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Natural Solutions Foundation
November 16, 2009
Natural Solutions Foundation is the largest and most effective health freedom organization in the world. We are 100% supporter supported. Your tax deductible donations are essential to our work. Click here, http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=189, to set up your recurring donation, large or small.
Donations ending in the number “6” are earmarked for our legal fund, allowing us to sue the FDA, for example, to stop the deployment of untested vaccines like the dangerous Swine Flu Vaccine.
Natural Solutions Foundation is working hard to end the ravages of the type of industrial agriculture you’ll read about below. Through our Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project we’re reclaiming the production of food, making them eligible for Friendly Food Certification(TM) because it is friendly to the earth, friendly to the workers and friendly to the consumer. The first Friendly Food Certified(TM) food is our GMO-Free, Pesticide-Free, Toxin-Free Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee grown in the Highlands of Panama and brought to your coffee cup so you can Wake Up to Health Freedom(TM). Click here, http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, to order your Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee and support health freedom and your health. Your gift list, both personal and corporate, will appreciate it. And your accountant will appreciate it, too, because 80% of each purchase of Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee is tax deductible!
Industrial Agriculture is now going global, with its dislocation, its toxic environments, its massive profits and its social destruction under the guise of nations looking for fresh farmland.
Food is the new oil. Corporations are the not-so-new sharks – well, that is not fair to sharks. They have a real place in the biosphere and the multinationals have made it clear over decades and decades of abuse that their place in the economic ecoshphere might be best compared to Darth Vader.
The Natural Solutions Foundation, www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, has identified food sustainable food production, and, of course, land ownership by those producing the sustainable food on it, as a key issue for health, community cohesion and economic success, social strength, freedom and, indeed, peace.
It is for that reason that we have established the remarkable, and vitally important Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project in the Chiriqui Highlands of Panama. We believe that access to food, clean, unadulterated food, is a basic human right and that restricting that access is a massively powerful way to remove rights and take away basic human needs and, eventually, life.
Our work here is local, but our impact is global. By the way, if you are interested in either visiting the Valley of the Moon, becoming a participant in this sustainable community or or volunteering here, please join at our VotM Yahoo! Forum, NSF-Panama, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NSF-Panama/join or our Volunteer’s Forum, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NSF-Panama/.
At VotM we are practicing what we preach and are creating schools for a melding of ancient and modern techniques to reclaim the production of clean, unadulterated food for both farmers and non farmers alike.
In fact, in addition to our Intensive Urban Agriculture classes and courses with children and adults using many of the techniques you can see on our Food Freedom eJournal, www.FoodFreedomeJournal.org, we are now heavily involved in removing the dangerous chemicals from coffee and food production. Cattle production, for example, uses many different toxic chemicals for keeping pests at bay and, in some cases, increasing milk production.
Natural Solutions Foundation has been asked by the government here to help farmers break the dangerous cycle of chemical and drug inputs leading to weaker ecosystems and animals which then require more of the expensive and dangerous inputs.
Add corporate land ownership, where there is zero interest in health, sustainability or cultural cohesion and you have Monsanto’s GMO cotton farming disaster in India where tragically high numbers of farmers, having lost their land to the deceptive practices of GMO cotton companies, see no recourse but to kill themselves after they have lost their land and have no means to sustain themselves and their families.
For more information on this problem in India, please visit “The Dying Fields“, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/the-dying-fields/global-cotton-industry/farmer-suicides-in-india/1948/.
Why is reclaiming the production of food important to you, today? If you live in the US, about 90% of the food you eat either IS GMO or contains GMO ingredients. GMO foods are now known to cause cancer, autoimmune diseases, infertility, birth defects, loss of CD-4 cells to the point that the criteria for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (yes, that’s right: HIV/AIDS) are met, and a host of serious, permanent diseases and mutations. These altered foods contain material which crosses the placental and blood brain barriers to cause permanent genetic changes, as they do in the bacteria of the GI tract and in every cell in the body.
“But I eat only certified organic food!” you may say. Well and good IF you are growing your own organic food, protected from both pesticide and genetic drift. Otherwise, the US allows 10% or more GMO contamination of organic food without any labeling. Indeed, labeling of GMO foods is actually prohibited in the US because, as Dr. Barbara Schneeman announced at a Codex Meeting in Norway on the topic, since the FDA administratively determined that genetically modified foods are “substantially equivalent” to non modified foods [in the absence of a single shred of scientific support for this concept – if they were substantially identical, they would not be patentable – REL] and since consumers would reject these genetically modified foods if they knew that they WERE genetically modified, the FDA is preventing them from making an error in rejecting them. So, instead, the FDA and USDA are carrying out the world’s largest experiment on every eater on the planet. It is an experiment carried out, of course, without any informed consent. On you. On your children. On the children that you, or others, will never have because of the sterility impact of these foods.
But that is not all, of course. Corporate agriculture pumps poisons (that is a literal description, of course, not a figurative one) into the bodies of the workers, the environment and the bodies of the consumers. If the land becomes too toxic, or the water no longer supports growth and life, the corporation moves on, like a parasite which has sucked the life out of its host and then, when the host can no longer support it, drops off and moves on to another host.
Food and freedom are intimately intertwined. This theme has been with us for a very long time. Look at the myths of the bible: remember that when Essau was hungry, he sold his birthright to Jacob. When Joseph and his brothers were hungry, they traded their freedom for the fleshpots of Egypt.
Industrial Agriculture can be, if its owners wish it, the newest form of scorched earth policy: stave those whom you do not wish to survive.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the MoonTM Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketplace.org
The article published below is a study from GRAIN, www.Grain.org
Published on Sunday, November 15, 2009 by GRAIN
The New Farm Owners: Corporate Investors Lead the Rush for Control over Overseas Farmland
by GRAIN
With all the talk about “food security,” and distorted media statements like “South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s land,”1 it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today’s global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments.
“This is going to be a private initiative.”
– Amin Abaza, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture, explaining Egyptian farmland acquisitions in other African nations, on World Food Day 2009
Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).
This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them.
“What started as a government drive to secure cheap food resource has now become a viable business model and many Gulf companies are venturing into agricultural investments to diversify their portfolios.”
– Sarmad Khan, “Farmland investment fund is seeking more than Dh1bn”, The National, Dubai, 12 September 2009
Moreover, there’s a tendency to assume that private-sector involvement in the global land grab amounts to traditional agribusiness or plantation companies, like Unilever or Dole, simply expanding the contract farming model of yesterday. In fact, the high-power finance industry, with little to no experience in farming, has emerged as a crucial corporate player. So much so that the very phrase “investing in agriculture”, today’s mantra of development bureaucrats, should not be understood as automatically meaning public funds. It is more and more becoming the business of … big business.
The role of finance capital
GRAIN has tried to look more closely at who the private sector investors currently taking over farmlands around the world for offshore food production really are. From what we have gathered, the role of finance capital — investment funds and companies — is truly significant. We have therefore constructed a table to share this picture. The table outlines over 120 investment structures, most of them newly created, which are busy acquiring farmland overseas in the aftermath of the financial crisis.3 Their engagement, whether materialised or targeted, rises into the tens of billions of dollars. The table is not exhaustive, however. It provides only a sample of the kinds of firms or instruments involved, and the levels of investment they are aiming for.
Private investors are not turning to agriculture to solve world hunger or eliminate rural poverty. They want profit, pure and simple. And the world has changed in ways that now make it possible to make big money from farmland. From the investors’ perspective, global food needs are guaranteed to grow, keeping food prices up and providing a solid basis for returns on investment for those who control the necessary resource base. And that resource base, particularly land and water, is under stress as never before. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, so-called alternative investments, such as infrastructure or farmland, are all the rage. Farmland itself is touted as providing a hedge against inflation. And because its value doesn’t go up and down in sync with other assets like gold or currencies, it allows investors to successfully diversify their portfolios.
“We are not farmers. We are a large company that uses state-of-the-art technology to produce high-quality soybean. The same way you have shoemakers and computer manufacturers, we produce agricultural commodities.” Laurence Beltrão Gomes of SLC Agrícola, the largest farm company in Brazil.
But it’s not just about land, it’s about production. Investors are convinced that they can go into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc to consolidate holdings, inject a mix of technology, capital and management skills, lay down the infrastructures and transform below-potential farms into large-scale agribusiness operations. In many cases, the goal is to generate revenue streams both from the harvests and from the land itself, whose value they expect to go up. It is a totally corporate version of the Green Revolution, and their ambitions are big. “My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector,” said Joseph Carvin of Altima Partners’ One World Agriculture Fund to a gathering of global farmland investors in New York in June 2009. No wonder, then, that governments, the World Bank and the UN want to be associated with this. But it is not their show.
From rich to richer
“I’m convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that’s a long ways away yet.”
– George Soros, June 2009
Today’s emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like. The pace and extent of their appetite is remarkable – but unsurprising, given the scramble to recover from the financial crisis.
Consolidated data are lacking, but we can see that billions of dollars are going into farmland acquisitions for a growing number of “get rich quick” schemes. And some of those dollars are hard-earned retirement savings of teachers, civil servants and factory workers from countries such as the US or the UK. This means that a lot of ordinary citizens have a financial stake in this trend, too, whether they are aware of it or not.
It also means that a new, powerful lobby of corporate interests is coming together, which wants favourable conditions to facilitate and protect their farmland investments. They want to tear down burdensome land laws that prevent foreign ownership, remove host-country restrictions on food exports and get around any regulations on genetically modified organisms. For this, we can be sure that they will be working with their home governments, and various development banks, to push their agendas around the globe through free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and donor conditionalities.
“When asked whether a transfer of foreign, ‘superior’, agricultural technology would be welcome compensation for the acquisition of Philippine lands, the farmers from Negros Occidental responded with a general weariness and unequivocal retort that they were satisfied with their own knowledge and practices of sustainable, diverse and subsistence-based farming. Their experience of high-yielding variety crops, and the chemical-intensive technologies heralded by the Green Revolution, led them to the conclusion that they were better off converting to diverse, organic farming, with the support of farmer-scientist or member organizations such as MASIPAG and PDG Inc.”
– Theodora Tsentas, “Foreign state-led land acquisitions and neocolonialism: A qualitative case study of foreign agricultural development in the Philippines”, September 2009
Indeed, the global land grab is happening within the larger context of governments, both in the North and the South, anxiously supporting the expansion of their own transnational food and agribusiness corporations as the primary answer to the food crisis. The deals and programmes being promoted today all point to a restructuring and expansion of the industrial food system, based on capital-intensive large-scale monocultures for export markets. While that may sound “old hat”, several things are new and different. For one, the infrastructure needs for this model will be dealt with. (The Green Revolution never did that.) New forms of financing, as our table makes plain, are also at the base of it. Thirdly, the growing protagonism of corporations and tycoons from the South is also becoming more important. US and European transnationals like Cargill, Tyson, Danone and Nestlé, which once ruled the roost, are now being flanked by emerging conglomerates such as COFCO, Olam, Savola, Almarai and JBS.4 A recent report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development pointed out that a solid 40% of all mergers and acquisitions in the field of agricultural production last year were South-South.5 To put it bluntly, tomorrow’s food industry in Africa will be largely driven by Brazilian, ethnic Chinese and Arab Gulf capital.
Exporting food insecurity
Given the heavy role of the private sector in today’s land grabs, it is clear that these firms are not interested in the kind of agriculture that will bring us food sovereignty. And with hunger rising faster than population growth, it will not likely do much for food security, either.
One farmers’ leader from Synérgie Paysanne in Benin sees these land grabs as fundamentally “exporting food insecurity”. For they are about answering some people’s needs – for maize or money – by taking food production resources away from others. He is right, of course. In most cases, these investors are themselves not very experienced in running farms. And they are bound, as the Coordinator of MASIPAG in the Philippines sees it, to come in, deplete the soils of biological life and nutrients through intensive farming, pull out after a number of years and leave the local communities with “a desert”.
“Entire communities have been dispossessed of their lands for the benefit of foreign investors. (…) Land must remain a community heritage in Africa.”
– N’Diogou Fall, ROPPA (West African Network of Producers and Peasant Organisations), June 2009
The talk about channeling this sudden surge of dollars and dirhams into an agenda for resolving the global food crisis could be seen as quirky if it were not downright dangerous. From the United Nations headquarters in New York to the corridors of European capitals, everyone is talking about making these deals “win-win”. All we need to do, the thinking goes, is agree on a few parameters to moralise and discipline these land grab deals, so that they actually serve local communities, without scaring investors off. The World Bank even wants to create a global certification scheme and audit bureau for what could become “sustainable land grabbing”, along the lines of what’s been tried with oil palm, forestry or other extractive industries.
Before jumping on the bandwagon of “win-win”, it would be wise to ask “With whom? Who are the investors? What are their interests?” It is hard to believe that, with so much money on the line, with so much accumulated social experience in dealing with mass land concessions and conversions in the past, whether from mining or plantations, and given the central role of the finance and agribusiness industries here, these investors would suddenly play fair. Just as hard to believe is that governments or international agencies would suddenly be able to hold them to account.
“Some companies are interested in buying agricultural land for sugar cane and then selling it on the international markets. It’s business, nothing more” Sharad Pawar, India’s Minister of Agriculture, rejecting claims that his government is supporting a new colonisation of African farmland, 28 June 2009
Making these investments work is simply not the right starting point.
Supporting small farmers efforts for real food sovereignty is. Those are two highly polarised agendas and it would be mistaken to pass off one for the other. It is crucial to look more closely at who the investors are and what they really want. But it is even more important to put the search for solutions to the food crisis on its proper footing.
References
1 – It was not South Korea, but Daewoo Logistics.
2 – See GRAIN, “Mauritius leads land grabs for rice in Mozambique”, Oryza hibrida, 1 September 2009. http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221 (Available in English, French and Portuguese.)
3 – The table covers three types of entities: specialized funds, most of them farmland funds; asset and investment managers; and participating investors. We are aware that this is a broad mixture, but it was important for us to keep the table simple: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266
4 – COFCO is based in China, Olam is based in Singapore, Savola is based in Saudi Arabia, Almarai is based in Saudi Arabia, and JBS is based in Brazil.
5 – World Investment Report 2009, UNCTAD, Geneva, September 2009, p. xxvii. Most foreign direct investment takes place through mergers and acquisitions.
© 2009 GRAIN
GRAIN is a small international non-profit organization that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Their support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building.
NAIS in Sheep’s Clothing
Natural Solutions Foundation
Donate to Keep Health Freedom Free. All donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=189
Take this Action Step NOW for every member of your family/household and mobilize everyone you can reach to do the same: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
Visit your Senator to tell him/her how strongly you insist that he/she protect both your food and your freedom. Here is a printable fact sheet you can use to either send to people in your emails or hand out to your Senator and people in health food stores, community members, etc.: http://www.lifespirit.org/FoodSafetyBills-leafletFINAL.pdf
The Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about the coming of Codex to our food supply, with its degradation of every aspect of our food freedom and quality for quite some time. We are so concerned about this food and freedom issue that we are creating the innovative Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, in Volcan, Panama, to teach farmers and non farmers alike how to reclaim the production of food. But meanwhile, the US is loosing its food freedom and its freedom all at the same time.
HR 2749, and its sister bill which the Senate will consider when it reconvenes in September brings it all back home. The article below is long, detailed and vitally important to you and your family. This is not simply a technical bill for technocrats. This is real life food slavery for you and for your family unless we act now.
HR 2749 takes giant steps forward in bringing what none of us want to see into being. HR 2749’s sister bill must NOT pass in the Senate if you value the health that comes from food, value your freedom to grow and source the type of clean, unadulterated food you value and if you do not want to see, eat and be, a global food slave. To date, as I write this, some 876,996 emails have been generated to tell Congress to safeguard, not destroy, our health and our food supply, as well as our freedom. It is imperative that we make sure that the Senate understands that this is not a request, it is a demand. If you have not generated emails to stop this invasion of the Constitution, your health freedom and your food and pets, do so now.
The article below focuses on just one aspect of that program, the National Animal Identification System or NAIS.
There has been a long and powerful battle in the US against NAIS, a regulatory and chipping system which would place extraordinary burdens on small farmers, raising costs of “traceability” and farming practices so high as to drive them out of business, leaving the field to the industrial giants, the Codex Criminals who want food produced cheaply enough to make them even richer – and care nothing about health, safety or the future of either food or your family.
HR 2749, passed under great pressure by the House of Representatives on July 31, 2009, just as it went on August recess, is a disastrous bill for food, for freedom and for farmers. It is a disastrous bill for you. If you keep pets, it is a disastrous bill for them, too.
When we gained successful push back when Congresswoman Rosa Delaurio (CT-D) agreed not to fund NAIS in Committee, we knew that the issue would be back around. And here it is.
Please take the Action Step in our Three for Liberty Campaign, http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3262, right now, once for each member of your family. Then let every single person you know or can reach that it is urgent that they do the same IF they believe in their right to clean, unadulterated food, do not want Codex’ international globalization standards implemented, want to support small and organic farmers, do not want their pets chipped (yes, their pets!) with devices which have been shown to cause cancer, do not want the FDA to be able to declare martial law (!) and seize property in cases of food contamination and want to be able to grow their own gardens without having to adhere to Codex standards, complete with PIN number!
This is not the United States we believe we live in. This is global food fascism, nothing more and nothing less. Don’t let it happen. It really is up to us.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the Moon Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Welcome to the Global Plantation: HR 2749 Authorizes International Take-Over of Domestic Food Production
© Doreen Hannes 2009
Published by permission of the author
HR 2749 AUTHORIZES NAIS and OTHER INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Congressional staffers have been telling people that HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, does not authorize the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Many organic groups have agreed with them. However, this is misleading. Though HR 2749 does not name “the” National Animal Identification System, it still authorizes the program. It also does not state that it legally authorizes Good Agricultural Practices, or GAP, partially comprising Codex guidelines on traceability and food safety, and the OIE’s Guide to Good Farming Practices including auditing, certification and inspections, disincentives for not participating in the form of fines, penalties, and loss of access to market, but it does. Is it possible that Congress was not aware of what it voted on? The bill was changed three times in a 24-hour period before passing the House 283-142 on July 30, 2009.
Are these assertions about HR 2749 wild and unsubstantiated? Proving them is fairly easy—just understand “Good Agricultural Practices” (GAP), how the agencies of the World Trade Organization operate within member countries to achieve them and what comprises the actual jurisdiction of the FDA and USDA. A brief explanation follows, along with substantiating quotes from HR 2749.
First we look to jurisdiction in HR2749….
“Nothing in this Act or any amendment made by this Act shall be construed to alter the jurisdiction between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, under applicable statutes and regulations…” (p.3&4)
Then, tossing our preconceived notions to the wind and looking to law instead, we find that congressional testimony of the FDA on establishing a single food safety agency and a myriad of other sources including the FAO (Food and Ag Organization of the UN), the FDA statements on the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, and many books on food law affirm that FDA has jurisdiction over live food animals:
“FDA is the Federal agency that regulates 80 percent of the nation’s food supply-everything we eat except for meat, poultry, and certain egg products, which are regulated by our partners at USDA. FDA’s responsibility extends to live food animals…”(Cfans Director, March 2004 Congressional hearing)
So then what is the authority of the USDA? It is over agricultural disease, animals in the slaughter channel or transport, marketing (like grading of eggs and certification of processes) and the end product of many (but not all) food animals; meat. This is why NAIS always had to be “about disease” because the USDA couldn’t run it otherwise! The exemption section on USDA regulated products is a dust up. Most people think the USDA has authority over live food animals, but it is the FDA after all. They surrender “cow, sheep or goat for milk production”, but the FDA retains authority of the fluid milk and when the animal is no longer productive for milking, it’s into the slaughter channel (under USDA) or out to pasture (back to FDA) anyway!
“Livestock and poultry that are intended to be presented for slaughter pursuant to the regulations by the Secretary of Agriculture under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act are exempt from the requirements of this Act. A cow, sheep, or goat that is used for the production of milk is exempt from the requirements of this Act.” (p.5 of HR2749)
HR 2749 is 160 pages (July 29 version) and contains the following references to international standards and guidelines (emphasis added for clarity) (all page numbers refer to the PDF file):
“(B) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS.—In issuing guidance or regulations… the Secretary shall review international hazard analysis and preventive control standards that are in existence on the date of the enactment of this Act and relevant to such guidelines or regulations to ensure that the programs…..are consistent……with such standards.” (p. 35)
“CONSISTENCY WITH INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS.—The Secretary shall apply this paragraph consistently with United States obligations under international agreements.” (p. 81)
“The Secretary shall issue regulations to ensure that any qualified certifying entity and its auditors are free from conflicts of interest. In issuing these regulations, the Secretary may rely on or incorporate international certification standards.” (p. 82)
This means that there will be a layer of auditors, certifiers and inspectors over every aspect of food production in this country and that these inspectors and certifiers will be trained in ISO (International Standards Organization) management program certification. The ISO has been working with Codex Alimentarius on Food Safety Standards and, in particular, a technical standard for Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) which is a consortium of the seven largest food retailers in the world, and that is ISO22000:2005. All traceability (read NAIS) falls under the purview of Codex, the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) for global trade agreements.
The following excerpt from HR 2749 shows the fully interoperable global network already in existence regarding food and its production:
“Development of such guidelines shall take into account the utilization of existing unique identification schemes and compatibility with customs automated systems, such as integration with the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and the International Trade Data System (ITDS), and any successor systems.” (p. 142)
So it is clear that international standards and guidelines are implicit in this legislation. Note the usage of the command form SHALL. This isn’t a ‘might’, ‘may’ or in anyway a voluntary issue on the part of the Secretary. Then there is the section on Traceability. This is a code word in the National Animal Identification System and when one reads Sec.107 of this bill, it describes specific components of NAIS down to 48-hour trace-back, which cannot even be fantasized about with out individual animal identification.
“…..the Secretary shall issue regulations establishing a tracing system that enables the Secretary to identify each person who grows, produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, holds, or sells such food in as short a timeframe as practicable but no longer than 2 business days.” [note that it says “grows”] (p. 70)
and…
“……use a unique identifier for each facility owned or operated by such person for such purpose…” (p. 69)
So we have PIN (Premises Identification Number) and 48-hour traceback harmonizing with international standards and guidelines along with this:
“….‘‘(C) COORDINATION REGARDING FARM IMPACT.—In issuing regulations under this paragraph that will impact farms, the Secretary ‘‘(i) shall coordinate with the Secretary of Agriculture; and ‘‘(ii) take into account the nature of the impact of the regulations on farms.” (p. 71)
Now that I’ve killed you with legalese, it’s time to let you find out just what these international standards and guidelines mean to those engaged in agriculture in this country.
“GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES”
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are not a standard in and of themselves. They are a combination of standards and guidelines set forth by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO), through both the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) and IPPC to meet the certification and auditing side of the international trade aspects of the standards set forth. The OIE and Codex are charged with setting global standards and guidelines for the member countries of the WTO to meet and satisfy the SPS (Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary), TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) and Equivalency agreements of the WTO for participation in international trade. Both the OIE and CODEX have guidelines for traceability that, with the passage of HR2749 into law, would be written into regulations governing all interstate commerce within the boundaries of the United States. The components of traceability are the pillars of NAIS that many of us have become so familiar with in the course of the battle over the past several years. Those being 1) Premises Identification 2) Animal Identification and 3) Animal Tracking. You can’t have traceability under international standards without having those three components.
One of the main issues in the implementation of these standards and guidelines within a member nation of the WTO is that they must have a legal framework through which to regulate and enforce these guidelines and standards. HR 2749 would meet the criteria for that legal framework by way of the excerpts from the bill above.
In the OIE’s “Guide to Good Farming Practices” the management of a livestock facility are clearly spelled out. Some of these recommendations that would become defacto law in the US under agency rule-making on passage of HR2749 (GGFP delineates international guidelines for food safety at the farm level) are:
– For each animal…Require and keep all commercial and health documents enabling their exact itinerary to be traced from their farm or establishment to their final destination…
-Keep a record of all persons entering the farm…..
-Keep medical certificates of persons working with the animals……
-Keep documents proving the water you give to the animals meets specific criteria
-Keep samples of all feed given to the animals
-Keep all documents from official inspections
-Keep records of treatment and procedures on all animals (castration, disbudding, calving, medications, etc.)
-Prevent domestic animals (cats and dogs) from roaming in and around livestock buildings
-Place all these documents at the disposal of the competent authority (Veterinary Services) when it conducts farm visits.
Some of the other guidelines and standards that would come into play after the implementation of traceability for all agricultural products would be : (from FAO COAG/17 “Development of a Framework for Good Agricultural Practices”) “the adoption and implementation of international standards and codes for which Codex food safety standards and guidelines have been designed, and the associated capacity building, training, development and field implementation in the context of the different production systems and agro-ecozones. These include: Enhancing Food Quality and Safety by Strengthening Handling, Processing and Marketing in the Food Chain (214A9); Capacity Building and Risk Analysis Methodologies for Compliance with Food Safety Standards and Pesticide Control (215P1); Food Quality Control and Consumer Protection (221P5); Food Safety Assessment and Rapid Alert System (221P6); and Food Quality and Safety Throughout the Food Chain (221P8).”*
To be certified as meeting the requirements of “GAP”, which is synonymous with being in compliance with international standards and guidelines, we can check out GlobalGAP.org. This is “the” certifying methodology for international trade in ag products. Here are a few excerpts from their 122-page general regulations booklet that has links to checklists for those who would be certifiers and auditors under the principles of GAP. This is an organization, not a governing body under WTO agreements, but working with nations and businesses to meet the criteria regarding these GAP practices for international trade. Here is a bare minimum of excerpts from their regulation document:
-(ii) Developing a Good Agricultural Practice (G.A.P.) framework for benchmarking existing assurance schemes and standards including traceability. (iii) Providing guidance for continuous improvement and the development and understanding of best practice. (iv) Establish a single, recognised framework for independent verification.
-Production Location: A production unit or group of production units, covered by the same ownership, operational procedures, farm management, and GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) decision-making activities.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracing product from the producer’s immediate customer back to the producer and certified farm.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracking product from the producer to his immediate customer.
In simple English, which appears to be highly lacking in all these guidelines, it means NAIS for everything, and for anyone who wishes to be engaged in agriculture….Remember the “grows” phrase from the earlier excerpt from HR2749. Now let’s look at some of the ‘exception’ clauses in HR2749. This bill is a terrifically crafty piece of legislation that is designed to cloud the reader’s understanding of the impact of the law being proposed in it. All of the exception clauses give the exception under this Act so long as you are ready to be regulated under a different Act. We’ll just look at a couple of these clauses to allow you to get the gist of the lack of exception available through the exceptions….
“EXCEPTIONS”
Farms- A farm is exempt from the requirements of this Act to the extent such farm raises animals from which food is derived that is regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or the Egg Products Inspection Act.
‘‘(I) such an operation that packs or holds food, provided that all food used in such activities is grown, raised, or consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership;
‘‘(II) such an operation that manufactures or processes food, provided that all food used in such activities is consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership; (pages9 and10)
Thus, if you grow everything you feed and consume everything you grow, and use no minerals or salts that you don’t mine yourself, you may be exempt. Or, in plain English, don’t even try to make a living in agriculture if you won’t comply with these rules.
One more exception to contend with here is:
‘(A) DIRECT SALES BY FARMS- Food is exempt from the requirements of this subsection if such food is–
‘(i) produced on a farm; and
‘(ii) sold by the owner, operator, or agent in charge of such farm directly to a consumer or to a restaurant or grocery store. (page 71)
This sounds good. However, there are several problems with this that are not evident without some knowledge of how things are done in the traditional avenues open for market to growers. First of all, cattle, whom you may recall as the primary target of the NAIS Business Plan, are often sold either at auction barns or via potload to feedlots. It is illegal to sell beef directly from the farm to consumers in every state that I know of. People often will sell a calf ready to butcher in halves or quarters to people and deliver the calf to the slaughter facility for the consumer, but this is far from the normal route of commerce in cattle or other species of meat animal. Even if you can securely wedge your operation into this particular exemption, they get you later via the record keeping section of this bill:
‘(E) RECORDKEEPING REGARDING PREVIOUS SOURCES AND SUBSEQUENT RECIPIENTS- For a food or person covered by a limitation or exemption under subparagraph (B), (C), or (D), the Secretary shall require each person who produces, receives, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, distributes, or holds such food to maintain records to identify the immediate previous sources of such food and its ingredients and the immediate subsequent recipients of such food.
‘(F) RECORDKEEPING BY RESTAURANTS AND GROCERY STORES- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), restaurants and grocery stores shall keep records documenting the farm that was the source of the food.
‘(G) RECORDKEEPING BY FARMS- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), farms shall keep records, in electronic or non-electronic format, for at least 6 months documenting the restaurant or grocery store to which the food was sold.’ (pp. 74-75)
So being exempt means you are required to keep records. Keeping required records means you could be required to release those records. So how exempt can a person get under this legislation? Especially when the slaughter facilities will all be regulated unless the USDA already regulates them?
PENALTIES AND FINES
Then of course, as with any law, there are the fines and penalties. These are from $20,000 to $1,000,000 per violation. (p. 122)
NO JUDICIAL REVIEW
There is also the change under the seizure section that takes away judicial overview…(double quotations indicate amending language)
…….procedure in cases under this section shall conform, as nearly as may be, to the procedure in admiralty; except that on demand of either party any issue of fact joined in any such case shall be tried by jury, “”and except that, with respect to proceedings relating to food, Rule G of the Supplemental Rules of Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions shall not apply in any such case, exigent circumstances shall be deemed to exist for all seizures brought under this section, and the summons and arrest warrant shall be issued by the clerk of the court without court review in any such case””…… (p. 116)
So we can just throw out that pesky Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of probable cause as well via this wording from page 117:
by striking ‘‘credible evidence or information indicating’’ and inserting ‘‘reason to believe’’;
There are many other dangerous aspects to HR 2749, like seizures, quarantines, and licensing and whistle blower provisions, but this should leave no doubt that this bill will indeed affect farms and has the potential to affect even home food production if an agency decides to apply the international risk analysis schemes to that venue. This bill opens a huge regulatory nightmare that is only evident when one knows what the international guidelines and standards consist of in regard to agriculture. Understanding those, it is highly unlikely that they will issue regulations that keep things as they are now.
Now, the questions that everyone involved in agriculture, meaning everyone who eats, must ask themselves are these:
Can regulating, fining and destroying the freedom of people to grow food create food safety?
Have the impacts of so-called “Free Trade” on this nation been beneficial for the citizens of this country?
Have food safety concerns increased or decreased since we have begun to import more food under these trade agreements?
And ultimately, does the US Constitution provide for the voidance of the Bill of Rights to participate in global trade?
My copy of the Constitution clearly does not allow for any law to void the Bill of Rights which is unalienable and Constitutionally guaranteed. It’s time to let our Federal representatives know in no uncertain terms, that everything to do with governance ultimately comes down to the consent of the governed, and we will not consent to being run by international agencies.
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My deep thanks to Paul Griepentrog, who helped in going through the legislation and many of the ramifications and amendments to current law under this Act.
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
This detailed posting gives yet another example of why the FDA must be divested of its food authority before its mismanagement causes even more harm. The Federal Govt’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding GMO (genetically modified organisms) creates conditions for a mega-disaster of unknown severity.
For more on Divesting the FDA:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1601
Dr. Laibow
———————–
Plant Based Vaccines Under Development World Wide
Once genetic material migrates from a modified plant or animal into other plants, animals, insect, or what have you, that migration is permanent except for one thing: the DNA is not stable so it literally “jumps around” causing novel proteins to be expressed.
Novel proteins, or proteins which have never existed before during the course of all life on this planet, have novel impacts. Read that as “infertility”, “sterility”, “cancers”, “auto-immune diseases”, “Joint and connective tissue diseases”, “neurological diseases”, “fetal death”, “failure to thrive”, “infant mortality”, etc. Babies in utero are particularly susceptible to the impact of these “novel proteins”, but no one is immune.
Worse, the genes have no stable place to reside in the DNA of whatever cell they are working in this week so they move from place to place to place inside the nucleus of the cell, causing the resident genes to change their functions and produce yet more novel proteins.
Now ask yourself what happens if vaccine-producing plants (or industrial-product producing plants – the issue is identical) mingle their pollen with the plants that produce your food and the food of the animals of this planet. The USDA has reduced the already close-to-non-existent controls on industrial plant growth next to, and contaminating, food plants. For example, for 5 years Bayer’s Crop Science vaccine rice was growing next to, and contaminating, food rice in Louisiana. Bayer knew about it (perhaps the USDA did, too – we do not have that information) and said nothing.
When the contamination was discovered, Bayer was not fined or sanctioned by the US Government and the contaminated rice was simply sold to the US Military for its troops in Iraq (!!!). US Military labs detected the contamination and the rice was then sold to sub Saharan African countries like Ghana. There, in every rice market that was tested, the contaminated rice was found. Poor people, buying their daily food, were eating poisoned rice, courtesy of the Biotech Industry, Bayer Crop Science (from Beyer, the same corporation that knowingly sold HIV contaminated blood fractions in Europe when they could not sell them in the US) and the US Government. But if you are buying food, especially prepared food, in the US, you are in exactly the same position: poisoned “food”, lacking any notification or labeling of that poisonous status, is being sold to you as if it were wholesome and fit for human consumption because of the total failure of the US Government to protect your health or the integrity of the food supply from commercial – and worse – interests.
The Natural Solutions Foundation has created the International Decade of Nutrition, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, to reclaim the production of food. The US Government is on the other side: industry interests and conflicts of interest make the US Government, according to all assessments, including the US Congress’ most recent report on the subject, totally unable to resist industry pressure and totally unwilling to clean house in order to become a health promoting system. Indeed, FDA scientists have openly appealed to President Obama for help in allowing them to do their job: being science to the regulation of safety.
Reformation after reformation, new agency after new agency, staff shuffle after staff shuffle have failed to weaken industry and strengthen either science or sense in the government regulation of food. ENOUGH! Our lives and our children’s lives are at stake. The Natural Solutions Foundation is once again leading the way by identifying the problem and providing the natural solutions: the system is broken beyond repair. No amount of patchwork will repair it. It is time for the failed US Government to relinquish its failed mission of food safety and regulation to the smaller governmental units which are closer to the will of the people: State governments.
Remembering that NO science of safety is PERMITTED for genetically modified “foods” in the US, remembering that patents on GMOs are based on outdated and invalid scientific premises, remember that the US Supreme Court was packed beforehand in order to grant patent rights to Monsanto, and remembering that well over 80% of the US population would prefer not to eat GMO “food” although more than 90% of the American food stock is contaminated with GMO “food”, the following article should arouse a strong response.
The stunning disregard for science and safety shown by the US Government at the behest of the food-related industries is almost too large to take in at one gulp. Biotech “foods”, approved by the FDA, USDA and Codex, as they are, represent a major threat to health, indeed, to life on this planet.
None of the agencies tasked with responsiblity for food safety and food regulation in the United States are either capable or willing to provide meaningful safety or health-based regulation. After deadly decades, it has become clear that they cannot be reformed and that
1. The USDA must be dissolved
2. The FDA must have its food regulatory responsibility removed from it as environmental protection, consumer safety and narcotics and dangerous drug responsibility was removed from it to create separate government agencies
3. Another federal agency will not protect food and the health of the American people since conflict of interest and corruption run too deep.
4. Regulatory responsibility for food must be turned over to the States, consistent with their Constitutional mandates and rights so that the impact of the people, from whom regulatory authority comes, is far closer to the exercise of regulatory authority.
The Natural Solutions Foundation invites you to join us in the 2009 Health Freedom Campaign to Divest the US Government of its Food Regulatory Responsibilities in order to return assurance of food safety and health protection to the States and, hence, to the People. For more information on the Campaign to Divest the US Government of Food Regulation, click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1601).
Please write to divestgovernment_food@gmail.com to indicate your interest in this special, life-saving campaign. We are planning a webinar on the topic and would like to keep you informed. Your email information will not be shared with anyone else and will be kept confidential by the Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org. Please indicate “Divest” in the subject line and we will notify you when the webinar will take place.
Campaigns like this are costly. All donations to the Natural Solutions Foundation are tax deductible and an astonishing 100% of all donations goes directly to the work of the Natural Solutions Foundation since all overhead is donated and the Trustees take no salaries. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=189) to give generously to help us help you by mounting an effective campaign to divest the US Government of its food regulatory authority and returning it to the People so that we can prevent the gross disregard for our well being, and the nightmarish destruction of our food and our health which the US regulatory structure allows.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMooncoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.
Worldwide team set to develop plant-based livestock vaccines
Written by Lautaro Vargas
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
DEVASTATING: A ruptured oral vesicle in a cow with foot and mouth disease
DEVASTATING: A ruptured oral vesicle in a cow with foot and mouth disease
Norwich based scientists are heading up an international collaboration that aims to develop plant-based vaccines for some of the most devastating diseases to afflict the world’s livestock.
Avian flu, foot and mouth disease and blue tongue are just some of the diseases targeted under the EU-funded project, led by Prof George Lomonossoff of the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norfolk and backed by further participation from teams in Russia and South Africa.
Using a new system that lowers the time required to conduct the experiments from months to weeks, plants will be stimulated into producing specific proteins, which can subsequently be assessed for their value as vaccines.
It is the time taken for production of these proteins that has been accelerated, which means that large-scale screening for candidate vaccines is now within reach.
The partners say they have now shown that plant-based vaccines production and assessment is possible, and safe.
Professor Konstantin Skryabin, coordinator of the Russian laboratories for the PLAPROVA (Plant Produced Vaccines) project, said the development of new techniques for expression of vaccine proteins in plants is a very important topic for Russia.
He said: “Russian scientists have already obtained promising results and international collaboration in this field will contribute to the success of plant-based systems.”
PLAPROVA will utilise transient expression techniques to temporarily stimulate plants into over-producing proteins, which can subsequently be assessed for their value as vaccines.
Though plants have been used to produce pharmaceuticals in this way before, technical constraints have prevented their value from being fully realised.
The group say a few candidates with proven vaccine ability have been produced and, although these proteins are effective at preventing disease, they have limited commercial use as they are in competition with existing conventional products. They have, however, shown that plant-based vaccines production and assessment is possible and safe.
Initially, the consortium will concentrate on diseases of importance to farming in both the EU and Russia, which includes avian influenza, blue tongue, foot and mouth disease and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.
Proteins identified through this screening programme will be developed for large-scale production and ultimately low-cost production of effective vaccines.
Overall project coordinator Prof Lomonossoff, said: “The consortium brings together the leading laboratories from the EU, Russia and South Africa working to produce useful proteins from plants, and this international cooperation is central to the success of the project in battling diseases that affect us all.”
http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/2009012832902/research/worldwide-team-set-to-develop-plant-based-livestock-vaccines.html
Health Freedom Action eAlert(TM)
News, Alerts and Other information related to your health freedom.
~ Actions You Can Take Now ~ Products That Support Your Health and Your Freedom
December 30, 2008
Welcome! In This Issue:
Urgent – Impact the New Administration – Opportunity Ends 12/31
* The General’s Communiqué
* Legal Eagle – Silver Safety
* Health Freedom Action eAlert – Our 2009 Wish List – And Yours!
* Dr. Rima Recommends – Natural Products to Stimulate Your Own Stem Cell Response
* Kathy’s Corner – New Year, New Opportunity
Urgent – Important Opportunity to
Support Health Freedom Ends December 31, 2008.
ONLY 5000 Votes Needed NOW!
Click here http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom
to Bring Health Freedom’s Perspective to the New Administration
And don’t forget to check the Health Freedom Blog frequently – you’ll find it on our website, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
———————————–
Friendly Food Certified – Friendly to the Environment, Consumer, Workers
Valley of the Moon(TM) is Friendly Food Certified. That means it is:
* Friendly to the Consumer because it is GMO Free, Pesticide Free, Toxin Free
* Friendly to the Environment because it is shade grown, helping birds and the eco system and no toxic chemicals are used to grow or produce it
* Friendly to the Workers because their health, as well as yours, is safeguarded by the way the coffee is grown, harvested and produced
For each $25 donation you make to the Natural Solutions Foundation, we will gladly send you 1/2 pound of the most wonderful coffee you’ve ever tasted – it really is A Little Bit of Heaven in a Cup(TM). Click here http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=1130 to get yours now. And thanks!
———————————–
And thanks for your friendship and support in 2008 from the Natural Solutions Foundation Trustees, Community Organizers and Volunteers . . Together, we ARE the Voice of the Health Freedom NetRoots.
Maj. Gen. A. N. (Bert) Stubblebine III (USA, Ret.)
Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine III (USA, Ret)
President, Natural Solutions Foundation
The General’s Communiqué
Urgent – Important Opportunity to
Support Health Freedom Ends December 31, 2008.
ONLY 5000 Votes Needed NOW!
Click here http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom
to Bring Health Freedom’s Perspective to the New Administration
SUMMARY: Health Freedom is Alive and Well – And It’s Only Going to Get Better in 2009!
We’re coming up to another new year… and we’re almost a decade into the new millennium. Time certainly moves on! Our HealthFreedomUSA.org web site and the Natural Solutions Foundation were founded in 2004; in 2005 we announced the Codex 2 Step Process – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=220 – to allow countries to defy Codex and provide – and trade – clean, unadulterated food; we published our seminal ” Nutricide” DVD – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=156 – telling people – including Codex Delegates! – what Codex really is and where it came from; we announced our overall strategy to achieve and maintain free access to healthy foods, dietary supplements and natural remedies. We called that strategy “The International Decade of Nutrition” – www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org – and have initiated three major projects to demonstrate ways to reclaim food production, ending under-nutrition and the diseases that go along with it, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity, the major killer diseases. Two of those projects are in West Africa and one is in Panama. You can click here – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1711 – to read about the extraordinarily positive developments in the Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project in Volcan, Panama and here – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=1130 – to taste our very first “Friendly Food” Certified Valley of the Moon(TM) product: GMO Free, Pesticide Free, Chemical Free Shade Grown Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee!
I am drinking some right now and it is spectacular! To bring that to you we had to find, and apply, a natural solution to the fungus that destroys the crop here and we have done that. Now we will provide that all-natural solution to the local farmers so they don’t have to use toxic chemicals for their crops!
With your strong support we’ve achieved some remarkable successes. Take a look at our List of Accomplishments at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=195
But, of course, such success sometimes comes with the odd Internet denizen or two (and they really are odd!) nipping at our heels and complaining about… all sorts of bizarre irrelevant matters. You may have seen some of the recent Internet furor fueled by poison pen emails from two or three of these odd malcontents.
These attacks always happen when we are getting close to major breakthroughs. And that is what this eblast is about: our hopes and plans for the coming year. Without your help, we will achieve nothing. With your help we will achieve amazing results!
And that’s the truth. During the past few weeks of unrelenting Internet attack our Health Freedom Action eAlert mailing list has grown by over 10,000 new members!
THANK YOU! You have spoken loud and clear. We are humbly appreciative of your continuing support!
This year will provide us with great challenges and choices for change.
If you are in the US, one way to make change is to visit www.Change.org – http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom – and vote for Health Freedom as a vitally important area of consideration and change for the new administration. This is definitely worth the effort.
Click here – http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom – to read what the Natural Solutions Foundation Trustees have posted and then add your voice. “Voicing” ends on December 31, 2009. We only need 5000 voting voices to make Health Freedom the number 1 priority of the Change.org system. This may be a real opportunity to raise our collective voices to bring about a real change in the US to re-establish health freedom in place of the growing trend toward health tyranny. Do it now.
Click as if your life depends on it — because it might !
I wish you a wonderful, peaceful, healthy and free New Year. Please check below where we set out the Natural Solutions Foundation’s Wish List for 2009…
Legal Eagle
Ralph Fucetola, JD
Council and Trustee, Natural Solutions Foundation
SUMMARY: Nutritional Silver Safety is Now Easy to Calculate with the Silver Safety Pyramid
The Natural Solutions Foundation is deeply impressed with the capacity of nano silver to protect against all know biological pathogens (disease causing agents) and enthusiastically recommends the use of a laboratory-tested nano silver product, available at www.Nutronix.com/naturalsolutions (-> products tab -> “Silver Solutions” on left hand side of page).
Questions arise frequently about the safety of silver because of vastly over-rated reports and fears of argyria (bluish-tinged skin following profound overuse and abuse of silver solutions). Nano silver is not stored int the body because of its extremely small particle size and so poses no threat to humans. Many people either have questions or use other forms of silver so we want to offer you a gift of knowledge on this issue.
Along with a number of other professionals involved in advanced healthcare and the health freedom movement, I am a member of the Silver Safety Committee for our Foundation. I’m pleased to announce that the Committee has created the Silver Safety Pyramid and an online calculator so you can determine the safe level of nutrient silver for you.
Is silver safe? Here is what one of my fellow committee members has to say:
“The two things we treat children for most often in poison control centers are toxic intake levels of water and of table salt. Anything in excess is toxic. With normal responsible usage, silver supplements are entirely harmless to humans.”
Jeffrey Blumer, MD, PhD; Director of the Center for Drug Research
You can read more, with a link to the calculator, on my blog:
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/12/silver-safety-pyramid.html
Health Freedom Action eAlert
New Year’s Wish List for Us All (+ All US!)
1. FDA Divested of Food Regulatory Authority
US Congressional Hearings on Divesting the FDA, supported by appropriate public outrage leads to a new Cabinet Level Department of Agriculture and Food headed by a Consumer Protection advocate with a separate watchdog agency with no budgetary ties to the organization it is overseeing. Anyone with ties to industry is barred from serving in either a decision making or advisory capacity. Conflict of Interests render the person ineligible to serve in any capacity in the agency. All boards are dominated by consumers, scientists and physicians specializing in health, not illness, to promote open market access to nutritious food, dietary supplements and natural remedies.
2. FTC Bans Advertising and Sale of Vaccines in Interstate Commerce
Federal Trade Commission holds hearings on dangers of vaccines, as requested in our Citizens Petition, and correctly concludes that there is no compelling scientific proof of either vaccine safety or efficacy. FTC then bans advertising which states or implies that vaccines are either safe or effective and bans advertising for, and the interstate commerce of, vaccines until they are proven safe and effective.
3. FrankenFoods Banned
Genetically Modified Foods are banned from the human and animal food supply and may not be grown pending a detailed scientific study on their safety for human, environment and animal health. All GMO plantings must be burned. No GMO crops which produce any industrial or medical products are permitted either in greenhouses or open plantings.
4. All GMO Patents Rescinded
All Biotech (GMO) patents are rescinded since the science upon which such patents have been granted is now understood to be false and inaccurate. No new patents are permitted and all current ones are suspended until further investigation is concluded. International shipment of GMO foods is interdicted for commercial, safety and scientific reasons.
5. Natural Medicine Receives Government and Insurance Incentive, Support
The financial crisis created for the US and global economies results in natural medicine receiving insurance and government support to reduce the amount of money spent on medical care from 16+% to 8% over the next 5 years.
6. Organic Family Farming Receives Financial Incentives, Organic Standards Raised to Meaningful Levels
Organic family farming and foods receive government subsidies while the Codex and National Organics Board standards are revisited to permit upward revision of each and every standard to a level which supports and enhances human, animal and environmental well-being.
7. US Codex Participation Limited to Consumer and Health Advocates, Corporations Barred from Participation
US Codex participation is declared off-limits to corporate interests. Only consumer advocates and health scientists may participate as US delegates to all Codex meetings and activities. Codex reverses course and becomes a force for global health, as its original Statute contemplated.
8. Forced vaccination and Drugging Declared Illegal
All forced vaccination and medication programs are declared illegal through unanimous consent of Congress.
9. Non Toxic Farming Becomes US Domestic and Foreign Priority
Food Production US Domestic and Foreign aide programs are developed to teach chemical free agriculture in the US and elsewhere
10. Poisons Forbidden for Humans and Animals
The use of fluoride, mercury and other toxins, including pesticides, herbicides and industrial sludge, are banned for foods, medicine, dental, agriculture and similar applications.
11. Antibiotics are Banned in Food Animals
Veterinary antibiotic and other drug use is banned for food animals and natural medicine is encourgaged for animals intended for consumption
12. US Joins Global Movement Against Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Other Persistent Toxins
The US ratifies the Stockholm Convention banning the 12 most toxic chemicals known, 9 of which are pesticides and engages on educational and regulatory programs to ban all toxic chemicals associated with food or agriculture from the environment. Seven of these POPs are permitted by Codex in food without labeling or other identification.
13. The Production of Food is Shifted Away From Industrial, Toxic Methods to Totally Natural Ones in the Hands of Family Farmers
Advanced technologies which produce chemical free, safe, clean food are subsidized for family farms while industrial farms are taxed so heavily for their pollution, inhumanity and health degradation that they cannot stay in business. Local production feeds local communities.
14. What’s next?
Write to us at dr.laibow@gmail.com and tell us what YOUR wish list for 2009 holds. We are listening!
15. R&R
General Bert, Ralph and I all get a vacation sometime this year! Mine involves skiing!
16. Natural Solutions Foundation’s Net Roots Take Wing
We have not just the 193,000+ people on our Health Freedom Action eAlert list that we do today, but 20 million+ active, concerned and involved people around the world spreading the word and making sure that the global message goes out: “My body is my property and I can make my own health decisions freely and without interference!”
17. Blessings Descend Upon Us All
Your year, and that of those you love, like ours, is truly blessed with peace, prosperity, health, joy and accomplishment in the company of those you love and those who love you.
18. Resources Become Available to Win the Codex and Health Freedom Struggles
Sufficient funds to carry out all our objectives make themselves available. For example, a couple of million dollars, judiciously used, would solve the Codex problem by creating an effective voice for consumers and galvanizing the “Coalition of the Unwilling” — those countries unwilling to submit to the current Codex agenda of support for industrial food and destruction of organic foods, natural remedies and nutritional supplements. Also, 100 strong supporters for the Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project will move us forward substantially in teaching farmers and others around the world the methods and skills necessary to reclaim food production.
19. Disinformation Attacks Disappear
All irrational disinformation attacks on us will vaporize into the mists of morning and the energy they consume will actually go to solving the problems we are facing instead of creating divisions and strife which serves the other side but weakens health freedom.
20. The Natural Solutions Foundation’s International Decade and its Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project show the way in Ending Hunger and Its Deadly Consequences
The Valley of the Moon(TM) ‘s type of food production and Eco Community organization sets the standard for farmers, consumers and countries around the world through education and participatory agriculture and health practices.
21. The Health Freedom Battle is Over – We Have Won!
I can go back to the full time practice of natural, drug-free medicine.
22. Everyone Who is Interested Gets to Experience the Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project
You and I get to meet when you visit the beautiful, bountiful, temperate Highlands of Panama and experience the Valley of the Moon (TM) for yourself!
23. You Get to Experience “A Little Taste of Heaven in a Cup (TM)”
You try our Shade Grown, Valley of the Moon(TM) GMO Free, Pesticide-Free, Chemical-Free Coffee – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=1130#order
and love it so much you give it as gifts to everyone you know for either beverage or detox use. Your tax deductible donation says “Thanks!” in your morning cup of Java and you are loving it!
24. Right Makes Rights Once Again
The looming crises to our way of life and constitutional rights, health freedoms and other invasions of our liberties vanish.
May it all be so for all of us in 2009, a year of health, prosperity, productivity, joy and happiness.
Dr. Rima Recommends
Stem Enhance – Nature’s Healer
Today I want to talk about 2 products.
Individually they are each remarkable. Together they are extraordinary. I use both of them daily and so does General Bert. I have seen exceptional success with them in my natural medical practice and know how wide their impact can be. Since they stimulate and enhance natural healing processes, the range of conditions they deal with is exceptional. After all, give the body/mind/spirit/energy unit (that’s a human being, by the way) what it needs to heal and, most of the time, it will do just that, regardless of the pharmaceutical/allopathic dogma!
Health Aid 1: Stem Enhance ( http://www.wealthbuilderssystem.com/site/index.asp?DL=140935&page=103264&ad=0 ) is an extract of blue green algae which has the proven ability to signal your bone marrow to release adult stem cell – YOUR adult stem cells.
Stem cells are the renewal system of the body because they have unique, nearly limitless healing abilities to detect areas of the body that need help and flock to that site. Once there, they set about altering themselves to become – literally – whatever type of cell is needed, whether it is a heart cell, or a brain cell or a kedney, etc.
Of course, the trick is getting the body to pay attention to the danger and release adult stem cells. All too often, although we are making adult stem cells, we keep them “hidden away for a rainy day” in our bone marrow and other physiological hidey-holes. As we age, or with the stress of illness,
Stem Enhance knows that trick and literally calls forth stem cells lurking in the bone marrow and elsewhere.
Stem Enhance is totally natural, easily available and, in my experience, strikingly effective in helping the body to correct serious, long term and often devastating problems – in short, to return to normal structure and function despite serious or even lethal diagnoses.
Click here – http://www.wealthbuilderssystem.com/site/index.asp?DL=140935&page=103264&ad=0 – to learn more about Stem Enhance and its amazing ability to stimulate release of adult stem cells in your body and here – http://organics4u.stemtechbiz.com/quickorder.aspx – to get started using Stem Enhance to harness the power of your own adult stem cells.
Naturally Enhances Circulation and Detox
Health Aid 2: Stem Flo – http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=1239 – reduces oxidative stress and enhances circulation within 30 minutes of taking this all natural combination of widely known circulatory stimulators according to laboratory studies. That means that the adult stem cells released by your body when you take Stem Enhance are carried with greater effect to every part of your body. Of course, even without Stem Enhance, increasing circulation is helpful for a great many people. Click here – http://www.stemflo.com/index.html – to see the natural ingredients which have been synergystically combined to provide circulatory support and then imagine what increasing blood flow to the brain, heart, kidneys, lung, etc., can do to bring stem cells, nutrients and oxygen to them while removing debris and toxic waste at the same time!
Together with Stem Enhance or alone, I find that Stem Flo is a unique and highly effective circulatory aid to help the body return to normal structure and function.
Click here – http://organics4u.stemtechbiz.com/quickorder.aspx – to start enjoying the benefits of Stem Flo (and don’t forget Stem Cell stimulation for your pets, too!)
Kathy’s Corner
Kathy Greene
Community Relations and Development Director
SUMMARY: It’s a New Year and that means New Opportunities.
I’ve said it before, but it deserves repeating: we are here because YOU care. You care about your health and that of your family. You care about your freedom. And, as we’ve learned in the past few weeks, you care about us.
I take care of the hundreds of emails that come to our Foundation every day, forwarding to Gen. Bert, Dr. Rima and Counsel Ralph your messages, answering those that I can. What has most impressed me recently have been the hundreds of messages of support and good wishes. That, and the impressive growth in our Health Freedom Action eAlert list tells me that we can count on you, just as you can count on us!
Please remember to ask everyone you know to join the Action eAlert system at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.or/index.php?page_id=187
And, of course, your generous year-end donations are certainly appreciated: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189
A Word From Dr. Rima
My personal wish for your 2009 is exactly the same as my personal wish for my year and that of my family: peace, prosperity, health, joy, accomplishment and, not least, freedom. Personal freedom, health freedom, civil freedom, and the freedom to learn, share information and think your own thoughts free from harassment, inhibition or interference. Oh, yes, I urgently wish us in the US all a return to to the Constitutional form of Government which protects and directs a free society.
2009 CAN be a year of decisive forward movement for freedom – all freedom – if we join hands and hearts, ignore the distractions and disinformation (which indicate just how effective we are!), focus on committing ourselves to taking back our legitimate power and using it for making our voices ring loud and clear in the halls of power, in our homes and hearts.
Happy New Year!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
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