One Minute Activist
February, 2002

This month we are writing to ask Senator John Kerry to ask for his assistance in protecting the freedom to access to vitamins and supplements written into the DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.

One Minute Activist letters are available on the bulletin boards at both stores. Or download a printable version of this letter to print from your computer.

Note: to download a PDF letter file, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. It's available for free at adobe.com.

Text of February's One Minute Activist Letter:

February, 2002

Senator John Kerry
One Bodoin Square, Tenth Floor
Boston, MA 02114

Dear Senator Kerry:

I am writing to ask your assistance in protecting the freedom to access to vitamins and supplements written into the DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. We are in danger of losing any control over our personal medical choices.

The World Health Organization's commission of Codex Alimentarius is attempting to erode that freedom to access written in to the DSHEA. Ostensively created to ensure global standards for food safety, it is being used to attempt to restrict worldwide access to dietary supplements. The European Union's Vitamin Directive would require any supplement over the low Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) to be reclassified as a drug, requiring a prescription!

Many in the pharmaceutical industry, which wields enormous financial influence in legislatures in this country, are supporting this effort to restrict access to nutritional supplements. In 1996, Dr. Yetley, the FDA's representative in Bonn, seconded a motion to reclassify herbs as drugs, not food as they are originally considered - and still are considered in the U.S.

Access to vitamins, supplements, and herbs, as well as their dosage levels, should not be limited except where absolutely necessary to avert real, not possible or theoretical dangers to consumer health, as defined by responsible physicians, not multinational commercial interests. As Thomas Jefferson said, "If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as souls who live under tyranny".

Please support our free access to vitamins, herbs, and other supplements.

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,

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