation of food, cosmetics and dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 mandated that the FDA regulate dietary supplements as foods, rather than as drugs. Therefore, the FDA did not have the authority that it had over the pharmaceutical industry. But now, the FDA wants COMPLETE control to limit or even prohibit you from taking the very supplements that have helped you so much. Your only choices in the very near future could be: prescription medications or nothing at all!

My friends, please know this: FDA-approved prescription and non-prescription medications ALL have negative side-effects - every single one of them. Medications simply attempt to treat symptoms, they DO NOT make one healthy.

So why does the FDA continue to approve medicines that have so little benefit and so many harmful side-effects, and desire to prevent you from receiving the health benefits of alternative health care? I think you already know the answer - money, and lots of it! Let's take a look at some statistics before we move on.

According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report "Death by Medicine", by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. According to this same study led by Null, which involved a painstaking review of thousands of medical records, the United States spends $282 billion annually on deaths due to medical mistakes, or iatrogenic deaths. And that's a conservative estimate; only a fraction of medical errors are reported, according to the study. Actual medical mistakes are likely to be 20 times higher than the reported number because doctors fear retaliation for those mistakes.

The public knows that medical errors occur, but they assume that errors are unusual, isolated events. Unfortunately, by accepting conventional medicine, patients voluntarily continue to walk into the leading cause of death in America.

According to a 1995 U.S. iatrogenic report, "Over a million patients are injured in U.S. hospitals each year, and approximately 280,000 die annually as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic death rate dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality rate of 45,000 and accounts for more deaths than all other accidents combined." This report was issued over 10 years ago, when America had 34 million fewer citizens and drug company scandals like the Vioxx recall were yet to occur. Today, health care comprises 15.5 percent of the United States' gross national product, with spending reaching $1.4 trillion in 2004.

Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical mistakes, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to "Death by Medicine". That also is a conservative number. Some experts estimate it should be more like 200,000 because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions.

Medicine is a high-dollar, highly competitive business. Instead of doctors treating the causes of poor health with exercise and sound nutrition/supplementation, they stuff their patients full of prescription drugs to cover their symptoms. Using this inherently faulty system of medical treatment, it's no wonder so many Americans die from prescription drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-trillion dollar business and we are a nation of drug-addicts. Is it any wonder when companies spend billions on advertising telling us with every third commercial to take some medication whether prescription or over the counter?

I'm sure you're getting the big picture here. In the pursuit of the almighty dollar, the FDA/Drug Companies are determined to eliminate any and all forms of competition. Getting more drugs approved by the FDA, regardless of their safety, means more money for the pharmaceutical industry. As the healthcare system stands today, physicians and drug companies can't seem to pass up earning boatloads of money, even if a few hundred thousand people lose their lives in the process.

On the research side of the issue, "Death by Medicine" cites an ABC report that says clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies show a 90 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective, whereas clinical trials not funded by drug companies show only a 50 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective. "It appears that money can't buy you love, but it can buy you any 'scientific' result you want," writes Null and his team of researchers.

Something to ponder:

Nearly all medical schools have their new doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Although there are slight differences in the oaths, none include setting aside proper medical care in favor of money-making practices. The main emphasis in the Hippocratic Oath is: "Above all else, Do No Harm." How often is this oath ignored? Nearly every time a drug is prescribed...

There are several health freedom threats you need to know about and act on.

Codex Alimentarius

1) Codex Alimentarius was created in 1962 as a trade Commission by the UN to control the international trade of food. Its initial intentions may have been altruistic but it has been taken over by corporate interests, such as the pharmaceutical, pesticide, biotechnology and chemical industries.

Codex Alimentarius is backed up by the crippling trade sanctions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Any non Codex-compliant nation would face huge economic punishment since they would automatically lose in any food-trade dispute with a Codex compliant country.

2) The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) has two committees which impact nutrition. One of them, the "Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses" (CCNFSDU), is chaired by Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, a physician who believes that nutrition has no role in health, stating that, "nutrition is not relevant to health"!

As unbelievable as it may sound, Dr. Grossklaus actually declared nutrients to be toxins in 1994 and instituted the use of toxicology (Risk Assessment) to prevent nutrients from having any impact on humans who take supplements! (It is worth mentioning that Dr. Grossklaus happens to own the Risk Assessment company advising CCNFSDU and Codex on this issue).

As you and I know, nutrients are not toxins - they are essential for life!.

3) Codex Alimentarius is not about consumer protection. Codex is about the economic ambitions of multi-national corporations, in particular, the pharmaceutical industry, and negatively tainting the image of natural health options by misleading people to fear them as "dangerous", so they will take drugs (which really are dangerous). Natural health products and options have an amazing safety record and are remarkably effective, especially when compared to pharmaceutical drugs.

4) Codex: Serious Threat to Health and Health Freedom - if Codex Alimentarius is implemented in the United States of America, therapeutic dosages of vitamins and minerals (and all other nutrients soon to follow) will become unavailable because they will literally become illegal. If enough people do not take action, we can expect to watch nutritional supplement manufacturers and, thus health food stores, go out of business, in a domino effect. The only player left standing would be Big Pharma.

Natural health professionals would lose the tools of their trade (nutritional supplements) and health conscious people would be unable to choose natural health options for health promotion and disease treatment.

5) More and more people are turning to natural health products globally. The "wellness" trend is a major trend in today's society. The more natural health products people use, the fewer drugs they buy. The pharmaceutical industry, which is part of the "Sickness Industry", fears the inevitable shift toward natural health care. Instead of accepting the will of the people and rethinking the future of the pharmaceutical industry, the industry has decided upon an unethical course of action: the use of deception and deceit to eliminate natural health products completely.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) intends to force Codex Alimentarius upon the nations of the world, including the U.S. This would be done under the threat of massive economic sanctions if WTO-countries do not comply with Codex Alimentarius.

6) DSHEA Protects America From Codex Alimentarius The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA, 1994), an American law classifying our supplements and herbs as foods (which can have no upper limit set on their use), was passed by unanimous Congressional consent following massive grass-roots support organized by health food stores. Millions of American activists told Congress, in no uncertain terms: "Protect nutritional supplements as foods or we will remove you from office". Congress listened and carried out the will of the people.

DSHEA recognizes that people use nutrients safely to deal with their individually differing needs for nutrients. The concept of biochemical individuality means that people have different needs for nutrients at different times. Are nutrients toxins? No, they are not toxins. They are substances essential to prevent, treat and cure any chronic condition, in differing doses at different times in different people.

DSHEA protects the US from Codex Alimentarius' deadly Vitamin and Mineral Guideline. We must reach our Congressional members, educate them about the facts on Codex Alimentarius and direct them to vote against anything that would threaten DSHEA. Congress holds the keys to our health freedom. And it is their job to listen to us. Let's not allow cynicism to tell us otherwise. We did it for DSHEA in 1994. We can do it again.

7) Your Action is Needed Now! DSHEA is under significant legislative attack right now. Your e-mail writing is crucial: if the members of Congress know that voting against health freedom means losing their jobs come election time, they will listen. Our job is to make sure they get the message loud and clear.

The objective of the pro-Codex Alimentarius multi nationals is to "boil the frog slowly" so that we do not wake up to it in time to avoid Codex.

Codex Alimentarius will go into global implementation by December 31, 2009, unless We, the People, avert it. We must act now because right now, with $758 Million spent on declared Congressional lobbying by Big Pharma last year, there are members of Congress who are trying to overturn DSHEA and allow Pharma-friendly free reign for Codex. If protective laws like DSHEA are destroyed, the sanctioning power of the autocratic WTO kicks in, and it will be impossible to get out from under Codex Alimentarius. We can protect our access to high potency nutrients and stave off an adulterated food supply only by putting pressure on Congress.

If you would like more in-depth information about Codex Alimentarius and how you can help, please go to this website: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php You can click on "Take Action Now" in the upper right under "Support Health Freedom". It takes less than 2 minutes to fill out the information and click the "send" button. We need you to be proactive, for your health and the health of your family.

Health Freedom and Liberty!

"Health freedom" means the right to make your own choices about how you want to become and remain healthy. Health freedom means free and unrestricted access to herbs, supplements, homeopathic and nutritional medicine and clean food (untainted by pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, or otherwise unfit for human consumption). Health freedom means that if you want to purchase food that has not been irradiated, or does not contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), then you have the right to be informed (through labelling) and choose clean or unclean food. Health freedom means that if you want to choose natural treatments for diseases and prevention of diseases, you should have that right.

Health freedom means that nutrients, supplements and herbs are foods, as DSHEA classifies them, and that they can have no upper limits set on their use since they are foods. Health freedom means that no outside entity (be it government or multi-national corporations), has the right to tell us what we may, or may not, put in our bodies. Health freedom is crucial to the attainment and maintenance of optimal health. In a society where the people are not free to choose for their own health, other liberties would fast go out of the window. It's our health and our right to fight for it!

Thank you so much for reading and acting.

Until next month.

Yours in health,

Dr. Mike