Members
e-Letter Issue 6 (March 2008)
In This Issue
OCA Releases Research on Cancer causing compounds included in name brand cosmetics.
U.S. Legislation Update: New Legislative Bill would make Drug Companies disclose “gifts”
What is the World Institute of Natural Health Sciences (WINHS)
The Hard, and Very Cold Facts… unless we do something about it now.
According to mortality statistics, every second person alive on planet earth today will die from heart attack or stroke and every fourth person from cancer.
In the United States, 2000 persons per day die from heart attacks alone. Worldwide, 20 million people die from heart attack, stroke and cancer each year.
From scientific research over the past few decades we already know the real reasons for these "epidemics".
Heart disease, stroke and cancer are not due to fate, but a chronic, long term lack of vital, but natural substances. And yet these diseases could be virtually eliminated for future generations if the implications of this scientific research were built in to the health policy planning and implementations by the leading nations and adopted as standard practice by health aware individuals and health conscious agencies and departments.
A chronic lack of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and other vital natural substances leads to the degeneration that manifests as heart disease, stroke, or cancer. These nutritional substances are the biochemical 'maintenance kit' for the body. Without them the body is unable to maintain its many vital functions and, sooner or later, a continuous lack of them leads to lingering (or sudden) disease and certain death.
Without question the scientific research shows that high dose vitamins and amino acids provide protection against and also the necessary cure of such conditions. Unfortunately, however, the biggest killers give rise to the most profitable businesses on earth – the treatment (but not the curing) of heart disease and cancer.
The Biggest Business
To illustrate this, a report from Arrowhead Publishers on November 30, 2005, announced that;
"Together, the four major cancer markets, which include colorectal, prostate, lung and breast cancer were valued at well over $16 billion in 2005, which was an increase of 14 percent in value since 2004. Driving this growth are innovative new products, line extensions for existing products, and the coming of age of the biotech industry."
And on August 5, 2003, PRNewswire quoted Decision Resources, Inc., one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and health care issues, forecasting that;
“The total market value of drugs to treat coronary heart disease (CHD) alone could reach $15 billion in 2007 and $23 billion in 2012. Newer, more expensive statins like AstraZeneca's Crestor will help drive this growth."
'More expensive' drugs means a higher profit margin and ‘new’ or 'newer' often does not mean better, but rather just that the existing drug's patent is about to expire on a particular drug. It can even happen that ‘newer’ drugs are more damaging in some ways because of their greater chemical sophistication.
The pharmaceutical industry is making unimaginable amounts of money from these and other major killer diseases. It is, bluntly, more profitable (and therefore a more attractive proposition for the pharmaceutical companies) to maintain patients in an alive, but debilitated state than to offer simple, effective and relatively natural life saving and disease curing products and procedures.
Truly, ‘Disease Management’ is more profitable than the cure and it is the profits that drive the share price of publicly traded companies. 'Shareholder Value' is the compass for corporate activity and policy. Money is the blood that courses through the corporate arteries and replacing those of their products which purport to treat these major takers of human life with cheap effective healthcare would cause a collapse of the corporate artery walls and a meltdown in the pharmaceutical industry. Life science or death science? You decide.
Pharmaceutical Industry and Government
That the pharmaceutical industry has the ear of government is beyond doubt.
The United Kingdom's 1968 Medicines Act following the Thalidomide* tragedy seems to have had considerable assistance in its design from drug company lawyers. In two sections of the Medicines Act the pharmaceutical industry was given protection from the criminal law against whistleblowers and, around the world, drug company 'advisers' are much in evidence in national Departments of Health, which have a significantly Pharma-friendly approach to health care. Pharmaceutical companies contribute to national export earnings and are major employers of highly skilled personnel. Is it any wonder that governments and pharmaceutical companies work closely together, but at what cost to human health?
* Thalidomide is a sedative, hypnotic and multiple myeloma (myeloma: tumor of bone marrow) medication. The drug is a potent teratogen (teratogen: an agent that interrupts the normal development of a fetus) in rats, rabbits and primates.[1] Thalidomide was developed by German pharmacetical company Grünenthal. It was sold from 1957 to 1961 in almost 50 ountries under at least 40 names, including Distaval, Talimol, Nibrol, Sedimide, Quietoplex, Contergan, Neurosedyn and Softenon. Thalidomide was chiefly sold and prescribed during the late 1950s and early 1960s to pregnant women, as a drug to combat morning sickness and as an aid to help them sleep. Before its release, inadequate tests were performed to asses the drug's safety, with catastrophic results for the children of women woho had taken thalidomide during their pregnancies. From 1956 to 1962, approximately 10,000 children were born with severe malformed, including phocomelia (underdeveloped limbs), because their mother had taken thalidomide during pregnancy.[1] In 1962, in reaction to the tragedy, the United states Congress enacted laws requiring tests for safety during pregnancy before a drug can receive approval for sale in the U.S.[2] Other countries enacted similar legislation and thalidomide was not prescribed or sold for decades. |
There is, of course, the (not so) small matter of the actual effects of their products – both in terms of a lack of success in curing major diseases and, perhaps more importantly, in terms of the number of harmful and even fatal side effects of many of these "wonder" drugs as this statistical comparison graphically illustrates.
These statistics are readily available in the public domain. The industry is aware of them. Governments knows them. Legislators chose to ignore them. Why?
It is easy to comprehend the reasons why pharmaceutical companies and their political allies do anything and everything possible on an international level to prevent people from becoming aware of the simple and yet highly effective results obtainable from high dose vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
Full understanding of this on the part of consumers will eventually bring about the end of the international pharmaceutical industry as we currently know it.
Their solution for this threat is to maintain an elaborate mass media "fear" and propaganda campaign and to follow this with extensively funded lobbying to make high dose vitamin products unavailable, i.e. to make them illegal and/or only available in "safe" lower dosage levels that do not provide the health benefits needed.
The pharmaceutical companies minimize this threat to their power and money by generating a feeling of paranoia about health and disease. After all, if health is so difficult to achieve, and so expensive, their position is secure. Like all cartels that strive to control the basics of life, their strategy is to bring about the idea that good health is a scarce and elusive commodity to which they alone have the key. To do this, they lobby intensively, spreading vast sums of money and deploying huge numbers of lobbyists (often former elected representatives and government ministers who have helped them in the past and are now reaping their own rewards for their past efforts) to make high dose vitamin products illegal and ensure that these substances are only available, if at all, in safe” lower dosage levels that do not provide the health benefits and are therefore no threat to their profits.
Corporations, national officials and international organizations always justify their actions on the grounds of consumer protection, but in truth their actions belie their words to the enormous detriment of consumers around the world.
In the international arena, they utilize strong lobby and agency ties to government and multinational organizations like the European Union, Codex Alimentarius and the World trade Organization (WTO) to force through a “standardization” or “harmonization” as they like to call it, for all member countries of the WTO.
With their financial resources and direct access to government, they relentlessly implement their strategy and campaigns to eradicate high dose vitamin products. These measures have been steadily developed over the past forty years in a highly organized and coordinated manner, at the highest political levels and always steered by the industry manipulating the politicians.
Germany was the starting point
In 1976 the pharmaceutical industry in Germany managed to have a law passed placing high dose vitamin products under the purview of the medical profession and regulated by the medical drug law. High dose vitamin products were made illegal as nutritional supplements.
The current scene is that you can buy certain high dose vitamin products, e.g. Vitamin C 500 mg or 1000 mg, only as a medical drug. Other high dose vitamin products, e.g. a high dose B Complex, are not available at all in Germany and can only be ordered from England or the Netherlands.
From that early beginning, under the guise of consumer protection and trade harmonization, the pharmaceutical companies have worked through institutions of the European Union to bring other European countries into line with Germany. This culminated in an anti-vitamin law, the EU Food Supplements Directive of 2002. The first in a series of sub-directives survived legal challenges in the EU High Court and was reconfirmed as valid law in 2005. It is now binding in all member nations of the European Union. See "The Approved List of Vitamins and Minerals." See http://www.winhs.org/members/e-letter200705.htm#section2
The law states what products may be sold by member nations. Other sub-directives and measures attempt to dictate the dosage levels in which the products may be sold. See http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2002/l_183/l_18320020712en00510057.pdf
Meanwhile, many additional and valuable forms of vitamin and mineral substances have been submitted to the European government for approval and inclusion onto the approved list; however, very few of them have been approved. See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_094/l_09420060401en00320033.pdf
At the moment, however, it is doubtful whether many of the remaining substances will ever be approved. If not, the use of hundreds of tried and tested forms of vitamins and minerals, some of them the most easily absorbable forms, will be prohibited throughout the European Union in 2009.
Built into the EU Food Supplements Directive are additional measures being implemented, bit by bit, over a number of years. This process is being reinforced by a most unscientific approach called "risk assessment" implying that vitamins are risky substances. In fact, and unsurprisingly, it is the pharmaceutical products that are 'risky' and kill ten to twenty thousand Europeans a year.
The truth about vitamins
Vitamins, on the other hand, are the vital biochemical tools of nature that keep the body alive and well and have been tried and tested by nature during the countless number of years over which we have evolved. This startling graphic was compiled by Ron Laws in New Zealand from available data.
Look at it this way, if vitamins really were dangerous there would be no animal life on earth because all organisms would have died from "vitamin poisoning". On the contrary, nature has definitely voted in favor of vitamins.
And consider this little known fact: all mammals, except man and other primates, fruit bats and guinea pigs, have a built in vitamin C factory. For example an animal the size of a goat – somewhat smaller than a human being – produces up to 10,000 milligrams of vitamin C per day. However, goats did not die out from vitamin C poisoning.
This was a very important discovery by the pioneer of high dose vitamin therapy, Dr. Linus Pauling. It was taken up by Dr. Matthias Rath, Pauling’s close associate, and publicized in his book 'Why Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks But People Do', which you can download free of charge from the Dr. Rath Foundation website: http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/About_Dr_Matthias_Rath/why_book_2003.htm
The anti vitamin propaganda from the pharmaceutical companies and their supporters in parliamentary assemblies, government and the media who do their bidding is designed to give the uninformed consumer the false idea that vitamins are something from which they need to be protected. Countless biased reports are fed to the media for which pharmaceutical companies are a significant source of advertising revenue. The truth is usually the direct opposite of these reports, but your health is far less important to them than their profits. 2000 heart related deaths every day in the United States alone cause them no sleepless nights.
“Risk assessment”
One aspect of this propaganda is a most unscientific "risk assessment" approach, cleverly worded to completely marginalize food supplements and this is leading in a very dangerous direction. To illustrate the way it works – if Pharma can manage to find even just one person who gets diarrhea from 60 milligrams of vitamin C, they will claim that 60 mg is too high and that everybody needs to be “protected” from it. As a result, the so-called “upper safe level” for vitamin C really could then be set as low as 50 milligrams. So this “risk assessment” procedure will lead to low dose, ineffective vitamin products if we do not manage to steer it in the right direction so that it is realistic in terms of human health, rather than being simply a devise to further benefit the shareholders of the pharmaceutical corporations.
One the contrary, most mammals synthesize vitamin C, usually in the range of 30 to 300 mg per kilo (13 to 130 mg per pound) of body weight. Converting this to a man with the average weight of 150 pounds gives us a necessary daily vitamin C intake of approximately 2,000 to 20,000 mg per day. This range has been further confirmed by scientific research.
According to a 1992 study published by the University of California Journal of Epidemiology, you can halve your risk of heart attack by taking just 300 milligrams of vitamin C daily, compared with 50 milligrams per day. To destroy cancer cells with vitamin C, you would need much more, but it can be done and this is also a scientific fact, proven by no less an authority than the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Their study; “Pharmacologic ascorbic acid concentrations selectively kill cancer cells”, was published in September of 2005 in the Journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences by researchers of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Europe leads the world toward sickness and death
One of the next steps built into the European law is to restrict the use of high dose amino acids. With high doses of certain high-dosed amino acids you can stop cancer from spreading through the body. If high-dosed amino acids are no longer available it will be impossible to stop cancer in this way.
The European Union policy on natural health supplements is also being implemented internationally. The World Trade Organization’s ‘Codex Alimentarius” (which is Latin for 'food code' and sounds harmless) is an insidious project.
Under the protective shield of the United Nations, and building on the “work” of the European Union in this regard, the industry is manipulating the truth in order to restrict availability of vitamins, minerals and amino acids for the people of all nations on planet earth to very low, and thus ineffective, levels that do not have the health benefits available from high dosages and therefore do not threaten corporate profits.
While this protects pharmaceutical business interests, it does not protect the interests of the consumer, the natural health product manufacturer, the nutritionist and the natural health practitioner who know that sustained good health depends on high dose nutritional supplementation.
“Natural” or “synthetic” vitamins?
Recently there has been encouraging news from a legal challenge in the European Court of Justice, but this will not affect the eventual outcome of the “harmonization” process. The decision removed food derived supplements from the scope of the directive, but the vitamin content of food derived vitamin products is low and to this degree they are less effective than synthetic vitamins in preventing or curing disease. In fact, the pharmaceutical industry was not particularly interested in restricting food derived vitamins from the outset.
There may be a misunderstanding among consumers and supporters of natural health that food derived vitamins are in some way superior to “synthetic” vitamins. The truth is that vitamins are natural substances no matter whether they are synthesized in a laboratory, in a manufacturing plant or in the human body.
“Synthetic” does not necessarily mean “artificial”. It just means “put together”. So if vitamins are put together correctly in a laboratory or plant, they are exactly the same substances that are found also in nature and in the human body. It is impossible to produce high dose vitamin products in any other way and certainly not in the quantities needed to cure or prevent the main diseases of mankind which otherwise kill 20 million people annually.
Action is needed by YOU!
In summary, it is vital, if we are to rid the world of the scourges of heart disease and cancer, that we protect and maintain our access to high dose vitamin, mineral and amino acid products.
What should you do? Just two things.
Firstly, prove to yourself the health benefits of high dose vitamins, minerals and amino acids and secondly, work energetically and enthusiastically with other informed and aware individuals and organizations to put pressure on your government, elected representatives and appointed officials to ensure that we do maintain our human right under Part 1 of Article 27 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”
That scientific advancement most definitely includes the science of high dose nutritional supplementation and you should be in no doubt as to the benefits of this science.
UNDERSTANDING THE WTO
In order for you to understand more about the World Trade Organization, WINHS has reproduced some segments from the WTO website. Remember, this is the WTO’s account of what it is and what it does. It should be read in conjunction with the information we have provided about its role and collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry and their bureaucratic and government allies.
Essentially, the WTO is a place where member governments go, to try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other. The first step is to talk. The WTO was born out of negotiations, and everything the WTO does is the result of negotiations. The bulk of the WTO's current work comes from the 1986-94 negotiations called the Uruguay Round and earlier negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO is currently the host to new negotiations, under the “Doha Development Agenda” launched in 2001.
Where countries have faced trade barriers and wanted them lowered, the negotiations have helped to liberalize trade. But the WTO is not just about liberalizing trade, and in some circumstances its rules support maintaining trade barriers — for example to protect consumers or prevent the spread of disease.
It’s a set of rules … At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations. These documents provide the legal ground-rules for international commerce. They are essentially contracts, binding governments to keep their trade policies within agreed limits. Although negotiated and signed by governments, the goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business, while allowing governments to meet social and environmental objectives.
The system’s overriding purpose is to help trade flow as freely as possible — so long as there are no undesirable side-effects — because this is important for economic development and well-being. That partly means removing obstacles. It also means ensuring that individuals, companies and governments know what the trade rules are around the world, and giving them the confidence that there will be no sudden changes of policy. In other words, the rules have to be “transparent” and predictable.
And it helps to settle disputes … This is a third important side to the WTO’s work. Trade relations often involve conflicting interests. Agreements, including those painstakingly negotiated in the WTO system, often need interpreting. The most harmonious way to settle these differences is through some neutral procedure based on an agreed legal foundation. That is the purpose behind the dispute settlement process written into the WTO agreements.
Members and Observers
151 member countries as of 27 July 2007 (with dates of membership).
Albania 8 September 2000
Angola 23 November 1996
Antigua and Barbuda 1 January 1995
Argentina 1 January 1995
Armenia 5 February 2003
Australia 1 January 1995
Austria 1 January 1995
Bahrain, Kingdom of 1 January 1995
Bangladesh 1 January 1995
Barbados 1 January 1995
Belgium 1 January 1995
Belize 1 January 1995
Benin 22 February 1996
Bolivia 12 September 1995
Botswana 31 May 1995
Brazil 1 January 1995
Brunei Darussalam 1 January 1995
Bulgaria 1 December 1996
Burkina Faso 3 June 1995
Burundi 23 July 1995
Cambodia 13 October 2004
Cameroon 13 December 1995
Canada 1 January 1995
Central African Republic 31 May 1995
Chad 19 October 1996
Chile 1 January 1995
China 11 December 2001
Colombia 30 April 1995
Congo 27 March 1997
Costa Rica 1 January 1995
Côte d'Ivoire 1 January 1995
Croatia 30 November 2000
Cuba 20 April 1995
Cyprus 30 July 1995
Czech Republic 1 January 1995
Democratic Republic of the Congo 1 January 1997
Denmark 1 January 1995
Djibouti 31 May 1995
Dominica 1 January 1995
Dominican Republic 9 March 1995
Ecuador 21 January 1996
Egypt 30 June 1995
El Salvador 7 May 1995
Estonia 13 November 1999
European Communities 1 January 1995
Fiji 14 January 1996
Finland 1 January 1995
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) 4 April 2003
France 1 January 1995
Gabon 1 January 1995
The Gambia 23 October 1996
Georgia 14 June 2000
Germany 1 January 1995
Ghana 1 January 1995
Greece 1 January 1995
Grenada 22 February 1996
Guatemala 21 July 1995
Guinea 25 October 1995
Guinea Bissau 31 May 1995
Guyana 1 January 1995
Haiti 30 January 1996
Honduras 1 January 1995
Hong Kong, China 1 January 1995
Hungary 1 January 1995
Iceland 1 January 1995
India 1 January 1995
Indonesia 1 January 1995
Ireland 1 January 1995
Israel 21 April 1995
Italy 1 January 1995
Jamaica 9 March 1995
Japan 1 January 1995
Jordan 11 April 2000
Kenya 1 January 1995
Korea, Republic of 1 January 1995
Kuwait 1 January 1995
Kyrgyz Republic 20 December 1998
Latvia 10 February 1999
Lesotho 31 May 1995
Liechtenstein 1 September 1995
Lithuania 31 May 2001
Luxembourg 1 January 1995
Macao, China 1 January 1995
Madagascar 17 November 1995
Malawi 31 May 1995
Malaysia 1 January 1995
Maldives 31 May 1995
Mali 31 May 1995
Malta 1 January 1995
Mauritania 31 May 1995
Mauritius 1 January 1995
Mexico 1 January 1995
Moldova 26 July 2001
Mongolia 29 January 1997
Morocco 1 January 1995
Mozambique 26 August 1995
Myanmar 1 January 1995
Namibia 1 January 1995
Nepal 23 April 2004
Netherlands — For the Kingdom in Europe and for the Netherlands Antilles 1 January 1995
New Zealand 1 January 1995
Nicaragua 3 September 1995
Niger 13 December 1996
Nigeria 1 January 1995
Norway 1 January 1995
Oman 9 November 2000
Pakistan 1 January 1995
Panama 6 September 1997
Papua New Guinea 9 June 1996
Paraguay 1 January 1995
Peru 1 January 1995
Philippines 1 January 1995
Poland 1 July 1995
Portugal 1 January 1995
Qatar 13 January 1996
Romania 1 January 1995
Rwanda 22 May 1996
Saint Kitts and Nevis 21 February 1996
Saint Lucia 1 January 1995
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines 1 January 1995
Saudi Arabia 11 December 2005
Senegal 1 January 1995
Sierra Leone 23 July 1995
Singapore 1 January 1995
Slovak Republic 1 January 1995
Slovenia 30 July 1995
Solomon Islands 26 July 1996
South Africa 1 January 1995
Spain 1 January 1995
Sri Lanka 1 January 1995
Suriname 1 January 1995
Swaziland 1 January 1995
Sweden 1 January 1995
Switzerland 1 July 1995
Chinese Taipei 1 January 2002
Tanzania 1 January 1995
Thailand 1 January 1995
Togo 31 May 1995
Tonga 27 July 2007
Trinidad and Tobago 1 March 1995
Tunisia 29 March 1995
Turkey 26 March 1995
Uganda 1 January 1995
United Arab Emirates 10 April 1996
United Kingdom 1 January 1995
United States of America 1 January 1995
Uruguay 1 January 1995
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 1 January 1995
Viet Nam 11 January 2007
Zambia 1 January 1995
Zimbabwe 5 March 1995
Make A Difference - Become a Member of WINHS
The World Institute of Natural Health Sciences is a non-profit, worldwide institution established to facilitate the defence and support of the natural and alternative health care industries; their sciences, and the individual's right of access.
Our entire purpose is to protect sustainable health here on earth. If you share in that purpose for yourself, your family, your business or community, then become a Member of WINHS by entering your personal details into our database. Your information is fully protected and will NEVER be shared with any outside agency or entity.
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Additionally we will offer suggestions on what steps you can take to help such as writing your government representatives. We will also provide you with suggestions and recommendations and the contact information for your local and national government representatives.
Newsletters will be issued containing information about the campaign, current legislation and news articles of particular interest and relevance to this campaign.
Your feedback and suggestions are ALWAYS welcomed and enables us to maintain a higher level of communication efficiency.
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What is WINHS all About?
The World Institute of Natural Health Sciences (WINHS) is a non-profit, worldwide institution established to facilitate the defence and support of the natural and alternative health care industries; their sciences, and the individual's right of access.
In addition to our own exclusive campaigns and programs, we support and fund national and international projects, organizations and individuals who are proven honest and effective in these efforts. Our entire purpose is to protect the future of sustainable health.
If you share in that purpose for yourself, your family, your business or then community, then become a Member or Supporter of WINHS.
You will be sent exclusive member newsletters containing detailed information about the campaign, current legislation and news articles of particular interest and relevance to this campaign.
Periodic conferences will be scheduled on tactical planning and legislation.
Additionally we will offer suggestions on what steps you can take to help such as writing your government representatives, assisting in promotion and making our voices heard.
We will also provide you with suggestions and recommendations and the contact information for your local and national government representatives.
Your feedback, help and suggestions are ALWAYS welcomed and enable us to maintain a higher level of communication efficiency.
Become a member or supporter of the WINHS Now.
