Your FDA at work. Can you even say cherries are healthy?

[Guest guest]

Dear Fellow Health Seekers,

 

We live in crazy times when it comes to health

freedom. Think you have freedom of speech?

Read on. By the way, Health Canada is just as

bad, and we won't even talk about Codex.

 

Here is a newsletter by Dr William Campbell Douglas MD,

a terrific gent who doesn't mince words.

I took out the advertising in the middle and the usual

newsletter stuff, but not a word was changed and

the credit is here and again at the end.

Hope that's OK, copyright-wise.

 

 

To start receiving your own copy of the Daily Dose, visit:

http://www.douglassreport.com/dailydose/freecopy.html .

 

Forbidden fruits

 

I've written before about the FDA's ridiculous regulatory

excesses - especially with regard to totally natural

substances that could compete with their bread-and-butter

revenue stream: Prescription drugs.

Way back in December of 2003, (Daily Dose, 12/05/2003),

I told to you about their raid on a New York area store

that was promoting the health benefits of green tea...

 

Beyond this, I know of another natural substance - a safe

and effective rice-based substitute for statin drugs

(it really works, too) - that has been banned outright by the

FDA in response to pressure from Big Pharma.

 

I also personally know a classically educated M.D. who's

also one of the world's best alternative healers who had

his office raided by gun-toting, jack-booted FDA thugs.

His crime: Administering to patients B-vitamins that weren't

laced with the agency-stipulated artificial preservatives.

 

But these are other stories for other days. Today's tale of

egregious regulation-run-amuck zooms in on a 300-acre

family-owned farm in northern Michigan where a particular

type of cherry is grown: A type known for its nutritional benefits...

 

The problem is that the farm's website - where they promote

their cherry-based juice concentrates, dried cherries, etc.

makes reference to the large body of research backing up

the benefits of their tasty fruits.

This isn't fly-by-night data, either (like what Big Pharma is

allowed to use to secure its drug approvals), it's scientific

literature published in peer-reviewed medical journals!

Also on their website appear testimonials from healthy

and happy cherry-eating customers.

 

According to a recent sidebar in Reason magazine

(the unofficial Libertarian spokes-publication), the FDA

claims that simply making reference to these studies

or reprinting these people's stories constitutes an illegal

statement of health benefits - since the agency itself has

not anointed said health data with their golden seal of approval.

They also claim that a website falls under the same regulatory

umbrella as a product label...

 

In other words, these humble, wholesome north-country

cherry-farmers can't legally tell you all the good (and true) t

hings about their products - unless they register the fruit

AS A DRUG! Keep reading...

 

No, I'm not making this stuff up.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration really expects the

growers of natural foodstuffs everyone already knows are

good for you - and that science (just not THEIR science)

has proven time and again are boons to health - to go

through the same documentation rigor as synthetic drug

approvals before they can make any claims about their

health benefits...

 

What's next - a felony for anyone who says " An apple a

day keeps the doctor away " because the statement might

not have been approved by Big Brother?

 

According to this precedent, no commercial concern anywhere

can tout the healthy benefits of anything natural unless the

exact wording of those benefits has been expressly approved

by the FDA.

 

That's exactly what the nasty warning letter these Michiganders

and a handful of other cherry farmers with similar businesses said.

Basically, they've got to " sell without the tell, " or be locked up for

violation of federal law.

 

And here's the kicker of it: Some of the offending health i

nformation these enterprising cherry farmers have been cautioned

against using on the website came from the FDA's " sister " agency:

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

Always cherry-picking the " ripest " stories,

 

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

 

 

To start receiving your own copy of the Daily Dose, visit:

http://www.douglassreport.com/dailydose/freecopy.html .

 

 

Ien in the Kootenays

http://freegreenliving.com