Court Finds For ANH-USA In Stunning Victory Over FDA (Thank You Jonathan Emord!)
June 1, 2010
This was a key federal case argued for ANH-USA and other plaintiffs by Jonathan Emord and the Emord law firm. It was a remarkable seventh victory for Emord over the FDA in the area of allowable health claims for food or supplements. Unless reversed on appeal, the decision restricts the Agency’s ability to place gag orders on the emerging science behind healthy foods and dietary supplements.
The case revolved around what are called qualified health claims. In a qualified health claim, the producer of a food or supplement tries to share the state of the science behind the product with the public. If the science is less than completely conclusive, usually the case with food or food related items, the claim is “qualified”.
The FDA has never liked qualified health claims. It wants food and supplements to be treated like drugs and forced to submit to the full FDA approval process in order to make any health claims. Of course this is crazy. Food and supplements, being natural, cannot usually be patented, and nobody can afford to spend a billion dollars to gain FDA approval of claims on an unpatented product that anyone else can sell.
The FDA knows this full well. The real reason it does not want any health claims for food or supplements is probably that it fears that this will create competition for approved drugs– and drugs pay the Agency’s bills. This is a scandal that badly needs to be addressed. The Environmental Protection Agency does not, so far as we can see, represent the interests of coal mining companies. So why should the FDA represent the drug companies rather than the public? Probably because the monopoly created for drug companies by the FDA has given the drug companies vast sums to spend to gain influence. Coal companies are poor by comparison.
The judge in this case, Ellen Huvelle of the United States District Court of the District of Columbia, rendered a summary judgment. That means she felt the case was clear from the start. The FDA was violating freedom of speech by saying that no cancer related health claims about the mineral selenium could be made unless the science was completely conclusive or unless ridiculous and misleading disclaimers were added to the message.
Although this case was focused on selenium, it has much bigger ramifications. The judge was in effect saying that food and dietary supplement producers have a right under the free speech doctrine to talk about the science behind the product so long as they accurately represent that science. The FDA is currently flush with cash from new appropriations. It may appeal. Even if it does not appeal, it may fall back into a passive aggressive stance of quibbling over every word of every qualified claim. But at some point, the accumulation of court decisions against the Agency should finally result in some real change. Although the struggle is far from over, this court victory is an important milestone along the way to an eventual victory for free speech, uncensored science, and common sense.
[...] science behind healthy foods and dietary supplements. Maybe the ITA should contact Jonathan ??? Welcome to the Alliance for Natural Health – USA FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims __________________ [...]
[...] See the ANH announcement at: http://www.anh-usa.org/court-finds-…; [...]
[...] Read the full story at Alliance for Natural Health [...]
YIPPI YI A I’M SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS !!
[...] times the charm? Jonathan Emord and the Alliance for Natural Health have beaten the FDA again, this time on the selenium issue. Will this be enough to put this rogue agency back in [...]
[...] Posted June 3, 2010 This was a key federal case argued for ANH-USA and other plaintiffs by Jonathan Emord and the Emord law firm in the area of allowable health claims for food or supplements. Unless reversed on appeal, the decision restricts the Agency’s ability to place gag orders on the emerging science behind healthy foods and dietary supplements. Read full article. [...]
I agree with Rushmeh completely – thank God someone is doing something to help us fight this outrage. I worry about it every day and getting angry is something that I don’t want to deal with constantly in my life. How can we band together to fight this evil?
[...] http://www.anh-usa.org/court-finds-for-anh-usa-in-stunning-victory-over-fda-thank-you-jonathan-emord... Share With Everyone! [...]
This is good news but we need great news and I am confident we will have it in next 3 to 5 years.
We need to combine all our forces to lobby against FDA and those law makers who are consistently with FDA, looking up for the interest of Big Pharma and Agri. Biz giants who are ‘killing us’ . If we let this happen. the great USA will soon go down in the history as an empire destroyed by -Pharma, Agri. and Greed’.
We know GOD is with us in this.
I’m afraid that this ruling can turn out to be a paradox, where when supplements can make certain claims of health benefits for their products, where before they could not because they could not be regulated as drugs by F.da standards, is a kind of protective shield against charges by more powerful interests eager to pounce on any claim being made. It allowed people to rely on their own research, judgement, and experience whether or not these products worked, which is the best way to use anything. It makes me nervous that claims can be made for that reason and because these same powerful interests are so hateful of competition, the small suppliers may be threatened in the future due to open information regarding health claims, with large corporations and their lawyers cheapening the whole process, gliding in to try and patent everything in their path.
This article states that “Food and supplements, being natural, cannot usually be patented”, well, there’s the rub. Large corporations are trying to do just that and have succeeded in a few cases, which is terrifying. I would rather have no health claims on my supplement bottle and judge for myself than to use some corporate-patented placebo or worse with even one health claim printed on it.
The FDA is a bureaucratic juggernaut and will be back. Don’t give up the fight!
Thank you so much forfighting so hard for us. The FDA needs to be disbanded and rebuilt from the ground up. Right now their just a bunch of greedy, self serving lackeys of Big Pharma. Makes my blood boil to see them in bed with that bunch. Personally, I am 60 years old and do no drugs whatsoever, and never will. I believe our bodies know how to heal itself given the proper raw materials to do so, not the synthetic junk that’s being pushed down peoples throats nowadays.Thanks for letting me vent.
The FDA is becomming too Powerful and not as an Advocate for the people, but for the Pharmaceutical corporations and the rich and powerful. Its about time they were reined in.
We The People need to let our voices be heard against such tyrany.
Hey,
Fantastic! I like the sweet taste of this victory.
The whole FDA is ridiculous joke: this”cartel” should be disbanded , and something that will serve the vast majority of the people of this nation, who believe in life not death, should replace it.
President Obama pls note.
Way to go guys, thanks for lending your voice to the voiceless, the best is yet to come,
thanks ,
Bolaji.
The FDA allows our food to be contaminated with GMOs without requiring labeling as such. The fact that they would attack food supplements in this manner while promoting the indoctination of GMOs into our food system proves this institution has no concern for the welfare of its citizenry.
Please buy certified organic as this is the only way to ensure you are not getting GMOs which are potentially dangerous, causing sterility and other long term problems, as well as laying barren our lands and creating super bugs and weeds that are becoming immune to pesticides/herbicides. GMOs detroy the natural cycles of life. Please, at the very least, vote with your pocketbook.
ANH keep up the fight!!!
Can’t thank enough the groups and individuals that are fighting to protect our rights as they relate to our health and well being. So tired of the oppression placed on the public by these super powers — makes us look like a herd of cattle being taken to slaughter. Thank you !!!
Every little bit helps. These court cases will also help to demonstrate the seriously lopsided treatment by the media and by Congress and hopefully get others fired up to defeat the anti-supplement lobby. Accurate nutrition and supplement information is all much more important with the passage of ObamaCare and the near certainty that doctors and FDA-approved drugs will be further removed from greater numbers of people.
Debbie – Are you sure you wrote what you meant? Now that BOMB’R'Care has passed and is being implemented it will probably become increasingly difficult to get anything but Medical Doctor/ Pharmaceutical grade death and dieing. That is unless people start getting serous about voting the people who passed this mind numbing madness out of office. If only it were possible Obama should be impeached right now for what he’s done and is doing. I personally don’t expect them to return our rights , now that they’ve got us where they want us, anytime soon or without a fight. You may remember King George wasn’t one to espouse freedom for anyone but himself. That’s the nature of despots and tyrrants.The Republicans have been as bad as the Dems only moving the incremental creep slower – the creeps.
thank you for your commitment on behalf of supplements and right of information. Dr stein
I’m sure our elected officials would like us to believe that money doesn’t influence their decisions but the drugs money can buy and the money drug producers pay their lobbiests should be completely illegal because it is a conflict in interests. As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic I want every citizen to have the option of acquring a naturl method of being healthy, not a drugged method of feeling happy. Note to those who have convinced us to elect you because you were going to look out for us, “You can have your drugs but let me experience the true meanig of health from the natural products the earth offers all of us (No! I don’t smoke marijuana, either.)
I”m talking about the enjoyment that comes from being straight and sober – drug and alcohol free.
Sincerely, Dalon Jones [email protected]
Great! What good news.
Bravo, judge Huevelle! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jonathan Emord and the Emord law firm.
This article blew me away! I kew the FDA was crooked, or at least I highly suspected it, but this article shed some new light on my suspicions- thank you! The more I read the more I learned and the more I support you. It’s a shame that there has been such a battle over allowing healthy items be available to the public. Whether it’s organic foods, supplements, non-toxic paint or cleaning supplies, what have you. It disgusts me that certain large corporations don’t want people to be health, they don’t want this planet to be healthy, or at least they don’t care or are not interested, because ultimately, it’s all about greed with them. As a user of supplements, of which I’ve had an abundance of success with, I feel this is also a win for me! Thank you for sharing and congratulations on your victory.
The FDA is one of THE most corrupt governmental organizations of the many that have become megaphones for large corporate interests. As I perceive it, this is going to be a struggle to the death… either that of freedom and good health or the death of a corrupt, pharmaceutically-controlled government agency that needs to be majorly reconstructed. Despite the fact that the media and, indeed, politicians themselves are badly misguided and misinformed, we must ever strive to share accurate information about preventive health and the efficacy of those paradigms of healing that are OTHER than the western allopathic model, which is severely limited.
While this is a wonderful victory, I still feel it like the finger in the dam holding back the flood. We need to get this problem fixed by undoing the FDA and beginning over again
Perennial uber-attorney Jonathan Emord does it again! Thank you ANH-USA and Attorney Emord for your ceaseless efforts on behalf of all supplement users and Complementary Medicine advocates!
Bravo to the ANH team! And especially to Emord for his tenacity in such fights! Thank you to both of you for doing what you do to protect our rights. As clearly said, such battles are rarely over with first judgment; the price of freedom must be our indomitable determination to safeguard it.
Hallelujah!!!! The truth prevails …
Fantatic, lets seee unwind in Europe, Great!
Kudo’s this is a tremdous win! My hats off to you!
One of my First Ammendment cases was up held by the Supreme Court, recently
However, the controversy continues on.
I know the hard work involved.
Thanks!
I swear I’m telling the truth – I’ve been successfully controlling my systemic nuclear radiation caused cancer with a supplement since 2002. I plan to contact the wonderful supplement company to be sure they know this news. I will not tell them what supplement I’m taking (because of the FDA law) – They make many kinds. There are many, many supplements that DO cure diseases. It is my opinion that this terrible FDA law is indirectly creating genocide in this country. I CURED my deadly allergies that I was pleagued with about 25 years ago. I believe the drug companies only put out drugs to treat the symptoms (like anti hystamines). There are a multitude of auto-immune diseases. I suspect diabetes may be one. Why doesn’t the FDA spend more time figuring out the CAUSES of these horrific diseases? I suspect I may know one of the causes of allergies.
I’d be interested to know how you got rid of your allergies. I’ve successfully removed a bunch of them using Bioset acupuncture while up north, but as I live in Florida now I can’t find anyone that uses this type of acupuncture. I hate using drugs as they only treat the symptoms.
It wouldn’t pay for them to do that, so I took it upon myself to find out what caused Parkinson’s disease, it is the keystone disease. It is an interesting disease in that people who get it are less likely to get cancer and you are less likely to get it if you smoke, and if you smoke and still have it, yuo are less likely to get lung cancer than if you do smoke. That said it is caused by the lack of something that can cause quite abit of cancers, and that something is not nicotine, it is a little mineral called cadmium. With all the bad press it has gotten it is something that would be impossible for them to admit, but if you follow the path in studies on PubMed and other sites, it makes perfect sense, There is even a study that says it protects against the mptp moose model of the disease. One of the cancers that is more prevailent in PD is melanoma, it protects against that. It induces NURR1 without which dopaminergic cells die, but it is a carcinegen. I would love to show someone the path that has the credentuals to be listened to. What I have touch on here is just the tip of the iceberg of how I came to this conclusion, I would say the evidence is irrefutable, that the implications are aweinspiring because you figure out Parkinson’s, well the game is over.
Marlene MacCorkle Ocean Park Washington
I meant to say people with PD who do smoke are less likely to get lung cancer than those who don’t.
Opps! Sorry, wrong answers.
Kudo’s Jonathan!
Since, I am a scientist and an inventor, I am thrille about the gag order being lifted.
It is about time we were given back are US Constitional Rights.
Considering I recovered from Cancer without sugery or radiation or chemostherapy when the medical profession gave me 6 months to live for stage 4 colon cancer. I feel the herbal supplements and all natural vitamins and minerals and organic juices would be the least of my worrys when the reality was death.
Get Real!
Thank you Jonathan Emord and company and Judge Huvelle. Because of you we all can sleep a bit better knowing that, for the moment at least, our supplements will still be available, a vital issue for those of us who have no desire to use a pharmaceutical unless absolutely necessary.
Again, thank you.
Betsy Burnell
Congratulations and thanks for fighting this one for all of us!
Good to hear. Let’s hope it sticks.
The following doesn’t make this seem like much of a victory:
CONCLUSION
Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is granted in part and denied in part, and defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment is denied. This case is remanded to the FDA for the purpose of 1) drafting one or more disclaimers to accompany plaintiffs’ certain cancers, anticarcinogenic, and prostate claims, or, alternatively, setting forth empirical evidence that any disclaimer would fail to correct the claims’ purported misleadingness; 2) determining an appropriate disclaimer to accompany plaintiffs’ lung and respiratory tract claim in light of the SU.VI.MAX study; and 3) reevaluating plaintiffs’ colon and digestive tract claim and drafting one or more disclaimers.
The Court denies plaintiffs’ motion to the extent it seeks an order enjoining the FDA from precluding plaintiffs from placing their proposed health claims on dietary supplement labeling. (Pls.’ Mot. at 43.) It is not for this Court to pass judgment on the validity of plaintiffs’ proposed qualifying language in the first instance, see Pearson I, 164 F.3d at 659, nor can the Court rule out the possibility that “the government could demonstrate with empirical evidence that disclaimers . . . would bewilder consumers and fail to correct for deceptiveness.” Id. at 659-60. To that end, the Court remands the claims at issue to the Agency for further review and action consistent with this Memorandum Opinion. Although the Court is limited in its ability to mandate that the Agency act by a specific date, see Consumer Fed’n of Am. and Pub. Citizen v. United States Dep’t of Health and Human Servs., 83 F.3d 1497, 1506-07 (D.C. Cir. 1996), the Court expects that the FDA will act with reasonable speed in reviewing the proposed claims and drafting disclaimer language. See Whitaker, 248 F. Supp. 2d at 17 n.20.
Looks like no one noticed that the court’s conclusion is much like CONgress allowing the FDA to continue to run rampant over our right to know… good catch David!
Thanks to David Bonello for posting the actual language of the judge’s decision.
Thank you.. Thank you…ANH-USA & Jonathon Amord !!! Our growing integrative health care needs the freedom from FDA that this case affords. As citizens we can soon tell if a promise of help is real or worthless! We don’t need the FDA to spend & spend to build the false & sick conditions that now exists on prescription drugs. The horrible side effects and death rate should keep our politicians, FDA and Big Pharma awake at night until they give back their money and resciend approvals.
The growing despair, frustration, and efforts of citizens should now be obvious as incumbants begin to realize our new goals & zeal for true representative government!!!! Grandpa George
Thank You Jonathan Emord!….As a senior that takes nonthing buy whole food plant dertved supplements…I have excellent HEALTH…The FDA HAS TO BE ABOLISHED…IT HAS KILLED AND INJURED MANY THAT TOOK THE DRUGS…THEY SAID WAS GOOD…BUT WITH SIDE EFFECTS A MILE LONG..AND GOD PUT WHOLE FOOD AND HERBS ON THIS EARTH FOR US TO STAY HEALTHY AND MAN CAN ALONG…WITH HIS GREED…FDA…AND DESTROYED IT..EVERYTHING WE EAT HAS A PURPOSE FOR OUR HEALTH..CHERRIES FOR GOUT..IT WORKS..NOT A DRUG..BUT GOD GIVEN CURE…
THANKS AGAIN..
LOIS
HORSEHEADS, NY
One of the things to watch at the FDA, which I believe is different at the EPA, is the revolving door of employees of chemical/food/drug companies who go back and forth between the company and the FDA. The most recent egregious example of this is Michael Taylor of Monsanto. I hope that someone takes on this crucial issue of the foxes guarding the henhouses.
This is true – the FDA has restricted these facts for decades for their own sake. They need to get real and get with they should have been doing for years – protect the public with the allowance of knowledge of supplement benefits.
Thank goodness for Jonathan Emord and law firm who have challenged the FDA so successfully. It’s also good to find a judge who can see that the FDA is overstepping its bounds once again
Excellent.
I often tell people how selenium can be very effective against cancer. Of course we all know that garlic is a rich source of selenium and should be high in everyone’s diet. It is amazing to me how people are often so gullible and believe that what Doctors say is gospel truth..
As a Christian I know the Great Healer did not write RXs.
Of course much of this is becuase Doctors are taught and educated to write RXs by drug companies books in medical school and nothing more.
Congradulations on your win. Nick Filippini RN
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Attorney Emord. I can only hope you and the firm keep on with your defense. I send you a toast!
Waxman has been an advisary of Supplements for a long time.I believe he is working Hand and Glove with the FDA to Stop Supplements for their buddies the Pharma Group!!!
Jonathan Emord rides to the rescue again!! This is wonderful news in a sea of bad news that is currently washing over us thanks to global mega corporations (that means you, BP).
Thanks for this information. I’ve shared it with my facebook page and will probably do a post on it from my blog. Keep up the great job you do.
Sabreena
ITS ABOUT TIME!! I’m so glad to see this!!!! ANH-USA, you have made my evening!!!!
Keep going–we need to get rid of the so called real drugs. The doctors are not calling the shots. These people have 6 weeks training to sell drugs–a pharmacist would be better at it, but then the big drug companies would be in trouble. Anymore everyone is supposed to take statins and it does your coq-10 in and then you have heart problems. There is research out there to show how much more heart problems we have within two years of starting up those stations around 1987.
Statins are just one example. There are other supplements out theire to help–the indians and the chineese know as they have used them for years.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!! FINALLY!!! This has been my argument for years. A person can say or write about anything–guns, bombs, sex, crude and rude but you cannot tell people that cherries or walnuts or vitamins are good for your health?? Insane.
Congratulations and blessings on your accomplishments. You leave us “free” to go out and tell people that there really are cures for cancer and all of the other diseases out there. There is a natural way to boost your own stem cells for $100, you can help your DNA correct itself and much more. People need and deserve the truth not drug scams that cause people to lose their life saving and homes.
Next step; Go after FDA.
Bless you for your hard work.
Thank you for doing this.
This is great news, when it comes to supplementation and prevention in this country. What we’ve needed all along. The body has the innate ability to heal itself if it has the vital nutrients necessary. An outstanding start maybe there is still hope for our health in this country.
yes my sentiments exactly. this is an important victory.