Finally– Legislation to Protect Your Right to Know About the Science Behind Supp

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Finally– Legislation to Protect Your Right to Know About the Science

Behind Supplements!

Posted By ANH-USA On March 23, 2010 @ 4:46 pm In Scientific Research, The

Free Speech About Science Act of 2010 (FSAS) | No Comments

 

 

Take Action Today [1]. Help Us Gain Cosponsors for the Free Speech About

Science Act, H.R. 4913!

_http://www.anh-usa.org/finally-legislation-to-protect-your-right-to-know-ab

out-the-science-behind-supplements/_

(http://www.anh-usa.org/finally-legislation-to-protect-your-right-to-know-about-\

the-science-behind-supplements/)

 

 

Consumers are largely kept in the dark about the potential health benefits

of foods and supplements. Why? Because current law makes it illegal for

food and supplement producers to share this information.

 

 

Today Congressmen Jason Chaffetz (R, UT) and Jared Polis (D, CO) have

introduced the Free Speech about Science Act (H.R. 4913). This landmark

legislation protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and

enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed

scientific findings about natural health products with the public.

 

 

ANH-USA has been working toward the introduction of this bill for several

years. Now that it is finally here, we need your help to gain cosponsors

and support.

 

 

At first sight, this might not appear to be a blockbuster bill. But look

closely. If it passes, Free Speech about Science has the potential to

transform the healthcare field by educating the public about the real science

behind natural health. This is a small bill with vast potential leverage.

 

 

For this very reason, the bill will have opposition. It will be opposed by

the FDA for reasons we will explain. It will be opposed by drug companies

fearing competition from natural health approaches based on diet, dietary

supplements, and lifestyle. Please do not let these special interests stop

this bill. Please contact your representative today. Ask him or her to

cosponsor this vital legislation. _Take action now_

(https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display & page=UserAction & id=52\

9) .

 

 

We all know that consumers are looking for reliable information backed by

legitimate scientific research in order to make informed choices about diet

and health. Access to this information is essential if we are to know

which foods and food supplements really are healthy and contribute to good

health.

 

 

The FDA mission statement says that the agency is charged with helping

educate the public about health. The Agency mostly ignores this mission and

seems intent only on keeping even valid science under wraps.

 

 

Drug companies are of course entirely free to flood the airwaves and print

media with ads. As has been well established, the FDA does very little

monitoring of these ads. In some cases, drug ads are highly misleading. For

example, if you listen closely to a drug ad for antacids, you will see that

they give an impression the drugs will cure heartburn but do not actually

claim to do so (because the drugs do not cure it and may actually make it

worse).

 

 

In sharp contrast to the treatment of drug companies, current FDA

regulations flatly forbid food and supplement manufacturers from mentioning any

link between a product and a health condition, even if the link is established

by peer reviewed scientific studies coming out of Harvard and other highly

respected universities. Any producer that fails to comply with this

censorship regime will have its product declared an unapproved drug. Selling an

unapproved drug in turn will lead to fines and even jail.

 

 

The FDA has issued many warning letters to various food producers to keep

them from telling consumers truthfully about the healthful nature of their

products. For example, cherry growers have been targeted and enjoined from

referencing peer-reviewed scientific articles showing cherries’ health

benefits for gout and arthritis.

 

 

For years, the FDA barred health claims about the benefits of fish oil for

heart, cancer, depression, body pain, and various other conditions until a

drug company paid to go through the approval process. Not surprisingly,

the FDA approved version of fish oil (the only kind that can be reimbursed by

Medicare and Medicaid and the VA) costs as much as ten times more than

otherwise available, high quality fish oil.

 

 

In the FDA’s view, even providing a link on a website to a scientific

study converts a healthy fruit or nut into an unapproved drug, a bizarre result

that effectively denies Americans scientific information that could

alleviate their illnesses or even save their lives.

 

 

If the FDA insists that even cherries must be brought through the full

drug review process in order to make any health condition claim, why not just

go along? The problem is that FDA approval easily costs a billion dollars!

Drug companies can only pay these vast sums because they have patent

protection and will use that patent protection to create a monopoly on the sale

of the product. Result? $100 per pill in some cases.

 

 

Natural products cannot usually be patented and therefore cannot usually

be brought through such an expensive approval process. The FDA knows this,

but ignores it. It willfully excludes most natural substances from medicine.

 

 

Who does the FDA expect to pay the billion dollar cost of approval for

cherries? The cherry growers? And don’t forget: the cherry growers cannot

combine efforts to do this because that would violate anti-trust laws. And

would we want to pay ten times as much for cherries if a cherry company was

foolish enough to try to do this?

 

 

This is what we have called the great Catch 22 of contemporary American

medicine. Doctors are afraid to prescribe non-FDA approved medications. They

can lose their licenses for doing so. But with very few exceptions, only

non-natural and therefore patentable substances can be brought through the

FDA approval process.

 

 

The result is an FDA enforced monopoly for drug companies. Natural and

often much safer and cheaper natural remedies are ignored. Natural medicine

based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle, which ought to be at the

center of medicine, is shunted off to the sidelines and subjected to legal

threats.

 

 

There are many things that need to be done about this. For one thing, we

should not allow drug companies to pay FDA expenses and salaries. We should

not allow drug companies to pay scientists serving on FDA panels or allow a

revolving employment door between the drug companies and the FDA. In other

words, we need to reform the FDA.

 

 

But Free Speech about Science is a major first step. It will go far toward

breaking up the drug company monopoly and the drug company chokehold on

the dissemination of scientific information.

 

 

Note that the Free Speech about Science Act provides a very carefully

targeted change to FDA regulations. It simply says that legitimate, peer

reviewed, scientific studies may be referenced by manufacturers and producers

without converting a healthy food or dietary supplement into an unapproved

drug. The bill amends the appropriate sections of current law to allow the

flow of legitimate scientific and educational information while still giving

FDA and FTC the right to take action against misleading information and

against false and unsubstantiated claims.

 

 

Government (and especially allied drug companies) should not be the

gatekeeper of scientific information. Consumers have a right to hear about

legitimate scientific research.

 

As soon as the bill is filed in the Senate, we will ask you to contact

your senator, but for now we have to concentrate on the House, where a bill of

this sort usually originates. ._Please contact your representative today

and ask him or her to cosponsor the Free Speech about Science Act!_

(https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display & page=UserAction & id=52\

9)

 

 

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out-the-science-behind-supplements/_

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