One of wonderful priviledges I enjoy is that you write to me with your questions, suggestions, ideas, priase, discontents and tell me your actions. I read every single email and respond to each one although sometimes I get behind, so if there is a delay, bear with me: right now I have over 3000 unread emails on my computer but I plowing through them! I want to share something terriffic with you today. Bruce wrote a letter to Susan Davis, the Representative from California District 53 who has introduced the health-hostile HR 3156. I want to share this letter with you: you will find it at the end of this section of today’s blog.
If you remember the blog I published Treating Our Congressional Offices With Effective Communication I suggested some effective letter writing concepts including telling your Congressional delegate what you are concerned about in your own words, making it clear why it matters to you and making your point clearly.
Bruce took time to write a letter, clearly not his first, which I want to share with you to inspire you to write directly and strongly to your Congressional delegates. You can read about the bills to support and oppose and use our email engine to send your letters. I have received several emails saying something like, “I really wanted to send the emails about these bills but I don’t want to write 6 letters. Can’t you just write them for me and make it easy for me?” Well, yes, of course I can but there are two problems to this: 1. Congress pays a whole lot more attention to individualized emails than to bulk emails and 2. YOUR story, your point, your truth does not get shared with Congress! And, believe it or not, Congress actually listens to an avalanche of voices speaking their own truth. Enough voices, enough truth and we become a deafening chorus of power. Form letters dilute our effort. So, here’s a suggestion: write one letter for all of the bills to be opposed. Then customize it for each of the bills that you are writing about. Change the number, change the particular reason that it is a bad idea to correspond to that bill. Telling your story in each one of them is OK because it IS your story or your reason for treasuring both your health and your health freedom.
Even better, of course, is for you to visit the members of Congress who represent you in their home offices and tell them your story. Click on contact Congress to find out who they are and get the information you need to set up your appointments with them. In fact, August is an excellent time since many members of Congress are in their home districts during the August recess. Take a bunch of friends with you armed with talking points and bill numbers. Be brief, courteous, direct and make it clear that you vote, you have lots of friends who vote and all of you care deeply about your health and freedom.
So here are two grass roots action strategies for our struggle to protect and preserve our health freedoms against all comers: yours letters and your visits to Congress. Congress does not underestimate the importance of these acts, neither should we. And when you do visit your Congressmen and women, drop me an email at rima.laibow@healthfreedomusa.org to let me know whom you have visited and what his/her response was to your visit and your position on the bills and issues.
Here is Bruce’s letter to Susan Davis:
________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Representative Davis;
There are times-obviously-when people of good intentions disagree with each other.
This is one of those times. Actually, disagree, is too ‘light’ a word for what I feel and think.
I am outraged beyond belief at your introduction of H.R. 3156. I have written you before regarding the deaths and illnesses associated with prescription drugs which have a definite and documented history of the harm. HR 3156 appears misdirected. It comes at a time when the side effects emanating from properly prescribed and ingested prescription drugs result in the needless death of more than 100,000 Americans annually.
WHERE is legislation that would adequately protect the public from unsafe over-the-counter or prescription drugs? Relatively troublesome drugs like Vioxx and Bextra have been returned to pharmacy shelves with black box warnings that put the burden on consumers to check for potential side effects.THERE IS NO SUCH HISTORY ASSOCIATED WITH HERBS !!!!!!!!! I dare you to show where there has been any ‘adverse effect’ as defined in your bill that is SPECIFICALLY attributable to a ‘herb or botanical’. There is NONE. And since ‘botanical’ means “The seed of a plant or tree, regarded as the means of reproduction, together with its envelope” are you going to have growers of tomatoes reporting to the ‘Secretary’?
Add to that the provision which specifies “‘‘(3)(A) For purposes of clause (A) or (B) of subparagraph (1), the Secretary shall consider a dietary supplement or dietary ingredient as presenting an unreasonable risk of illness or injury if the Secretary determines that the risks of such product outweighs its benefits, as indicated by a relative weighing of the known and reasonably likely risks of the product against its known and reasonably likely benefits. In the absence of a sufficient benefit, the presence of even a relatively small risk of a serious adverse health effect to a user may be considered by the Secretary as unreasonable.”
WHERE are the checks and balances? I don’t need the ‘Secretary’ telling me what I can and can’t ingest of a herb or botanical. This is nothing but a clever disguise at trying to have the U.S. conform to the EU standards which are being challenged in ourt. AND it has been shown that the ‘toxilogical studies’ used in such testing in the EU(and the Euro.Parliament doesn’t have a say in the EU which is why the EU Constitution got shot down-“taxation without representation” ) are those used for chemicals NOT ‘herbs and botanicals’. AND all of this is the result of ‘bio-pharma’ companies in Europe lobbying the EU. Don’t we have enough problems here in the U.S. with pharmaceutical companies without adding fuel to the fire? Simply stated why are you introducing legislation for which there is not a problem?
An excellent example of the harm such wording ‘herbs and botanicals’ will cause is what has happened regarding kava kava. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued just a similar warning, asking physicians to report adverse reactions associated with kava kava supplements, an anti-anxiety herbal product. The public was also warned to report any side effects and the FDA warning was published in newspapers and on TV news reports. Later, published studies cleared kava kava from any suspicion, but the damage had been done. The public backed away fom kava supplements based upon the bulletin issued by the FDA, and today kava farmers in the South Pacific have plowed up their fields. A $25
million product was destroyed by FDA meddling. The same destruction could result from the passage of HR 3156. Your legislation appears to have been written without adequate prior evidence that vitamin, mineral or herbal products pose a mortal or serious risk to humans. One wonders at your motivation. And this clause “(B) A determination by the Secretary under clause (A) with respect to the risk of a product may be made on the basis of any science-based evidence of risk, without THE NEED TO PROVE that the substance has actually caused harm in particular cases.” is ludicrous. IF ‘science based’ testing was without chance of error, maybe, but the ‘out’ of ‘no need to prove’ gives the type of power to the ‘Secretary’ that dictators have; are you now saying you approve of dictatorial actions on the part of government without the need to prove such actions are needed?
Be assured I will let ALL of San Diego know what this legislation will do and whose legislation it is. And I will work diligently to make sure that the
Senate never let’s this legislation see the light of day as worded.
Bruce (Last Name)
(Address)
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