http://educate-yourself.org/cn/canadiansMPdeservestheboot08aug08.shtml
August 8, 2008

Sell-out Canadian MPs Continue Attempts to Snooker Constituents on Bill C-51 & C-52 (Aug. 8, 2008)

----- Original Message -----
From: Rose Stevens <rose2279@gmail.com>
To: Ken Adachi
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008
Subject: Conservative flyer-- "Not on our watch"-- In the interest of our children's safety?

Ron Cannan
Member of Parliament
Kelowna - Lake Country

Dear Mr. Cannan,

I received your flyer in the mail "Real Actions" " Real Results" " Not on our watch".

Was this flyer meant to convince us that the Conservative government is doing a good job at protecting Canadian families? This all sounds very nice on a superficial level but if the Conservatives do not support eliminating Bill C-51& Bill C-52 and ensure that Natural Health Products receive their own legislative Act (immune from the drug style regulations and foreign trade agreements such as Codex), this flyer will not convince me that the Conservative government wants to protect my children. Everyone has come to know about Bill C-51 and Bill C-52 and they are not happy about the impending implications. Health is a very important subject to most Canadians and it will be an important issue for the upcoming election. Most health food stores, naturopaths, and health care practitioners are now handing out postcards addressed to MPs that say: " You Won't Get My Vote" STOP BILL C-51 & 52 --NOT AMEND!! I have attached a very good document that will explain why "amending" the bill is not an option.

In regards to your flyer, could you please reply to my responses in red, as I need clarification as to where you stand on these issues and what you are prepared to do about them before I vote this fall.

"Action to ban dangerous chemicals from baby bottles." What about dangerous vaccines and the toxic chemicals they contain that are injected directly into our baby's blood streams? What about the non-labeling of GMO foods? Great. So now we will have safe bottles to put our toxic GMO baby formulas into.

"New powers to pull unsafe products from store shelves." Does this include natural health products and herbs that do not have their Natural Health Product number yet? Products like colloidal silver that might interfere with Big Pharma's profits for antibiotic sales?

"Cracking down on manufacturers and importers of dangerous products". Does this mean cracking down on the so called "dangerous products" such as Truehope's Empower Plus, which may interfere with Big Pharma's profits of Zoloft and Prozac? What is your definition of dangerous products? If Bill C-52 is passed, it is my understanding that even natural health products will be subject to these "police state" regulations. Considering the past history of how Health Canada has treated several small manufacturers of safe Natural Health Products this is very scary. Also, I believe the following Google video will give you a better understanding on how these bills would allow Codex to be implemented by stealth. Please watch this great new video that explains how this will happen. http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5800206429960925518&q=ian+crane&ei=xr2TSIPmMpKu_AHGmc2kBg

Below is a recent article with new research showing that the death rate and adverse reactions to the Gardasil vaccine are mounting. I have told you in previous communications that I am not happy that my tax dollars to the tune of $300 million dollars went to promote this unsafe and questionable vaccine. Is this how you are protecting our children? The dangers of plastic baby bottles pales compared to the real dangers and risks that the Gardasil vaccine is causing our young girls. The Conservative government is going to have to do a much better job in "protecting our children” if they hope to win this next election.

Sincerely
Rose Stevens

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(26 07 2008)

HPV Vaccine Adverse Events Worrisome Says Key Investigator

by Allison Gandey

Medscape Medical News 2008. © 2008 Medscape

July 26, 2008 — Serious neurologic, thromboembolic, and autoimmune complications have been reported in patients who received human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines. Although not the norm, experts suggest that the events are grave enough to encourage caution."The side effects that have been reported are real and they cannot be brushed aside," Diane Harper, MD, from the Dartmouth Medical School, in Hanover, New Hampshire, told Medscape Oncology. Dr. Harper was a principal investigator of clinical HPV vaccine trials for both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.

News reports of adverse events, teen paralysis, and death have fueled public concern. Back-to-school immunization clinics are stocking up on Merck's Gardasil and more than16 million doses have reportedly already been distributed in the United States alone. But many parents are questioning whether their children should be vaccinated. And many women are wondering whether they should be vaccinated too.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as of June 30, 2008, more than 9700 adverse events have been reported since the vaccine was approved 2 years ago. Of these, 94% were classified as nonserious events and 6% as severe.

Serious Adverse Events

* Nervous system disorders, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome and headache
* Thromboembolic events
* Musculoskeletal and connective tissue problems
* Lymphatic system disorders
* Gastrointestinal problems
* General disorders and administration site conditions
* Immune system problems, including hypersensitivity reactions, bronchospasm, and urticaria

Most Commonly Reported Events

* Fainting
* Pain at the injection site
* Headache
* Nausea
* Fever

To prevent fainting, which can sometimes cause serious harm and lead to head injuries, Dr. Harper recommends that patients receive vaccines on a full stomach and be seated when the shots are administered. The FDA recommends that patients remain seated for up to 15 minutes after vaccination.

Dr. Harper also suggests that physicians not vaccinate patients with personal or family histories of the more serious conditions outlined in recent adverse-event reports."Physicians have a responsibility to communicate risks to patients and if patients and families are concerned, it is reasonable to hold off on vaccinating," Dr. Harper said.

It is a sentiment that is echoed by others, such as Abby Lippman, PhD, from McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, who is chair of the policy committee at the Canadian Women's Health Network. In this month's issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, she expresses concern about public policies that have seemingly rushed to embrace HPV vaccination. "Why the hurry," Dr. Lippman asks. Especially in developed countries where there is no epidemic of infection and mortality rates from cervical cancer have been in decline.

What is Causing Adverse Events ?

The cause of recent complications remains a mystery and it is difficult to know whether they are linked to vaccines. "Nobody knows why we are seeing adverse events," Dr. Harper said.

Members of the antivaccine movement point to a number of potential perils, including the presence of aluminum in injections. Like many vaccines, Gardasil contains aluminum salts. Each 0.5-mL dose contains approximately 225 &#956;g of aluminum, 9.56 mg of sodium chloride, 0.78 mg of L-histidine, 50 &#956;cg of polysorbate 80, 35 &#956;g of sodium borate, and water.

"The scientific work to date seems to suggest that aluminum salts in vaccines are safe," Dr. Harper said. But she told Medscape Oncology that she heard that 1 lot of Gardasil might have had an accidentally high yeast concentration, and this might be why there are problems. "No one knows for sure," Dr. Harper said.

The manufacturer was not available to comment about product yeast concentrations, but directed Medscape Oncology to an online statement responding to questions about recent adverse effects. "Merck has analyzed the adverse events reported for Gardasil relating to the recent reports of death and paralysis, and based on the data available to Merck, believes that no safety issue related to the vaccine has been identified. These types of events are events that could also be seen in the general population."

Richard Haupt, MD, executive director of clinical research at Merck's research laboratories added : "We remain confident in the safety profile of Gardasil."

FDA and CDC Issue Joint Statement Reassuring Clinicians and Patients Responding to public concern, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a joint statement on Tuesday reassuring clinicians and patients about the safety of Gardasil. A second vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, is already available in some countries, but is still being assessed by the FDA.

Despite company and regulatory assurances, some clinicians, who are also parents, say they are less confident about the safety of the vaccines. After reviewing the information, Scott Ratner, MD, a cardiologist with a practice in Franklin Square, New York, and his wife, a rheumatologist, opted to have their 17-year-old daughter vaccinated. It is a decision they say they now regret.

Following vaccination, their teenage daughter began showing signs and symptoms of autoimmune disease. "She went from being a healthy, active teen running, playing lacrosse, and participating on swim team to becoming a chronically ill patient," Dr. Ratner said.

"I worry about the kids who may be having problems, are perhaps struggling with immune damage, and are feeling generally achy and unwell, but are probably going unreported and undiagnosed," he said. Dr. Ratner has 2 younger daughters and he says he definitely won't be encouraging either of them to be vaccinated.

Gynecologist Christiane Northrup, MD, told Medscape Oncology that she won't be advocating that her daughters be vaccinated either. Dr. Northrup appeared on a recent episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show, which has an estimated 20 million viewers per week, most of them women. She told viewers that healthcare dollars would be better invested elsewhere. Questioning the Safety Dr. Northrup recommended that the money going toward vaccines and related programs be allocated to general health and wellness initiatives and proper nutrition. This harkens back to the age-old debate between Louis Pasteur and Antoine Beauchamp, Dr. Northrup suggests.

For most of his career, Pasteur subscribed to germ theory, while Beauchamp backed the more unpopular theory of biological terrain. The question : Is it the germs themselves that make people sick or a weakened state of immunity that allows germs to take root ? "Pasteur was widely supported, but on his death bed conceded that Beauchamp was right," Dr. Northrup said during an interview. She suggests that this is what experts should be concentrating on now. Instead of focusing on germ theory by pouring efforts into HPV vaccines, she says more resources should be dedicated to fostering the overall health of the host. Dr. Lippman makes a similar argument and points to the capacity of healthy, immunocompetent women to spontaneously clear up to 90% of HPV infections — infections, she says, almost everyone will one day acquire — within 1 to 2 years.

When Gardasil was approved in the United States in June 2006, it was hailed as an important day for public health and for women's health. Dr. Harper was quoted as saying that the vaccine is the biggest advance since the Pap smear. Dr. Harper told Medscape Oncology that she still thinks this is the case, but enthusiasm must be tempered with caution. Dr. Harper noted that we shouldn't be calling the new immunizations cervical cancer vaccines. "Even if everyone was vaccinated, we would still have cervical cancer," she said. "I don't want people to be lulled into thinking this will prevent cancer. If Pap screening rates decline, cervical cancer rates will rise," she emphasized. If Pap Screening Rates Decline, Cervical Cancer Rates Will Rise

The decline in cervical cancer in developed countries has been largely attributed to regular Pap screening — something Dr. Harper believes has done a superb job. Women who haven't received an HPV vaccine, and even those who have, are still encouraged to undergo regular screening. At the 2006 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, delegates were enthusiastic. One presenter showed a series of cervical cancer photos and told observers that "these types of pictures will soon disappear in clinical oncology." Unfortunately, that utopian prediction is unlikely. "Cervical cancer is not a vaccine-preventable disease,"

Dr. Lippman said during an interview. And in her recent editorial, she points out that surrogate end points — not cervical cancer — were used to measure the efficacy in the clinical trials. "No one would want to wait to see cervical cancer develop in participants," she writes. "But the general failure to mention that the precancerous lesions chosen for study are not only potentially removable, most (those that are CIN 2) would probably have resolved on their own without any intervention, is arguable." Many Questions Remain As previously reported by Medscape Oncology, Sharmila Makhija, MD, from the University of Alabama School of Medicine, in Birmingham, pointed to other limitations of HPV vaccines.

Dr. Makhija is the principal investigator on Merck's FUTURE III trial, looking at the vaccine's efficacy in women 24 to 45 years old, and is a coinvestigator on GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine trials. Dr. Makhija noted that the bulk of the work to date has focused on just 2 types of HPV — 16 and 18. She added that, going forward, more virulent cancer-causing strains could emerge, making it difficult to eliminate disease. And other important questions remain : * How long does the vaccine last ? * Will it require a booster ? * Who should be vaccinated and at what age ? "While
vaccine proponents emphasize the many thousands of women who participated in clinical trials of the product, they gloss over how few young girls in the 9 to 13 year age range, targeted specifically for school-based immunizations, were included," Dr. Lippman argues.

She said that only the very short-term immunogenicity and safety, and not the efficacy, of Gardasil was studied. "It is a good vaccine," Dr. Harper said. "We are simply still in the early stages of investigation." The World Health Organization (WHO) has weighed in on the vaccines and is recommending that they be considered only 1 component of any successful strategy. Immunization will have to be added to the other aspects of cervical cancer control, Andreas Ullrich, MD, medical officer at WHO's department of chronic diseases and health promotion, said in a news release. "There is no question that early detection will continue to be a key element." Merck is encouraging healthcare providers and consumers to report any adverse events associated with Gardasil to the company and to the US _Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System_ (http://www.vaers.hhs.gov/) at 1- 800-822-7967. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2008 ;62:570-571. _Abstract_

( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...0Community%20Health. [Jour]%20AND%20570[page ]%20AND%202008[pdat])

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Ethical Natural Health Businesses Asking Government to Stop C-51, Not AMEND it!

BILL C-51 CANNOT BE AMENDED BECAUSE…

…in its original version and in its proposed amended form, it is likely violating our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Criminal Code Sections 217 & 219, and provisions of Competition Law

• Sections 30.7 gives the Minister of Health the arbitrary power, behind closed doors and without Parliamentary debate or public scrutiny, to import laws and regulations from foreign governments (whom Canadians did not elect) and domestic and foreign corporations (on whose boards most Canadians do not sit-and since when should corporations run the government anyway?) It allows the Minister to make any regulation about foods, drugs and natural products based on the Minister’s views about a product’s risks or benefits.

• Sections 10, 18.2, 18.5, 18.7(1) give the Minister the arbitrary power to allow or prohibit medical research (violating free speech and freedom of association rights as well as the autonomy of Universities), shut down ongoing research without being required to provide scientific reasons, without providing evidence of harm or risk, and even the advisory committees the Minister appoints need not be neutral and independent either.

• Sections 15.1 permits only authorized practitioners to prescribe a therapeutic product; this removes a person’s right to decide what natural health products they may wish to take forcing about 70% of Canadians to rely on prescription drugs or the hope that their doctors will prescribe those supplements they now take without harm and based on good personal experience (i.e. violating the right to security and autonomy of the person).

• Section 21.1 permits the Minister to share confidential information, on Canadians and businesses, with foreign governments without their consent or knowledge (violating several Charter Rights and possibly competition and patent law).

• Section 23 allows the government to enter private property without a warrant, confiscate property arbitrarily and at their discretion as well as at the owner’s cost, dispose of one’s property without court oversight, seize one’s bank accounts without a warrant, and finally one’s guilt for an alleged offence is not determined by a court, but by the Minister. Currently, Health Canada needs court approval for all of these invasive actions. BILL C-51 abolishes the rule of law and ignores Federal Court rulings that specifically forbid such broad search and seizure powers.

• The Sections of BILL C-51 dealing with powers of enforcement permit Health Canada inspectors to stop therapeutic treatments and the provision of health products, even though such inspectors have no medical knowledge and literally would not know the implications of their action to halt these products and treatments. Such actions by inspectors would contravene and lower recent Supreme Court and Sections 217 and 219 of the Criminal Code.

• The recently proposed amendments to BILL C-51 are meaningless because none of the powers of enforcement and interference in science and medical practice have changed. As well, simply adding a definition of “natural” health products into the BILL would still mean that natural products will be regulated as if they are high-risk drugs. None of these proposed amendments acknowledge that natural health products are inherently safe and cannot be presumed toxic because they are essential nutrients.

• Even though the amendments of BILL C-51 include the definition of a Natural Health Product, the definition ignores the rights of Native, Chinese and Ayurvedic medical traditions. As Shawn Buckley of the NHPPA states, “this is a significant departure which could affect various ethnic groups if the new definition is also adopted in the current Natural Health Product Regulations”.

• The fines and penalties in the amended BILL C-51 continue to be absurd
(e.g. $5 million for a first arbitrarily established offence not verified by independent courts) and senseless in view of the fact that there is no history of non-compliance by pharmaceutical companies. If these penalties are meant to penalize natural health product manufacturers where not a single recorded death has ever been caused, then whom is our government protecting (or kidding) ?

Again, Natural Health Products will continue to be regulated as drugs under the amendments of BILL C-51, consequently violating Constitutional Rights, Criminal Law, Academic Freedom, University Autonomy and scientific evidence of the zero to low risk characteristics of natural health products.

Recommended Sources:
www.nhppa.ca Read the legal opinions of Shawn Buckley, especially the Draft Discussion Paper on the Amendments to BILL C-51

Dr.Shiv Chopra, Corrupt to the Core—Memoirs of a Health Canada Scientist, KOS 2008(September)

Helke Ferrie, What Part of No! Don’t They Understand? Rescuing Food and Medicine from Government Abuse-A Manifesto, released June 25th by a medical science writer. Fully updated edition with additional information and resources on how to stop both BILL C-51 and C-52 and have them never return, will be available September 15th, 2008

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