The Continued Assault On Our Health Freedoms

Dana Gabriel
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are once again trying to ban and regulate vitamins, minerals, nutritional supplements and some alternative therapies. This is not the first time they have attempted this, and they won't stop until they are successful. Already having regulatory control over lucrative pharmaceutical drugs, they would like nothing better then to control and dominate natural medicines as well. In essence, the real purpose of the FDA is to now protect and insure huge profits for Big Pharma. If that wasn't enough, they also want a share of the drug business. If passed, the Revitalization Act would create a new government run pharmaceutical company headed by officials of the FDA. This would give them the power to license pharmaceuticals and collect royalties. Talk about a conflict of interest.

The FDA wants control of the alternative health industry and the power to regulate what they consider treatment for diseases. Under the new Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), guidelines enacted through document 2006D-0480 would give them complete control. Although they claim that nothing would really change, the goal is to micromanage natural medicines so that Big Pharma could profit from it. They can then choose to jack up the prices or eliminate some of the vitamins altogether. Either way, pharmaceutical companies win with inflated prices and limiting health options, so those who are ill or looking for alternatives would be forced into taking expensive drugs.

Imagine having to get a doctors prescription for vitamin C or raw sprouts and other natural cancer fighting foods and supplements being regulated as drugs. It sounds absurd, but the FDA wishes to classify any vitamin, herb or mineral that combats disease as a drug. The growing and selling of some common garden herbs could lead to drug arrests. They want to even classify hot stone therapy and hand held massager's as medical devices. These are but a few examples of the tyranny in store for us if we do not stop this madness. They want to put an end to natural, non-drug alternatives, and even prevent us from seeing a chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist or anyone who isn't classified as a licensed medical doctor.

Now I'm not saying that all prescription drugs are bad, and some do serve a purpose, but where is the incentive to cure disease when there is more money to be made in allowing sick people to live with their conditions by taking these drugs? In many ways doctors are to blame, and some are seduced and influenced by Big Pharma to prescribe the latest drugs. It is all to easy to dispense drugs for health issues to control and maintain a problem then to get to the actual root cause of the ailment. The bottom line is that these drugs are being abused by those who prescribe them as well as by the patients who only to willingly gobble them up. God forbid we have a population of healthy people when there are huge profits to be made if people remain sick and hooked on these drugs.

There is little doubt that the FDA bends over backwards for Big Pharma, with the two working hand in hand. The FDA has knowingly released and approved some drugs that have not been properly tested. Although it is entrusted in keeping the public safe from harmful foods and drugs, in some cases they have done the opposite, putting millions at risk. Every year 300,000 Americans are killed by the very same medicines that are suppose to be helping them. One of these such drugs is Vioxx, which killed over 28,000 people, a few years back. The scary thing is that there is literally thousands of drugs available, some potentially dangerous. So what if people die, as long as huge profits are made. Then the drug can be pulled off the market, only to be replaced by another. What a racket. The FDA also has a long storied history of trying to withhold and even suppress some alternative medicines and cures.

In the early 1990's, some health food stores and treatment centers were raided by armed FDA agents. This lead to a public backlash and the implementation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to protect American consumer's right to purchase and use natural supplements. Since then the FDA has been hard at work, trying to bypass and destroy DSHEA. If the FDA is not successful, there is a sub group of the United Nations, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is busy harmonizing food and supplement rules between member nations. With power provided by the WTO, they are skirting around domestic laws. The FDA has also agreed to a trilateral deal with Mexico and Canada . Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and this new Trilateral Cooperation Charter, public access to food supplements and vitamins could be regulated and limited.

The paramedical industry is quite aware that some natural medicines and therapies are more effective then their own drugs. More and more people are searching for alternatives, and Big Pharma is losing some market share. With help from the FDA ,they wish to have a complete monopoly. By banning or heavily regulating vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements, they would achieve this. They could dictate the price & availability, or simply do away with the entire industry altogether. The FDA has extended the deadline for public comment to May 29 on the new CAM guidelines. It is imperative that we speak out against the adoption of 2006D-0480 to preserve our health freedoms and save more lives.