Health Satire - bad science, black box warnings and Cheerios

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NewsTarget: Health Satire - bad science, black box warnings

and Cheerios

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 09:49:50 -0700

 

 

 

NewsTarget Insider Alert (www.NewsTarget.com)

HEALTH SATIRE / HUMOR category

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All of a sudden it's Friday again! Today's health satire piece takes

a look at the campaign to discredit herbs and vitamins using bad

science, the FDA's latest black box warnings, and the ridiculous

health claims of Honey Nut Cheerios:

 

http://www.newstarget.com/018061.html

 

To your health,

- Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

 

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http://www.newstarget.com/018061.html

 

Originally published February 16 2006

 

Health roundup: Herb bashing, black box warnings and Honey Nut

Cheerios (satire)

 

All nutritional supplements have recently been found to be no good for

anything. This is according to the latest research from all

scientists, reported by all members of the mainstream media. The

conclusions have been offered as a way to make scientific reporting

more " time efficient, " because discrediting herbs one at a time was

taking too long.

 

So in the future, instead of declaring one particular herb to be

useless (after ginning up some meta-data study that mysteriously

excludes all the legitimate studies showing the herb to be effective),

top medical journals, research scientists and even the FDA will just

issue the blanket statement, " All nutritional supplements are no good

for anything, trust us. "

 

In a related decision, the same group is said to be close to

announcing that, " All prescription drugs are safe and effective at

treating everything! "

 

Note to the wise: When you read disparaging news about herbs or

vitamins in the press, just recognize it's all part of the system of

health oppression rigged up by the pushers of organized medicine. The

more they can convince people that herbs or vitamins are useless, the

more drugs they can sell.

 

FDA says, " We warned ya! "

An FDA panel has voted, with a slim margin, to require " black box

warnings " on ADHD drugs following the deaths of hundreds of people who

were taking them. If these drugs had been a Chinese herb, of course,

the FDA would right now be issuing a nationwide ban and confiscating

millions of dollars in inventory at health food stores all around the

country. But since it's a highly-profitable class of prescription

drugs, the agency is resorting to warnings that are routinely ignored

by doctors and patients alike.

 

The matter is made worse by the " duh factor " fact that people

diagnosed with ADHD or short attention spans probably don't have the

concentration to read the black box warning in the first place.

 

Not everyone knows what the " black box " refers to in these black box

warnings, by the way. The answer is that the black box is a COFFIN.

Better yet, it's the coffin in which you may find yourself if you

continue to take drugs with black box warnings.

 

There is no drug too dangerous for humans that it can't be excused by

the FDA with a black box warning. This warning is the FDA's sneaky

mechanism for allowing extremely dangerous (even deadly) drugs to stay

on the market, earning billions in profits for Big Pharma while

killing nearly 100,000 Americans each year. When people die from the

toxic side effects, FDA bureaucrats can always claim, " Well, we did

warn you. "

 

The FDA seems to have forgotten that its job is not to merely warn

people but to protect people from dangerous foods, drugs and personal

care products that present a genuine risk of harm to users. But the

threshold of fatalities required for the FDA to actually outlaw a drug

is apparently infinite. Vioxx alone, according to the FDA's own drug

safety scientist Dr. David Graham, probably killed more than 60,000

Americans by itself. And yet an FDA panel voted to put it right back

on the market.

 

Health claims from sugary breakfast cereals

General Mills has launched a new promotional campaign that appears to

be making outrageous health claims for Honey Nut Cheerios (a sugary

breakfast cereal). Some of the ads say Honey Nut Cheerios will " help

lower your cholesterol, " and the front of the cereal box screams, " New

Pyramid Recommends More WHOLE GRAIN! "

 

Now I've seen everything.

 

Manufacturers of aged garlic nutritional supplements, which actually

lower cholesterol more powerfully than prescription drugs, cannot

claim any health benefits whatsoever without being raided by the FDA

and having their inventory confiscated. But a sugary breakfast cereal,

somehow, can make health claims that seem to ignore the fact that the

product is made with at least three different forms of sugar. As

listed on the ingredients label: sugar, honey and brown sugar syrup.

It's four if you count the modified corn starch.

 

Let's face it, the commercial health messages plastered on grocery

products are almost universally ridiculous. Health benefits are often

claimed on single ingredients (like oats) even when those ingredients

are bathed in a recipe of sugar, salt or even hydrogenated oils.

Apparently, you could sell oats with crack and still make cholesterol

claims for the combination. " Smokin' Crack Oats™ Lowers Cholesterol

While Getting You High. Protect Your Heart With Smokin' Crack Oats!

Made with 100% pure Colombian crack cocaine wrapped in all-natural

whole grain oats! " (For greater effect, imagine Chris Rock shouting it.)

 

Simultaneously, the really healthy, nutritionally superior grocery

products that actually demonstrate solid health improvements are

outlawed from explaining their health benefits to consumers. Cherries,

in particular, have been under attack by the FDA, which has censored

the very reasonable health claims offered by cherry growers, such as

the fact that cherries reduce arthritis pain and prevent inflammation

of the joints. Today, if you live in the U.S., you live under a system

of FDA tyranny that blatantly outlaws the truth about real nutrition.

 

I regularly notice examples of outrageous (but popular) grocery

products deceiving consumers. Slim-Fast meal replacement powder, which

is positioned as a weight loss product, has sugar as its top

ingredient. So-called " natural " Doritos is made with yeast extract, an

ingredient classified as an excitotoxin by Dr. Russell Blaylock, and

one that always contains MSG according to a number of health

researchers. I once saw a Quik strawberry milk product, made primarily

with table sugar, that actually claimed to be good for kids' bones

because it contains some calcium.

 

There is almost no combination of sugars, chemicals and artificial

colors that food companies can't hop up with some minor nutritional

ingredient in order to make FDA-approved health claims on the front of

the package. Manufactured and processed foods, it seems, all have the

right to advertise they're extremely healthy. But unprocessed,

unrefined, wholesome fruits and vegetables right out of the garden

cannot be marketed with any health claims whatsoever without running

the risk of an FDA lawsuit.

 

And that, friends, is the current state of food politics in the United

States: Foods that harm consumers are marketed with FDA-approved

health claims, while foods that prevent disease are have their health

benefits silenced by the FDA. Thank goodness we still have Freedom of

Speech, or it would be illegal for me to even report this.