THE WAR ON NON-DRUGS FDA CONTROL

[Guest guest]

The War on Non-Drugs

 

When Whole Foods magazine surveyed herbal products retailers, asking

what obstacles were in the way of increased herb sales, nearly half

listed ways in which the medical monopoly manipulates information.

Twenty-three percent pointed to the government restricting what type

of information can be given to consumers, and eighteen percent

said " scare stories " about herbs in the mainstream media. Another

forty-one percent pointed to lack of consumer education; in other

words, if people were made aware of the medical benefits of herbs,

they would use them.

 

But they're not made aware, partly because the FDA has waged an all-

out war on non-drugs. Just ask criminologist Elaine Feuer. When she

turned her investigative skills toward the FDA, she discovered that

it works diligently to protect the profits of big medicine. She

learned that it prevents factual information from reaching the public

and works to close companies that market alternatives. In her

book, " Innocent Casualities: The FDA's War Against Humanity, " Feuer

reports that the FDA seems to target those companies that offer

remedies for the big money-making diseases, such as cancer and AIDS.

 

For these and other diseases, there's a long roster of inexpensive,

highly effective cures hidden away from the public or labeled as

snake oils.

 

The FDA's war on non-drugs has included many battles. In the 1970s,

it tried to turn vitamin supplements into prescription drugs. After

an uproar from the public, Congress rejected the idea that vitamins

are so dangerous that they should only be prescribed by doctors.

 

" A variant of the process has already been successfully used to

remove certain herbs from the shelves of stores. If you can't get an

herb labeled as a drug, get it labeled a food additive. It can then

be controlled by the bureaucrats in the FDA, " writes pharmacologist

Mowrey.

 

And if re-classifying herbs as drugs or food additives doesn't work,

the FDA uses Orwellian tactics in its ongoing war. In 1990, for

example, it tried to get a law passed that would have allowed it to

make summary seizures of products from companies and tap telephone

lines without a court warrant. Public pressure again defeated these

strong-arm tactics.

 

In 1993, the FDA tried another tactic, seeking to classify all amino

acids and many minerals as prescription drugs. The public outcry

caused a backlash, and Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health

and Education Act in 1994 to limit the FDA's authority to regulate

supplements.

 

Most recently, the FDA has been trying to go after Internet companies

that sell herbs and other non-monopoly treatments. It is charging

that these companies dispense drugs without a prescription.

 

In " The Assault on Medical Freedom, " author Joseph Lisa exposes

previously secret documents from the medical industry to show that

the FDA, the pharmaceuticals industry, insurance companies and the

AMA work together to discredit natural medicine. He calls this

collusion " medlock. " The documents show how the FDA worked with the

Pharmaceutical Advertising Council in 1983 to create the " Public

Service Anti-Quackery Campaign " to make people think alternative

remedies were useless snake oils. The FDA thus became the tool for

the drug industry to violate antitrust laws by helping to close down

companies that compete with pharmaceutical giants. The result,

according to Lisa, is " nothing less than an enforced totalitarian

medical-pharmaceutical police state. "

 

But because herbs and vitamins are so effective, the public has

protected its access to them. So the FDA, unable to gain control of

all herbs and vitamins, has been targeting them one at a time, trying

to prove their dangers. When that fails, the debunkers go into

action, warning the public to avoid a substance because it has not

been properly tested. When scientific, double-blind studies prove the

effectiveness of these substances, the evidence is ignored.

 

Pharmacist Mowrey went looking for studies on whether herbs offer

effective cures and found that thousands of scientific studies have

proven not only the effectiveness of herbs but that they often work

as well as their synthetic copies.

 

Journalist Leviton found the same thing. " Clinical studies continue

to build the case that dietary supplements and botanicals could be

successfully used to manage if not reverse most diseases without the

cost, toxicity, or side effects of conventional drugs, " he

writes. " The implications are obvious: Alternative medicine could

bankrupt the pharmaceutical industry. " As a result, he says, " Freedom

of choice is available in most areas of American life except

medicine. "

 

Killing the Competition

 

And so the FDA acts as the drug industry's enforcement agency,

pushing worthwhile natural medicines off the market. How,

specifically, does it do this?

 

Mowrey tells the story of sassafras tea, a blood cleanser that has

been used as a tonic in the United States for centuries. One of its

constituents, safrole, can be toxic to the liver when extracted from

the herb and administered in large doses. Like many herbs with toxic

compounds, the whole plant contains other substances that neutralize

the toxic one. No study had ever shown that the herb sassafras was

toxic. There wasn't even anecdotal evidence that the tea posed a

danger. But the FDA prohibited its interstate shipment in 1976 based

on this reasoning: When sassafras — a food — is added to water — also

a food — the substance safrole migrates from the sassafras into the

water and therefore becomes a food additive.

 

Once this convoluted reasoning was used to label sassafras a food

additive, the FDA was allowed to control it.

 

" During the entire proceedings, the power of the scientific method,

initially utilized to create the controversy, became impotent in

resolving the situation. Unasked questions cannot be answered. The

question of whether whole sassafras herb or even sassafras tea was

toxic to the liver was never experimentally addressed, " Mowrey

reported.

Sassafras tea is just one of a long list of healthful substances that

U.S. consumers have been frightened away from.

 

Canadian scientist Gaston Naessens put together an herbal cancer

remedy called 714-X. As of 1991, it had cured more than one thousand

cancer patients and several AIDS patients. But as long as the medical

monopoly remains, this safe cancer cure will not be used in the

United States.

 

When Jason Winters cured his cancer with another herbal combination,

he felt compelled to get the word out. " I must tell you that I was

scared. I was not prepared to take on the billion-dollar drug

companies, the medical associations and doctors, all of whom would

chew up and spit out anyone that would dare to even say that

possibly, just possibly, herbs can help, " wrote Winters, whose

book, " Killing Cancer, " has sold more than 12 million copies.

 

Winters outlines the typical fate of natural cancer and other cures

that are advertised in U.S. publications: " Usually, the publication

gets into a lot of trouble for printing it in the first place, then

all future publicity is stopped. The persons selling the products are

usually tricked or entrapped into a phony suit about `practicing

medicine without a license,' or if they can't stop them that way,

they attack them on some income tax charge or other. "

 

Those who practice natural medicine or sell natural remedies live

with the knowledge that they could be closed down any day. Self-

healer Linda Koep, (www.wholeapproach.com) for example, is very

careful about how she conducts business. After finding a combination

of natural substances that cured her, she decided to represent the

company that makes those products. Linda knows what will help those

suffering from the symptoms she had, but without a medical license,

she can't say so. The distributor from whom she was buying these

substances was investigated by the FDA, so Koep is careful not to

make any medical claims.

 

Self-healer Kathy Stephens, a registered nurse, can't use the

word " pain " when telling people how they can eliminate their pain.

She must use the word " discomfort. " Otherwise, she's making a medical

claim.

 

Kathy suffered osteoarthritis pain for five years before her brother

showed her a non-drug solution. The system of medicine in which she

was trained offered only drugs and surgery. Her brother suggested she

try magnets. " But being the professional nurse that I am, I laughed

and scoffed, " she recalls.

 

Then she went to a family reunion and camped out with her children.

Her brother set up her bed — a magnetic sleeping pad and pillow and a

quilt containing far-infrared technology.

 

" The next morning, I opened my eyes and couldn't believe I had slept

all night long. I moved around a little bit, and nothing hurt. I

didn't have to push myself up with my hands to get out of the tent. I

couldn't believe the difference it made in my body. I was so full of

energy. " She ordered a magnetic mattress that June day in 1999. Then

she began selling the products that allow her to control her pain all

day long.

 

Kathy believes magnets can eliminate anyone's osteoarthritis pain.

But she can't say so. Because she sells a non-monopoly product, she

has lost the right of free speech.

 

It's not just the FDA that she has to worry about. The Federal Trade

Commission in June 2001 announced it was cracking down on six dietary

supplement companies. It claimed these companies were making false

and potentially dangerous claims about products on the Internet. FTC

admitted that neither it nor the FDA had received any reports of

people injured by the products being sold. In fact, one of the

products, the hormone DHEA, has been proven beneficial in studies

conducted in allopathic labs.

 

According to the Townsend Letter for Doctors, experimental results

indicate that DHEA prevents some cancers, boosts the immune system,

makes lab animals live longer and may reverse osteoporosis. Yet the

FTC fined Oasis Wellness Network of Broomfield, Colorado, 150,000

dollars for claiming that a product containing DHEA can fight aging.

It also ordered the company to restrict its advertising.

 

This would not have happened if one of the companies that belongs to

the medical monopoly was selling the DHEA. But those companies don't

bother to sell natural substances. They cannot patent — and therefore

make huge profits — off natural substances. So they only make non-

natural chemicals. And they use the federal government to keep

natural substances from competing with them.

 

Winters sums up the system: " When a person is healing people but is

not a medical doctor, does not belong to the AMA, and if he is not

prescribing harmful drugs, then he can expect to be persecuted. "

 

Yachad contrasts the persecution of natural healers in the United

States with the acceptance of alternative medicine in South

Africa: " For example, this woman naturopath was operating a clinic in

South Africa, and there was no equivalent of the AMA outside hauling

her off to jail for witchcraft, like they do in this country. "

 

Self-healer Arlene Oostdyk says natural healers, to avoid

prosecution, must avoid certain words,

including " diagnosis, " " disease " and " cure. " She also says it's a

shame that so many Americans have to leave the country to get

effective treatment, and that so many physicians have to move to

foreign soil to practice effective medicine. " A doctor who uses

chelation has to go out of the country, and that's sick, because

they're so persecuted, " she says. " A lot of physicians would like to

get into natural medicine, but they're worried about the persecution. "

 

It makes you wonder how many Americans have suffered needlessly over

the last half century, and how many have died unnecessarily. The

larger question, perhaps, is what right does the government have to

intervene in a person's medical decisions?

 

" There are cures out there, but our government and the pharmaceutical

companies want control, " says self-healer Sharon Rosa, a

naturopath. " We do need medical doctors, but we need the `Little-

House-on-the-Prairie' type, and the medical profession needs to allow

people like me to practice, too. "