Obama Attacks Nutrition by Alan Caruba

A recent post on the natural advocate concerning FDA’s involvement in the supplementation issue tended to hold our president responsible for what was happening on his watch. This author of the article left clear indications concerning his political stance. While the White House may not even be aware of what the FDA is doing, the issue remains legitimate.  Perhaps a more accurate headline might be "FDA Attacks Nutrition."

I have a policy about political comments that I would have applied here, had I been the author.  Since most of our elections are decided on nearly a 50/50 basis we are running the risk of alienating about half of our audience if we mention politics.

That being said, regardless of your political persuasion, I hope you appreciate the main thrust of the article.

Sam the Editor

Obama Attacks Nutrition

By Alan Caruba

While watching a television commercial for some prescription medication, have you ever wondered why something it states may kill you or cause serious side effects ever was permitted to be marketed to the public?

For decades I have taken a full range of vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements every morning. I don’t get head colds or any unwanted side affects. In my seventh decade, I enjoy exceptional good health. An annual physical check up is always the same. I am fine.

Millions of Americans benefit from a daily regimen of vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements. Athletes use whey protein powders. Body builders take amino acids. Others augment food products that lack sufficient nutritional value. Their health and wellness is now threatened by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Banning Health!

On the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, the FDA published a 47-page document, the Codex Alimentarius, that would ban all nutritional and supplemental ingredients by requiring them to file documentation involving multi-million-dollar testing and the regulations would be retroactive to 1994!

This will destroy the manufacturers of these products because most are small companies that could not afford such costs. It’s not like there is a vast body of information that demonstrates any threat to health from vitamins and minerals. Quite the contrary. There is ample information on their benefits. There are libraries filled with books devoted to this.

Who would benefit from such regulation of the natural supplement industry? Big Pharma. The same pharmaceutical companies that have a long record of putting forth FDA-approved medications that later prove to be lethal are looking to use the regulatory powers of FDA to literally increase levels of illness.

In the same way Obamacare has been demonstrated to not only be unconstitutional, but also a threat to the health of millions—especially senior citizens—this callous administration now threatens to remove from the shelves of stores that sell nutritional supplements, from pharmacies, and from supermarkets and other outlets, the vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements on which millions depend for wellness.

This constitutes a criminal conspiracy and Congress, which has ceded its law-making authority to the FDA, must hear from everyone in order to stop this assault on everyone’s health.

Frank Murray, the former editor of Better Nutrition, Great Life, and Let’s Live, is the author and co-author of fifty books on health and nutrition. They include Natural Supplements for Diabetes, Health Benefits Derived from Sweet Orange, and 100 Super Supplements for a Longer Life. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.

One of Murray’s books, Sunshine and Vitamin D, notes that “With the hundreds of clinical trials published on Vitamin D in recent years—I read one study with 132 references—it is obvious that the ‘sunshine vitamin’ no longer has to play second fiddle to the other vitamins.” The same can be said for vitamins A, B, C, and E. All have amply demonstrated their value. Add to them, zink, potassium, selenium, and other mineral supplements. All those prostate advertisements are about herbal supplements!

The Obama administration that has made obesity its pet project is also famous for photos of the President eating every kind of fast food. It is rank hypocrisy, but the proposed FDA ban is literally life threatening.

Write, email, and fax your Representative and Senator to ensure that Congress intervenes with the FDA in the same fashion it is struggling to protect us against an out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency. In particular, contact the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

Your life and the lives of your loved ones literally depend on stopping this attack on real nutrition.

Americans are losing the freedom they take for granted as Big Government intrudes on every personal choice they make. The Obama administration has demonstrated its total indifference to America’s senior citizens' access to affordable medical care and now all Americans' ability to access nutritional supplements.

You are being “protected” into an early grave!

COMMENTS FROM EMAIL:

I guess that we can understand the FDA's desire to protect the U.S. Citizens from products that do nothing or actually cause harm under the guise of making people healtheir--since education does not seem to be working as well as we would hope.  Marjorie Fine at Shaklee has been our long time laison between the FDA and Shaklee--she keeps us up to date on things--and the FDA has come to Shaklee many times over the years to help derive fair and balanced legislation--not to harm the industry but to make them wake up to the harm in not testing for pesticides, heavy metals and vocs in the raw materials  they put into their products--and more.  

So many supplement companies--even when their products are made by one company--are marketed under many different names so that they appear to be small companies that the FDA can ignore--too bad!  No one is checking when companies claim things their products are supposed to do--but do not deliver--no mandatory clinical testing.   I have been hearing for many years that there may be only one or two manufacturers of supplements some day--Shaklee being one--because the other companies do not want to have any regulation that will cause them to spend money-it is expensive to do what Shaklee has done over a very long period of time--I don't know what the FDA should do about things--I do feel that education on prevention is a good way for them to work--maybe make sure that doctors are trained in prevention.  

Linda

Bunny and Sam,

First off, I'm sorry I didn't have more time to spend with you at the convention.

Are you sure the President even has a clue what the FDA is up to? When I read a headline like "Obama Attacks Nutrition" I'd at least like to see how (if) the President has any involvement, or if this is just another brush trying to paint him as the new Satan. There seems to be a lot of that going around. Why not pin the tail on the real donkey, which is the FDA, and their zillion ties to Big Pharma. "FDA Attacks Nutrition" would ring much truer.

You were at the Professionals Meeting the first night of the DC convention. The last speaker discussed this FDA proposition, the pros and cons, and my sense was that Shaklee didn't seem all that disturbed...or at least Jaime and Wes didn't say a peep about it. There's plenty of manufacturers who will suffer, but my sense is that Shaklee did their homework, and this regulation wouldn't crimp them the way it would most of the other pseudo-manufacturer-packagers out there.

Frank

Sam

What a gracious response! I don't recall the name of the CEO for the Committee For Responsible Nutrition who spoke to us at the Professionals meeting, but my overall impression from his presentation is that Shaklee faces no threat from this legislation.

And truthfully, it will be a relief to see the me-too suppliers and the  I-didn't-know  packagers being held more accountable for the side-effects and contaminants in the stuff they sell.

Remember blue-green algae, and sea silver, and the whatever liquid calcium everyone was swooning over last Century? With proper regulation of supplements, a lot less boondoggle will be hoisted on the public. With less sizzle in the air, more people will respond to stodgy old (NOT ANYMORE!) Shaklee!

Is FDA our friend, or are they in the  pocket of Big Pharma? I am sure the answer is somewhere in between, but I am thrilled to see Congress taking a stride towards protection of supplements.

Frank M. Painter, D.C.

Frankp@chiro.org