Women's Health

Dr. Aleksandra Niedzwiecki gave this speech to the Codex Rally on Monday, November 29, 2001 in front of the BgVV building, where at this time the Codex Meeting took place.

I am with you here to defend our right to health, because as women, mothers, wives and daughters, we have this responsibility.

All of us gathered here speak with voices and from the hearts of millions of women all over the world, women who signed and sent through the Internet our vitamin freedom petition - to date the greatest response in support of Dr. Rath's appeal and the world’s largest health referendum. We also speak for millions of women from countries where they have no access to computers, who often cannot read or express their will and who do not know about vitamins or cellular medicine. But all of them know what health is and they care for it in their minds and hearts.

All women say "No" to Codex anti-vitamin legislation.

"No" to taking health decisions away from us and stopping us from using the vitamin supplements we choose.

"No" to the legislation that will prevent us from speaking the truth about the health benefits of vitamins and cellular medicine.

Women’s voices are especially important because we have been targeted by the pharmaceutical industry as the best market for their products. You may not know that our health was largely ignored until the 1980's. Until that time we were treated just like men, only with a lower weight and fluctuating hormone levels. In the 1980's the FDA removed restrictions on advertising drugs directly to consumers. This decision triggered the flood of pharmaceutical product ads, most of these advertisements specifically targeted women and ultimately, women's health has become an agenda.

Why us?

Because we make health decisions not only for ourselves, but also for our families, we buy and dispense medication.

Because we are eager to learn about health and we are message multipliers -we talk about health and we take pride in helping others.

But most of all, we live longer than men but we are also sicker and use more medication.

We suffer more than men do from many diseases, especially chronic ones.

Despite common perception, more women than men die of heart disease. Our symptoms of heart disease differ from male symptoms and may women die of a heart attack because it was either not recognized or ignored as a benign problem.

Also, about 60% more women than men die of stroke.

Lung cancer is steadily increasing among women, because more women are smoking; and every day about 140 women die of breast cancer.

Osteoporosis is mainly a women’s disease. About 80% of patients are women.

Also, 30 % more women than men die of diabetes and even from such diseases as pneumonia and infections.

We are also the largest consumers of Prozac, an anti- depression drug that has been the no#1 selling drug in the US . Prozac is now only surpassed by cholesterol lowering drugs - statins.

We are prescribed these and many other drugs, which were clinically tested only on men, despite the fact that the female body metabolizes drugs differently. This is why we are more susceptible to adverse side effects and developing new diseases from such medication.

We do not need to take all these drugs. We know the cause of many chronic diseases - it is vitamin deficiency. We want to prevent diseases through cellular medicine and make our own health choices.

Today we read and talk a lot about prevention. But don't you see that this prevention has been using diagnostic technology as a vehicle for drug treatment. I’ll just give you a few examples.

In the US, numerous public events that involve cholesterol screening are being used as venues for advertising cholesterol lowering drugs.

Perhaps many of you, even young women, get recommendations to prevent breast cancer by taking Tamoxifen, a powerful drug. What kind of prevention it that when it doubles your risk of getting cancer of the uterus, increases the risk of death from heart attack or stroke and the risk of cataracts increases two times? Even more, studies on more than 13,000 women do not clearly conclude whether Tamoxifen even prevents breast cancer.

This is the prevention from ...health, not from disease.

What do I prevent by taking estrogen for menopause? Menopause is not a disease, it is a normal stage of life, like puberty. Millions of women go through this period by using vitamins and other nutrients that support the body with this transition. What do you prevent when estrogen therapy multiplies the risk of getting breast cancer, uterine cancer, stroke, gallblader disease and other problems?

It is prevention that sells you a handful of drugs for new diseases.

This is not prevention, this is deceptive marketing abusing the word - prevention.

Even the fact that real disease prevention has been separated from medicine and shifted to the under-funded and less prestigious domain of public health shows that it is not considered a serious profitable business.

Prevention of diseases is not just diagnostics and drugs. It means elimination of poverty and health education. It means a clean and healthy environment, nutritious diet and supplements that help to enrich food with nutrients lost during modern processing and farming, supplements that enhance our health.

We are here to defend the real meaning of disease prevention. We want prevention through cellular medicine. We know that cellular medicine is the most effective and safe health approach in normalizing blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, that it improves bone health and increases our body immunity.

Cellular nutrients are the most effective if used in doses that are higher than those archaic amounts selected arbitrarily by committees representing pharmaceutical interests, not people's health.

Tell me why when I am in the US I can buy Vitacor Plus in any store, without any problem? If I am in Germany and it happens that I forgot my vitamins, I cannot get it anywhere, it is ....illegal.

We cannot accept it!

Are people in Germany, France, or Poland different than American people? We have different citizenships but not metabolisms.

How do you feel when every time you care about your health you break the law?

Is it a good law if it undermines people's health and takes away their freedom and responsibility to make health decisions?

We want to shape our own destiny. This is not medieval Europe, this is 21st century democracy.

Why are there no limits on the cigarettes you can buy so you will not smoke yourself to death? Are cigarettes healthier than vitamins?

Why are there no limits to the beer or liquor we can buy in the store? Is it healthier than Vitacor Plus?

Of course not, but these products help expand the pharmaceutical business, whilst vitamins decrease drug prescriptions and threaten this business.

In 1994 the American people stopped the pharmaceutical interests from restricting their use of vitamins. Today in the US about 75% of patients use alternative medicine and vitamin supplements and pay for it from their own pockets. People would not do that if these treatments were not effective.

Today, we brought with us a resounding voice from America, thousands of signed petitions supporting Dr. Rath and his call for vitamin freedom and our health.

Many of us were here last year, we also came here today to support Dr. Rath and his courage to say openly: stop encroaching on our right to health.

Codex delegates: you have the responsibility to people who trust that you will act in their best interests. Do not betray this trust.

Mr. Grossklauss: you must have remembered that we were here with Dr. Rath last year, we are here today and, if needed, we will come here in the future to defend our health.

We own the biggest treasure, which nobody, nor any laws and regulations, can take away from us. We have knowledge, we know what cellular medicine is and we know that vitamins and other nutrients are the essence of health.

We, women, shelter life in our bodies and we are responsible for the health and life of the young and the elderly and we will not stop in defending health and freedom.

We will not give up.

Wir werden nicht aufgeben!!!