NZ Health Trust - Newsletter No 14 - April 2005
It's time for another update about what has been happening in the fight to defeat the proposed Trans Tasman Joint Agency to regulate all therapeutic products, and an urgent call for your support.
Hello again to all our supporters, colleagues and friends; once again and welcome to new subscribers.
In this newsletter we'll cover;
* Urgent Support Campaign Progress.
* International update - the good, the bad and the TGA.
* Request for help with comprehensive list of FAQ's.
* "The Corporation" DVD - recommended viewing.
* Other information
“URGENT SUPPORT” CAMPAIGN PROGRESSThe urgent support campaign is gathering speed and is keeping the issue front of mind in political circles. We know that hundreds of thousands of new Zealanders support our campaign against the joint TGA proposal. If you want to have your say without going to Wellington yourself to tell the MPs of your concerns and wishes click this link http://www.nzhealthtrust.co.nz/urgent_support.php to add your Support. Many thanks to those of you that have already done so. It is vital for MPs to understand just how many people do not want this Australian based Joint Agency making decisions for New Zealand.
On the website "urgent support" page you can also do the following; Printable Hardcopy - Print the “Urgent Support” form to distribute to your friends and colleagues for them to fill in & post back to NZHT. Faxable Hardcopy - Print the “Urgent Support” form to distribute to your friends and colleagues for them to fill in & fax back to NZHT. Order pre printed Forms in bulk – Order forms for distribution on mass to friends, colleagues, customers and clients. Instructions for retail counter display - How to make a counter sign for the display of forms for customers/clients etc. INTERNATIONAL UPDATEEU - Its all happening at the moment! Many of you may have heard about the landmark opinion released in the EU where the Alliance for Health Freedoms have successfully had the EU Food Supplements Directive held invalid. The controversial Food Supplements Directive which effectively would have banned 75% of vitamin and mineral forms by using the sort of white list the TGA wants to bring in here, was found to contravene EU law. It was held to breach the principles of legal protection, legal certainty and good administrative principles. This is a landmark victory for consumers over the wishes of regulators like Medsafe and the TGA who seek regulate natural products like these out of existence. For further details click here http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=news&ID=151UK - In more good news, in the UK the report of the House of Commons Health Committee entitled the Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Big Pharma) has been released seeking a serious control to be placed on the extensive influence of this mega industry. This report recognises that the main interests of the pharmaceutical companies is to make money and this often is inconsistent with what should be the goal of Parliament of promoting the health of the public. The report recognises that the regulators (such as medsafe) have taken the role of promoting the views of the pharmaceutical companies when they should not be. It is very encouraging that around the world people are starting to wake up to the control and influence that these corporations have and how they have been exploiting this to all our detriment. To see a copy of the full report click here. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhealth/42/42.pdf(126 pages) USA – “Court Says FDA Ephedra Ban Too Broad” – to read about this go to
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050415/ts_nm/health_ephedra_dc_2
Canada - In Canada moves are afoot to have Bill C420 passed which will ensure that dietary supplements cannot be classified as drugs, just as we are trying to prevent from happening as part of the TGA proposal.
Australia (TGA) - While the rest of the world is waking up to the importance of protecting the natural health industry, in Australia the situation keeps getting worse! The Australian Government has recently released a 107 page report – available at this link http://nzhealthtrust.co.nz/pdf/Therapeutic_Goods_Amendment_Bill_2005.pdfThis report sets out all the new and increased powers they are planning to give the TGA, in addition to the Expert Committee’s 50 recommendations sorry, the link we gave you in our last newsletter to this report was wrong - the correct link is ( http://www.tga.gov.au/cm/cmresponse.pdf ). The possible offences and penalties are increasing horrifically making it even more of a culture of fear and bureaucracy than ever before. This is in addition to changes that have already been made post the Pan debacle. Some businesses are reporting that those earlier changes have seen their compliance costs increase 800%, another faces a $1.8 million bill to upgrade its computer systems as the TGA now tells them they must, another still tells us of a $2 million compliance bill it faces to come up to speed with new changes. We are learning that some Australian organizations and businesses (and may include a few TGA licenced NZ companies) are desperate to take advantage of the Joint Agency Proposal in the vain hope of solving their dire situation in AU, but anyone who believes that the Australian Government after just releasing 107 pages of toughening up measures (plus the 50 Expert Committee recommendations), is going to let the Joint Agency suddenly 'go soft' is, quite frankly, not living in the real world. New Zealand would just get lumbered with the same idiocy. REQUEST FOR HELP COMPILING FAQ'SWe would like to develop a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) about the issues to help people understand what's going on, what's behind it and why we have taken the stance we have. To do this in a way that's useful we would very much like input from you as to what questions you would like answered or what others who are less informed need answers to. They may be about the Joint agency proposal, the international experience or anything about natural health or pharmaceutical products generally. We may not be able to provide answers to them all but we will do our best, even if we can do no more than give our opinion. Please email your suggested questions to us at info@nzht.co.nz
"THE CORPORATION" DVD - RECOMMENDED VIEWING
We recently had the chance to watch “The Corporation” DVD, a film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott & Joel Bakan and would recommend it to you all. It provides excellent insights into how and why corporations act and why we need to guard so strongly against their attempts to make all our inherent freedoms commodities they can profit from and ban anything they can't control. You can buy a copy through our secure web site form ( click here) or https://jefferson.noc11.net/~nzhealth/corporation.html from dvd retailers nationwide. You can Watch the trailer of the dvd by clicking this link http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/the_corporation.html
OTHER INFORMATION
This week on the Australian ABC four corners program, there was an excellent story about the Vioxx/Celebrex recalls and how they highlight the failure of the TGA, once again, to protect the public. This gives yet another reason why we must avoid this TGA being left to "protect" the health of New Zealanders when they keep failing in this job. To read the transcript click here http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1343195.htm
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