ANH eBlast: Are you sitting on the sidelines? A call for unifed action.

28th October 2009

Poland – time for action

This eBlast hits your system while ANH’s Robert Verkerk and Meleni Aldridge make a 3-city whistlestop tour of Poland, engaging with the Polish people in 5-hour marathon events coordinated by the Polish campaign group, Kampania Natura Bez Granic (‘Campaign of nature without borders’). Consumers, scientists and doctors in Poland, as in many parts of Europe, are seriously waking up to their need to respond to a series of threats that have been changing their lives quicker than at any other stage in their history.  These threats include a food supply that is fast losing its vitality and nutritional value, the destruction of small-holder farming systems, increasing content of GMO's in the human and animal food supply, encroaching EU-orchestrated bans on natural medicines. However, if there’s one straw that is about to break the camel’s back—that’s the mounting pressure from the Polish government and medical authorities to force people, including pregnant women, to be vaccinated against a virus most people view as being a much lesser threat than the untested vaccine which is supposed to offer protection.  A growing body of health and environmentally aware Poles—along with so many others across the world—are no longer prepared to accept what is being offered to them by governments and corporations. It was just 5 years ago that Poland joined the European Union—and for many the glitter is quickly losing its shine. 

Remembering the biggest US consumer action of all time

In October 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA), creating a definition and regulatory paradigm specific to dietary supplements. DSHEA has allowed the most liberalized marketplace for natural healthcare to flourish for the last 15 years—and this has helped fund a huge body of research that wouldn’t have been feasible otherwise. But this didn’t come easily. DSHEA’s liberal regime was only won after the biggest consumer action ever - lobbying efforts, retail “blackout” days, consumer letters to legislators. The industry and its supporters pulled together in the hope of protecting consumers’ rights to choose safe, efficacious dietary supplements.  

Recognizing the 15th anniversary of DSHEA in the US, we at the ANH felt it appropriate to dedicate this eBlast to those Americans that coordinated themselves so effectively to achieve what they did in 1994. And, as many are realizing, vast consumer action will be needed again as we see more and more evidence that the US Food & Drug Administration has no plans to maintain its liberal regime.  

Governments may want us to feel disempowered but we, as consumers, still have phenomenal power that we can harness to prevent us getting ever more dissociated from our natural origins. If the voice is big enough, if our actions our coordinated, and if we choose carefully how we spend our consumer cash—we will be heard.

Read people’s recollections of the events leading up to the passage of DSHEA

Ireland goes GM free!

The ongoing GM debate continues, but there is new light with Ireland’s stand to ban the cultivation of all GM crops and introduce a voluntary GM-free label for food. This is similar to a scheme recently introduced in Germany and makes it easier for the consumer to avoid foods that contain GMO’s. If the decision is made to pick the GM-free labelled food, it will be noticed. If enough people take this action, GM food will continually be left on the shelf – remember, sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Support the food production systems that contribute positively to your health, and reject those that don’t. 

In the US, the Non-GMO project is underway and we hope that many other countries that don’t have compulsory GM labelling will follow suit.

Taking responsibility for your health

We all need to take responsibility for our own health, and encourage others to do the same. We urge you to seek out reliable sources with accurate information, and spread the word about your right, and everybody’s right, to informed choice.  

Understand the importance of being in control of your own health, and your choices of healthcare, whether it is what you eat, what injections you (or your children) are offered or what foods, natural products or medicines you decide to use. Don’t let anybody take that away from you: it is your right to choose and your right to be informed. Make your views known about both national and European laws to your governments and elected representatives. 

In the UK, this includes your Member of the European Parliament and your MP. 

UK herbalists — action needed now!

Herbalists in the UK can be heard right now by responding to the Department of Health Consultation on statutory regulation. At this time when UK laws are being superseded by European laws, it's vital to get all practitioners views across to regulators who, it seems, are trying their utmost to legislate careers in natural medicine out of existence. To defend their professions, its also vital that the practitioners collaborate to show strength in numbers. This is a call for unified action from practitioners. Leave the regulators in no doubt about how you feel! One of the ways you can do this is to ensure that you have signed our petition to protest about unfair restrictions on vitamin and mineral levels.  

Take action now!

Not everyone gets fired up with all the various challenges to natural health. For some the vaccination issue, or the GM issue, head up their bill of concerns. For others, it’s the loss of natural medicines, or their concerns over the loss of healthcare traditions that go back thousands of years.

But we appeal to you to make the decision to take an active part in one or more of our campaigns. We will shortly be uploading a video of Robert Verkerk’s presentation last weekend at London’s CAMExpo where he takes us through an 8-step action plan to help move natural medicine into the mainstream of healthcare.  

Understand the importance of consumer power. Stay well by enjoying a healthy lifestyle, working along the lines of being preventative rather than curative with your healthcare. Support local producers of organic, GM-free products, and support ethically sound, environmentally friendly companies and products. Act local, think global! 

It’s time to create positive change. Lets ensure that our fundamental right to natural health is not eroded, and is intact for our children and generations to come. 

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