Take action!
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Wednesday, October 31, 2018
A Message From Suzanne Somers About BHRT
Take action!
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5G Is Freaky and Frizzin Me Out
Take action!
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A Message From Suzanne Somers About BHRT
Take action!
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
EPA to Increase Your Exposure to Radiation and Mercury
New proposals would expose us to more environmental pollutants. Action Alert!
It doesn’t take much of a scientific background to know that exposure to radiation is bad. Yet a new rule coming out of the EPA at the behest of crony interests will increase the amount of radiation we are exposed to. Another rule will increase the amount of mercury we’re exposed to. To protect our health, these rules must be opposed.
The first proposal would expose Americans to more radiation because it limits the studies that the EPA can use to determine what levels of exposure are safe—not just of radiation, but other environmental toxins as well. Experts have maintained there is no harmless dose of radiation. Yet one of the proponents of this rule, Edward Calabrese, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s School of Public Health, believes that exposure to low doses of radiation is beneficial! It is an extraordinary view that is contradicted by most experts. A leading radiation researcher, Dr. John William Gofman, provided evidence that medical radiation (CAT scans, CT scans, X-rays, etc.) is a necessary co-actor in about 75 percent of recent cases of breast cancer in the United States. (Note that MRIs—magnetic resonance imaging—are generally safer than CAT and CT scans, but can have their own dangers.) A 2007 study from Columbia University estimated that as much as 2 percent of all cancer in the US may be due to radiation from CT scans.
Who benefits from this rule? Hospitals. It is within the capacity of hospitals to use lower-dose radiation when performing CT scans. This can be done through programming computer algorithms into the software that runs the imaging equipment. Since this technology is recent, it is only compatible with newer machines, and there is little incentive for hospitals to replace CT scanners (which can cost up to $2 million) with more advanced models. In fact, the opposite is happening. Hospitals are increasingly buying lower-end CT scanners to keep costs down. And why not, when diagnostic imaging has become a $100 billion-a-year business? Better to simply change the rules so people can be exposed to more radiation than be bothered with patient safety.
Another proposal would expose Americans to more mercury, a potent neurotoxin and one of the most poisonous forms of air pollution. It would bar the EPA, when calculating the cost/benefit of a rule, from taking secondary benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Although mercury is first emitted into the air as a metal, it settles in the beds of waterways where it is converted by bacteria into methylmercury. Methylmercury accumulates in the bodies of fish and other wildlife. Pregnant women who eat contaminated fish put their fetuses at risk. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
This is cronyism 101: special interests using the power of the federal government to change the rules in a way that benefits them while causing harm to everybody else. We cannot let them get away with it.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the EPA opposing these two proposals. Please send your message immediately.
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FDA Decision Will Likely Increase Cervical Cancer Rates
The HPV vaccine was just approved for adults, despite Merck’s concerning research data. Action Alert!
It’s official: Gardasil 9, Merck’s HPV vaccine, has been approved for adults age 27-45. The FDA made its determination in the face of substantial evidence of the dangers of the HPV vaccine and the existence of safer alternatives. We must oppose the agency’s decision and prevent more Americans from becoming irreparably harmed by this vaccine.
This is a terrible idea for many reasons. For women who have already been exposed to certain strains of the HPV virus, vaccination can actually increase the risk of precancerous lesions by 44.6%. That’s right: if you are already infected with HPV, getting vaccinated could increase your risk of getting cancer. To put this in perspective, 79 million Americans are thought to be infected with HPV, and about 14 million are newly infected each year, making HPV the most common sexually transmitted infection. Often there are no symptoms. The CDC says that “HPV is so common that almost every person who is sexually active will get HPV at some time in their life.” A large, government-backed push to get more people vaccinated for HPV could actually increase many people’s risk of getting cancer.
There’s more. In our initial coverage of Merck’s petition to expand the indication for Gardasil, we pointed out that a new study shows that women aged 25-29 who received the HPV vaccine have a lower probability of becoming pregnant. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The government’s vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) lists a startling 57,287 adverse events from the vaccine, including 419 deaths—far more than any other vaccine. A World Health Organization study demonstrated that the vaccine has a tendency to produce clusters of serious adverse events. The American College of Pediatricians raised concerns that the vaccine could be linked to premature ovarian failure. And let’s not forget the former Merck doctor who said that Gardasil “will become the greatest medical scandal of all time,” that it “serves no other purpose than to generate profit for the manufacturer,” and, like some other vaccines, that it can cause “Guillain-Barré syndrome, paralysis of the lower limbs, vaccine-induced MS, and vaccine-induced encephalitis.”
Given these alarming facts, why would the FDA expand the number of people who get the HPV vaccine? Is the government so beholden to vaccine manufacturers that they will turn a blind eye to clear evidence of danger?
To learn more, be sure to watch our documentary on the dangers of this particular vaccine, Manufactured Crisis: HPV, Hype and Horror.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the FDA, telling them that, given the safety concerns with the HPV vaccine, it is unconscionable to expand its use. Please send your message immediately.
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Action Alert: Tell the EPA to Protect Americans from Radiation and Mercury
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FDA Just Made Cervical Cancer More Likely For Women
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from https://ift.tt/2PcOdAg
EPA to Increase Your Exposure to Radiation and Mercury
New proposals would expose us to more environmental pollutants. Action Alert!
It doesn’t take much of a scientific background to know that exposure to radiation is bad. Yet a new rule coming out of the EPA at the behest of crony interests will increase the amount of radiation we are exposed to. Another rule will increase the amount of mercury we’re exposed to. To protect our health, these rules must be opposed.
The first proposal would expose Americans to more radiation because it limits the studies that the EPA can use to determine what levels of exposure are safe—not just of radiation, but other environmental toxins as well. Experts have maintained there is no harmless dose of radiation. Yet one of the proponents of this rule, Edward Calabrese, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s School of Public Health, believes that exposure to low doses of radiation is beneficial! It is an extraordinary view that is contradicted by most experts. A leading radiation researcher, Dr. John William Gofman, provided evidence that medical radiation (CAT scans, CT scans, X-rays, etc.) is a necessary co-actor in about 75 percent of recent cases of breast cancer in the United States. (Note that MRIs—magnetic resonance imaging—are generally safer than CAT and CT scans, but can have their own dangers.) A 2007 study from Columbia University estimated that as much as 2 percent of all cancer in the US may be due to radiation from CT scans.
Who benefits from this rule? Hospitals. It is within the capacity of hospitals to use lower-dose radiation when performing CT scans. This can be done through programming computer algorithms into the software that runs the imaging equipment. Since this technology is recent, it is only compatible with newer machines, and there is little incentive for hospitals to replace CT scanners (which can cost up to $2 million) with more advanced models. In fact, the opposite is happening. Hospitals are increasingly buying lower-end CT scanners to keep costs down. And why not, when diagnostic imaging has become a $100 billion-a-year business? Better to simply change the rules so people can be exposed to more radiation than be bothered with patient safety.
Another proposal would expose Americans to more mercury, a potent neurotoxin and one of the most poisonous forms of air pollution. It would bar the EPA, when calculating the cost/benefit of a rule, from taking secondary benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Although mercury is first emitted into the air as a metal, it settles in the beds of waterways where it is converted by bacteria into methylmercury. Methylmercury accumulates in the bodies of fish and other wildlife. Pregnant women who eat contaminated fish put their fetuses at risk. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
This is cronyism 101: special interests using the power of the federal government to change the rules in a way that benefits them while causing harm to everybody else. We cannot let them get away with it.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the EPA opposing these two proposals. Please send your message immediately.
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FDA Decision Will Likely Increase Cervical Cancer Rates
The HPV vaccine was just approved for adults, despite Merck’s concerning research data. Action Alert!
It’s official: Gardasil 9, Merck’s HPV vaccine, has been approved for adults age 27-45. The FDA made its determination in the face of substantial evidence of the dangers of the HPV vaccine and the existence of safer alternatives. We must oppose the agency’s decision and prevent more Americans from becoming irreparably harmed by this vaccine.
This is a terrible idea for many reasons. For women who have already been exposed to certain strains of the HPV virus, vaccination can actually increase the risk of precancerous lesions by 44.6%. That’s right: if you are already infected with HPV, getting vaccinated could increase your risk of getting cancer. To put this in perspective, 79 million Americans are thought to be infected with HPV, and about 14 million are newly infected each year, making HPV the most common sexually transmitted infection. Often there are no symptoms. The CDC says that “HPV is so common that almost every person who is sexually active will get HPV at some time in their life.” A large, government-backed push to get more people vaccinated for HPV could actually increase many people’s risk of getting cancer.
There’s more. In our initial coverage of Merck’s petition to expand the indication for Gardasil, we pointed out that a new study shows that women aged 25-29 who received the HPV vaccine have a lower probability of becoming pregnant. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The government’s vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) lists a startling 57,287 adverse events from the vaccine, including 419 deaths—far more than any other vaccine. A World Health Organization study demonstrated that the vaccine has a tendency to produce clusters of serious adverse events. The American College of Pediatricians raised concerns that the vaccine could be linked to premature ovarian failure. And let’s not forget the former Merck doctor who said that Gardasil “will become the greatest medical scandal of all time,” that it “serves no other purpose than to generate profit for the manufacturer,” and, like some other vaccines, that it can cause “Guillain-Barré syndrome, paralysis of the lower limbs, vaccine-induced MS, and vaccine-induced encephalitis.”
Given these alarming facts, why would the FDA expand the number of people who get the HPV vaccine? Is the government so beholden to vaccine manufacturers that they will turn a blind eye to clear evidence of danger?
To learn more, be sure to watch our documentary on the dangers of this particular vaccine, Manufactured Crisis: HPV, Hype and Horror.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the FDA, telling them that, given the safety concerns with the HPV vaccine, it is unconscionable to expand its use. Please send your message immediately.
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Action Alert: Tell the EPA to Protect Americans from Radiation and Mercury
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FDA Just Made Cervical Cancer More Likely For Women
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EPA Proposes Removing Radiation and Mercury Protections
Take action!
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EPA Proposes Removing Radiation and Mercury Protections
Take action!
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Thursday, October 4, 2018
Fun Acronyms With Dr. Einsteinberger
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Drug Companies are Stealing from You
…with the help of the federal government and universities. Action Alert!
The high cost of prescription drugs has recently made headlines, evidenced by price-gouging schemes that cause drug prices to skyrocket 5,000% (as in the case with the infamous Martin Shkreli and the drug Daraprim) or Mylan’s more recent price hike on EpiPen’s to over $600 for a two-pack. What’s often left out of these stories, however, is how the federal government helped the pharmaceutical industry have this kind of power over drug pricing by allowing the industry to take advantage of publicly-funded research.
This stunning history is discussed at length in an article in The New Republic magazine, but here are the highlights: of the 210 medicines approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2016, every one originated in government labs, or university labs funded by the government. But it wasn’t always the case that the pharmaceutical industry could rake in billions of dollars in profit from publicly-funded research. For a long time, the US government retained the patents that sprung from government research.
This began to change in 1968, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revived the Institutional Patent Agreement program which allowed non-profits—mostly universities, in this case—to claim the licenses of medicines developed with government funds. Whereas before, inventors using NIH funds were required to assign patents back to the federal government, now they could be sold to the pharmaceutical industry. This trend was solidified in 1980 with the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act, which allowed universities, non-profits, and small businesses to own, patent, and commercialize inventions developed with government research dollars.
Universities get government money to do research, patent any novel inventions that arise from that research, and sell the patents to the pharmaceutical industry. Consumers are forced to pay monopoly prices for drugs that their tax money helped develop.
Later in 1980, the Supreme Court decided that genes and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be patented, which sparked a gold rush in biotechnology. In the following years, more Pharma-friendly legislation was passed. The Orphan Drug Act, for example, provided incentives to the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs for rare diseases; the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992 put Big Pharma in charge of funding the FDA, the agency tasked with overseeing the industry; and the FDA Act of 1997 paved the way for direct-to-consumer drug advertising.
These policies have created the pharmaceutical industry as we know it today. We have a series of monopolies created and protected by the power of the federal government for drugs that can be dangerous and (often times) don’t work. Meanwhile, natural alternatives to these drugs are harassed and restricted by federal regulators, all in the name of protecting the bottom line of the drug companies.
And now, as we’ve been reporting for some months, we see pharmaceutical companies turning supplements into drugs, selling them at exorbitant prices, and removing the supplement versions. Our tax dollars fund their blockbuster drugs, and with those profits they are taking our supplements away. This cannot be allowed to stand.
Action Alert! If you haven’t already, send a message to Congress telling them to close the back-channel at the FDA that allows Big Pharma to turn nutrients into drugs. Please send your message immediately.
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FDA Turned Your $10 Supplement into a $40,000 Drug
Help us ensure the supplement form remains available. Action Alert!
Earlier this year, we told you about an FDA back-channel that allows drug companies to turn supplements into drugs—and remove the supplement versions from the market. This has happened to a popular and medically important version of vitamin B6 (pyridoxamine), and with the FDA’s approval of a new drug to treat sickle cell anemia, the same could happen to L-glutamine. Unless we close a back-channel at the FDA, more and more supplements will be turned into expensive drugs, and consumers won’t be able to manage their health cheaply and naturally with the supplement versions.
Last year, the FDA announced the approval of Endari, a drug for sickle cell disease. Endari is an oral powder comprised of L-glutamine, an important amino acid currently available as a supplement. The drug company, Emmaus Medical, Inc., filed an investigational new drug (IND) application—demonstrating their investigation of L-glutamine as a drug—on May 15, 1997. This is important because there is no new dietary ingredient (NDI) notification for L-glutamine. (Think of an NDI notification as a “new supplement” notification; by law an NDI notification must be filed on supplements that came to market after 1994.)
Enter the FDA back-channel. If a drug company begins investigating a nutrient for use in a drug before a supplement company files an NDI notification on that nutrient, the company can ask the FDA to have supplement version removed from the market, leaving consumers with no other option than the drug. Currently, a 120-pill bottle of L-glutamine can be purchased for less than $10; a year’s worth of Endari will reportedly cost consumers more than $40,000.
If Emmaus enforces its IND, the only way that L-glutamine supplements could survive is if the FDA decides that L-glutamine was in the market “in or as” a supplement before 1994. To make matters worse, the FDA has not completed its policy that lets companies know what is and isn’t grandfathered, or even how to file an NDI notification. Given how the current draft of the FDA’s proposal is written, there’s even a real danger that supplements most people would think of as “grandfathered” could require NDI notifications. All of this creates confusion that only helps drug companies further exploit this back-channel.
CBD oil faces a similar threat. For years, consumers have benefitted from access to cheap, safe, and effective CBD oil supplements. But now the FDA says that CBD is a drug, not a supplement—a drug which will be sold for $32,500 a year. While the FDA has not removed CBD oil supplements from the market yet, FDA’s declaration indicates it may be only a matter of time.
Until we close down the IND back channel that allows Big Pharma to turn supplements into drugs, we will continue to see this happen. There’s too much money to be made. That’s why ANH is advocating for a legislative change that will protect natural substances from being turned into drugs by eliminating the market exclusivity that drug companies get when a new drug investigation is on a dietary ingredient currently being sold in the market in a dietary supplement. These rules should apply retroactively to protect CBD oil, pyridoxamine, L-glutamine, and other substances that have already (or are likely to be) removed before this legislation becomes law.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and urge them to close the FDA back-channel that turns nutrients into expensive drugs. Please send your message immediately.
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Action Alert: Close the FDA Back-Channel
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More Crony Nutrition Advice on the Way?
It’s very likely, unless we can make our voices heard at the FDA. Action Alert!
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced a new initiative earlier this year called the Nutrition Innovation Strategy. It is a broad-based effort to improve the health of Americans through diet, mainly by improving and updating the information on food labels—including devising a definition for the term “healthy.” While there are things that could be done to improve food labeling, the government should not be in the business of defining what is and isn’t “healthy.”
One concrete proposal that would drastically improve food labels is listing sugar in teaspoons rather than grams. In our previous article on this topic we noted that many purported “health” foods contain exorbitant amounts of sugar—such as a large flavored coffee containing 25 teaspoons of sugar (three times the sugar of a 12 ounce cola), or a cup of low-fat yogurt containing up to 12 teaspoons of sugar. By being able to hide the sugar content of food in grams—a meaningless measurement for most people—Big Food is getting us addicted to sugar, leading to obesity and other health problems. Listing sugar in teaspoons would empower consumers to avoid these junk foods.
Defining what “healthy” is, however, is another matter. This is a project that the government is not equipped to deal with. First of all, our crony capitalist system means that Big Food and other special interests would inevitably influence this definition, robbing it of any meaning. Would Kraft Singles (not cheese, but rather a “cheese product”) be considered “healthy”?
Secondly the government has shown repeatedly that it is not up to date on the latest nutrition science; as witnessed in the recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans that, for instance, continue to warn Americans to limit cholesterol, sodium, and saturated fat despite the latest science suggesting this is nonsense. The government’s guidelines also recommended a mere 600 IU of vitamin D per day, whereas the Vitamin D Council recommends up to 5,000 IU.
Finally, even if the government, by some miracle, established a decent definition for what is and isn’t healthy, free of the influence of special interests, it wouldn’t be of much use. “Healthy” is a concept that is difficult to generalize; what’s healthy for you at a given time may not be what someone else needs to be healthy. We all have our individual needs that would almost certainly not be captured by a single definition of “healthy.” Some people can eat dairy, others can’t; some people are more intolerant of gluten than others. If you’re an athlete or live an active lifestyle, your dietary needs are different.
The real answer is that it is up to individuals to educate themselves about their specific dietary needs and make choices to optimize their health. This requires accurate food labels that give consumers necessary information to make informed decisions—such as listing the sugar content of food in a meaningful measurement like teaspoons.
To ascertain what is “healthy,” it would be best to employ the services of a professional nutritionist such as one found at the Board for Certified Nutrition Specialists (BCNS). These trained professionals are the leading alternative to the food industry-funded Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the trade group for Registered Dieticians (RDs). Nutritionists are often better qualified than RDs: BCNS-certified nutritionists are master’s or doctoral-level specialists, while RDs are only required to complete a four-year degree. Nutritionists and RDs also have different philosophies. Nutritionists have a comprehensive knowledge of how nutrition impacts the whole body, focusing on medical nutrition therapy, metabolism and biochemistry, and work primarily in private practice settings conducting one-on-one nutrition counseling. RDs tend to focus on institutional diets and food service management–developing diets for hospital patients, school food service programs, and nursing homes.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the FDA, telling them that sugar should be listed in grams and the government should not be defining what is or isn’t “healthy.” Please send your message immediately.
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Fun Acronyms With Dr. Einsteinberger
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from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2zR5QNa
Drug Companies are Stealing from You
…with the help of the federal government and universities. Action Alert!
The high cost of prescription drugs has recently made headlines, evidenced by price-gouging schemes that cause drug prices to skyrocket 5,000% (as in the case with the infamous Martin Shkreli and the drug Daraprim) or Mylan’s more recent price hike on EpiPen’s to over $600 for a two-pack. What’s often left out of these stories, however, is how the federal government helped the pharmaceutical industry have this kind of power over drug pricing by allowing the industry to take advantage of publicly-funded research.
This stunning history is discussed at length in an article in The New Republic magazine, but here are the highlights: of the 210 medicines approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2016, every one originated in government labs, or university labs funded by the government. But it wasn’t always the case that the pharmaceutical industry could rake in billions of dollars in profit from publicly-funded research. For a long time, the US government retained the patents that sprung from government research.
This began to change in 1968, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revived the Institutional Patent Agreement program which allowed non-profits—mostly universities, in this case—to claim the licenses of medicines developed with government funds. Whereas before, inventors using NIH funds were required to assign patents back to the federal government, now they could be sold to the pharmaceutical industry. This trend was solidified in 1980 with the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act, which allowed universities, non-profits, and small businesses to own, patent, and commercialize inventions developed with government research dollars.
Universities get government money to do research, patent any novel inventions that arise from that research, and sell the patents to the pharmaceutical industry. Consumers are forced to pay monopoly prices for drugs that their tax money helped develop.
Later in 1980, the Supreme Court decided that genes and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be patented, which sparked a gold rush in biotechnology. In the following years, more Pharma-friendly legislation was passed. The Orphan Drug Act, for example, provided incentives to the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs for rare diseases; the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992 put Big Pharma in charge of funding the FDA, the agency tasked with overseeing the industry; and the FDA Act of 1997 paved the way for direct-to-consumer drug advertising.
These policies have created the pharmaceutical industry as we know it today. We have a series of monopolies created and protected by the power of the federal government for drugs that can be dangerous and (often times) don’t work. Meanwhile, natural alternatives to these drugs are harassed and restricted by federal regulators, all in the name of protecting the bottom line of the drug companies.
And now, as we’ve been reporting for some months, we see pharmaceutical companies turning supplements into drugs, selling them at exorbitant prices, and removing the supplement versions. Our tax dollars fund their blockbuster drugs, and with those profits they are taking our supplements away. This cannot be allowed to stand.
Action Alert! If you haven’t already, send a message to Congress telling them to close the back-channel at the FDA that allows Big Pharma to turn nutrients into drugs. Please send your message immediately.
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from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2Rs2Z45
FDA Turned Your $10 Supplement into a $40,000 Drug
Help us ensure the supplement form remains available. Action Alert!
Earlier this year, we told you about an FDA back-channel that allows drug companies to turn supplements into drugs—and remove the supplement versions from the market. This has happened to a popular and medically important version of vitamin B6 (pyridoxamine), and with the FDA’s approval of a new drug to treat sickle cell anemia, the same could happen to L-glutamine. Unless we close a back-channel at the FDA, more and more supplements will be turned into expensive drugs, and consumers won’t be able to manage their health cheaply and naturally with the supplement versions.
Last year, the FDA announced the approval of Endari, a drug for sickle cell disease. Endari is an oral powder comprised of L-glutamine, an important amino acid currently available as a supplement. The drug company, Emmaus Medical, Inc., filed an investigational new drug (IND) application—demonstrating their investigation of L-glutamine as a drug—on May 15, 1997. This is important because there is no new dietary ingredient (NDI) notification for L-glutamine. (Think of an NDI notification as a “new supplement” notification; by law an NDI notification must be filed on supplements that came to market after 1994.)
Enter the FDA back-channel. If a drug company begins investigating a nutrient for use in a drug before a supplement company files an NDI notification on that nutrient, the company can ask the FDA to have supplement version removed from the market, leaving consumers with no other option than the drug. Currently, a 120-pill bottle of L-glutamine can be purchased for less than $10; a year’s worth of Endari will reportedly cost consumers more than $40,000.
If Emmaus enforces its IND, the only way that L-glutamine supplements could survive is if the FDA decides that L-glutamine was in the market “in or as” a supplement before 1994. To make matters worse, the FDA has not completed its policy that lets companies know what is and isn’t grandfathered, or even how to file an NDI notification. Given how the current draft of the FDA’s proposal is written, there’s even a real danger that supplements most people would think of as “grandfathered” could require NDI notifications. All of this creates confusion that only helps drug companies further exploit this back-channel.
CBD oil faces a similar threat. For years, consumers have benefitted from access to cheap, safe, and effective CBD oil supplements. But now the FDA says that CBD is a drug, not a supplement—a drug which will be sold for $32,500 a year. While the FDA has not removed CBD oil supplements from the market yet, FDA’s declaration indicates it may be only a matter of time.
Until we close down the IND back channel that allows Big Pharma to turn supplements into drugs, we will continue to see this happen. There’s too much money to be made. That’s why ANH is advocating for a legislative change that will protect natural substances from being turned into drugs by eliminating the market exclusivity that drug companies get when a new drug investigation is on a dietary ingredient currently being sold in the market in a dietary supplement. These rules should apply retroactively to protect CBD oil, pyridoxamine, L-glutamine, and other substances that have already (or are likely to be) removed before this legislation becomes law.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and urge them to close the FDA back-channel that turns nutrients into expensive drugs. Please send your message immediately.
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Action Alert: Close the FDA Back-Channel
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More Crony Nutrition Advice on the Way?
It’s very likely, unless we can make our voices heard at the FDA. Action Alert!
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced a new initiative earlier this year called the Nutrition Innovation Strategy. It is a broad-based effort to improve the health of Americans through diet, mainly by improving and updating the information on food labels—including devising a definition for the term “healthy.” While there are things that could be done to improve food labeling, the government should not be in the business of defining what is and isn’t “healthy.”
One concrete proposal that would drastically improve food labels is listing sugar in teaspoons rather than grams. In our previous article on this topic we noted that many purported “health” foods contain exorbitant amounts of sugar—such as a large flavored coffee containing 25 teaspoons of sugar (three times the sugar of a 12 ounce cola), or a cup of low-fat yogurt containing up to 12 teaspoons of sugar. By being able to hide the sugar content of food in grams—a meaningless measurement for most people—Big Food is getting us addicted to sugar, leading to obesity and other health problems. Listing sugar in teaspoons would empower consumers to avoid these junk foods.
Defining what “healthy” is, however, is another matter. This is a project that the government is not equipped to deal with. First of all, our crony capitalist system means that Big Food and other special interests would inevitably influence this definition, robbing it of any meaning. Would Kraft Singles (not cheese, but rather a “cheese product”) be considered “healthy”?
Secondly the government has shown repeatedly that it is not up to date on the latest nutrition science; as witnessed in the recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans that, for instance, continue to warn Americans to limit cholesterol, sodium, and saturated fat despite the latest science suggesting this is nonsense. The government’s guidelines also recommended a mere 600 IU of vitamin D per day, whereas the Vitamin D Council recommends up to 5,000 IU.
Finally, even if the government, by some miracle, established a decent definition for what is and isn’t healthy, free of the influence of special interests, it wouldn’t be of much use. “Healthy” is a concept that is difficult to generalize; what’s healthy for you at a given time may not be what someone else needs to be healthy. We all have our individual needs that would almost certainly not be captured by a single definition of “healthy.” Some people can eat dairy, others can’t; some people are more intolerant of gluten than others. If you’re an athlete or live an active lifestyle, your dietary needs are different.
The real answer is that it is up to individuals to educate themselves about their specific dietary needs and make choices to optimize their health. This requires accurate food labels that give consumers necessary information to make informed decisions—such as listing the sugar content of food in a meaningful measurement like teaspoons.
To ascertain what is “healthy,” it would be best to employ the services of a professional nutritionist such as one found at the Board for Certified Nutrition Specialists (BCNS). These trained professionals are the leading alternative to the food industry-funded Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the trade group for Registered Dieticians (RDs). Nutritionists are often better qualified than RDs: BCNS-certified nutritionists are master’s or doctoral-level specialists, while RDs are only required to complete a four-year degree. Nutritionists and RDs also have different philosophies. Nutritionists have a comprehensive knowledge of how nutrition impacts the whole body, focusing on medical nutrition therapy, metabolism and biochemistry, and work primarily in private practice settings conducting one-on-one nutrition counseling. RDs tend to focus on institutional diets and food service management–developing diets for hospital patients, school food service programs, and nursing homes.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the FDA, telling them that sugar should be listed in grams and the government should not be defining what is or isn’t “healthy.” Please send your message immediately.
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