Your Health & Personal Freedoms At Stake

Are you one of millions of Americans who take a multi-vitamin every day? Do you enjoy a V8 with your afternoon lunch? How about take a fish-oil supplement to keep your arteries in good working order? Believe it or not, you may not be able to do these things for you health in the future if proposed legislation is passed.

Docket No. 2006D-0480, which seeks to have all vitamins, supplements, natural remedies, garden herbs, even water in some cases, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, would take all of the natural options you have regarding your health and put it all in the hands of the government. Chemical based, synthesized and lab-produced medicines will still be available to you over the counter. But naturally grown ginseng, gingko biloba, ginger root, and all other natural medicines will have to be purchased through your doctor.

Think this doesn’t apply to you? Don’t know what is likely to follow? Developments that could take place after this legislation is passed may make growing common garden herbs an arrestable offense, raw sprouts and other anti-cancer foods may be regulated as drugs, even bottled waters and teas, which could “treat” dehydration, could become a thing of the past. Suddenly herbal remedies and food flavorings, used for hundreds, maybe thousands of years by humans to season food and treat common ailments, will be regarded as illegal and may bring you jail time.

Not ridiculous enough? What about the fact that such innocuous items as dumbbells and weight machines, mainstays of fitness for decades, will need to pass individual inspection and receive a stamp of approval? Or perhaps FDA regulation of massage oils and handheld massagers? Even the heated stones massage therapists use to help relieve muscular tension will be regulated under this legislation.

Yes, this means they will actually look at a pile of rocks and determine whether or not they are medical devices.

Certainly the FDA has more important issues to be addressing than rosemary and thyme. Perhaps the Vioxx scandal isn’t keeping it busy enough? As of March 31, Merck knew of 27,250 lawsuits alleging 45,700 incidences of personal injury or loss due to Vioxx. How about the new scandal regarding Avandia and its 43% increase in heart attacks and possible 64% increase in cardiovascular death?

The FDA has a problem with herbal remedies, from which very, very, very few people have ever died, and yet approves chemical and synthetic drugs that categorically resulted in the deaths of thousands? The disconnect here is vast.

Please, contact your representatives and senators and let them know that Big Government is big enough, and certainly the FDA has more important issues with which to wrangle.

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