Action Item: http://tinyurl.com/FDApowerabuse 

During 2007 the Natural Solutions Foundation warned the American public that Ted Kennedy’s last gift of power to the Federal bureaucracy, the so-called FDA Modernization Act of 2007 (what we call the FDA Enabling Act) would seriously threaten our Health and Food Freedom.

Although we fought hard to make sure language was kept in that bill “exempting” dietary supplements, the DSHEA Exemption, (and you sent over 150,000 emails in one weekend!) we were not holding out much hope that this massive increase in FDA power would not be used against our freedom of choice… despite the fact the the law is clear and the statute had specific exemption language. We were specially worried about language in the Act that would let FDA ban interstate commerce in any FOOD that had ever been studied for medical use.

That’s right, Congress gave FDA authority to ban any food… why? Indeed, why would Congress believe it had power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to control what food free Americans grow and use? We leave the answer to such questions to the philosophers and psychiatrists…

Dr. Ron Paul (R – TX): Giving FDA authority is giving “FDA power to abuse…”

Sure enough, the ink of President Bush’s signature was barely dry when FDA moved to ban the first supplement under the new law. At the behalf of a drug company (they called it a “citizen petition”) FDA banned a form of Vitamin B6 that has been continually available for decades. This form of B6 happens to be the most bioavailable, thus the drug company “studied” it and then decided NOT to market it, but rather seek govt help in banning it!

How did FDA “get around”the DSHEA Exemption? It announced that none of the vitamin companies and advocates objecting to the ban had “proven” that this particular form of B6 had been “sold to supplement the diet” prior to the “grandfathering” cut off date in 1994. The listing of this form of B6 in the “Old Dietary Ingredients” list posted on the FDA website was not to be considered proof!

We warned that the Vitamin B6 precedent would threaten all dietary supplement advances since ‘94. Fast-forward to 2011… FDA announces a new guideline on New Dietary Ingredients which takes the B6 precedent and codifies this for all nutrients. Remember, FDA restricts what people can say about nutrients and then uses its new powers to ban those nutrients. This is a Freedom of Speech Issue. Here is what Life Extension says about this:

The FDA has just issued a proposed mandate that will enable the government to ban the most effective dietary supplements you are now taking.

If this proposal is enacted, many fish oil formulas and natural plant extracts will be removed from the market until so-called safety testing is done. The FDA wants each nutrient company to force-feed laboratory animals the human equivalent of up to 240,000 milligrams a day of certain fish oils. This outlandish dose will injure the test animals and give the FDA an excuse to outlaw the supplement.

How can the FDA do this? They are seeking to reclassify the natural supplements you now take as “food additives.” This gives the FDA power to mandate outrageous safety thresholds that have no relationship to the scientifically validated doses of nutrients you take every day.

Why are they doing this? Because these natural products work too well. Take curcumin as an example. It has been shown to inhibit a deadly transcription factor in cells called nuclear factor-kappa beta (NF-kB) that is responsible for immune system regulation. Over-expression of NF-kB is linked with tumor cells that resist normal cell growth and maturation, as well as inflammation.

Pharmaceutical companies want to own the exclusive rights to these kinds of plant extracts that are freely sold on the market today. They don’t want consumers to be able to obtain these biological benefits in low-cost supplements. Instead, they want to patent synthetic versions as high-priced prescription drugs!

We know what the FDA wants to do… stop us from making what they and their drug company friends think are “bad” decisions… What is the law, however? Here is what the Supreme Court said in Thompson v Western States (535 U.S. 357 – 2002):

“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that regulating speech must be a last – not first – resort… We have previously rejected the notion that the Government has an interest in preventing the dissemination of truthful commercial information in order to prevent members of the public from making bad decisions with the information… Even if the Government did argue that it had an interest in preventing misleading advertisements, this interest could be satisfied by the far less restrictive alternative of requiring each … to be labeled with a warning that the [product] had not undergone FDA testing and that its risks were unknown…”

Once again, the FDA is abusing power Congress wrongfully granted to this oppressive agency! Once again, our Health and Food Freedoms are under assault! We initiated a new Action Item to reply to this latest FDA attack on health and food and urge everyone to “take it viral” and flood decision makers with your concerns! In addition, we have several other current relevant Action Items we urge you to use daily!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 9:56 am and is filed under The Law & CODEX . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.