WHY S.830 IS SO DANGEROUS:
S.830, the FDA Modernization and Accountability Act of 1997 is hazardus to
your health and must be stopped, heres 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 
w.
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!
The 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_.
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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
http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/hammell/index.html
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