FDA and Supplement Warnings Misleading, Exaggerated or Unproven

December 5, 2005

The FDA and its masters appear to be on a campaign aimed at

discrediting the natural health care industry. Although many of the

products attacked in this most recent AP Wire blitz are marketed by

drug companies, the ultimate aim is to create a monopoly of legitimate

or " sanitized " natural products for the multinational pharmaceutical

firms. In Canada, as in the United States, this is to be accomplished

by the creation of rules and regulations (The Third Categoy for

nutritional supplements in Canada) which enforce all manufacturers to

submit their companies to rigourous and expensive procedures currently

in use by drug companies. Unfortunately, these " good manufacturing

practices " (GMP), while plausible and useful for drugs, are

unnecessary and potentially detrimental to the fields of herbal and

homeopathic medicine.

GMP is A SMOKESCREEN FOR LARGER COMPANIES TO MAKE MONEY AT THE EXPENSE

OF SMALLER FIRMS WHO COULD NOT AFFORD THE extra taxes, staff,

equipment and testing facilities. There is no proof that GMP increases

or enhances the safety or efficacy of herbal remedies. A very good

example of how this is true is the case of Traditional Chinese

Medicine (TCM). For centuries, when clients visited a practitioner of

TCM, the herbs were sold in dried, powdered bits, pieces or teas. For

the most part this is the way in which TCM is practised to this day.

The success and growth of TCM has continued to be high with no

documented deaths, epidemics, absence of " active ingredients " and all

the other overblown benefits of GMP. No one can or should apply GMP to

TCM or to herbal medicine in any other of its many forms. Anyone who

says otherwise is just a drug company lobbyist intent upon subjugating

all natural health care products under the pharmaceutical industry

umbrella, eliminating the small manufacturing firms, raising prices to

consumers and reaping high profits in the process.

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