Ross Pelton, RPh, PhD, CCN
Ross Pelton, RPh, PhD, CCN, is a pharmacist, and certified clinical nutritionist (CCN). Ross “brands” himself as The Natural Pharmacist and he is the author of The Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook. IMCJ readers can use the following link to get a FREE copy of Ross’ Quick Reference Guide to Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletions: naturalpharmacist.net/dind Ross’ website, bio and blog are at: naturalpharmacist.net
Corresponding author: Ross Pelton, RPh, PhD, CCN
E-mail: [email protected]
This article originally appeared in Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal it is being published on this site ahead of print.
Dear Fellow Healthcare Professionals,
The National Health Federation (NHF) is a nonprofit, health-freedom organization that was founded in January 1955. In addition to being the World’s oldest health-freedom organization, it is the only one with accredited NGO status at Codex Alimentarius, which gives us an important seat at the global regulatory table to fight for your health rights. For the past 71 years, the NHF has tirelessly fought to protect the health rights, health safety, and health freedom(s) of individuals and healthcare practitioners.
Many subscribers to this journal are probably not familiar with NHF and the fact that for seven decades NHF has been constantly fighting for issues that are important to your practice and the health-freedom of your patients. This article will introduce you to NHF, its mission and goals, and the important health topics NHF is fighting for. I hope this article motivates you to join the NHF and help us fight to protect health rights and health freedoms in the U.S. and throughout the rest of the World
NHF’S Mission
The NHF is an international consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals’ rights to consume healthy food, take supplements, and the choice to use alternative therapies without unnecessary government restrictions. Necessarily, this mission also involves protecting practitioners’ co-equal rights to offer their health services to patients.
NHF’S Vision
The NHF envisions a world free of all artificial impediments to securing and retaining excellent, abundant health and health freedom. Individuals should be free to choose for themselves their own means of maintaining and regaining optimal health. While we can never create a perfect healthcare environment, we can certainly strive to greatly minimize the errors and bad actors who plague our current healthcare regime.
NHF’S Promise
NHF, together with health-freedom friends and colleagues throughout the World, vows to change and save lives through our uniquely leveraged position on the international political stage, impacting food, nutritional supplements, and healing.
What Is Codex Alimentarius & Why You Should Care
The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Food Code”) is a collection of international food standards, guidelines, and codes of practice developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), which was established by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure food safety, protect consumer health, and promote fair practices in the global food trade.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission currently has 188 member countries and 1 member organization (the European Union). However, powerful commercial and industry interests influence Codex Alimentarius decisions, eroding public-health goals – and even Codex’s own goal of food safety – by prioritizing open trade and food sales over food safety. While Codex aims to protect consumers and ensure fair trade, special interests, such as Big Ag and Big Pharma, tilt the balance towards industry. NHF, one of only a handful of consumer organizations and the only health-freedom organization at Codex, is there to balance the scales.
Snapshot History of NHF’s Epic Battles
1950s: NHF fought and won the battle for mandatory inspection of poultry.
1960s: NHF coordinated a major drive to help chiropractors become legally licensed in over 40 States and out from under the thumb of the AMA.
1970s: NHF waged very successful campaigns against fluoridation of public water supplies and for the legalization of laetrile in numerous States.
1980s: NHF played a pivotal role in gaining legislative recognition of acupuncture and stopped an attempt in Congress to block the sale of dietary supplements through the U.S. Post Office.
1990s: NHF lobbied to pass Act S-784 (the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), fought malathion spraying, and further pursued and promoted public education on the dangers of vaccinations.
2000s: NHF helped derail international attempts at Codex meetings to restrict your freedom to take higher-potency vitamins and minerals, while domestically, it fought to prevent re-classification of anabolic-steroid dietary supplements as Controlled Substances, and against the attempts to harmonize vitamin and supplement laws to stricter standards that would have regulated supplements like drugs and food additives.
2010s: NHF fought to defeat Senator Durbin’s Bill (S.722) that sought to restrict DSHEA with his attempt to require dietary supplement manufacturers to submit burdensome Adverse Events Reports for the safest consumer food products on the market. NHF also continued its work to keep steroids and dangerous antibiotics out of the global meat and honey supply, to reduce the allowable amounts of aluminum, lead and arsenic in food, to get aspartame declared a dangerous and harmful artificial sweetener, and for standardized full-disclosure food labeling.
Since 2020: NHF has continued its work at numerous Codex Alimentarius meetings and joined the global movement against the proliferation of excessive and harmful radiation in our environment. And NHF’s work continues against the harmful agendas of Big Agriculture and pharmaceuticals concerns.
The Medical Freedom Amendment (MFA)
NHF board member Michael Levesque has proposed the Medical Freedom Amendment, (MFA) which if enacted, would be the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. All of us at NHF agree, America needs a Medical Freedom Amendment, now more than ever.
The proposed 28th Medical Freedom Amendment is a necessary addition to the Bill of Rights within the United States Constitution. The Amendment is the necessary addition of Medical Freedom that Dr. Benjamin Rush, the Nation’s first Surgeon General and personal physician to George Washington pursued as he warned that “the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship.” He stated that the U.S. Constitution required an amendment securing medical freedom, just as there is the requirement for freedom of speech and religion.
Medical dictatorship now controls much of our healthcare; it is now a major disfunction in our society and it must be stopped. We need an amendment securing our right to medical freedom be enacted. Wealthy lobbying groups, which have co-opted U.S. and other regulatory agencies, are strangling our medical freedoms and rights for greed. This is a political issue that only we, the citizens, can correct with a massive response. It is our obligation as citizens for ourselves, our families, and the future of our great nation. We must be our own government governing ourselves. Medical freedom is our inalienable right and must be protected from the tyrannical forces here at home and internationally.
For more information about the Medical Freedom Amendment, and to make your voice heard visit: https://thenhf.com/pass-the-medical-freedom-amendment/.
The NHF’s U.S. Fight Becomes Global
In June 2000, Scott Tips, General Counsel and a member of NHF’s Board of Governors since 1989, pushed past national borders so that NHF expanded to effectively and powerfully impact the entire Planet due to Tips’ attending his first Codex committee meeting in Berlin, Germany, and securing an accredited seat for NHF two years later at the global seat of power for food standards, Codex Alimentarius. This remains a colossal and key advancement in health and health freedom, providing a singular Voice for Health Freedom®.
By securing the only health and health-freedom seat at Codex, Scott Tips’ and NHF’s work there has been instrumental at leveraging NHF’s initial national vision to now include the whole Earth where decisions in global policy now impact nearly 8 billion people. In 2007, Scott Tips was elected President of NHF. He still holds that position today and he is now considered a veteran at Codex with more experience and active participation than the heads of delegation from any other country in the World. And NHF is fighting for you, your family, and the health freedom(s) of your patients.
Here is a list of some of the current battles the NHF is waging:
- Defending Americans’ rights to nutritional supplements and natural medicine and freedom to practice alternative medicines.
- Pushing the adoption of the Medical Freedom Amendment (MFA) as the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Here is a link to the campaign: https://thenhf.com/pass-the-medical-freedom-amendment/ and we hope you will also endorse this MFA.
- Preventing Congress and the individual States from granting manufacturers further immunity from lawsuits regarding injuries and/or deaths from vaccines and/or pesticides, while also acting to repeal the deadly 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
- Fighting the World Health Organization’s and World Economic Forum’s attempts to create COVID-19 and other global vaccine mandates as part of their attempts to assert total global control over food and medicine.
- Battling the FDA’s attempt to ban homeopathic products, including eye drops
- Using NHF’s lobbyist’s skills to work together with the MAHA movement to advance better health for all Americans.
- Fighting for more broadband and against the proliferation of wireless.
- And, of course, advocating for better health and consumer rights at a large array of Codex Alimentarius meetings.
Become a New Member of NHF: NHF’s website is: www.thenhf.com. Click on the JOIN tab to become a new member of NHF. Members receive a copy of NHF’s quarterly journal Health Freedom News®. In North America, individual memberships are $45/year. International memberships are $81/year. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to consider joining NHF at the following rates: Sustaining ($100/yr.), Corporate (which gives you five copies of HFN) ($300/yr.), Lifetime ($2500, and Perpetual ($5000).
Fighting for health freedoms is your fight. We hope you will join us in this grand, seven-decades-long adventure to protect your health and those whom you love.