b'P residentsn oteNAC The Latest Health-Success Story toBecome an FDA TargetBY SCOTT C. TIPSThe FDA EliminatesCompetition and with It, Our HealthTheFDAalsoraninterferencefor itspharmaceuticalpaymasterswhen, on March 22, 1990, it banned L-Trypto-phan, a natural sleep aid and calming agentthatthreatenedpharmaceutical drugs such as Prozac that were soon to be released in the marketplace. (In fact, justfourdaysaftertryptophanwas banned, Newsweek magazine published a lead article on the great benefits of Prozac.)ThishappenedagainwithYeast-Gard, an OTC homeopathic suppository that one of my then-clients, Wakunaga of America, cleverly released on to the A boutthreedecadesago,Ithe criminal ban so as to scoop up andmarketjustbeforetheexistingpre-scription allopathic suppositories were wasoneofthefood-and- destroyasmanymanufacturers,ven- set to become OTC. Yeast-Gard was a drugattorneysinvolvedindors, and distributors as possible. hugesuccess,butofcoursetheFDA defendingvariouspersonsIn the heat of the many law-enforce- jumped in once again when a natural and companies who for some time hadmentactionsthatspreadacrosstheproductspopularityandsuccessate been distributing an amino acid calledcountry, I was able to keep my client outintopharmaceutical-industryprofits. GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), whichof prison; but others, especially manu- Fortunately, this time the natural prod-although sold as a dietary supplement,facturers, were not so fortunate. Someuct, Yeast-Gard, won and remained on hadthreeremarkablecharacteristics:served short prison terms. Oh, and, bythe market. (1)Ithelpedusersquicklyfallasleep;the way, GHB was strong competitionGHB,L-Tryptophan,andYeast-(2)Ithelpedusersloseweighteffort- forthecontemporaneousprescriptionGardarebynomeanstheonlyex-lessly;and(3)Itwasanaphrodisiac.andOTCdrugaidsforsleeplessnessamplesoftheFDAthrottlingnatu-Now, something with three home-runsand weight loss, such as Sonata (Zale- ral-productcompetitorsthatthreaten like that could not possibly be allowedplon) as a sleep aid and Fenfluraminethe pharmaceutical industrys bottom to stay on the market by the Food andfor weight loss. line on a large scale. Real GcMAFa DrugAdministration(FDA),soinaRemember, up until the FDAs pressglycoproteinmacrophage-activating nationalpressreleaseissuedonNo- release, GHB was being sold in health- factor that is naturally produced in ev-vember 8, 1990, the FDA peremptorilyfood stores on a regular, over-the-count- ery healthy human and has proven to declared GHB a drug, criminalized itser basisjust as has been the case withbe stunningly effective at treating can-distribution, and retroactively appliedN-Acetylcysteine (NAC) of late. ceris still unavailable in the United 6 H ealtHF reedomN ews /s ummer2021'