Right now there is a Bill called the "Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Bill" that has already been passed by the Senate. There is a lot of confusion about this bill (S.1082) and it's House Companion bill HR 1561 so I'm going to clarify a few things for you right here and give you direction where you can learn more.
Why should you care about this Bill?
This bill is
disguised as a bill designed to help protect your safety but the key word is
disguised - let me explain why so you can make your own decision on whether you think this bill will really protect your safety.
Back in 1994 there was a bill that passed due to a huge grassroots campaign that categorizes nutritional supplements as "food" or food ingredients rather than as drugs. This was called the
Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 and is very important because drugs are synthetic and should be tested for safety before being sold - this is only sensible. Natural foods on the other hand should not require testing since they have been used by people in many cultures for thousands of years.
S.1082 / HR 1561 has specific language in it that has been reviewed by a top anti-FDA attorney named Jonathan Emord and his assessment is crucial to your understanding of this topic.
He has pointed out that in this new bill the terms "Food" and "Food Ingredient" are used in ways that will categorize nutritional supplements in the same way that drugs are. The S.1082 bill and it's house companion bill allow the FDA to create a foundation within complete control of the FDA called
The Reagan Undall Foundation. This foundation will be conducting research and development for pharmaceutical drugs and will hold and license patents that it gets from this research. This is a drug company folks! The FDA will have it's own drug company - this is a major conflict of interest and this bill puts the FDA literally in bed with the pharmaceutical companies.
One of the purposes of this foundation will be to uphold a new standard which is being called the "Critical Path Initiative" that uses genomics and proteonic (I'll explain) to test safety and effectiveness of drugs (as well as
food and
food ingredients if this passes without critical amendments drafted by Attorney Jonathan Emord).
This means that they will monitor subtle genetic changes and protein changes to determine a risk/benefit analysis which can be very biased.
Why can this be a biased test?
Simply stated - this is new science. The only real test we have in the real world recently led to the approval of a very dangerous diabetes drug which has literally killed 35,000 people by causing cardiovascular trouble in the 8 years that the drug was on the market before being pulled.
If this bill passes the way it is currently written a natural supplement that you have come to enjoy benefit from such as Echinacea could be easily removed from the market at the whim of the FDA.
You might be wondering how this could be accomplished. The way this bill is written it allows the FDA to test a supplement (or any food for that matter) for risks at ridiculously high levels which no one in their right mind would ever take. At the same time they will also judge the benefit of the food supplement based on questionable science.
Subtle genetic and protein changes on a cellular level are not necessarily going to have a true bearing on how well someone will actually feel when consuming the substance!
It was this kind of test that lead to 35,000 deaths with the diabetes drug so we can't expect it work for supplements yet that is what the FDA is pushing for. This is all going on from major pressure from the pharmaceutical companies. This is big business and your best interest and safety is being neglected for the benefit of profit for the pharmaceutical companies.
Joshua Parker has authored many alternative health reports and will keep you informed about
Health Freedom issues at his blog at http://www.joshuaparker.net
