Now, please do not dwell on the fact that the libertarian/constitutionalist Ron Paul is involved here, let me just say that bill he introduced the bill. I wanted to get that out of way so people don't accuse me of shilling for him...though it's a commendable bill and it must be said. What is important here is the bill as well as the what it implies about the FDA and some of its functions as well as its realtionship to Big Pharma. I just wanted to point that out.
Anyway, on to the article. This should be a particular interest to health-conscious people who are used to reading health supplement labels that refuse to state the scientific benefits of natural health products.
see below the fold....
Yes, as stupid as that sounds, there's actually a new bill submitted by Congressman Ron Paul called the Health Freedom Protection Act. The link I provided was written by Rima Laibow, MD Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation. See link for more info that group. This act:
protects your right to know the truth about the positive effects natural products can have for you. The FDA currently restricts truthful information (Called "health claims") to "structure function claims". This means that you are not permitted to hear what scientists or clinical experience have to say about a supplement. Imagine the drug companies not being permitted to tell you what their products could do for you? Do you think they would stand still for that? Well, the FDA applies a totally biased standard to health claims BASED IN SCIENCE to supplements. Dr. Paul says this is unfair and violates your health freedom.
Sound silly? I think so. Ya know, it's one thing for the FDA to mandate the labeling of ingredients so consumers can know what they are ingesting. Makes sense. However, forbidding the conveyance of truthful information is ridiculous. Far too often, an inclination to "help us" results in an ever-growing scope of self-given authority to do things that defy common sense. This being yet another example. Kudos to Paul for introducing legislation that should never really have been needed in my opinion. I wonder how such a power was even bequeathed on the FDA. I suspect big pharma had something to do with it. I've often found that such nannyism has the finger prints of anti-competitive big money interests behind it....much like the quality control measures on meat-packing following the famous book "The Jungle" that nearly destroyed Big meat packing companies. Few realize this "triumph in consumer safety was written by the meat lobby in order to socialize the costs of quality control and win back consumer confidence. Local, trusted small meat packers were eating up their market share like termites. Expensive private efforts to win back their reputations weren't working.
Indeed, this is what follows in the article: Laibow:
The dangerous "FDA Revitalization Bil", passed by the Senate as S. 1082 gives the FDA even more powers than it has now, brings it into an even tighter incestuous relationship with the drug indstry, makes it more dependant and "User Fees" paid by the drug companies for its operating budget, dilutes and diminishes safety controls (lax enough now to allow approved drugs, used as directed, to account for the majority of deaths in the US) and actually creates a tax-payer funded private drug company out of the FDA. This means that not only are natural health approaches direct (and successful) competitors to the FDA's clients, Big Pharma, but they become direct competitors to the drugs that the FDA itself will license and sell.
The sister legislation is now in th House of Representatives. HR 1561 MUST be amended to protect food and dietary supplements and to include the language of the Health Freedom Protection Bill, HR 2117.
Keep this in mind if you happen to come across these bills with benevolent and "helpful" framing. The Federal Government is given a well-meaning inch to do good and they take a special-interest laden MILE in return. The fine line between true protection and ill-motivated censorship and obstruction under the guise of protection can be so fuzzy. A general mindset that is suspicious of the "helping hand" in return for less freedom of any kind is the best antidote.
We should always demand real proof of the benefits of what we allow done to us and not assume its good because it "sounds "helpful".