Forget about making this part of the “Connection between state of police and America wants our water”.
It’s a report back on an earlier email about Bill C-51.
To the extent that we become “ungovernable” we create the conditions for calling in the police and the troops. We protest when we see that the public interest is not being served.
The more that the Government promotes the corporate interest, the more we protest.
If through the media we are portrayed as violent, as radicals, as weird, as “ungovernable”, the population is conditioned for the calling in of the troops. They will accept that it was absolutely necessary to bring in military forces.
Following my attendance at the Government-initiated meeting on Bill C-51 on Monday this week, using Bill C-51 as example of more protest:
SUBJECT: Our healthcare system is not “free”. We pay for it through taxation. It is dominated by the drug/pharmaceutical companies.
THE PUBLIC INTERST, IF DEFINED:
– access to affordable, even free healthcare (free as in the model of Native healers).
– the ability of the individual to learn ways to self-heal.
Those are two fundamental elements of the public interest that need to be protected, which is the job of Government.
My experience with an active case of tuberculosis (identified before it became contagious) offers some lessons.
I know we must find alternatives to the drug-company approach to disease:
1. The development of resistant organisms will eventually wipe out large swaths of people, simultaneously creating a break-down in civil society. In South Africa people with resistant tuberculosis are being quarantined in prisons with armed guards to keep them there. It’s necessary to stop the spread of the resistant TB. I have the news report but have not circulated it to you.
2. Meanwhile the pharmaceutical companies are in a frenzied fight to put the first “cure” on the market that can kill the resistant strains of TB. The Government of Nigeria has launched a law suit against pharmaceutical companies who have used African people as human guinea pigs to test the new TB drugs. The experimental drugs have killed the human guinea pigs as well as the TB.
3. Corporate-driven development of remedies (which aren’t really remedies at all) guarantees that the drugs will be expensive. People in developing countries simply will not be able to afford the drugs.
We in Canada and other countries MIGHT be able to afford them. But escalating costs of the medi-care system mean that education, infrastructure, government debt, and social services are financially starved. In the end … ? What we are doing doesn’t make sense.
My case was unique. It cannot be applied holus-bolus to everyone. But there is an important lesson in it. It’s a lesson that, like other alternatives and innovations, threatens the drug industry profits.
I overcame a case of active TB (identified before it became contagious) through alternatives to drugs. I didn’t take the 9-month drug protocol, because:
– it would not address the underlying question: 30% of the population is walking around with the TB organism. It never becomes active in their body. Why didn’t my immune system contain the organism?
– if given a chance and the right support my body has the ability to heal itself. The drugs are highly toxic and compromise my immune system.
– I wish to be part of the solution. I know about the development of resistant organisms. It is a suicidal path for the human species. A no-brainer. In my position I had the responsibility to try the alternative.
Nobody with a vested interest in the status quo will conduct research to see if alternatives work. IN GENERAL the medical profession either doesn’t want to hear my story, or they are defensive or somewhat antagonistic. Their status of “authority” is challenged. EXCEPTION: Dr. Hoeppner who was head of TB control was different. He was supportive and worked with me as I worked with the alternatives. He is a rare breed and unfortunately, now retired.
– The overload of drugs use collectively by our society are getting into our water supplies through urine. We flush down the toilet and then take drinking water from the same source. We do not have protocols and technology to identify and remove the soup-mix of drugs and chemicals we pee or empty down the drain. It is grossly stupid. But there it is. We know about the research that shows the feminization of aquatic life downstream from sewage treatment plants. Again, we MUST find alternatives to the drugs and chemicals. Reduce the load of them in our water supplies. Poison in means poison out. Disease and developmental trends aren’t accidental.
But you can see the tremendous threat to the Drug Companies.
In the area of “Natural Health Products”, I attended the meeting on Bill C-51 with Government Officials.
And asked the question:
Is there a separate section in the draft legislation for genetically engineered plants used for health purposes?
Answer: No
Which makes them “Natural Health Products”. Period. The genetic derivation of Natural Health Products will not be labeled or known, same as is the case with wheat (bread) in Canada, following the earlier registration of BASF’s herbicide-tolerant mutagenesis wheat. You cannot buy canola oil in Canada that does not have genetically modified canola in it – there is no requirement to label.
In the corporate interest I may not know what I eat. And now, through definitions (or lack of) in Bill C-51, genetically engineered plants become “Natural Health Products”.
The genetic engineering of animals, trees, etc. proceeds outside the realm of public scrutiny. In spite of the fact that we are the ones who bear the brunt of the problems created. The drug and chemical companies (who are the biotech agriculture which includes plants for “natural” remedy) aren’t the ones who will pay to get the poisons out of the water.
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The consultations on Bill C-51 are with people whose interests are alternative approaches to health. The question of how to handle genetically engineered plants from bio-pharma hasn’t come up.
People see “products”. I don’t think they make the connection that with “Natural Health Products” the “pills” are often herbs and plants. Which is why the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (Agriculture Canada) had a representative at the meeting.
The line between food and plants grown for health purposes is blurred. We begin to overlap into agriculture. Agriculture is Monsanto and the other chemical companies. The lesson from biotech food crops is that the huge corporate interest trumps the protection of the public interest. They have made “ownership” of plants an issue. The Government of Canada, in spite of admonitions in two different Supreme Court cases has not altered the Patent Act which doesn’t distinguish mechanical inventions from life forms. (Duh?)
It is ironic that the Government officials repeatedly say, in relation to Bill C-51 that the existing legislation is terribly out-dated. It’s old, not designed for today’s world and has to be changed. Simultaneously the Supreme Court has told them to change the Patent Act which was designed for mechanical inventions. It was written in an age when the thought of engineering and patent of life-forms could not be imagined. That basic question has not been addressed. It is very convenient for the industrythat it goes unaddressed.
The Government officials said that they had encountered anger at and a lack-of-trust in Health Canada. My response is that until Legislation does actually serve to protect the public interest the anger, frustration and lack-of-trust will persist.
We can probably anticipate a multi-million dollar advertising campaign now, to convince us that Health Canada serves the public interest.
I am beginning to think that the policy of “public-private-partnerships”, P3’s, is making this country ungovernable. Except by some other form of governance. It will be government by the military (fascist) unless we drive the corporations out of government, where they should not be in the first place.
So what is the story with plants that are genetically engineered by the pharmaceutical/chemical/biotech complex of corporations?
Just as Monsanto responded some time ago to the burgeoning interest in organic foods by buying organic companies, the Pharmaceutical companies have responded to the move away from drugs to “alternatives”: they are developing “biotech” plants for health purposes.
A point I wanted to make and did at the meeting, but not fully:
What is the context of this legislation, Bill C-51?
Billions of dollars in profits are at stake. The biotech corporations have made “Ownership” of plants an issue. What are the implications, if for example, I want to eat a root that the Native people use for healing purposes? Or take St John’s Wort? Or use a Chinese herb? … draw the parallel. We know from experience. We fought hard and successfully to stop the introduction of Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerant wheat. (It is not smart to develop our food supply by the criterion that it can be sprayed by chemicals and survive. Nor is it smart to hasten the development of resistant organisms.) We stopped Monsanto’s wheat. MEANWHILE the Government registered BASF’s muta-genesis herbicide-tolerant wheat.
The Government officials told the audience, (and these particular people are genuine in their intent), that under the Natural Health Products Act (C-51) they want full disclosure of all the ingredients in the products so that the public knows what they are getting. Which is laudable.
But there is no labeling requirement when it comes to the interests of the biotechnology corporations. Through the failure to make bioteched plants a separate category of “Natural Health Product”, these plants become “natural”. You lose your choice if you don’t have information. “Full disclosure of the ingredients” means that genetically engineered plants would be identifiable. The same lack of disclosure exists and is defended by the Government for the chemical corporations: they are required to label only the “active” ingredients in chemicals. Even though the surfactants, etc. might be more toxic than the active ingredient.
Some “Natural Health Products” are a plant version of a pharmaceutical drug.
I think we need to at least debate the desirability of separate legislation and regulations for Natural Health Products and for pharmaceutical drugs.
On the surface at least, the same regulations and enforcement (seizure, etc.) are desirable for both.
There should be full disclosure of the ingredients in Natural Health Products. There should be full disclosure of the ingredients in pharmaceutical drugs. There should be full disclosure of genetically engineered ingredients. There should be full disclosure in chemical products.
The labeling requirements for Natural Health Products should be the same as for pharmaceutical drugs.
They apply a different policy in other parts of its operations:
– Health Canada regulates the chemical companies through the PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency). Only the “active” ingredients have to be listed on the labels.
Health Canada has resisted all attempts to get full disclosure on the labels. Doctors with patients who have been poisoned by a chemical need to know all the ingredients. They most often cannot obtain that information in a timely fashion, if at all.