Deceptions in Organic Labeling
January 21,2010
Organic Consumers Association
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), along with certified organic personal care brands Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Intelligent Nutrients, and Organic Essence, today filed a complaint with the USDA National Organic Program (NOP), requesting an investigation into the widespread and blatantly deceptive labeling practices of leading “Organic” personal care brands, in violation of USDA NOP regulations.
The complaint, filed collectively on behalf of 50 million consumers of organic products, argues that products such as liquid soaps, body washes, facial cleansers, shampoos, conditioners, moisturizing lotions, lip balms, make-up and other cosmetic products produced by twelve different corporations have been advertised, labeled and marketed as “Organic” or “Organics” when, in fact, the products are not “Organic” as understood by reasonable consumers.
“Unfortunately, the hands-off regulatory approach by the USDA’s National Organic Program during the Bush years failed to protect consumers from deceptive labeling in the personal care marketplace,” said Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association. While the USDA enforces strict standards for the labeling of organic food, the NOP has not enforced the organic regulations in regards to personal care. “Given the increased resources and staffing at the National Organic Program under Obama, we’re optimistic that the situation will be rectified before too much more damage is done,” added Cummins.
“Consumers who pay a premium for high-end organic products expect the main cleansing and moisturizing ingredients of a product labeled ‘Organic’ to be made from certified organic agricultural material produced on organic farms, and not from petrochemicals or pesticide and herbicide-intensive conventional farming,” explains Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Intelligent Nutrients (and founder and previous owner of Aveda Corp).
The corporations named in the complaint are The Hain Celestial Group, Inc.; Kiss My Face Corporation; YSL Beaute, Inc. (“YSL”); Giovanni Cosmetics, Inc. (“Giovanni”); Cosway Company, Inc. (“Cosway”); Country Life, LLC (“Country Life”); Szep Elet LLC (makers of Ilike Organic Skin Care); Eminence Organic Skin Care, Inc.; Physicians’ Formula Holdings, Inc. (makers of Organic Wear); Surya Nature, Inc.; Organic Bath Company, Freeman Beauty Division of pH Beauty Labs, Inc. (makers of Freeman Goodstuff Organics).
David Bronner, President of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, stated, “Yesterday we re-filed our lawsuit in federal court against culprit companies under the Lanham Act for false advertising. One way or another, the era of ripping off organic consumers in personal care will soon come to an end.”
Ellery West, founder and owner of Organic Essence adds, “The predatory marketing practices of companies that take advantage of consumer trust in the organic label are cheating not only organic consumers but also small certified companies like ourselves.”
On November 5, 2009, the USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) formally recommended that the National Organic Program regulate personal care to ensure that any use of the word “organic” on a personal care product is backed up by third-party certification to USDA organic standards. Immediately following the recommendation, the OCA launched a consumer boycott of the major “Organic” cheater brands, and has produced a list of USDA certified organic brands that are true to their claims and are safe for organic consumers.
Click here to read full report
New Book Features 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health
January 12, 2009
NaturalNews
by Mike Adams
On the heels of her popular book, 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health, Dr. Hyla Cass, M.D. has just launched her new 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health Audio Course, featuring 9 audio CDs, her “8 Weeks” book and an accompanying workbook.
It’s all about teaching women how to restore their energy, enhance their well-being and reclaim their health using all-natural, doctor-approved health strategies.
In this new audio course, Dr. Hyla Cass guides you step-by-step through things you need to know to transform your health starting right now. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn in this remarkable new audio course:
• The 10 most important areas of women’s health – how to score yourself across these 10 areas to discover where you can make the most improvements in the shortest time.
• Step-by-step instructions for monitoring your current health status (and adjusting your results as needed).
• How to teach yourself, perhaps for the first, correct breathing and circulation (with potentially huge health benefits).
• How to pinpoint thyroid and adrenal problems using the detailed questionnaire in the book (and then learn how to heal these problems from the inside out).
• What to do about digestive imbalances, yeast infections, Candida and other digestive tract challenges.
• What unexplained migraine headaches might really mean (and how to resolve the core problems naturally and safely).
• How to take advantage of detailed diagnostic lab tests offered by conventional medicine to pinpoint health challenges (and then begin healing them naturally).
• Learn how to interpret kidney test results, liver tests results, blood sugar tests and many others, all in a “holistic” way that goes way beyond mere symptomatic treatment. (You’ll combine the best of western medicine and natural medicine!)
• What you need to know about breast health and breast exams (that most women never learn).
• How to take all the information you’ve gathered and discover the pattern of root causes that reveal your best course of action for healing (an amazing feature of this book).
• Everything you need to know about food – tailored to women’s health! Includes guidance on protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, dietary habits, phytonutrients, dealing with cravings and much more.
• How to intelligently choose — and use — nutritional supplements specifically to address and enhance women’s health.
• How to overcome and heal food addictions in a safe, intelligent way that leads to healthy lifelong habits.
• The importance of detoxification: Where to begin, how to proceed with a detox, and things to watch out for during the experience (this information can save you from unnecessary suffering).
• How to conquer an aspartame addiction. How to quit smoking for good. How to end addictions to caffeine and sugar. Amazing information on this topic, including specific recommendations for targeted supplements that enhance the effectiveness of your efforts.
• How to exercise the right way, specifically for women. Ways to use stress reduction, Pilates, yoga and other gentle movement modalities to vastly increase your total body health.
Reform Needs Healthy Life Incentives
June 30, 2009 by mike
Filed under Government
June 29, 2009
Wall Street Journal
by Scott E. Harrington
Much of the debate over health-care reform has focused on whether there should be a government insurance plan to compete with private plans. This focus is understandable given the stakes. Because equal competition between a public insurer and private plans is impossible, public coverage would crowd out private coverage and make a public, single-payer system inevitable.
Another important issue is the scope of regulation that will likely apply to private health plans regardless of whether a public plan is created.
Given budgetary and affordability concerns, the insurance market proposals by House Democrats and Sens. Edward Kennedy and Chris Dodd would permit some variation among plan benefits and cost-sharing provisions, such as deductibles and coinsurance percentages. The proposals otherwise would impose a regulatory straightjacket that would put upward pressure on health costs, thus undermining a major reform objective and creating additional pressure for government-mandated cost controls. Whether legislation being developed by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus will go as far isn’t clear.
The House Democrat and Kennedy-Dodd proposals do all they can to prevent health-insurance premium rates and coverage terms from reflecting the health status — and thus health-related behavior — of any insured person. Health status would not be permitted to affect coverage decisions, terms or pricing. Age-related variation in premium rates would also be significantly constrained in relation to risk.
Benefit design and marketing of coverage would be regulated in an attempt to keep insurers from rewarding healthier people. Retrospective “risk adjustment” would be employed to reallocate funds from insurers that experience lower medical costs to those with higher costs. If an insurer were to attract relatively more healthy people — or keep more people healthy — it would run the risk of paying some or all of the gains to competitors.
The proposals’ strong aversion to having insurance rates or coverage terms related to health status reflects the view that either the need for health care is immune from individual control, or that a person should not be financially responsible for behavior that contributes to poor health, or both. These views are difficult to reconcile with the consensus that unhealthy behavior contributes significantly to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and thus accounts for a substantial proportion of health-care costs.
Regulation that seeks to divorce insurance rates and coverage terms from health status would deter potential innovation that might provide meaningful financial incentives for healthy behavior and lower costs.
Incentives for healthy behavior have traditionally been weak under employer-sponsored health insurance, in part due to federal and state regulation that constrains the ability to reward healthy behavior. Turnover among employees and policy holders also reduces incentives to make long-term investments to promote healthy behavior.
Health-care reform should seek to encourage rather than discourage private innovation to provide incentives for healthy behavior. Safeway’s program offering employee premium discounts related to tobacco use, weight control, blood pressure and cholesterol levels is a good example.
The Democratic proposals would retard or even strangle such innovation. Rather than strengthening incentives to invest in the long-term health of policy holders, they would make it more difficult to earn a reasonable return on such investment. They also send a message that a healthy lifestyle earns no financial reward for reducing medical expenses.
Financial incentives for healthy behavior have the potential to significantly reduce costs without reducing quality. A failure of health-care reform to permit or incorporate such incentives would make coercive government measures to control costs more likely. These controls might include limits on provider reimbursement, comparative-effectiveness or cost-benefit criteria that must be met for care to be reimbursed, or budget caps. The results would be less health — more obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer — and eventually less health care.
An aversion to having health-insurance rates and coverage linked to individual behavior may be on the verge of becoming national policy. If that happens, the unintended consequences could be very costly.
Click here to read the full Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
