Campaigns background

What is the ANH campaign about?

Our overriding mission is to promote natural health worldwide, through the use of good science and good law.

How do we this? By helping to create an appropriate scientific and legal framework for natural health so that people in all parts of the world can take responsibility for and manage their own health, using safe and effective natural products as they see fit. The use of nature in healthcare is one of our fundamental human rights and we argue that governments should not be able to deprive us of this right.

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DOWNLOAD ANH CAMPAIGN FLYER, February 2009
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What is at risk?

Over the last two or so decades, scientific research has shown that the key diseases that plague our society are linked to lifestyle and nutrition. Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and obesity are obvious examples, these now being global priority diseases for the World Health Organization, through its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health says, "Our healthy survival depends on us having nutritious foods, clean water, healthy working environments and the ability to take adequate exercise. On top of this we need to manage stress and have good quality social interactions with the people around us. These are the key requirements for good or optimal health – not pharmaceutical drugs”.

But we now find that our food is becoming less and less nutritious and often does not contain the required proportions of nutrients for good health. It is also becoming more difficult to get access to uncontaminated drinking water and foods which are not genetically modified (non-GM). These are all priority areas on which we are working in the ANH. In essence, we are working to help maintain our rights to healthy, non-GM foods, to nutrients that are increasingly hard to come by in conventional foods which we now need to take in supplementary form, and of course, to clean drinking water.

Brussels is in the process of delivering a plethora of directives and regulations affecting the natural product sector EU-wide. These constitute one of the biggest threats to the expansion of and innovation within the natural products industry in Europe. Worse than this, the EU model appears to be the template which will be exported globally through the UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission. The aim, it seems, is to ban therapeutic foods or ingredients, unless they are specifically registered as licensed drugs or novel foods. These, of course, are both very expensive routes and out of reach of most of the smaller companies that have been the real pioneers of healthy foods and nutritional products.

We know what big business has done with food and agriculture – are we really going to allow small businesses to be killed off in the natural health sector, a sector we believe to be the exiled but rightful heir to mainstream healthcare?

Our genes, our food and other aspects of our natural environment have co-evolved very closely over millennia, so if our diet becomes nutritionally deprived or unbalanced, the consequences can be dire. Healthcare traditions that have evolved over thousands of years are also being threatened without adequate justification by over-zealous regulators. People are beginning to wake up to these facts – and we are hopeful that this awakening will continue to be the main driver of consumer appeal for natural health and therapies – regardless of what is thrown at us by the regulators. People are going to have to live with the fact that the pharmaceutical industry and those opposed to the therapeutic use of natural products might continue to talk down natural products in healthcare. But the vast majority of you know what’s good for you – and you will understand why we have to work together to stop governments from taking things away from us that are good for us – and future generations.

Healthcare sustainability

We also argue that pharmaceutically-based medicine, which has become the norm in healthcare in many parts of the world over the last 30 or so years, is not sustainable. Side effects of drugs and their high cost are just two factors that tell us that pharmaceutical drug-based healthcare is not sustainable. Interestingly, the concept of sustainability has been applied to many industries, ranging from agriculture and forestry to energy production, but for some reason, until we introduced the concept, it had never been applied to healthcare.

The Alliance for Natural Health has pioneered the concept of healthcare sustainability, and we define it as follows:

A complex system of interacting approaches to the restoration, management and optimisation of human health that has an ecological base, that is environmentally, economically and socially viable indefinitely, that works harmoniously both with the human body and the non-human environment, and which does not cause any significant unfair or disproportionate effects which may hinder the functioning, development or viability of the healthcare system itself.
- Alliance for Natural Health (2007)

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ANH launches two new campaign areas

On 6th February 2009, we launched two new campaigns.

Each represents a very controversial issue relating to the use of biotechnology although the two issues are surprisingly interconnected.

Both are being pushed down our throats by governments and the industries responsible for them, via supremely well-greased PR machines.

Both have big question marks over their safety, yet there have been elaborate attempts, in both cases, to discredit the scientists that first flagged concerns and to cover up their findings.

Both these issues could also—potentially—have very significant implications to our health. And not only to our own, but generally even more so to that of the youngest and least independent members of our society—children. And it is after all our young ones who need to face the consequences of whatever decisions those responsible for them take.

The two issues are; genetically modified (GM) foods and vaccination.

You can find our two new campaign pages via the hyperlinks below:

Many of us feel that our ability to make informed choices about these issues is hampered by the bias and misrepresentation in the media. There is little doubt that the industrial sectors that are pushing these technologies, namely the pharmaceutical/vaccine/biotech industry and the biotech/agri-business industry know a thing or two about media manipulation.

Our two new campaigns are about raising awareness among those interested, or maybe even passionate, about natural health. We are trying to bring you information that allows you to make more informed choices. We are also trying to counter some of the bias that is rampant in the general media.

We consider this expansion of our focus to be a necessity given the seriousness of the challenges around us. We hope it might help more and more people to connect the dots and see how far we're being pulled away from our natural, evolutionary heritage.

Many of us may now be living in a post-democratic age, but we are only susceptible to unelected bureaucrats and greedy industries if we behave, consume and think in the ways that they have pre-determined for us.

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International treaties and conventions

There are a range of international treaties and conventions that support our work which aims to protect natural healthcare:

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966)
(http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm)
Article 12
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950) (http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm)
Article 8. Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)
Article 25
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Further information:

UN website page on international treaties associated with health: http://www.who.int/hhr/readings/treaties/en/index.html
See also: http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/

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