By Dr. Mercola [1]
Five years ago, in 2007, a report bearing the revealing title “FDA Science and Mission at Risk” by the Subcommittee on Science and Technology1, detailed how the FDA cannot fulfill its mission because:
The FDA’s mission statement reads as follows:
“The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.
The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health.”
Furthermore, the report found that “the development of medical products based on ‘new science’ cannot be adequately regulated by the FDA,” and that the agency does not have the capacity to carry out risk assessment and analysis. Additionally, the agency’s science agenda “lacks coherent structure and vision, as well as effective coordination and prioritization.”
- Its scientific base has eroded and its scientific organizational structure is weak
- Its scientific workforce does not have sufficient capacity and capability, and
- Its information technology (IT) infrastructure is inadequate
The fact that the FDA does not have its ducks in a row; has sorely misplaced its priorities; and is not working to fulfill its mission is clearly evidenced in the numerous cases where hundreds and sometimes thousands of complaints about dangerous drugs (like Vioxx and Avandia), vaccines (like Gardasil), and additives (like aspartame) are stubbornly ignored, while SWAT-style teams armed to the teeth are sent to raid supplement makers, whole food businesses, organic farmers, and raw dairies when oftentimes not a single incidence of harm can be attributed to their products…
According to the Science and Technology Subcommittee’s report, the failures of the FDA are placing the health of Americans, and indeed the economic health of the entire nation, at grave risk:
“The FDA constitutes a critical component of our nation’s healthcare delivery and public health system. The FDA, as much as any public or private sector institution in this country, touches the lives, health and wellbeing of all Americans and is integral to the nation’s economy and its security. The FDA’s responsibilities for protecting the health of Americans are far-reaching. The FDA protects our nation’s food supply through regulatory activities designed to cover 80 percent of the food consumed in this country. The FDA also regulates all drugs, human vaccines, and medical devices, and hence plays a critical role in ensuring the appropriate safety and efficacy of rapidly emerging medical products.
… The FDA is also central to the economic health of the nation, regulating approximately $1 trillion in consumer products or 25 cents of every consumer dollar expended in this country annually.. Thus, the nation is at risk if FDA science is at risk. The Subcommittee concluded that science at the FDA is in a precarious position: the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities.”
Phenomenal New Film Documents FDA Crimes in Great Detail
Gary Null’s documentary film War on Health: The FDA’s Cult of Tyranny premiered earlier this summer in New York City. You can view it in full above, and I strongly encourage you to set aside the time to do so.
Gary doesn’t mince words in his introductory speech, in which he lays out how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has usurped the power of Congress to create laws for itself, with the aim to destroy all competition to the pharmaceutical industry. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen repeated attempts to introduce legislation that would virtually eliminate any and all nutritional supplements, and strict laws banning dissemination of certain information about the health benefits of foods and supplements have already been implemented.
The FDA is constantly complaining about being underfunded, yet despite the fact that millions of people are harmed by drugs each year, the agency is not clamping down on dangerous drugs. No, instead it spends its scarce resources going after competitors to Big Pharma, such as raw milk producers, cherry farmers2 and walnut growers—typically over marketing claims and natural food production practices that have been safely used for centuries, such as raw cheese, labeling such foods “dangerous.”
As stated by Progressive Radio Network3:
“… Featuring many pioneering American and European attorneys, physicians, medical researchers and advocates of health freedom, War on Health lifts the veil on FDA’s militaristic operations against organic food providers and alternative physicians. The film’s conclusion is perfectly clear: the FDA is a tyrannical cult founded upon the denial of sound medical science with little intention to improve the nation’s health and prevent disease.”
Nutritional Supplements Repeatedly Under Attack
As recently as May, Illinois Senator Richard Durbin [2] launched a “sneak attack” on supplements that would have slipped under the radar were it not for the watchful eye of organizations such as the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), who send out alerts whenever something like this occurs.
Durbin’s Amendment No. 2127 was piggybacked onto a bill on May 22, which was set for a vote the very next day. The bill was S 3187, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. Fortunately, thanks to rapid and effective push-back by the natural health community,
Durbin’s amendment was defeated—for now. (It was tabled for later discussion.) Senate offices were flooded with nearly 90,000 emails and phone calls within 24 hours in response to the announcement of the proposed amendment, applying pressure to local representatives and successfully preventing the amendment’s passage.
The tabled amendment would have required supplement companies to register supplements with the U.S. FDA within 30 days, a nearly impossible task and one designed to put them out of business. Supplement companies are already required to register with the FDA under Title III of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 20024 (aka “the Bioterrorism Act”), so this new piece of legislation was redundant, pointless, and nothing more than an underhanded blow to the natural health movement.
When it comes to your healthcare freedom, Senator Durbin may be the most dangerous politician in Washington, and I am sorry to say he is from my home state of Illinois, but he’s certainly not acting alone in trying to take away your health freedom.
As explained by Gary Null in his introductory speech, over 100 individuals from major industries—more than 40 from Monsanto alone—have been “installed” in positions of power that oversee public health! Each and every one of those individuals is actively working on strategies aimed at protecting the profits of the pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, and processed food industries, and eliminating your right and legal ability to make individual health decisions.
If that’s not tyranny, what is?
An Epidemic of Incompetence and Fraud
“‘War on Health’ is the first documentary detailing and challenging the FDA agenda and its allegiance with the international Codex Alimentarius, which hopes to establish a monolithic food and health regime,” PRN states5.
“Betraying its founding mandate to assure drug, food and chemical safety in the interests of public health, the FDA today is a repressive bureaucracy serving pharmaceutical and agricultural greed and profits. Vaccines, medical devices, prescription drugs are fast tracked at alarming rates through the FDA at the expense of scientific oversight to assure their efficacy and safety.
The result is hundreds of thousands premature deaths annually from pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines and medical devices and an epidemic of medical incompetence and fraud sanctioned by federal health officials.”
As recent reports have revealed, the FDA doesn’t just sanction wholesale fraud, there are strong allegations that are actively engaged in it. In July, explosive revelations of an intensive spy operation by the FDA [3] on its own scientists emerged. Using sophisticated spy software, the agency tracked and logged every move made by the targeted individuals, down to keystrokes in real time. The program also intercepted personal emails and copied documents on their personal thumb drives.
The New York Times6 reported that:
“A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show.
What began as a narrow investigation into the possible leaking of confidential agency information by five scientists quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process… [T]he surveillance operation identified 21 agency employees, Congressional officials, outside medical researchers and journalists thought to be working together to put out negative and ‘defamatory’ information about the agency. “
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished at the FDA
Why were these employees considered a threat to the FDA? The targeted scientists had expressed concern over the agency’s approval of dangerous medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies, which they believe expose patients to dangerous levels of radiation.
How can the FDA justify harassing their own scientists—professionals hired to assess the safety of devices such as mammograms—just because these employees found serious health threats that the agency would rather ignore in order to protect their industry clients? It’s completely unconscionable and there’s no good defense. As a longtime critic of mammograms, I’m familiar with the kind of harassment the FDA can dish out, so it does not surprise me the agency would stoop so low as to spy on their critics, but it should serve as a sobering wake-up call to all who believe the FDA seal of approval is a sign of safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The following video features the whistleblowers’ attorney, Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center7.
“For the first time, we now have a glimpse into what domestic surveillance of whistleblowers looks like in this country with the modern technological developments,” Kohn says. “The agency [sought] to destroy the reputation of these whistleblowers forever.”
This is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.
In 20 Years, Projected Health Care Costs Are on Trajectory to Exceed 100% of Family Income
“American healthcare will be imprisoned, patients will be forced to abide by a single medical paradigm defined by corporate drug and food executives and dictated by a government enforcement agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is the bleak scenario if the FDA succeeds in limiting Americans’ options to prevent and treat diseases,” the Progressive Radio Network states.
The truth of that statement can no longer be in doubt. According to a recent report published in the Annals of Family Medicine, if the current trend continues, by the year 2035 the average family will face medical costs that exceed their total income!8, 9
This is clearly an unsustainable position, and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Part and parcel of the answer is to allow alternative and complementary medicine to flourish and coexist with conventional therapies. But for that to happen, we must DEMAND that our elected officials do their sworn duty and protect the health and well-being of the citizens of the United States, and that includes making sure nutritional supplements are always freely available to those who want them.
If You Want to Keep Your Supplements, Get Involved NOW!
We must remain ever vigilant, as this fight is far from over. There will always be legislators like Senator Durbin who will make arguments that sound good to most listeners at first blush, but are really stepping stones to ending your free choice. Senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harken deserve our gratitude and support for the great work they did in defeating Amendment No. 2127. If you wish to express your thanks, you can send a message by clicking here [4].
But don’t stop with your thank you note!
There is still work to be done to prevent passage of S 1310, Dietary Supplement Labeling Act, introduced by Durbin in June last year10,11. Please contact your representatives and demand the FDA immediately withdraw these proposed guidelines. You can easily do this by logging onto the Life Extension Legislative Action Center. [5]
If you live in Illinois, contact Senator Durbin. Tell him—or whomever your representative is—to stop this overreach of power, and that the FDA’s draft guidance guidelines fly in the face of the original congressional intent of DSHEA. Congress never intended for the FDA to control supplements, and giving them this control jeopardizes your access to the dietary supplements you rely on, as well as further damaging the US economy. Please be courteous and respectful, and thank them for their time.
Legislators can be very sneaky in their attempts to slip legislation through that fulfills their agenda, as this latest amendment demonstrates. The time to get involved is NOW. You are the best one to decide what’s best for your health, and the government has no right to stand in your way.
Again, please do take the time to view Gary Null’s excellent documentary, and get involved to protect your health freedom at every opportunity.
Read the full article here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/18/war-on-health.aspx [1]
Global Censorship of Health Information
The Politics of Controlling Therapeutic Information to Protect State-Sponsored Drug Monopolies
[6]
by Attorney Jonathan Emord
Free Shipping available! [6]