Mary Starrett -- RX For Control

RX FOR CONTROL

By Mary Starrett

July 16, 2003

NewsWithViews.com

While you've been focusing on how the ubiquitous "they" are moving to take away your guns, you may have been missing the effort to take away your �vitamins.

I kid you not. At the rate it's going, before too long, vitamins will have been deemed almost as dangerous as your .38.

The pharmaceutical industry just can't abide the billions you're spending on vitamins and supplements. They want a piece of the action. When you opt for SAMe instead of Prozac, it costs them money. When you decide vitamin C is a low-cost, side-effect-free option for treatment or prevention of stomach ulcers, gastric cancer, cardiovascular disease, cataracts, asthma, heavy metal toxicity, high cholesterol and blood pressure* (the list goes on) they lose money .

Something must done. Something IS being done!

Maybe you've noticed the uptick in frequency of news stories that say "Supplements: researchers warn against excessive doses"( The Oregonian, 7/9/03).

So far we've been warned about : St John's Wort, Vitamin C, Kava, Ephedra, Creatine and more. Sources will point to the death of someone known to have taken a supplement and then pin it on that. Liver failure? Must've been the Kava�remember that scenario?

Cleveland Clinic scientist Dr. Marc Penn, who directed a Lancet study says taking anything beyond a multivitamin could be dangerous. He warns of the "unexpected consequences" of taking higher doses of any vitamin. I always get such a kick out of these guys who warn us about taking too much vitamin E but don't seem to have a problem with the fact that over 100,000 people a year in the U.S. die from adverse drug reactions - from FDA approved drugs- that is. (And those are just the folks who succumbed in a hospital. The statistic is much higher if you include all those who got sick and died at home from drug reactions.) The government's RDA for vitamin C is a puny 90 mg a day for an adult male.

Researcher Linus Pauling proved that 200 milligrams is good, but 5 GRAMS is better! That's thousands of times the "RDA" and there are no side effects (save maybe a touch of diarrhea). Try doing THAT with a pharmaceutical.

You'd be dead. Still, the federally-funded anti-vitamin "studies" keep coming. Last week we got a dose of just how scary vitamin E can be.

With the deficit running as high as it is, kinda makes you say "hmmmmmm, wonder why the feds are spending all our money on these 'vitamins are bad' studies?"

I'll let you in on a little secret. One you won't hear reported on the nightly news. The push is on to bring the United States into compliance with what our friends across the pond are doing.

The E.U. cooked up something called the "Directive On Supplements" which is a template for regulating vitamins.

It's because of something called CODEX ALIMENTARIUS. It's a scheme devised in 1962 by two U.N. organizations (The Food and Agriculture Organization {FAO} and The World Health Organization {WHO} ). It's touted as "an international mechanism for promoting the health and economic interests of consumers�" The insidious work is done by committees in member countries, including our own.

The website for the U.S. Codex Commission warns: "This is the only official website of the Codex Commission. Unofficial websites using similar domain names exist". They say that because if you type in "Codex" you'll get a lot of internet sites that will tell you things they'd rather you didn't know. Simply put, Codex would require the US (because we're members of WHO, for starters) to "standardize' vitamin and mineral supplements. So that here in the U.S. we wouldn't have supplements with higher levels of vitamins or minerals than the folks in Europe, for instance. It seems the same organization (WHO) - on a mission to make the world smoke-free-(for a healthier world populace) is simultaneously pushing to curb the widespread use of known, health- supporting, natural remedies.

The U.S. Codex proposal says that only doctors or health professionals should "advise" on the use of supplements. Would this mean prescription-only vitamins and supplements? Sounds like a good way to cut the medical/pharmaceutical cartel in on the deal. You'll be encouraged to swallow the Codex line on "safety", as well. The argument will be that now you, the consumer can be assured of "safe", "effective" "standardized" ingredients.

Want my advice? Don't think you'll never live in a country that regulates which vitamins you can take. It's headed that way. Remember I told you so when you glance at the next news headline about how such and such vitamin is a health threat or has been "proven" to be ineffective. In the meantime, call your U.S. representatives and tell them it's time to disembowel CODEX ALIMENTARIUS.

You'll feel better in the morning.

*PDR for Nutritional Supplements

NOTICE:

Mary will be a guest on Jeff Rense show July 24th 2003 from 7 pm to ? pacific

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Mary Starrett was on television for 21 years as a news anchor, morning talk show host and medical reporter. For the last 5 years she hosted a radio program. Mary is a frequent guest on radio talk shows. E-Mail M123STAR@aol.com�

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"Want my advice? Don't think you'll never live in a country that regulates which vitamins you can take. It's headed that way. Remember I told you so when you glance at the next news headline about how such and such vitamin is a health threat or has been "proven" to be ineffective."