Right now, New Mexico has a golden opportunity to provide health leadership in an area of vital importance. If you live in New Mexico please pay close attention. If you value your health and wellbeing and truely care about your family and friends it is time to take action.
If you don’t live in New Mexico then also pay close attention. Why? For two reasons, at least. First, the decision makers in New Mexico need to understand that their state is part of a nation and that since what they do affects people outside their state, many outsiders are watching their actions with interest. So watch them and maybe let them know in some way that you care about what they do. Second, pay attention to see if there is something you can either learn from what is happening or contribute to the cause.
Under current legislation people can be poisoned by chemicals known to be toxic and to cause cancer. The FDA, for example, approves known carcinogens and neurotoxic food additives and companies are then free to include them in the drugs you take and the foods you eat.
The FDA is a significant and powerful agency that does do some good but also makes many errors. It makes these errors with impunity and regardless of its reasons for believing its actions are right, overwhelming evidence proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the FDA gets things wrong. Eventually they do frequently issue corrections, but not before many people have suffered.
Not only does the FDA make errors of judgement, it is also resistant to changing its ways, which generally seem to be aligned with helping the pharmaceutical and manufactured food industries. For example, the FDA’s anti-nutrient bias is so clear, so strong and so resistant to change, a Bill has been introduced to Congress to force changes and compliance with other legislation.
On November 9, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and seven other members of Congress introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act (H.R. 4282) to prevent the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from censoring information about dietary supplements. That’s pretty amazing really, that it should come down to a need for legislation to force the FDA to do the right thing and to stop them doing the wrong thing.
Unfortunately, the best ideals of participatory democracy are just that, ideals. In the real world we see their corruption by money and power. The whole lobbyist based system is a thinly veilled form of corruption, it is a mechanism for the weilding of undue influence. The very large sums of money available to lobby for the best interests of various industries means that we will always have a need to be watchful.
Good legislation is one way to maintain that watchfulness. It isn’t perfect, but it can be effective. It is important to review and renew it from time to time.
So what’s happening in New Mexico? Well, that depends on the legislators. There is an opportunity now to pass legislation to create a powerful new New Mexico Nutrition Council, with express statutory powers to be able to challenge the errors of the FDA in approving known carcinogens and neurotoxic food additives.
Such a move would offer a massive improvement in the level of health protection for the people of New Mexico. It would also establish the state as a leader in health policy that the whole nation would be wise to follow.
The proposed Nutrition Council Bill was written after consulting with nutritionists, physicians, lawyers, toxicity victims, parents, teachers, about half of the United Nations Ambassadors, Ministers of Health in many nations, lots of elected officials at the state and federal level, and natural food enthusiasts. The Council it would establish could provide a safety shield to protect the people of New Mexico and other jursidictions would be wise to follow.
When State legislators are swayed by lobbyists representing corporate interests they sometimes hear about economic advantages that flow from supporting the industries’ interests. No, I’m not referring to direct bribes. I mean suggestions that range from manufacturing plant employment to taxation windfalls and other such alleged benefits to the State treasury.
However, legislators must recognize the importance of other considerations. What about the impact of long-term harm on people and possibly the environment? There is the suffering associated with illness, the grief that follows loss. For the hard nosed, there is also the massive cost associated with providing health care for the conditions caused by the very chemicals that should never have been allowed to be used.
The evidence shows that the FDA cannot be relied upon to provide protection for consumers. No amount of denial makes this untrue. States must take action to defend their own citizens from corporations that would happily poison them for gain and redress the false security afforded by impotent federal regulators who appear to collude with industry.
Make no mistake, as Stephen Fox, an architect of the Bill observes:
America is awash in a sea of pesticides, additives, neurotoxins, and even worse biochemicals which are coming soon. It is, in short, a Toxic Idiocracy of the worst kind. The entire European Union will be banning Aspartame, for example, soon, due to the reports on carcinogenicity from the Italian Ramazzini Study/European Institute for Oncology. The FDA might get it eventually, with a new President, perhaps.
Let these warnings sink in for a while. Consider the impact of these dangerous, but FDA approved, chemicals on your family’s health. The protection this important Bill can provide is of tremendous value. Don’t allow it to slip away or be stolen from you by paid lobbyists representing uncaring industries.
Now is the time to contact your representative and voice your support for this Bill. Ask your representative to vote for the Bill as a matter of conscience. There is more to come on this issue.
