FROM THE EAST COAST TO THE WEST COAST AND MORE

by Scott Tips

Editor of Health Freedom News
Board Member and Legal Counsel for NHF

December 2006

It has been a whirlwind couple of months for me that began in mid-September with a trip to Maine and New Hampshire to speak before two groups of NHF members, healthcare practitioners, and other interested individuals.  These events were arranged by our own indefatigable Pamela Gerry, who has launched herself into the Northeastern States with an energy, skill, and dedication to health freedom that this region deserves.  Pamela is also NHF’s new Press & Events Coordinator, so you can look forward to seeing our health-freedom message reach many more people throughout the World.

Thanks to her, in both Maine and New Hampshire I saw diverse and knowledgeable groups of individuals come together to hear and discuss the history and current status of the Codex Alimentarius food-standards process as well as other issues dear to our hearts.  While I spoke at these meetings, the attendees were themselves well-informed on many topics and I probably learned as much from them as they did from me.  In particular, I learned that Pamela herself is a wealth of health and other practical information.

This learning experience happened once again when I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota at the end of September to attend the National Health Freedom Coalition’s World Health Freedom Assembly on behalf of the NHF and also MayDay, which could not send a delegate.  Diane Miller and her excellent team hosted this well-planned event and extended every courtesy to me during my stay there.

For most of this three-day event I was helped by NHF member Sherokee Ilse, a local Minnesotan and very skilled and articulate health-freedom activist, with whom I worked in almost tag-team fashion to articulate the NHF’s position on various issues such as our opposition to those mandatory Adverse Event Reporting (AER) bills being foisted off on dietary supplements in the Senate and House.  At one point, I found myself in an impromptu debate with attorney Jim Turner of Citizens for Health, who was defending anti-supplement AER legislation.

Sherokee and I also worked together to help shape the World Health Assembly’s “Declaration of Health Freedom Rights,” which was signed by all attendees and several other health-freedom organizations around the World.  This Declaration cogently sets forth the health-freedom principles shared by all of its signatories.

Throughout this weekend-long event, I met many great individuals and learned even more about how similar Maine and Minnesota are in their earnest and heart-felt hospitality.  The National Health Freedom Coalition was even gracious enough to present me with its Health Freedom Award at a special presentation dinner.  As I said then, I didn’t really deserve the award; but then I broke my hand once and I didn’t really deserve that either!

While in St. Paul, I also was able to have dinner not just once but twice with Byron and Mary Richards.  As many of you already know by now, this husband-and-wife team is a tireless advocate for health freedom.  Byron has written a hard-hitting critique of the Food and Drug Administration in his latest book, Fight For Your Health, a review of which appears in this issue at p. 21.  Fortunately, Byron spoke at the meeting and it was apparent to all at his well-attended speech that he is an incredibly dynamic speaker who can educate and motivate his audiences.

After Minnesota, I was then off to Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. for several more private meetings involving Codex Alimentarius and various health-freedom activists such as Kevin Miller, Claudia Roscoe, Phil Beckwith, and Louise Mitchell.  Through the efforts of Louise, and while in the Baltimore area, I was able to make an ad-hoc presentation to a special meeting of the Free State Health Care Coalition (FSHCC), where I was fortunate enough to meet innovative and physiologic dentist Michael Baylin and his wife Judy as well as the very outspoken radio talk-show hostess Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus.  The FSHCC is a new organization of Marylanders supporting the 2007 Integrative Health Care Act in Maryland, which will protect alternative healthcare patients and practitioners.  The NHF is acting to support both FSHCC and the bill.

Another regionally well-known radio talk-show hostess Marguerite Dunne, from New York State, was also in Baltimore while I was there and we got together for breakfast to compare notes on the State of the Union.  Marguerite educated me about Lab 257, which in turn led to her excellent book review in this issue (p. 20) of a book by the same title.  This is an incredible story that is not yet well-enough known.

Then, somewhat later, at the end of October, the NHF sent a delegation led by our NHF Advisory Board member Ingrid Franzon of Sweden to the meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Ingrid was ably supported on the NHF delegation by NHF members Dr. Robert Verkerk (UK/ANH) and Dr. Wong Ang Peng (Malaysia), all of whom together made powerful and persuasive presentations to the Codex Committee members.

Ingrid, in particular, ignited an hour-long debate amongst the delegates with her objection to the Committee’s attempt to hide toxins within the ingredient designation “safe” water on food labels.  Rob, too, ran intellectual circles around various other delegates when they discussed risk assessment and maximum permitted upper limits on vitamins and minerals.  As usual, it was the NHF and South Africa arguing the health-freedom position, while the European Union, the United States, and many other countries thinly disguised their statist and anti-consumer regulatory mindset with such old banalities as the “need to protect the consumer.”

I was not able to attend this year’s CCNFSDU meeting because of my personal involvement in the U.S. elections, which coincided with the timing of the Codex meeting.  While not as successful in my efforts as I had hoped, there was one very serendipitous event – a conversation on election day with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during which I asked him why the California Medical Board was still persecuting alternative healthcare practitioners.  To his credit, the Governor (who himself had paid out of his own pocket for the alternative-medical treatment of one of his own staff members suffering from cancer) immediately asked for my business card, which I gave him.  He then called his aide over, handed him my card, and directed him to investigate this matter at once.  Turning to me, Governor Schwarzenegger then strongly declared that “public servants should be working for you and not the other way around.  There will be action taken.”  I left the meeting impressed but still thinking that in a week or two I would get the usual politician’s form letter of thanks for expressing my views but without any commitment to true action.

How wrong I was!  And how much more impressed I was when some three hours later I received a telephone call to my cell phone from the head of the California Department of Consumer Affairs (who oversees the Medical Board) asking for more information and requesting a meeting.

Six days later, and armed with numerous facts that I had accumulated (in large part thanks to NHF Board member Dr. Murray Susser and others such as Frank Cuny and Dr. David Steenblock), I was in Sacramento at the Department’s headquarters meeting with the head of the Department and three of her most important subdepartment heads about this important issue.  More action shall definitely follow, but that is all that I can tell you for now.

In the meantime, with your continued support, the National Health Federation continues to be your outspoken and tireless advocate for your health-freedom rights.