This is where the FDA , The Food and Drug Association comes in to determine which are which, and apply their controls to them, allegedly protecting us from irresponsible products and manufacturer's of these segments.
We see headlines screaming about Ephedra killing a young athlete and panic ensues. The widespread media hysteria paints the picture and the public responds in fear with outcry that supports the awaiting FDA to ban this herb which has been used for respiratory support among other things for over 5000 years. Same thing with Tryptophan, a natural substance we create internally which helped people for decades to sleep without drugs, addiction or side effect but because of a tainted batch of a single manufacturer, Pow, it's banned. The outcry of the public eventually brought it back to the shelves recently but the speed of which it was deemed dangerous without proper investigation was immediate. Why is it that the supplements, vitamins, herbals and natural supports are the ones under attack while the pharmaceutical and medical field which has spun out of control becoming an unmanageable monster of cost, expense, reduced quality, and collateral damage goes relatively unpublicized, no big media blurbs, hardly anything except from the lawsuits advertised by law firms on class actions.
So I found something very interesting on the site one of my most trusted sources for longevity information, Life Extension Foundation. (http://www.lef.org)
Here's one article from the site called As We See It- Dangerous Medicine
Here's an excerpt from the article but be sure to read the rest and learn about Codex. This is worth your attention if you care about personal health freedom.
Dangerous Medicine
The FDA claims that the drugs it approves are “safe.” This charade is rapidly collapsing. PBS television’s investigative series Frontline has aired a shocking exposé of dangerous prescription drugs and the FDA’s complicity in allowing this outrage to occur.1
The Frontline producers initially investigated drugs that had been withdrawn from the market. After filming began, current and former FDA employees started coming forward to give a powerful critique of what really goes on inside the agency. As the story evolved, rather than making a documentary about drug safety, Frontline ended up shifting its focus to the FDA itself.
A major emphasis of the documentary was the FDA’s reliance on drug companies’ research of their own products to determine safety. As Frontline found out, the FDA does not conduct clinical trials, because the agency is not in the business of conducting medical research. The FDA instead reviews the results submitted by pharmaceutical companies. This means that the basis for FDA approval of a new drug is often “safety data” provided by the very company that makes the drug!
Frontline exposed this questionable drug approval sham to the world in a one-hour broadcast aired November 17, 2003. It was FDA drug reviewers who made the most appalling disclosures. These current and former FDA employees revealed incidences in which drug dangers were clearly present but were ignored or covered up by higher-level FDA officials. Only after many injuries and deaths were these drugs withdrawn or relabeled. A survey of all FDA employees showed a significant number felt they were pressured by others in the agency to give favorable reviews to dangerous and ineffective drugs.
The most absurd part of this saga is the FDA’s historical record of attempting to restrict consumers’ access to dietary supplements. The FDA deceitfully implies that supplements have hidden dangers. Yet the data supporting the safety and efficacy of nutrients usually come from independent sources, as opposed to the company-sponsored studies the FDA relies on to certify drug safety.
Frontline showed that in too many cases, the safety data supplied by drug companies are flawed and altered, with the result being an alarming number of injuries and deaths from prescription drug toxicities. Deaths from adverse drug reactions have become so commonplace that they rarely make the news.
For the past 18 years, Life Extension has harshly criticized this corrupt system of drug approval. What Life Extension lacked was the “inside” data gathered by Frontline that show specifically how the FDA conspires with the drug industry to approve dangerous drugs. Even more disturbing are instances in which the FDA allows toxic drugs to remain on the market even after injuries and deaths are reported. If the FDA had even a vestige of credibility remaining about its role of “protecting” the public against dangerous drugs, this Frontline documentary tore it to shreds. The emperor (the FDA) clearly has no clothes (credibility).
~Snip~
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The Frontline producers initially investigated drugs that had been withdrawn from the market. After filming began, current and former FDA employees started coming forward to give a powerful critique of what really goes on inside the agency. As the story evolved, rather than making a documentary about drug safety, Frontline ended up shifting its focus to the FDA itself.
A major emphasis of the documentary was the FDA’s reliance on drug companies’ research of their own products to determine safety. As Frontline found out, the FDA does not conduct clinical trials, because the agency is not in the business of conducting medical research. The FDA instead reviews the results submitted by pharmaceutical companies. This means that the basis for FDA approval of a new drug is often “safety data” provided by the very company that makes the drug!
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The most absurd part of this saga is the FDA’s historical record of attempting to restrict consumers’ access to dietary supplements. The FDA deceitfully implies that supplements have hidden dangers. Yet the data supporting the safety and efficacy of nutrients usually come from independent sources, as opposed to the company-sponsored studies the FDA relies on to certify drug safety.
Frontline showed that in too many cases, the safety data supplied by drug companies are flawed and altered, with the result being an alarming number of injuries and deaths from prescription drug toxicities. Deaths from adverse drug reactions have become so commonplace that they rarely make the news.
For the past 18 years, Life Extension has harshly criticized this corrupt system of drug approval. What Life Extension lacked was the “inside” data gathered by Frontline that show specifically how the FDA conspires with the drug industry to approve dangerous drugs. Even more disturbing are instances in which the FDA allows toxic drugs to remain on the market even after injuries and deaths are reported. If the FDA had even a vestige of credibility remaining about its role of “protecting” the public against dangerous drugs, this Frontline documentary tore it to shreds. The emperor (the FDA) clearly has no clothes (credibility).
Odd to me that the agency who claims to protect the US population is stepping in to protect us from ourselves in an aim to control the natural supplements we're able to use. Odder still is the conflict in the revenue stream of the pharmaceutical industry where supplements have long been proven to aid in wellness and immune enhancement, there's needed to be decades long supreme court battles to put the FDA in its place when it comes to freedom of information and what we as citizens are able to say about natural supplements and their usefulness. It seems to me there's a link to the interest in the revenue stream driven by illness and pharmaceutical use and the revenue diverted away from that stream by the use of supplements, which the FDA seems bent on controlling. As I was writing this I thought It would be interesting to see how the disease and mortality related figures compare annually between pharmaceutical drugs prescribed to people, the use of supplements and vitamins, and other available substances like tobacco. So I ran a search on it and found staggering statistics on the medical and pharmaceutical side. Just the deaths and damage from acetaminophen aka Tylenol annually are incredibly high. Here's an interesting stat on acetaminophen from the website of http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/tylenol.html; There's a lot more than this info there but this makes my point:
"Acetaminophen overdose is the leading cause of liver failure in the US and the United Kingdom and the leading cause of calls to the Poison Control Centers across the US. It is estimated that acetaminophen poisoning calls exceed 100,000 per year. Studies indicate that acetaminophen overdose results in over 56,000 injuries, 2,500 hospitalizations, and an estimated 450 deaths per year."
While we're at it, we can still buy tobacco when it's threat and dangers have clearly been established but there's money to be made and Commerce wins again. I read today in Natural News , an opinion of the author of the e-zine stating that Congress needs to be abolished as they're not helping anyone or anything but rather are costing us. He went on to say that it was almost pointless to appoint others to replace congresspersons because they change once in the system. I'll withhold my decision on that but he stated something I've noticed more and more daily, that we are controlled by corporations and commerce. The government doesn't give a rat's ass if you're healthy or ill, they want to wring every last buck out of you for commercial coffers.
Here's the link to the piece called Vote No for Congress.
Here's an excerpt: "From this, many people are crying for change in Washington. But this idea of sending new people to Washington, I submit, is merely another gimmick foisted upon the American people by members of Congress who seem more interested in looting America than saving her. Because the real secret in Washington is that it doesn't matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge. It's the corporations that control both parties in the end."
Why the corporations are in control
The corporations, you see, have been running Washington for decades -- on both sides of the political fence. It was the Bush Administration, you may remember, that rigged a secret back-room deal with Big Pharma to make it illegal for the U.S. government to negotiate discount pricing for large-scale Medicare drug purchasing. This locked in a Big Pharma monopoly that has already cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in the years since.The articles I've pointed out from Life Extension Foundation were originally published in 2004, six years ago.. and nothing much has changed. To give you an idea of the content and doctors behind this alert I'll post the first of 6 pages, the remaining deal with specifics on unnecessary surgeries, medical error, over prescribing antibiotics, drugs in our water, women's experience in health care and the neglect we are subject to and much more. It's worth the read for your own sake.
Here's the article written by a group of reputable MD.'s
Death by Medicine
By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD
Something is wrong when regulatory agencies pretend that vitamins are dangerous, yet ignore published statistics showing that government-sanctioned medicine is the real hazard. Until now, Life Extension could cite only isolated statistics to make its case about the dangers of conventional medicine. No one had ever analyzed and combined ALL of the published literature dealing with injuries and deaths caused by government-protected medicine. That has now changed.
A group of researchers meticulously reviewed the statistical evidence and their findings are absolutely shocking.4 These researchers have authored a paper titled “Death by Medicine” that presents compelling evidence that today’s system frequently causes more harm than good.
This fully referenced report shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million per year. The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million per year. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million per year. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million per year.
The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.5)
We placed this article on our website to memorialize the failure of the American medical system. By exposing these gruesome statistics in painstaking detail, we provide a basis for competent and compassionate medical professionals to recognize the inadequacies of today’s system and at least attempt to institute meaningful reforms.
Natural medicine is under siege, as pharmaceutical company lobbyists urge lawmakers to deprive Americans of the benefits of dietary supplements. Drug-company front groups have launched slanderous media campaigns to discredit the value of healthy lifestyles. The FDA continues to interfere with those who offer natural products that compete with prescription drugs.
These attacks against natural medicine obscure a lethal problem that until now was buried in thousands of pages of scientific text. In response to these baseless challenges to natural medicine, the Nutrition Institute of America commissioned an independent review of the quality of “government-approved” medicine. The startling findings from this meticulous study indicate that conventional medicine is “the leading cause of death” in the United States .
The Nutrition Institute of America is a nonprofit organization that has sponsored independent research for the past 30 years. To support its bold claim that conventional medicine is America 's number-one killer, the Nutritional Institute of America mandated that every “count” in this “indictment” of US medicine be validated by published, peer-reviewed scientific studies.
What you are about to read is a stunning compilation of facts that documents that those who seek to abolish consumer access to natural therapies are misleading the public. Over 700,000 Americans die each year at the hands of government-sanctioned medicine, while the FDA and other government agencies pretend to protect the public by harassing those who offer safe alternatives.
A definitive review of medical peer-reviewed journals and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. Each year approximately 2.2 million US hospital patients experience adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to prescribed medications.(1) In 1995, Dr. Richard Besser of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections to be 20 million; in 2003, Dr. Besser spoke in terms of tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually.(2, 2a) Approximately 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed annually in the US,(3) while approximately 8.9 million Americans are hospitalized unnecessarily.(4)
As shown in the following table, the estimated total number of iatrogenic deaths—that is, deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures— in the US annually is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is itself the leading cause of death and injury in the US . By comparison, approximately 699,697 Americans died of heart in 2001, while 553,251 died of cancer.(5)
See the rest here
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm
