Early in the 1990’s, so many people were alarmed at how government was taking over their lives, that several “third parties” emerged in an effort to break the two-party political system. The big winner in the third party sweepstakes that season was Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire whose shrill voice and East Texas twang stood out like a beacon of hope to 19% of America’s voters. Whether you think Ross walked on water or thought he was just a big jerk from Texas doesn’t matter. His endorsement by 19% of the voters remains a major statement of support from millions of ordinary people regarding their disgust with government power. Ross’s main message was that government is supposed to be subservient to the people. In short, every American has the right to say, “I am an owner of this country and these government people work for me!”

Interestingly, most of the third parties back then promoted health freedom platforms in an effort to either get government out of the health care system altogether, or at least make sure that the citizens could regain control over their own medical affairs.

When Bill Clinton was elected President and we saw Hillary’s mammoth plan for a government takeover of American health care system introduced two years later, we also saw that it was rejected out of hand after little debate. Hillary’s idea was to put the government in charge of not only controlling the sky-high costs of modern medicine but to make sure we all had access whether we wanted it or not to pre-approved choices made by government bureaucrats.

 

Sad to say, some elements of that original behemoth were incrementally passed later, thanks to the usual cloakroom deals from both sides of the aisle. One such loss of freedom was the selling of our most personal and private information to high power data collectors who now make a living selling this information to all comers. However, millions of Americans are still doing what they can to protect our medical system from becoming a no-choice, government-controlled, socialized modern medicine monster.

Some of the noisier elements of the health freedom movement, then as now, are those of us who don’t depend on modern medicine as our only road back to health. We use natural healing methods and products that are generally ignored by government bean counters who regularly pontificate about the state of American health care. During the time of the great health care reform debate regarding Hillary’s plan, millions of us sent millions of messages to our elected officials in Washington, urging them to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. We made it abundantly clear we wanted to stop the FDA from conducting gunpoint raids on doctors’ offices and seizing millions of dollars worth of supplement products. The FDA made it vividly clear that it intended to remove such products from the market because they represented competition to synthetic drugs. Congress got the message and passed DSHEA unanimously.

While DSHEA has been a tremendous success and we still have supplements on our shelves, the problem is that FDA officials, thanks to backing from their Big Pharma patrons, have never liked DSHEA and have never fully complied with the law. In fact, while we citizens still function on the belief that PUBLIC SERVANTS (and we capitalize those words on purpose) are servants of the people, FDA officials don’t seem to understand that they work for us. Instead, they have creatively used the law to twist it to their own purposes. In fact, there is even a book entitled, “FDA’s Creative Application of the Law” which discusses how the FDA re-interprets the law to bring about changes in public health policy! YUP, YOU READ THAT RIGHT! The FDA functions as its own policy making body without our permission and apparently without any reprimands from Congress! [Read]

This is not news to the health freedom movement. We know it is standard operating procedure for this agency to run amuck. We said as much in an article we published several weeks ago on NewsWithViews.com entitled, “A Call To Action to Protect Free Speech”, in which we talked about a new bill that was about to be introduced to rein in the FDA. And in this week’s column we would like to expand on that topic.

At issue is the fact that employees of the FDA don’t think the agency has to abide by the U.S. Constitution or the law in general, when it comes to allowing manufacturers to make health claims about dietary supplements. Worse yet, these same public employees don’t think we should be allowed to have truthful, scientific information about what these products can do for our health even if some other arm of government produced it. May we repeat, FDA EMPLOYEES ARE PUBLIC SERVANTS. THEY WORK FOR THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

This new bill to curb the outrageous behavior of FDA employees is HR 4282, Health Freedom Protection Act. It was officially introduced in Congress on November 9th and now has ten co-sponsors with more on the way. The current co-sponsors are, Ron Paul (TX), Peter DeFazio (OR), Dan Burton (IN), Walter Jones (NC), Rob Bishop (UT), John J. Duncan (TN), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Jeff Miller (FL), Butch Otter (ID), and Tom Tancredo (CO).

If any of these co-sponsors happens to be your personal public servant in the U.S. House, please send him a polite thank you note and tell him why it is personally important to you that he is supporting this bill. If your public servant in the U.S. House is not listed, then you have your work cut out for you. Find the number to make your call to your public servant using this URL. [Read]

Our Congressmen and Senators have a Winter Recess that usually begins around the third week in December and ends sometime at the end of January. During this time, they are frequently home in their districts, often holding public meetings, and otherwise somewhat more available to you, their constituents. This means that if you call your Congressperson’s local office nearest to your home, this will give you an opportunity to get to know the staff.

Phoning is now the most powerful way to get your message across, followed up, if you would like, with e-mail and snail mail. As this campaign to pass HR 4282 The Health Freedom Protection Act develops, there will be more reasons for you to contact your public servant and his or her staff, because it will take all of us constantly on the job to make sure our elected public servants know the people they work for want to have access to REAL information about the dietary supplement products they take and want FDA employees given the message loud and clear.

If you are able to set up an appointment with your public servant while he or she is home during the Winter Recess, be sure to bring others with you so that he or she realizes that you are not alone in your concern about the bill. In all cases, be sure to state why the bill affects you personally. If you manufacture or sell these products be sure to mention that. If you have health issues that have been improved by using these products and you depend upon them to regain your health or remain healthy be sure to mention that as well. Just being for “free speech” on principle isn’t the same as needing information about the products and using the products to help you maintain health. It is critical that your public servant knows this is a life and death matter to you.

In describing HR 4282 The Health Freedom Protection Act, here are some of the things this bill will do when it is passed.

(1) amend the drug and health claim provisions of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) to permit truthful disease treatment claims for foods and dietary supplements (presently FDA prohibits all such claims.

(2) prohibit FDA from preventing any who sell foods and supplements from sending consumers government reports (and accurate quotes form government reports) on nutrient-disease associations.

(3) prohibit FDA from preventing any who sell foods and supplements from sending consumers scientific publications on nutrient-disease associations;

(4) limit FDA disclaimers on health claims to no more than three concise sentences.

(5) require FDA to permit health claims to be made unless FDA proves there to be no scientific evidence to support the claims and no disclaimer capable of avoiding misleadingness;

(6) compel FDA to approve or disapprove health claim petitions within 100 days or the claims will be automatically allowed.

(7) require FDA to consider studies of the treatment effect of nutrients in evaluation of nutrient-disease prevention claims.

(8) prohibit FDA from waiving conflicts of interest in its food advisory panels considering health claims.

(9) reverse FDAs denial or restriction of the following nutrient-disease association claims: (a) saw palmetto treating benign prostatic hyperplasia; (b) omega-3 fatty acids and coronary heart disease; (c) omega-3 fatty acids and sudden death heart attacks; (d) glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate treating osteoarthritis; and (e) calcium reducing the risk of bone fractures.

(10) prevent FDA from disallowing structure function claims that include terms that refer to signs or symptoms of disease so long as the disease itself is not mentioned.

(11) amend the deceptive advertising provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) to make all publications exempt from regulation by the amendment to the FDCA also exempt from regulation by the FTC.

(12) prohibit FTC from regulating as advertising any truthful and accurate summary of findings from peer-reviewed scientific publication.

(13) require FTC to give notice and an opportunity to cure to any company suspected of engaging in deceptive advertising of a health benefit.

(14) prohibit FTC from commencing a deceptive advertising investigation of a health benefit promotion unless FTC possesses proof by a preponderance of the evidence that the ad is false and misleading.

(15) require FTC to prove that an ad is false and misleading and that it actually misleads consumers before FTC may hold an advertiser guilty of deceptive advertising.

If your public servant seems interested in co-sponsoring the bill, please refer him or her to Rep. Ron Paul’s office for more information. www.house.gov/paul

And, most of all, stay tuned. From what we are seeing, there is massive public support for this bill starting to emerge and if things continue to go as they are, passage of this bill may very well change the landscape of health freedom significantly. Let’s hope so.

© 2005 Carolyn Dean - All Rights Reserved

 

 

Dr. Carolyn Dean is a medical doctor, naturopathic doctor, herbalist, acupuncturist, nutritionist, as well as a powerful health activist fighting for health freedom as president of Friends of Freedom International. Dr. Dean is the author of over a dozen health books, the latest of which is "Death By Modern Medicine".

Elissa Meininger, is Vice President of Friends of Freedom International and co-founder of the Health Freedom Action Network, a grassroots citizens' political action group. She is also a health freedom political analyst and can be heard on the natural health radio show SuperHealth, broadcast weekly on station WKY (SuperTalk AM 930) in Oklahoma City.

 

Website: www.deathbymodernmedicine.com
Website: www.carolyndean.com

E-Mail: holeopharm@pol.net