The Alliance for Natural Health USA

Is the Federation of State Medical Boards Behind the Brutal Attacks on Integrative Medicine Practitioners?

ANH-USA — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:00:46 +0000

The FSMB is an elite, highly influential, secretive private organization. We also believe that it is thoroughly corrupt. Action Alert!Each of the fifty states, as well as the District of Columbia and the US territories, has laws that define the practice of medicine; each one delegates the authority to enforce those laws to a state medical board. State medical boards also adopt policies and create guidelines related to the practice of medicine. They have the power to revoke physician licenses for violating the state’s laws of the practice of medicine—subject to the boards’ interpretation of the law, which can be highly arbitrary.The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) is a private 501(c)(6) trade association that purports to represent the seventy state medical and osteopathic boards of the US and its territories, and cosponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination. It is tremendously powerful: whatever it suggests in terms of medical care policies are often adopted by the state medical boards. A private trade association with no public funding, transparency, or accountability arguably has the power to interpret state medical law and grant or revoke medical licenses! Ever wonder why it’s so hard to find a doctor who will prescribe bioidentical hormones or administer chelation therapy? We believe it’s because the FSMB has made it such a career risk for the doctor to use his own independent judgment.So far as we can tell, it seems that the FSMB was infiltrated in the late 1990s by the so-called “quackbuster” contingent—people openly hostile to complementary and alternative medicine. At the 1996 annual meeting of the FSMB in Chicago, there was a radical shift from a focus on health fraud as defined by the federal government (overbilling, un-bundling, and kickbacks) to another definition of health fraud: alternative medical care. It seems a concerted effort to label innovation in health care—and especially any natural treatment that competes with an emphasis on drugs and surgery as the ideal for modern medicine—as mere “quackery.” (In fact, at just one session of that meeting, Dr. William Fleming—a member of the FSMB’s board of directors, and chair of its Ad Hoc Committee on Health Care Fraud—used the word “quack” or “quackery” 139 times.)Since then, the FSMB has challenged integrative medicine as being outside the “standard of care,” defining the term to suit its own purposes; in this, the organization mirrors and amplifies the American Medical Association’s antipathy toward integrative medicine. Because practicing outside the standard of care is grounds for a state medical board to revoke a doctor’s license, the attempt to exclude CAM therapies from the standard of care is a major threat to consumers’ access to integrative doctors. For years we have seen integrative doctors being harassed and charged by their state medical boards for practicing outside this bogus standard of care when what they have really done is posed a competitive threat to conventional medicine, at a time when conventional medicine is doing a great deal of harm and really needs competition. You may also recall our story last month in which the FSMB participated in a biased anti-chelation event, attempting to define chelation therapy as health fraud.The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today recently reported that the FSMB asked for $100,000 from Big Pharma to help create and distribute the organization’s new policy on pain medication to their 700,000 practicing doctors. The federation won’t say how much money it received from industry, but estimated that it will cost $3.1 million for its campaign.And what is this campaign? To get the word out about “safe” use of opioid analgesics in the treatment of chronic pain! That’s right, FSMB’s new policy favors the use of opioids for long-term pain management, despite an epidemic of painkiller abuse and addiction (not to mention the terrible crime rates that accompany it)—and a lack of scientific support for this use of the drugs.If you think drug manufacturers might be pleased to contribute to such a campaign, you would be right. The University of Wisconsin, with funding from Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, developed a continuing education course for doctors based on the FSMB’s manual. This is the drug company that in 2007 paid $600 million in fines in settlement of a guilty plea for having misled doctors and patients when it claimed that the drug was less likely to be abused than traditional narcotics.So if we used to be puzzled about the FSMB’s motives in attacking integrative medicine, this latest move has made it clear that a good part of it may just be about the money.Last Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee launched an investigation into the close ties between pharmaceutical companies, the FSMB, and “nonprofit pain groups” like the American Pain Foundation. The Foundation received 90 percent of its $5 million in funding in 2010 from the drug and medical device industry, and its guides for patients, journalists, and policymakers downplay the risks associated with opioid painkillers while exaggerating the benefits from the drugs.Tuesday morning, two senators from the Finance Committee sent letters to the American Pain Foundation and four other pain nonprofits, three drug companies, and the FSMB, expressing concern about their relationship with each other. Tuesday evening, the Foundation announced that it would “cease to exist, effective immediately.” Coincidence?The senators also asked about any influence the drug companies had on a 2004 guide for doctors about pain that was distributed by the FSMB, based on guidelines by the American Pain Society and on the American Pain Foundation’s Military/Veterans Pain Initiative.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that opioids were involved in 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, more than cocaine and heroin combined. So much for “safe use.”How much money does the FSMB take in total from industry? How does it use it? Who really runs the FSMB? What exactly is its relationship with the American Medical Association? With the so-called Quackbusters? With state medical boards? These are all questions that need answers. In the meantime, ANH-USA will continue to monitor the state medical boards that seem to have been heavily influenced and turned against natural medicine by this rogue organization.Action Alert! Contact your local state medical board and demand information about its relationship with the FSMB! We have drafted a suggested letter and talking points. Please take action today!

Nutritionists Are Fighting for Their Rights in the States

ANH-USA — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:00:26 +0000

The FSMB is an elite, highly influential, secretive private organization. Recent reports suggest it may also be corrupt. Action Alert!Two of the biggest battlefields right now are the legislatures of Michigan and Wyoming. In both cases, laws preventing the best-trained nutritionists from practicing have been passed, but citizens are now attempting to get the Michigan law repealed and have the Wyoming law changed during a critical rulemaking period.As we have reported previously, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), which used to be the American Dietetic Association, is working state by state to create a legal monopoly and shut out certified nutritionists who may be more qualified. The organization sponsors bills which ensure that only AND-registered dietitians can offer key nutrition services to the public. This not only discriminates against many highly qualified nutritionists (including those who, unlike most Registered Dietitians, have Master’s degrees and PhDs). It also interferes with consumer choice. If trained nutritionists cannot become licensed, they can’t practice—and consumers can’t benefit from their expertise.For a long time, the Dieticians’ HQ has worked to get their monopolistic bills passed quietly. Once the bills become law, they have held off on pressing for enforcement in order to fly under the radar and and get as many state bills passed as possible. Now that they know we know what is happening and are fighting hard, they are trying new tactics—though we find them equally underhanded.For example, AND/ADA encourages its members to increase complaints about other nutritional practitioners. It makes the state dietetics boards look busy and important. The Michigan Dietetic Association even hands out prizes to members who file complaints about other nutritionists! This state organization offers its members a form for “documenting harm and/or potential harm from unqualified individuals dispensing nutrition advice and/or products”:

This information will help us make a stronger case to our legislators regarding why we need to have State Legal Recognition of the “Registered Dietitian.” These cases will also help to show why the Registered Dietitian is a necessary member of the healthcare team as the most qualified provider of medical nutrition therapy and nutrition services.

Not only do they target certified nutritionists, they also target supplement use and supplement advice on the same form as being “potentially harmful”:

With regard to supplements, specifics regarding type of supplement, frequency of usage, approximate cost, ingredients, and dosages are helpful. In clinical settings, laboratory data (trends), weight history and diet history before and after R.D. intervention are helpful too.This is just further evidence that the practice of Dietetics is firmly in the institutionally controlled conventional medicine camp, and is openly hostile to integrative medicine and natural approaches to healthcare.Note: Be sure to watch the original music video about the AND's collusion with junk food industry Conflict of Interest by Rob Herring. If you download the song from iTunes, 10% will go to ANH-USA's efforts to protect nutrition therapy from AND's monopoly attempts. In Michigan, Public Act 333 became law in 2006. Under the law, Registered Dietitians are automatically eligible for licensure, but other professionals who incorporate nutrition services into their practice may be prohibited from doing so because they “may subject the public to harm.” However, as the law’s critics point out, “More harm has come from people not understanding how nutrition can improve or destroy health, than from seeking nutrition counseling. The promoters of this law claim the public is being harmed without this law, yet there is no such evidence of harm.”Naturopaths, chiropractors, certified nutritionists with Masters’ degrees and PhDs, and numerous others would be unable to offer nutrition care services to the public despite having completed post-secondary coursework, supervised training, and certification exams. Since then, our allies in Michigan, spearheaded by the Michigan Nutrition Association, have been working with Michigan’s Office of Regulatory Reinventions (ORR) to get the law repealed.A huge breakthrough came last month. The ORR recommended that eighteen occupations be deregulated, one of them being Dietitians and Nutritionists. The ORR also recommended that Michigan’s Board of Dietetics and Nutrition be eliminated along with eight other occupational boards. This is a huge step, especially since it is much harder to get a law revoked after it’s already on the books.Action Alert! If you are a Michigan resident, please contact the your legislators today and ask them to take the ORR’s recommendation seriously and introduce legislation to deregulate dietitians and nutritionists. Please take action immediately!In Wyoming, a monopolistic AND/ADA-sponsored bill became law recently: the Dietetics Licensure Act. It says that the practice of dietetics and nutrition is controlled by the Dietetics Licensing Board, and practitioners are those credentialed by the Commission on Dietetic Registration, which is run by AND/ADA.The law is currently in the rulemaking process (in general, legislatures first set broad policy mandates by passing statutes, then agencies create more detailed regulations through rulemaking). The Wyoming Dietetics Licensing Board’s proposed rules include a public comment period through June 6. ANH-USA will submit formal comments in an attempt to to mitigate damage from the law, though we are opposed to this bill altogether and feel it should not be implemented.Action Alert! If you are a Wyoming resident, please contact the Dietetics Licensing Board today and ask them to make substantial changes in the rules to be more inclusive of other nutritionist professionals. Please take action immediately!In New Jersey and New York, bills are currently pending that would give more power to Registered Dietitians and severely discriminate against other nutrition specialists.New Jersey residents, please contact your legislators here.New York residents, please contact your legislators here.

World’s Oldest Antibiotic Also Shows Promise as an Anti-Cancer Therapy

ANH-USA — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:00:06 +0000

Colloidal silver is a powerful healer, despite irrational FDA opposition to it.Silver has been used medicinally throughout the ages, with great success. And now some very promising research is being done on silver as a cancer treatment. Patients have previously been treated with chemotherapy drugs containing another metal, platinum. In a head-to-head comparison against a leading platinum-based chemo drug, cisplatin, a silver-based drug was found to be just as effective—and far less toxic to normal cells than platinum. Dr. Charlotte Willans, the lead researcher, calls the research an important step in the quest for effective, non-toxic cancer treatments.Silver also happens to be the world’s oldest known antibiotic. There’s written evidence that the ancient Egyptians made use of it; the ancient Greeks and Romans stored their water, wine, and other liquids in silver vessels to prevent spoiling and contamination; ancient Chinese emperors ate with silver chopsticks, and wealthy Europeans in the Middle Ages used silver utensils to protect themselves from illness (we still call our eating utensils “silverware” despite it being made from other metals these days).In the 1800s and early 1900s, colloidal silver compounds were widely used to fight infections, though silver fell out of favor in the 1930s with the development of the first modern antibiotics. Even so, silver is still popularly used today to treat water, purify air, and is used in medical dressings prevent infection in burn victims. Very importantly in today’s world, germs cannot develop a resistance to silver.The big problem with antibiotic drugs, we now know, is that bacteria can become resistant to them, adapting into “superbugs” that are very difficult to treat. The problem, as we noted in January, is exacerbated by overuse of antibiotics—particularly in animals raised for food, where 80% of US antibiotics are used.Despite the long history of successful silver usage, including its current use in wound dressings and burn salves, the FDA’s official position is that silver is “not safe or effective for treating any disease or condition.” A 1996 FDA rule declared all over-the-counter silver products to be unsafe and “misbranded.”The government and other skeptics often claim that colloidal silver can cause argyria—a condition in which the skin turns bluish gray. However, argyria has only been found to occur in response to prolonged exposure to or ingestion of silver compounds, especially silver salts, which are not present in true colloidal silver but are found in cheap imitations.This was demonstrated rather dramatically in 2008 by Paul Karason, the fellow whom the news media dubbed the “Blue Man.” Although the news media continually reported that he was taking colloidal silver, interviews with Mr. Karason indicated that was apparently making his own silver compounds at home and ended up making silver chloride—a silver salt—which he both consumed in excessive quantities and regularly smeared on his skin before using tanning beds! Silver salt compounds are great for making photographic paper—but not for taking internally or applying to the skin.A study published earlier this year demonstrated that bacteria are now mutating to evade vaccines for childhood pneumonia and meningitis. So we not only have antibiotic-resistant superbugs, we have vaccine-resistant ones as well. This is just the latest indication that the “miracle drugs” and vaccines of the mid-to-late 1900s are not standing the test of time.Contrast this with colloidal silver, which has been used as a bactericide for over a millennium—and has never produced silver-resistant bacteria! The recent research into silver as an anti-cancer agent is exactly the kind of research that today’s medical experts should be exploring—and would be, but for FDA opposition.Why is the FDA so stubbornly opposed? Presumably because the agency does not like competition for its approved patented drugs which are derived from natural sources. People dying from resistant bugs does not seem to move the FDA—they’re only interested in new patented drugs that might quell the superbugs, even though such drugs are not being produced much, and even when they are, they often prove to be too toxic to use.

How Have Supplements Helped You?

ANH-USA — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:31 +0000

We don’t know about you, but we’re tired of seeing one media outlet and government agency after another claiming supplements have no benefit. We know differently because we’ve seen the benefits in our own lives.What about you? ANH-USA wants to hear how supplements have helped you. In the comments below, please share your story with us and others readers of the Pulse!

Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto’s War Chest!

ANH-USA — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:43:27 +0000

Dear friends and advocates,This month in the Pulse, we told you how volunteers and staff delivered 850,000 signed petitions to county officials across California to put the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the ballot this November 6.If voters pass the initiative, the GE Food Act will require mandatory labels on genetically engineered food. Because California is the largest economy in the United States, we believe the initiative will lead to nationwide labeling of all foods containing genetically modified organisms.ANH-USA is a proud supporter of the California Right to Know campaign. That's why this summer, I've directed our staff to cancel our semi-annual membership drive. That's right—we're not going to ask you to donate a penny to ANH-USA this summer. Why?

Because we want you to give your most generous donation to the Right to Know campaign instead. We're even offering complimentary ANH-USA membership to all donors to the Right to Know campaign!

Monsanto and its “evil empire” have already begun tapping into their multi-million dollar war chest to spread lies and propaganda to defeat the GE Food Act. But 91% of American voters support labeling of GMOs! Why is GMO labeling such a popular issue? Because GMOs have not been proven safe, and the long-term health risks on humans of genetically modified foods have not been adequately investigated. Many small-scale animal studies have connected consumption of GMOs to a host of health problems, ranging from allergies and malnutrition to liver disease and infertility, and many more too numerous to list here.

Every consumer must join together to stand up to Monsanto. Please give today, and please give as much as you can!

This May 26 is the 20th anniversary of the FDA’s disastrous decision to deny consumers the right to know whether their food has been genetically engineered or not. On this day, ex-Monsanto lawyer Michael Taylor (the current FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods) declared that genetically modified food was “substantially equivalent” to naturally grown food, and therefore should not be subject to any additional regulations.Between now and May 26, the Right to Know Campaign is attempting to raise a one million dollar money bomb to support the California GE Foods Act and other state GMO-labeling campaigns.A group of “Right to Know” public interest organizations and organic companies, have pledged to match the first million dollars raised in this nationwide “Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto” campaign. They include:

The Organic Consumers Association
Mercola.com
Food Democracy Now
Nature’s Path
Lundberg Family Farms
Eden Foods, and
the Organic Consumers Fund

The more you give, the more our matching donors will give. Your $5 will become $10, your $25 will become $50—your $500 will become $1,000!

Let's show the California Right to Know campaign the generosity that ANH-USA supporters are known for!Sincerely,Gretchen DuBeau Executive Director, The Alliance for Natural Health USAP.S. Together we are stronger! Please share this message with everyone who cares about the food they eat!

The Latest “Breakthrough”: Gas-releasing Aspirin?

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:28:06 +0000

Can’t we give something natural a try first?In March, two studies were published which suggested that aspirin may be an inexpensive and powerful weapon to fight cancer. This isn’t surprising. Aspirin is an anti-inflammatory and most anti-inflammatories seem useful against cancer.Specifically, the studies showed that a daily dose of aspirin may significantly reduce the risk of many cancers, and prevent new tumors from spreading.The downside? Daily or long-term use of aspirin doubles the risk of internal bleeding—and can cause hemorrhagic strokes—yet doesn’t reduce the risk of heart attack in people who have not previously had heart problems.The gut lining protects itself from damage by producing nitric oxide (NO) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S). Now a scientist has developed what he calls “NOSH-aspirin,” which produces both gases as it breaks down, thus recreating the stomach’s protective mechanism.Unfortunately, there are a number of serious concerns with this approach:

Aspirin is still a chemical substance (acetylsalicylic acid) that can have serious side effects on the body; the new formulation doesn’t even address the serious risk of hemorrhagic strokes.
Aspirin is part of a group of medications called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Four times as many people are killed each year by common NSAID painkillers like aspirin as are killed by the H1N1 swine flu virus.
Gas-filled aspirin may ease the symptom (protecting the stomach against gastric bleeding), but the root of the problem (the fact that aspirin causes the bleeding) remains unaddressed.
It is unclear whether NOSH-aspirin will actually work!
Healthy people shouldn’t be taking drugs on a daily basis as a preventive.

Using drugs as preventives—even an over-the-counter drug as commonplace as aspirin—is the best way for pharmaceutical companies to increase their profits: create a product, convince healthy people they need to take it every day, then make another product to deal with the undesirable side effects, which in turn will produce other undesirable side effects, and so forth and so on.We have seen this script often enough. Doctors gave young women a medicine to keep their bones strong during breast cancer treatment, hoping to prevent complications and relapses. They learned that the bone drug actually improved survival rates as much as many chemotherapies do—so the women were kept on the drug indefinitely. But as we have reported previously, many bisphonates (bone drugs) have extremely detrimental effects on the body. They don’t help the body produce new bone, but just interfere with the sloughing off of old bone. One of the most gruesome possible side effects is jaw death.Pharmaceutical drugs often contain or are coated with phthalates. Congress banned this substance in toys and children’s products, but FDA approved it for medication! Phthalates are hormone-altering industrial chemicals that can cause reproductive abnormalities, yet the daily dose of phthalates in some drugs is twice the amount considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agencies.But back to the gas-filled aspirin. As noted above, aspirin targets inflammation. Granted, it does so with a sledgehammer, but it’s effective, and relatively safe for many people in small doses in the short term—but not for everyone, and not in larger doses, and certainly not in the long term, which is unfortunate since it is chronic inflammation that is so dangerous. Even mainstream medicine acknowledges that chronic inflammation is involved in all chronic degenerative diseases, and may be a root cause of both cancer and heart disease.What conventional medicine ignores is that chronic inflammation doesn’t require anti-inflammatory drugs. It can be treated and reversed by making dietary and lifestyle changes. The Life Extension Foundation’s chronic inflammation protocol discusses the importance of:

maintaining a proper macronutrient and energy balance (some carbohydrates and “bad” fats in particular are pro-inflammatory);
reducing your body fat percentage;
consuming omega-3 polyunsaturated fats such as flax or fish oil;
consuming beta-carotene, turmeric, genistein (an organic compound found in fava beans, soybeans, and coffee), and tea;
supplementing with magnesium, vitamin D3, vitamin E (only in a balanced or high gamma-tocopherol form), zinc, and selenium;
getting plenty of exercise;
and increasing dietary fiber.

Ginger and boswellia (a tree that produces the fragrant resin frankincense) are also excellent anti-inflammatories.Conventional medicine in general, and the drug industry in particular, are about sick-care, not health-care. They put band-aids on symptoms and leave the root causes unaddressed, possibly because it is illness that keeps them in business.

Readers’ Corner: Nanotech and Vaccines

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:27:20 +0000

We address readers’ questions and comments on nanotechnology and the HPV vaccine for boys.

On Nanotechnology

A reader says:

I just read some research showing that nanotechnology is destroying plant life. If that’s the case, to what extent is it harming human life?

Research by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found that materials produced through nanotechnology can enter plant cells and damage their DNA, stunting the growth of the plant. The study looked at copper oxide nanoparticles, and found that certain levels of copper, especially if it enters the cell’s nucleus, can irreparably harm DNA. Damaged DNA in plants make them susceptible to diseases like rot and mold, killing the plant.Copper oxide is used in sunscreen and cosmetics, and scientists have found that these materials can enter the environment through industrial runoff, contaminating the water system and damaging beneficial microbes. Moreover, the particles could be toxic to aquatic life. This will absolutely affect our food supply.Moreover, if nanomaterials do this to the DNA of plants, how are we being affected by the nanomaterials we absorb directly in sunscreen and cosmetics, or might consume in our food? The fact is, we simply don’t know. And we find it outrageous that our government would look at a technology that is proven to damage plant DNA and say, “Well, there haven’t been any illnesses we can directly attribute to it, so we assume it’s safe.”At a minimum, engineered nanoparticles have no place in organic products. If you haven’t taken action on this issue, please do so now.

On the HPV Vaccine for Boys

Rob writes:

Please remove me from this list. I had no idea that this site was an anti-vaccine site. Boys have the right to be protected also! Your reporting is heinously unacceptable!!!

We are not “anti-vaccine.” We are, however, decidedly pro-vaccine-choice. We believe it is difficult for consumers to get accurate information about the potential dangers of vaccines when the vaccine industry is such a powerful force and is so completely in bed with government.Vaccines are a huge money-making industry, one that is concentrated in the hands of just a few big companies closely allied with, and subsidized, mandated, and legally protected by government. Sales are rapidly rising, and companies are largely immune from any competition from generic drugs—for example, it’s hard to get generic versions of biologic drugs on the market. In addition, the vaccine industry is largely shielded from liability and lawsuits through the vaccine courts.We believe boys should receive equal protection with girls. But you seem to be assuming that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provides protection in the first place, whether for girls or boys. We question that assumption:

It is not certain by any means that the vaccine actually works. We only know that the vaccine causes a strong immune response to the strains of the virus in the vaccine; this may or may not prevent the cancer from developing, and only time will tell. A normal immune response to infection is much more muted. This may be a good or a bad thing—no one knows for sure. We don’t even know if the vaccine provides long-term immunity.
The vaccine is primarily for cervical cancer, so this is not primarily about boys being protected—they are mainly vaccinating boys to protect the girls, despite references to other cancers that are tossed in. Of course, “protecting” girls by giving boys the vaccination is a rather circuitous route, especially when there is no indication that it works. The only benefit we know for certain is that it increases pharmaceutical industry profits.
And does it really “protect” boys when the vaccine itself has such a high number of Adverse Event Reports (AERs)? The National Vaccine Information Center compared AERs for Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, with those for Menactra, the meningococcal vaccine. Gardasil had three times the number of life-threatening incidents, nearly twice the hospitalizations, nine times the disabilities, and nearly five times the deaths as Menactra. We have compared the possible side effects of Gardasil, as printed on the information insert provided by Merck, to twelve other vaccines commonly recommended by the CDC for children, and found that Gardasil causes far scarier reactions, including the risk of seizure.

At very least, the CDC should pay closer attention to these AERs before they recommend such vaccines for girls or boys. At the moment, the CDC says that the AERs are not “peer-reviewed” research. This is of course just an excuse. The CDC should do the peer reviewed-research itself.

How Safe is Our Food?

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:17:20 +0000

More and more countries are banning imports of American food products for safety reasons.Last week, Indonesia became the first country to halt imports of US beef following the discovery of an American dairy cow infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The disease is fatal to cows and can cause a deadly brain disease in people who eat tainted beef.“We will lift the ban as soon as the US can assure us its dairy cows are free of mad cow disease,” said Rusman Heriawan, Indonesia’s vice agriculture minister. “It could be one month or one year. It depends on how long it takes to resolve this case.”One would think the US government would immediately test beef to make sure it’s safe. But the USDA, which regulates the test, administers it to less than 1% of slaughtered cows. Worse, until 2007 it was illegal for private beef producers to test their own cows for the disease! Larger meat companies feared that if smaller producers tested their meat and advertised it as safe from mad cow disease, they too might be forced to test all their cows—so they persuaded USDA to block individual producers from doing the test. In 2007 a federal judge said this practice could no longer stand.The highest risk occurs if animals or humans eat infected brain or nerve tissue. Meat unconnected to bone, milk, and hooves are supposed to be safe, but who knows for sure? The ultimate source of mad cow, of course, is the filthy and disease-ridden (not to mention inhumane) conditions in CAFOs, or concentrated animal feedlot operations.In February, Taiwan began refusing meat products from the US because they contain ractopamine, a leanness- and growth-promoting drug used widely in pork and beef production in the United States. Taiwan has a zero-tolerance policy for the drug.Ractopamine is banned in 160 nations including Europe because it is responsible for hyperactivity and muscle breakdown in pigs, and a 10% increase in their mortality rate. It was banned in China after more than 1700 people were “poisoned” from eating American pigs that had been given ractopamine. The drug bears the warning label, “Not for use in humans. Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Use protective clothing, impervious gloves, protective eye wear, and a NIOSH-approved dust mask’’—yet somehow it is considered safe in human food. How is this possible?Most of the world’s developed countries ban, or have at least placed limits on, genetically modified organisms. The European Union and its member states, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Brazil, and Paraguay all have restrictions or outright bans on the use or importation of genetically engineered seeds, plants, or foods. A detailed map with the specific products banned in Europe is available here.This is one reason the California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative is so important. If California requires labeling products containing GMOs, it will be difficult for most manufacturers to create separate labels for their products sold in other states, so the labeling will become national. This is why we are trying to help the Right to Know Campaign raise one million dollars to drop a “money bomb” on Monsanto—to combat the anti-GMO propaganda and get this proposition passed in November. If you haven’t done so already, please make a donation to the Right to Know Campaign—and please give generously!

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FDA Breaks Promise on Proposed New Supplement Rules

ANH-USA — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:00:32 +0000

FDA promised not to enforce the NDI guidance until it was final. Last Friday, they broke that promise.The specific provision that FDA has decided to enforce is the one that says synthetic botanicals will no longer be considered New Dietary Ingredients and must never be sold as supplements, only as drugs. Last Friday, FDA issued a press release and sent warning letters to ten companies who sell supplements containing DMAA (dimethylamylamine), which is advertised to increase energy, concentration, and metabolism. The manufacturer says DMAA is derived from the Asian geranium—specifically, geranium oil.In their warning letters, FDA said the supplements are technically classed as “adulterated” for two reasons: (1) DMAA has not gone through the NDI notification process, and (2) it is a synthetically produced botanical which, by definition, is not an NDI.However, the claim that a synthetic botanical is not a dietary ingredient is nowhere to be found in the law governing supplements: the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). This new distinction comes exclusively from the NDI draft guidance, which is one reason we called it a perversion of congressional intent.For years drug companies have studied plants for medicinal uses. As we noted recently, if they find a useful plant, the next step is to try to create a synthetic analog of the natural plant substance—a new molecule that can be patented and then taken through the FDA as a new drug. With this provision in the NDI draft guidance, FDA is giving drug companies a monopoly on synthetics, knowing full well that, in general, natural products cannot be patented while synthetics can, and only patented substances can afford to be brought through the hugely expensive FDA approval process.The worst part is that FDA is now treating the guidance as if it has been finalized—something they promised not to do. In February, FDA held a meeting with the Natural Products Association (NPA), and explicitly told the group that until FDA finishes reviewing comments and releases final guidance, it would enforce only DSHEA and not the draft guidance. Now they’ve gone back on their word.In addition, we would point out that FDA has still not addressed the many formal comments that were submitted on the synthetic botanicals question. We, and many others, said that FDA’s claim that synthetic constituents of botanicals are not NDIs while synthetic constituents of any other substance are NDIs is a completely arbitrary distinction. Taking action when they haven’t reviewed any of the thousands of pages in public comments makes a complete sham of the formal comment period. Moreover, FDA shouldn’t be enforcing a guidance when it is still in the draft stages anyway—that’s the point of it being a draft.Worse, by going outside the bounds of DSHEA, the NDI guidance is basically creating new law, which the FDA is not allowed to do. Instead of issuing proper regulations and going through the formal rulemaking process (as is required when creating a new law), the FDA sidestepped everything by issuing a guidance. Technically, a guidance is not legally binding—which makes lawsuits difficult—but as feared, the FDA is enforcing the guidance as if it were.DMAA is not without some controversy. Last year, two soldiers died after having heart attacks during fitness exercises, and both happened to be taking supplements that contained DMAA, though as of this writing, DMAA has not been conclusively linked to the deaths. A spokesperson for the manufacturer said that “there have been over one billion doses of DMAA-containing products taken without a single corroborated serious” health problem among people who used the products as directed. Just to be safe, the US Army is investigating, and the Defense Department has removed all products containing DMAA from stores on military bases until the safety review is complete.If DMAA is proven to be unsafe, it should be removed, plain and simple. If it is a New Dietary Ingredient, then by all means it should go through the NDI notification process as outlined by DSHEA. But let’s just stop this nonsense about it being illegal because it’s a synthetic botanical—that is not a requirement of DSHEA. That requirement comes only from FDA, and it is not supported by law. Here’s the crux of the matter: If FDA fully enforces this guidance as drafted, we will likely lose up to 29,000 nutritional supplements from the market, at an economic loss of between $5.6 billion and $10.5 billion; the nutritional supplement market could shrink by between 28% and 52.5%, producing an annual loss for the industry of between $7.84 billion to $14.7 billion; and between 55,720 and 104,475 jobs in the supplement industry could be lost.Let’s be clear: this is not about DMAA. This is the FDA setting in motion its draft guidance, which threatens our access to more than half of the supplements we all need to stay and get healthy.

Vermont Legislature Battles over Vaccines

ANH-USA — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:00:32 +0000

The philosophical exemption will likely be revoked if we don't take action.As we reported in March, a bill threatening a parent’s right to refuse vaccination for their child using a philosophical exemption was introduced in Vermont, and it could all be decided this week. Currently, Vermont is one of twenty states in the US that allow a philosophical, personal, or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination, though the pharmaceutical and medical trade association lobbies are mounting a campaign to persuade state legislators to strip philosophical or conscientious belief exemptions to vaccination from state public health laws.Vermont has one of highest philosophical exemption rates among the states that allow it, and the percentage of vaccinated children is below the national average. Yet Vermont is ranked as the country’s “healthiest” state! Clearly, Vermonters want health freedom on vaccine choice.Vermont is also the “greenest” state in the US. Vermonters understand that natural health and environmentalism are both about leading a life more in tune with nature, a non-toxic lifestyle in a non-toxic environment. Natural health and environmentalism should be working together.So why does the philosophical exemption generate such vehement reactions by both the public and the medical community? Most of it is about the concept of “herd immunity,” that by not vaccinating your child you may be putting others at risk. As our colleagues at ANH-Europe note, “herd immunity” is a theory is that if a certain proportion of any population is inoculated against a disease through vaccination, it inhibits the spread of that disease within the population.Unfortunately, that argument is not internally consistent. On the one hand, the theory goes, people who cannot receive vaccines for whatever reason (say, on religious grounds, or due to a sensitivity to a vaccine’s ingredients) are protected from the disease through a high level of vaccination within the rest of society. On the other hand, parents who don’t vaccinate their children put the health of wider society at risk. How can a handful of people not getting vaccinated be protected from getting sick while at the same time being so disease-ridden that it makes others sick? It doesn’t make sense. Yet health authorities, media commentators, and schools and parent-teacher associations waste no opportunity to bash parents over the head with this message.The problem is, “herd immunity” is only a theory, and one that developed out of observations of natural immunity, not vaccination effects. Statisticians observed that populations were protected when sufficient members contracted the wild form of a disease, and subsequently acquired lifelong immunity. We simply do not know whether or not the same is true of vaccination in general, or of particular vaccines.More to the point, the evidence shows that unvaccinated children can catch infectious diseases from vaccinated children! Vaccination does not always provide long-term effects as advertised. During a whooping cough outbreak in California in 2010, immunized children between eight and twelve years of age were more likely to catch the disease than kids of other ages—suggesting that the childhood vaccine wears off as kids get older, according to new research.In other words, this powerful supporting plank of vaccine theory has no real basis in science. That’s why vaccine manufacturers push the “herd immunity” theory so hard: it sounds plausible until you really dig into the science, it sells more vaccines, and it helps to maintain an environment in which vaccines are considered essential for health.Then there’s the question of bioindividuality. A number of children have genetic variances that make them unable to detoxify the toxic heavy metals and adjuvants in vaccines. This should be enough to qualify the child for a medical exemption, but because mainstream medicine does not recognize bioindividuality, medical exemptions are usually reserved for more mainstream medical problems.Of course, the vaccines may be dangerous even to patients who don’t have detoxification issues. A report published this month found that immunoglobulins and vaccines have had more FDA recalls than other drug classes—there were twenty-seven recalls between 2007 and 2010 alone, some for “serious adverse events,” others for quality defects or manufacturing defects. As Dr. Joseph A. Mercola points out, pandemic vaccines are 100 percent risk-free for the vaccine maker, because the pharmaceutical industry lobby made sure that laws were passed by Congress after 9/11 that exempted them from any liability for injuries and deaths caused by government-recommended vaccines used to counter potential pandemics.Since our last update, the Vermont Senate voted to revoke the exemption, while the House voted to retain it. A look at the bill’s history indicates how contentious the issue has been. The bill is now being discussed in conference committee to negotiate terms. A decision should be reached within the week.We have updated our Action Alert for Vermont residents. Even if you contacted your legislators on this bill previously, please contact them again immediately and urge the conference committee to uphold a parent’s right to refuse vaccination for their child using a philosophical exemption!

You Did It! The GMO Labeling Initiative WILL Be on the Ballot in California!

ANH-USA — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:00:34 +0000

The California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative collected enough signatures—and now, with your help, you can become part of history.Tomorrow, on May 2, the campaign will be turning in enough signatures to put the California Right to Know GMO labeling initiative on the ballot—nearly one MILLION signatures! This massive achievement represents the work of thousands of volunteers like you who are demanding the right to know what's in the food we eat and feed our families. ANH-USA has joined the campaign’s steering committee and is helping to plan and organize this important effort. Readers in California are invited to attend the celebration, which will be held simultaneously in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. Join us in California on May 2 to celebrate!But even if you can’t attend this historic event, you can help in a powerful way. ANH-USA is canceling our semi-annual membership drive. We are asking you to make your most generous donation to the Right to Know campaign instead.If you think Monsanto is going to sit on the sidelines and let consumers win, you probably haven't been reading the Pulse of Natural Health recently! As we reported throughout the last year, GE foods are being pushed through the USDA and FDA—agencies which happen to be widely staffed by former Monsanto executives—at a breakneck pace.Monsanto and its “evil empire” are raising a multi-million dollar war chest to spread lies and propaganda to defeat the Right to Know Act. Just a few dollars from each supporter would make Monsanto's war chest look like a toy chest!This May 26 is the 20th anniversary of the FDA’s disastrous decision to deny consumers the right to know whether their food has been genetically engineered or not. On this day, ex-Monsanto lawyer Michael Taylor (the current FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods) declared that genetically modified food was “substantially equivalent” to naturally grown food, and therefore should not be subject to any additional regulations.

Between now and May 26, the Right to Know Campaign is attempting to raise a one million dollar money bomb—online, through the mail, and on the phone—to support the California GE Foods Act and other state GMO-labeling campaigns.

A group of “Right to Know” public interest organizations and organic companies, have pledged to match the first million dollars raised in this nationwide “Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto” campaign. They include:

The Organic Consumers Association
Mercola.com
Food Democracy Now
Nature’s Path
Lundberg Family Farms
Eden Foods, and
the Organic Consumers Fund

The more you give, the more our matching donors will give. Your $5 will become $10, your $25 will become $50—your $500 will become $1,000! Let's show the California Right to Know campaign the generosity that ANH-USA supporters are known for!California’s labeling campaign will be a turning point in the battle against genetically engineered foods: if California requires labeling, it will be difficult for most manufacturers to create separate labels for their products sold in other states, which will be a great boon. But many food products are not sold nationally, so the battle needs to spread to other states as well.Monsanto and their biotech allies have always been opposed to the labeling of their products, particularly the genetically engineered hormone rBGH that forces cows to artificially increase milk production by 10 to 15 percent; they use lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits to get their way. And it’s all because they’re scared. You may recall that in 1994, a Monsanto employee was quoted as saying, “If you put a label on genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.” People don’t want to consume GMOs, and they want to know what they’re eating.The pro-GMO camp—the Coalition Against Costly Food Labeling—has already started their attack. Coalition spokesperson Kathy Fairbanks stated in a recent interview that the California legislation isn’t about the “right to know” but rather the “right to sue,” and claims it creates new opportunities for lawyers to file lawsuits without even “proof of violation.” This is a blatant untruth. The proposition outlines clear and specific requirements for labeling, and companies would be liable only if they were in violation—which means lawyers would need proof of the violation first. The bill has protections so that those who are in compliance never need to fear nuisance lawsuits.Fairbanks also claims the bill will give rise to “bounty hunter lawsuits.” But there is no “bounty” built into the bill for plaintiffs who sue; there are only normal attorneys’ fees.In the interview, Fairbanks makes the huge assumption that GMO is safe—even though most safety studies for GE foods have been conducted by industry (so they are hardly unbiased), and we have documented the many safety concerns scientists have about genetically engineered foods—sterilization in rats, potential allergenic effects, etc.She conflates the gene splicing that happens in a lab with the sort of genetic modification that happens through hybrid planting techniques. These two techniques are wildly different, as our ANH-Europe colleagues point out:

Plant breeding works within the laws of nature. Nature doesn’t allow you to incorporate DNA from an unrelated species into a crop plant. It doesn’t, for example, allow you to put spider genes into maize plants. It also has a very specific rule system for allowing recombination of DNA between related species. It is therefore a gradual process and does not involve the forced introduction of foreign DNA, antibiotic marker genes and naked cauliflower mosaic virus into its native DNA.

Finally, she states that this measure “goes much further and is more extreme than any other [GE labeling ]requirement in the world.” This is patently absurd, as many countries have banned GE altogether—which the ballot initiative doesn’t even request.Some fear that if you don’t label your product as containing GMOs and it turns out it has a trace of GMO that you didn’t know about, that they’ll be liable. However, that is not a concern: the proposition provides an exemption for companies that unknowingly used GE seed or food in their food product. A sworn statement from the company’s supplier that the ingredient or seed used was GE-free is enough to absolve the company from liability.This provision also defeats the argument that foods will need to be tested to make sure it doesn’t contain GMOs, and that will be costly. In fact, the proposition doesn’t require food manufacturers to test anything. They can obtain a statement from the raw product manufacturer stating the food wasn’t raised with GMO, and that alone is sufficient—it protects them from need to label, it protects them from lawsuits, and it costs nothing.Another argument the anti-labeling camp makes is that GE labeling itself will increase the cost of food. Research suggests that this is not true. Dr. Chris Viljoen, head of the GMO Testing Laboratory and the Department of Haematology and Cell Biology at the University of the Free State in South Africa, reported that a comprehensive EU study estimated that GMO labeling added no more than an additional 0.01% to 0.17% to the cost of food. And a 2007 study from Quebec's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food found that the initial fears of the cost were wildly inaccurate and would cost over Cdn$280 million less than estimated.But let’s be reasonable here. Product packaging changes constantly. Every time they slap a “New and Improved!” or a “Now With 50% Less Sugar!” on the package, the labeling changes. Moreover, there is always a period of time before the provisions are enacted, so current stocks of packaging can be exhausted, and the new packaging can simply include the GMO in the new print run.The point is, all of these complaints are merely attempts to throw shadow on the fact that polls consistently show that more than 90% of the public want to know if their food was produced using genetic engineering. It is our right to know what we are feeding our children. Period.

That’s why your donation to the Right to Know campaign is so very vital. As a special incentive, everyone who donates to the campaign through ANH-USA will receive a complimentary ANH-USA membership! Please give generously, spread this article to everyone you can, and encourage friends and family to donate as well.

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Removing Heavy Metals from the Body Is “Dangerous”?

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:00:51 +0000

Not only are doctors being advised to reject chelation therapy—they’re being asked to report on their colleagues who practice it.The American College of Medical Toxicology held a conference at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this past February about the “use and misuse” of chelation therapy—a misleading title suggesting some semblance of scientific objectivity, which was nowhere in evidence. The conference was more like a Salem witch hunt in which chelators played the role of the accused witches and warlocks.Why is chelation so threatening to mainstream medicine? There is no disputing that heavy metals are extremely toxic. The human body is engineered to remove small amounts daily, but not the large amounts we often pick up from modern sources. One of those sources has of course been vaccines, which have used mercury as a preservative (it is still used in the US flu shot). Another source has been dental “silver” amalgam, which also contains mercury. This may be part of the reason for the hostility to chelation.How does the therapy work? One method involves injecting into the patient’s bloodstream organic chemicals, which can bind and remove the heavy metals in the bloodstream (metals which are toxic to humans and interfere with various physiological functions). There are also oral or suppository supplements for chelation, and some foods are natural chelators (e.g., cilantro and chlorella).Chelation therapy has been used by many physicians and administered to thousands of patients since 1952. An informal survey of our readers revealed that body detoxification—whether through chelation, or through sauna or special dietary methods—is among their top ten most popular integrative therapies. The National Institutes of Health is currently studying EDTA chelation for cardiovascular disease in the TACT trial. (EDTA is used for lead and other heavy metals but not for Mercury. Other chelators are used for that.) Many people have doubted whether a US government agency could be expected to produce a fair evaluation. The jury is still out on that.Doctors attending the conference received continuing education credits for attending and hearing all the chelation-bashing. Various topics seemed designed to highlight the dangers of chelation—while attempting to dismiss the benefits.A look at the PowerPoint slides (available as PDFs downloadable from the conference’s website) reveal the following:

No hard data was presented on the supposed public health dangers of chelation—only three anecdotal case studies. Hardly a “scientific” analysis.
The speakers were biased—they made no attempt to represent or provide information from doctors who actually administer chelation therapy to their patients.
Their main basis for dismissing chelation therapy is the way lab results are interpreted. This detail, however, does not address any of the effects of the therapy itself.
The conference targets two “advocacy sites” for spreading “misinformation”: the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM), and the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine (A4M)—both of which are respected organizations that represent integrative doctors. ACAM offers training and certification in chelation therapy.

Equally revealing is who else was represented at the conference, either as attendees or as panelists: the FDA and the Federation of State Medical Boards!In the FDA’s session (“Unapproved Chelation Products Available Over the Internet”), the agency tried to conflate unapproved chelation products with the supposed dangers of dietary supplements. But “unapproved” chelation products are already illegal, and FDA is already empowered to enforce against them. Moreover, these products have nothing to do with the regulatory status of dietary supplements.The FDA has the power to regulate interstate commerce of drugs and devices, and has used that power to clamp down on the sale of chelation products. In 2008 the agency released a Public Health Advisory on EDTA—simply because inattentive hospital personnel mixed up the medications being administered! In 2010, the FDA ordered eight companies to stop marketing over-the-counter chelation products. Our sources told us FDA was aware that many integrative doctors were doing heart-related chelation, and hoped that by blocking one particular form of EDTA, these doctors might be put out of business.The presence of the Federation of State Medical Boards (a private organization largely controlled by the AMA) is especially troubling, as they could take this misinformation, adopt anti-chelation policies in each state, and target doctors who practice chelation therapy. In Kentucky, for example, doctors cannot discuss chelation therapy with their patients lest they face revocation of their license. Indeed, almost all Kentucky physicians who use alternative therapies have been either forced out of state or forced to desist from using alternative therapies, especially chelation therapy, because it “departs from prevailing practice in the State of Kentucky.” This is all too common, to one degree or another, in most states.As the central federal agency for providing information on disease and public health issues, the CDC (which led a session as well as hosting the event) is in a key position to spread bias and misinformation on chelation.We were also told that “Quackbuster” Stephen Barrett was a key participant. The Quackbusters are a group of self-proclaimed skeptics of any medical or health modality that avoids drugs, surgery, or radiation; they attack almost all nonconventional healthcare practices as quackery—regardless of the scientific research to the contrary. Two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling is on their quack hit list, along with many well-known and respected doctors and scientists, including Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, and dozens of others. The Quackbusters run over seventy websites, so millions of people are exposed to their propaganda.Unfortunately, integrative physicians who practice chelation therapy fear being vocal about it lest they be targeted by their state medical boards. Let us be clear: chelation is in no way a “public health danger.” If you want a real public health danger, you need look no further than many parts of conventional medicine. Gary Null points out that mainstream medicine kills nearly 800,000 people every year through physician mistakes, hospital-related illnesses, and reactions to FDA-approved medications. That’s the equivalent of six jumbo jets falling out of the sky each day, and more than the number of American casualties in the Civil War and World War I combined.

FDA Gives Nanotechnology a Gentle Love Pat

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:00:41 +0000

Their latest report says there might be safety concerns but admits to being basically clueless about what, if anything, to do. Action Alert! In 2007, a congressionally appointed committee concluded that the FDA’s “scientific base has eroded [and] does not have sufficient capacity and capability.” Nanotechnology seems a case in the point. The FDA by it’s own admission has no idea whether or how to respond.Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. The technology has a broad range of potential applications, such as the packaging of food, or altering the look and feel of cosmetics. Increasingly, the submicroscopic particles are showing up in FDA-regulated products like sunscreens, skin lotions, and glare-reducing eyeglass coatings.Most troubling by far is the potential that our food will contain nanoparticles. According to the US Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies’ report on the use of nanotechnology in food and agriculture:

Thanks to nanotechnology, tomorrow’s food will be designed by shaping molecules and atoms. Food will be wrapped in “smart” safety packaging that can detect spoilage or harmful contaminants. Future products will enhance and adjust their color, flavor, or nutrient content to accommodate each consumer’s taste or health needs.

Hmm. Who exactly will decide what my personal health needs are, and how will they be addressed through the nano-manipulation of my food?FDA has just released a draft guidance for the food processing industry which states that nanotechnology could affect the identity, safety, and regulatory status of a food substance, and may warrant a regulatory submission to the FDA. The guidance puts the burden on the industries using nanotechnology to determine whether this is the case for their product, and whether they should notify the FDA or not!Although the FDA acknowledges there could be safety issues with the use of nanotechnology, the agency provides no clear safety standards or threshold levels for nanoparticles in food products or packaging. They suggest that extra testing may be required, but leave all the details to the big food and agriculture companies we collectively refer to as Big Farma. We believe FDA is trying to avoid any conflict with their friends in the food industry, and as we have seen repeatedly, these friends do not include the small farmer and producer. This is all yet another example of crony capitalism at work.The nanotechnology market is expanding—it is currently used in clothing, food, and cosmetics, and was responsible for $225 billion in product sales in 2009 alone. The world’s biggest companies, including Nestle, Kraft, Heinz, and Unilever, are involved in nanotechnology research and development.As we previously reported, true nanotechnology is the antithesis of organic food. There is, however, no guarantee that nanotechnology isn’t in organic products. While the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) recommends that USDA prohibit nanomaterials from certified organic foods, USDA’s National Organic Program has not yet officially adopted this recommendation. If you have not already done so, please contact the USDA immediately and explain why this is so important!According to Food and Water Watch, engineered nanoparticles:

are more reactive and potentially more toxic;
are often less stable;
have the potential to pass the blood-brain barrier and the placental barrier;
can migrate to different tissues and organs; and
can increase the bioavailability of other chemicals, such as toxins.

The real problem however is that we just don’t know enough yet about nanotechnology. Chemicals like PCBs and pesticides like DDT were once assumed to be safe—their danger was not fully understood until long after human health and environmental damage already occurred. To avoid similar disasters in the future, the health and environmental effects of nanotechnology should be thoroughly studied before more products are allowed onto the market, especially into food and food packaging. And a lot depends on the definition of nanoparticles’ size, and whether they can be considered new to nature. So far there aren’t any real definitions or standards.

Should Anyone Be Force-Fed Soy?

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:00:46 +0000

Seven prisoners say it’s happening to them—and their health is being damaged because of it.The Weston A. Price Foundation is seeking an injunction against serving Illinois prisoners soy-laden meals as a source of cheap protein. And now a judge has ruled that the lawsuit will go forward.The use of soy in Illinois prison meals seems to have begun when Rod Blagojevich was elected governor of Illinois. Beginning in January 2003, inmates began receiving a diet largely based on processed soy protein, with very little meat. In most meals, small amounts of meat or meat by-products are mixed with 60 to 70 percent soy protein; fake soy cheese has replaced real cheese; and soy flour or soy protein is now added to most of the baked goods.There are three types of soy products: raw soy, which is poisonous to humans; processed soy products such as soy milk; and fermented soy products such as miso. Although tofu is not exactly fermented, it is usually classed as a fermented soy product. Although processed soy foods are often thought of as “health foods,” knowledgeable researchers consider them risky, and quite unlike the healthier fermented soy products.The Weston A. Price Foundation has been a leading voice on the dangers of processed soy foods, especially when consumed in large amounts. The lawsuit claims that six plaintiffs are suffering bodily injury and adverse health effects from being fed too much soy, and alleges that the private corporation that runs the prison, Wexford Health Sources, Inc., and its doctors have been negligent in failing to provide adequate medical care because of the soy overload. One Florida inmate is also suing, and it might become a class action suit. Weston Price is picking up court fees.In 2007, the Weston A. Price Foundation began hearing about soy-related health complaints, including chronic and painful constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, sharp pains in the digestive tract, passing out, heart palpitations, rashes, acne, insomnia, panic attacks, depression, and symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as low body temperature (feeling cold all the time), brain fog, fatigue, weight gain, frequent infections, and thyroid disease.Most soy in the US is genetically engineered. GMO soy is grown on 91% of US soybean fields. And, as we reported previously, GMO soy has been linked to infant mortality in hamsters, with complete sterility by the third generation.Soy is highly estrogenic, and can interfere with our absorption of iodine, reduce fertility in women, trigger early puberty, and disrupt fetal development. Dr. Joseph Mercola lists just a few of the health effects that have been linked to soy consumption (though not to fermented soy products such as tofu and miso):

Breast cancer
Brain damage
Infant abnormalities
Thyroid disorders
Kidney stones
Immune system impairment
Severe, potentially fatal food allergies
Impaired fertility
Danger during pregnancy and nursing

The Weston A. Price Foundation has compiled a wealth of information about soy and soy products, including numerous scientific studies on their website, which is a treasure trove of information on many subjects ranging from diet to roots canals. The recent court ruling emphasized how important scientific and medical testimony will be at the trial, so it should be a most exciting case to watch.

Remember the Old Phrase “Buying a Pig in a Poke”?

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:50:01 +0000

That’s when something is presented in a way that conceals its true nature—which is the case right now in Michigan. Action Alert!In 2010, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued an Invasive Species Order (ISO), ostensibly to “help stop the spread of feral swine and the disease risk they pose to humans, domestic pigs, and wildlife as well as their potential for extensive agricultural and ecosystem damage.” So far, it sounds OK. But the swine in question are identified by such ubiquitous characteristics (mainly hair color) that most any open-range pigs, especially heritage or “old world” breeds—often being raised on small family farms—will now be defined as illegal “invasive species” and thus unjustly threatened with eradication. The order went into effect April 1, 2012.Possession of these animals carries up to a two-year jail sentence and $20,000 in fines. Moreover, the ISO allows the DNR to seize and destroy heritage breeds of pigs raised by Michigan farmers on the spot—and without compensation. So far, the Michigan DNR has conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. The raids involved six vehicles and ten armed men.Because the ISO deems farmers who raise these pigs to be felons, DNR officials were ready to make arrests on the scene and prosecute them. Mike Adams reports that one farmer, upon being served with a search warrant, heart-wrenchingly shot all his own pigs (including pregnant sows and dozens of piglets) to avoid being arrested as a felon. His livelihood has now been destroyed, but the DNR was satisfied and made no arrests.This ISO is a blatant attempt to take away property rights, freedom of food choice, and market share through the force of law. What’s really behind it?These are the very pigs that farmers and ranchers in Michigan have been raising for decades; there are indications that this ISO may have been nudged into position by the conventional pork industry as a tactic to wipe out competition from the local, specialty ranchers and farmers who don’t work for the Michigan Pork Growers’ Association. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sees it as an attack on the local food movement and a brazen power grab that threatens the livelihood of small farmers across the state. A video created by a family farmer clearly explains the issue.This is, however, part of a much bigger problem. Right now you get paid less for beef cows if they are the “wrong” color. Generally feeder cattle that are uniform in color, regardless of what color, will sell for a higher price than those that are less uniform in color. (More information about the economics of cattle color can be found here.) But heritage-breed cows, a vital pool of genetic diversity, are almost always “the wrong color.” If cows are bred for one color, you lose a lot more than other colors. You lose a great deal of genetic diversity which could prove to be very important for the future.A standardized color is only obtained with an engineered animal. If you control for color, you lose genetic diversity and are left only with “engineered” animals. It is, of course, much easier for Big Farma to create monopolies from engineered animals.You can see the parallels with seeds, crops, and vegetables. Just as we need seed banks, we need gene banks so that the heritage pig genes aren’t lost. If they outlaw pigs that are of a nonstandard color, why not outlaw all nonstandard animals to further the interests of agribusiness? The UN warned of this possibility in 2006: around 20% of domestic animal breeds are at risk of extinction, with a breed lost each month, due to a globalization of livestock markets that favors high-output breeds over a multiple-gene pool. Having that pool could be vital for future food security.So this isn’t just about Michigan pigs. This is about stopping agribusiness from enlisting the powers of government to control gene pools before it is too late.If you are a resident of Michigan, please contact Gov. Rick Snyder and your Michigan legislators and tell them you want the DNR to repeal its Invasive Species Order and support the heritage breeds of pigs being raised by small farmers. Please take action immediately!

FDA Asks Big Pharma to Please Consider Reducing Routine Use of Antibiotics on Farm Animals

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:30:42 +0000

Read it for yourself, and decide if it’s as namby-pamby as we think it is.The FDA has just released three documents calling on industry to voluntarily stop using antibiotics for non-therapeutic uses, as we expected they would last month:

a final guidance that recommends phasing out non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics;
a draft guidance that assists drug companies in voluntarily removing non-therapeutic use of antibiotics on their labels; and
a draft regulation outlining ways veterinarians can authorize the use of antibiotics in animal feed.

Note that last document: while any antibiotics whose manufacturers voluntarily change their labels to exclude non-therapeutic uses would no longer be available to farmers over the counter—a veterinarian would have to prescribe them—they are still recommended for “preventive” purposes. In other words, the animal can still be perfectly healthy at the time the antibiotic is used.This makes the regulation rife for abuse. In the Netherlands, for example, meat producers simply started using more antibiotics for what was still allowed: preventing disease or treating it. Dik Mevius, a leading expert on antibiotic resistance at the University of Utrecht, said, “We saw a more- or-less doubling of those drugs that were used for therapy, so the total exposure of animals to antibiotics remained virtually the same from 1999 to 2007.” After many Dutch pig farmers realized they and their families were carrying antibiotic-resistant strains of disease-causing bacteria, the Dutch government clamped down hard. Each farm now has to report how often it uses antibiotics for all purposes. Farms that use a lot are told specifically what they need to do to cut back. The government is funding a good deal of research into farming methods that don’t require antibiotics.Here in the US, the FDA is trusting Big Farma to voluntarily restrain itself—even though the industry’s own data and research shows that the superbug problem that we’ve been telling you about is a serious public health issue, and industry hasn’t taken any steps so far to fight it. The problem, of course, is that FDA is rife with conflicts of interest, as exemplified by the revolving-door hiring of former Monsanto vice president Michael Taylor as FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods. A petition to have Taylor ousted has been gaining steam recently.FDA must stop allowing all non-therapeutic uses for antibiotics in farm animals—and expecting the rapacious Big Ag industry to stop it voluntarily is absurd. If you have not already done so, please take action and write to the FDA immediately!

FDA Warns Men of Serious Side Effects from These Drugs—But Keeps Them on the Market

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:00:01 +0000

If supplements caused such adverse events, they would be banned immediately! Fortunately there are excellent supplement alternatives to these drugs.Two popular drugs—Proscar, used to treat an enlarged prostate, and Propecia, which is used to treat male pattern baldness—will now have new warnings from FDA on their labels for causing very undesirable sexual side effects even after you’ve stopped taking the drug!Proscar’s label now mentions decreased libido, while Propecia’s label includes warnings for libido, ejaculation, and orgasm disorders that may hang around well after the patient has discontinued the drug. Both labels describe reports of male infertility and/or poor semen quality, though these problems normalized or improved after drug discontinuation. Can you imagine what would happen if a natural supplement caused sexual side effects even after you stopped taking it?Millions of Americans relied on the amino acid l-tryptophan, a precursor to serotonin, for decades to relieve depression, anxiety, and PMS, as well as to control pain and induce natural sleep. But after a problem with one Japanese manufacturer of tryptophan, it was completely banned for sale to consumers in 1990—and stayed banned for the next decade.Note the interesting timeline: tryptophan is banned on March 22, 1990. Four days later, on March 26, 1990, the cover of Newsweek proclaims Prozac as “a breakthrough drug for depression.” Prozac, of course, also involved serotonin.We should clarify one thing, however: FDA did not completely ban the use of l-tryptophan in humans—FDA granted the pharmaceutical industry the protected right to use l-tryptophan in hospital settings! Manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, the amino acid injectable solutions Aminosyn and Aminosyn II contain as much as 200 mg of l-tryptophan. So even during the 1990s, you could get tryptophan—you just had to pay exorbitant prices for it from Big Pharma!It’s all about patent protection. As we noted recently, for a supplement to make specific health claims, it has to go through outrageously expensive drug trials—a cost that supplement manufacturers could never recoup, since food and supplements are natural products and cannot be patented. Without a patent, anyone can sell them, so paying as much as a billion dollars for a drug trial is essentially money down the drain. Only the drug companies have that kind of budget, so they merely put the supplement into some form that they can dispense as a drug, patent it, and prevent others from selling the drug. Then they can charge whatever they want.Sometimes the pharmaceutical company goes even further. They not only get a patent on their drug—they also get the government to ban the supplement on which the drug is based.This is precisely what happened to pyridoxamine, one of only three natural and bioavailable forms of vitamin B6. And it could also happen to P5P—the ultimate form of natural B6 which all other forms of B6 must convert to before being used by our body. Without P5P we would all die, yet the FDA may ban it as a supplement in order to turn it into a prescription drug. Please see our Action Alert on P5P.In the case of prostate supplements, the pharmaceutical companies did not attempt to ban the underlying supplements, so they are still available, and they do not appear to create risks similar to the drugs. Why are they low-risk? Could it possibly be because the supplements are natural substances we have co-evolved with, while the drugs are synthetic, new-to-nature substances that our bodies consider foreign?Finding a good treatment for an enlarged prostate, also known as BPH or benign prostatic hypertrophy, is extremely important for men, as BPH happens to almost all men when they get older, causing bladder problems, frequent urination at night (thus disturbing sleep), and sometimes other, more serious problems. The steps taken to prevent an enlarged prostate gland may also reduce the risk of contracting prostate cancer.To keep your prostate healthy, the Life Extension Foundation suggests saw palmetto extract, which protects against prostate enlargement caused by too much of the male sex hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT). A very large, double-blind trial conducted in 87 different urology centers in nine European countries found that patients who took 160 mg of the extract twice daily reduced their BPH symptoms as much as those who took Proscar—but with far fewer libido, impotence, and ejaculatory disorders.In addition, LEF includes in its Natural Prostate formula extract of the root of stinging nettle (Urtica dioica, which inhibits the conversion of testosterone into estrogen and the related proliferation of prostate cells in response to estrogen), extract of flower pollen, 5-Loxin, a form of the herb boswellia, extract of pumpkin seed oil, pygeum (from tree bark), lycopene (from tomato extract), phytosterol complex, a proprietary blend of lignans, and boron.Natural biomedical researcher and physician Jonathan V. Wright, MD, co-author of The Patient’s Book of Natural Healing, recommends essential fatty acids for BHP—these fatty acids also prevent cardiovascular disease, control inflammation, help the brain, and help maintain pliable skin as we age. He also suggests that anyone taking fish oil take vitamin E (mixed tocopherols, not just alpha-tocopherol) at the same time each day. Dr. Wright further notes that men suffering from an enlarged prostate are often deficient in zinc. If taken in higher doses, this should be balanced with some copper. Please see his newsletter, Nutrition and Healing, for further information.As for natural alternatives to Propecia, the male pattern baldness drug that FDA issued the new warnings about, it should be noted that male pattern baldness sufferers may have a genetic sensitivity to DHT. Hair follicles sensitive to DHT begin to miniaturize, shortening the lifespan of each hair follicle affected. So prostate supplements that control the conversion of testosterone into DHT (like saw palmetto) may also retard male pattern baldness. Do the same things you’d do for a healthy prostate, and you’ll be making your hair healthy as well! For baldness, the Life Extension Foundation’s integrated protocol includes l-lysine, l-arginine, saw palmetto, green tea extract, and grape seed extract.We can be grateful for the existence of all these supplements, which have a great deal research behind them, and have improved the life of millions of men. They stand in stark contrast to the failed prostate and baldness drugs.

Special Investigative Report: Will GMOs Really Feed the World?

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:00:53 +0000

That’s what genetic engineering advocates claim. But science (and a shocking number of developing-world suicides) debunk this myth.BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, says that a genetically engineered crop improves insect resistance, enhances herbicide tolerance, and facilitates the use of more environmentally sustainable farming practices by generating higher crop yields with fewer inputs. They say it lowers the amount of agricultural chemicals required by crops; creates crops with enhanced nutrition profiles that solve vitamin and nutrient deficiencies; produces foods free of allergens and toxins such as mycotoxin; and improves food and crop oil content to help improve cardiovascular health.Sounds good?Monsanto even ran an advertising campaign warning of an exploding world population and claiming that its “advanced seeds can help farmers meet the world's demand for food, clothing and fuel—while also helping to reduce the need for water, land, pesticides, and fossil fuels.”The problem is, these claims are false, or at least are not supported by factual evidence. GE crop yields are not consistently higher than non-GE crops, and genetic engineering can have devastating environmental, economic, and health consequences.A stunning report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released in 2009, “Failure to Yield,” is the first to evaluate in detail the aggregate yield effect of GMOs after more than twenty years research and thirteen years of commercialization in the US. Some of the report’s conclusions:

GE soybeans do not produce increased yields at all, and GE corn has only marginally increased yield.
Overall, corn and soybean yields have risen over the past fifteen years, but this is mainly because of traditional breeding or improvement in agricultural practices. More crop rotations, longer rotations, and a larger variety of crops are more eco-friendly and tend to reduce crop losses from pests and diseases, which in turn increases yields.
Since 1987 there have been thousands of field trials for GE—and all this time, only Bt corn (corn that has been genetically altered to express the bacterial Bt toxin, which is poisonous to certain insect pests) has been shown to increase yield, but has only done so marginally.

The report distinguishes two different types of yield: intrinsic (which describes the best possible crop yield under ideal conditions) and operational (the actual crop yield achieved in actual field conditions):

No GE crop has been found to enhance the intrinsic yield. This of course undermines the claim that GE “will feed the world.” All increases to date have been due to achievements in traditional breeding.
The potential for GE to increase intrinsic yield in the future is unclear. Biotech companies are testing various experimental yield-enhancing genes called transgenes, which generally result in more complex genetic effects, some of which might even be too detrimental for commercialization. And if commercialized, the risk to humans and the environment is unknown, but based on what we know, is likely to be high.
GE has generated only minimal gains in operational yield. Data show that GE herbicide-tolerant soybean and corn have demonstrated no increased operational yield, while Bt corn provides operational yield increase when those specific pest infestations are high, but no advantage when pest infestations are low. Since 1996, when Bt corn was first commercialized, it’s about a 0.2 to 0.3% increase per year. Bt, by the way, is a natural pesticide with low known toxicity, not a chemical pesticide. The danger of using Bt in this way is that resistant organisms may be created.

In 2003, the World Bank and the UN initiated a global consultative process with sixty countries and some 400 scientists around the world about agriculture and its role in poverty alleviation. The 590-page report, also published in 2009, concluded that GE crops have no role to play in relieving poverty. Fifty-eight countries approved the report following its release, while only three—the USA, Canada, and Australia, all strongly supportive of GE crops—did not fully approve it because it failed to tout GE crops as the savior to the world food shortage problem. The report stressed that even if GMO crops were able to increase overall yield, the limited number of GMO crop varieties would not reduce food scarcity: crops have to be adapted to local conditions, be supported by local infrastructure, and be within the capacity of the local farmers to implement them. Moreover, the emphasis of some traits through genetic engineering could threaten biodiversity by limiting farmers’ options, forcing them to select from too few varieties.What developing countries need most is increased food production—yet according to the UCS report, several recent studies show that organic and low-external-input farming methods (i.e., using reduced amounts of fertilizer and pesticides) can improve yield by over 100% in those countries, along with greater health benefits. Farming of this sort is based on farmers’ knowledge of their environment as well as locally adapted crops. It helps poorer farmers especially, assuming they are not forced to be dependent on buying expensive, patented seeds from a handful of biotech companies.The cost of GE seeds in the context of the poverty of the developing world is a major consideration. Over 17,000 farmers in India committed suicide in 2009 alone—approximately one every 30 minutes—and those suicides have been blamed on Monsanto and GE seeds. Farmers went into debt to buy GE seeds, hoping for increased yield, and when those crops failed due to pest infestation, they were left more impoverished with no prospects for the future. Farmers were not told that the crops would require twice the amount of water, and the crops do not produce viable seeds—which means the farmers would have to keep purchasing new seeds. Many of the farmers made their suicides a symbolic act by drinking Monsanto’s pesticide. The rate of Indian farmer suicides began increasing after the introduction of Monsanto’s Bt cotton in 2002, and two-thirds of farmer suicides occur in five Indian states, which has come to be known as India’s “Suicide Belt.” Dr. Joseph Mercola witnessed the destruction of traditional Indian farmers firsthand.Besides its high price, GMO could put other farming systems—organic agriculture, seeds from international suppliers, etc.—in serious jeopardy through the poor segregation of crops and significant threat of cross-contamination, endangering the livelihood of those farmers as well. Furthermore, GMOs create global dependence, concentrating economic power in the hands of a few—those who own the patents on the seeds—stripping small farmers of their independence.In short, GE crops can be far more detrimental to developing countries than helpful.An important new (and as yet untitled) documentary film is in the process of being made. Its main aim is to raise awareness among Americans as to the problems caused by GE crops. It starts by focusing on the symbolic burning of seeds by poor Haitian farmers in defiance of Monsanto’s gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake of January 2010. The filmmakers’ journey to Haiti to learn why hungry farmers would burn seeds leads to a trip across the US and other countries in search of answers—and an awakening of what has happened to our food in the US, what we are feeding our families, and what is at stake for the global food supply. As you might expect, the filmmakers discovered that GMOs are not labeled as such in the USA, and very little safety testing has been done on humans—or even animals.The funding for the film so far has come from the filmmakers’ own credit cards. To get it finished, the film needs more financial backing from people like you. We’ve set up a special donation page exclusively for the GMO film and every penny will go to the filmmakers. A generous donor has promised to match any pledges you might wish to make, so please be generous! The film, if released in time, could be instrumental in helping trigger much higher levels of awareness over California’s GMO labeling ballot initiative. If voted into law, it would make the labeling of GMOs mandatory, which in turn will likely create a domino effect in other states, and perhaps GMO labeling for the rest of the country. Very few companies will create two different labels for the same product.Wherever you stand on the health or environmental effects of genetically engineered foods, the right to know what we’re eating is paramount. You may remember the devastating quote from an employee of a Monsanto subsidiary back in ’94: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”Two of the GMO camp’s stock replies in support of their patented technology are “We support GE crops because they’re cheaper than conventional crops,” and “Why don’t you want to support starving people in developing countries?” We have already explained that both claims are false, but here are a few more points:

The question of labeling is completely unrelated to the question of whether GMO will feed the world.
The right to know what goes into your body is a fundamental freedom and one we, in the US, have clearly let slip.
GE crops, along with their patented transgenes, have in just 16 years contaminated the world. GE crops are forcing up the cost of their conventional counterparts, especially where their GM-free status needs to be guaranteed. Testing, and keeping supply lines uncontaminated, both cost money. In effect, we have allowed the polluter to avoid responsibility for contaminating farmlands, the natural environment, and a large part of the human and animal food chain. Isn’t it time the tables were turned? Mandatory GMO labeling is a good start.
Developing countries will soon outstrip developed ones with more acreage cultivated to GE crops. Part of the reason for this is increasing resistance to their cultivation in developed countries. The biotech industry is desperate to use the poverty alleviation argument to remove barriers in developing countries, but the independent science suggests GE crops don’t hold the answer.
GE crops demonstrably do not help starving people anywhere. In fact, the evidence indicates quite the opposite: they make their lives far, far worse.
If mandatory labeling comes to the US, not only do we get to choose what we put in our bodies, but food producers would likely remove GMOs from the human food supply chain (as in Europe and most of the 50 countries that already have compulsory labeling). As a result, we—as consumers—would no longer have to bear the cost of keeping our food GMO-free.

Bottom line: quite apart from the health risks of eating GMO, don’t believe the economic claims made on behalf of GMO seeds and food. These claims do not stand up to scrutiny. They are, in fact, false. Making false claims knowingly is fraud. The Federal Trade Commission is of course supposed to police and prevent commercial fraud. But the FTC, like the rest of the federal government, is strongly behind GMO.

Big Pharma Whistles, and the Drug Enforcement Administration Comes Running

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:00:50 +0000

The DEA is enabling—even encouraging—a generation of opiate addicts, while the FDA tries to quash safe and helpful supplements like DHEA.Goodness, the legal drug-makers have been busy! This week the Associated Press revealed that in 2010, US pharmacies dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone (used as ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet, and Percodan) and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone (used in Vicodin, Norco, and Lortab). That's enough to give forty 5-milligram Percocets and twenty-four 5-milligram Vicodins to every single person in the United States.The production and sale of both drugs has increased tremendously over the past decade; in some locations, sales have increased by 1,500 percent. Distribution is particularly high in Appalachia, the Midwest—particularly suburbia—and the Southwest.Why the increase? Our poor diets and inactive lifestyles increase inflammation and pain. Older people are especially vulnerable in this regard. And doctors are increasingly willing to treat pain with drugs. Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically dependent on painkillers and begin “doctor shopping” to keep the prescriptions coming.As with all opiates, oxycodone and hydrocodone bind to opiate receptors in the brain, blocking not only pain signals but any negative emotions like stress or anxiety. The euphoria associated with early use fades relatively quickly as tolerance builds. The pain-managing efficacy will also be reduced as tolerance builds—which is why these drugs should not be used for long-term or chronic pain. If users take the drug for longer than prescribed, or in higher doses, it is likely that they will become addicted.Addicts die from drug overdoses at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. Opioid pain relievers like oxycodone and hydrocodone caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008. Addiction is also responsible for the alarming rise in pharmacy robberies nationwide.The epidemic is not likely to abate soon. The explosion of pain management clinics in Florida, dubbed “pill mills,” prompted the state legislature to close a loophole that had allowed physicians to fill oxycodone prescriptions on the spot. Authorities say a half-billion doses of the drug and its generic equivalents were distributed in the state during 2009 alone. An unknown number wound up in the hands of “patients” who had come from out of state to have prescriptions filled by multiple pill mills, before driving home to resell the pills on the black market.According to Gene Haislip, who for seventeen years was head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control, the DEA’s policy of allowing increases in the production of these drugs in the face of widespread illegal and non-medical use shows a “serious lack of accountability and oversight”:

The DEA is the lone federal agency with the power to decide how much of the drug gets made and put out there; it alone has had all the responsibility to do something about this problem. The way I did it for seventeen years, which was basically the way it had always been done even before the DEA was the DEA, is that when a significant diversion problem occurred, the quota increase requests would come under greater scrutiny. With Oxy, there has been a significant diversion problem since the late 1990s, so the requests should have come under greater scrutiny.

That apparently didn’t happen, Haislip says. Instead, the DEA has rubber-stamped Big Pharma's requests to increase oxycodone production. And why is that? Political influence, plain and simple.As Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, pointed out in her 2004 book The Truth about the Drug Companies, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) employs more lobbyists in Washington than there are members of Congress. Since 2007, the group has spent more than $20 million annually on lobbying in Washington to see that its interests are protected. Haislip says DEA won’t block a company’s requested quota increase “if that company is supporting members of Congress who have the power to block the agency’s funding.”Then there’s the revolving door between the Office of Diversion Control and drug manufacturers or consulting firms that work with both industry and DEA. People working in the Office of Diversion Control know they might get lucrative work with drug companies upon retirement, and this constitutes a huge conflict of interest that prevents DEA officials from doing their duty. They certainly aren’t going to offer an opinion or do something that’s going to cut off their future prospects.Contrast the “hands-off” approach dealing with incredibly addictive narcotics with the aggressive disapproval of perfectly safe supplements like DHEA. DHEA, which is short for dehydroepiandrosterone, is a natural hormone produced by the adrenal glands, the gonads, and the brain. DHEA is the most abundant circulating steroid hormone in humans and is sometimes referred to as the mother hormone since other hormones can be made from it. In its supplement form, DHEA is used for slowing or reversing aging, improving thinking skills in older people, slowing the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, weight loss, decreasing the symptoms of menopause, and boosting the immune system.As we reported last October, DHEA supplementation also helps create improvements in muscle strength and bone mineral density with a reduction in body fat mass. And there is substantial support for its effectiveness in fighting adrenal insufficiency, hypopituitarism, general osteoporosis, systemic lupus, depression, schizophrenia, and balancing the overproduction of cortisol produced by excessive stress. Too much cortisol ages us rapidly; a little extra DHEA can make all the difference.There are a number of different forms of DHEA. 5-DHEA is the form most commonly sold on the market and used for aging, depression, obesity, cardiovascular risk, and adrenal insufficiency. However, it can result in an increased production of male hormones, which may be positive or negative depending on various factors. For example, some aging males convert extra testosterone to estrogen, a process called aromatization, and too much in women can cause unwanted hair growth. For men with prostate troubles, 1-DHEA might be a better choice (no estrogenicity and decreased androgenicity), while 19Nor-DHEA might be better for women (little estrogenicity and anti-androgenic metabolites). But these little-known forms of DHEA are especially vulnerable to being lumped together with dangerous drugs and banned—simply because they are not well known.DHEA has had a fifteen-year record of complete safety. Despite this, FDA and certain members of Congress keep trying to regulate it as a controlled substance, specifically as an anabolic steroid, even when used in dietary supplements.Currently DHEA could be classified as an illegal anabolic steroid if the DEA were to present evidence that it meets all eight requirements under the Anabolic Steroids/Controlled Substances law. As the DEA has not yet put DHEA on the list, they clearly either don’t think it fits or hesitate for other reasons. Legislation was introduced a few years ago to add DHEA to the DEA’s controlled substances list, even though DEA already had the power to put it on the list if they met the burden of proof.No deaths from DHEA. No addictions. No shameful deals between the manufacturer and federal agencies. No organized crime because of DHEA in America’s heartland. And yet DHEA is under attack, while big Pharma keeps churning out dangerous opiates by the ton.

A Vaccine to Prevent Heart Attacks? Or a New Frankendrug?

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:00:13 +0000

We can hear it now: “Give it to your children before they get fat!”

Swedish researchers have developed a new vaccine that they believe can drastically reduce the fat in arteries, thereby reducing or preventing heart attacks. The vaccine, which would be delivered by injection or through a nasal spray, could be available within five years.

It’s the peptide vaccine CVX-210 (the CVX stands for CardioVax, the company that is developing the drug with the researchers). The team identified three peptides—a chain of twenty amino acids—which reduced development of atherosclerosis in mice by 60 to 70%. The vaccine involves just one of these three amino acid segments.

Head researcher Jan Nilsson announced at a cardiovascular biology conference that they are trying to change the way the immune system responds to plaque build-up in the arteries, reduce inflammation, and suppress plaque formation. He believes the antibody therapy is “likely to be expensive, so you could probably only afford to give it to high-risk populations rather than everyone.” The rest, presumably, would simply take statin drugs all their life!

But let’s look for a moment at what the vaccine actually does.

In the 1990s, scientists found antibodies against oxidized LDL cholesterol inside artery plaques. This gave rise to the concept that cardiovascular disease might be an autoimmune disease, where the immune system was attacking oxidized LDL. The Swedish researchers found that by using an adjuvant—that is, an agent in the vaccine designed to increase the immune response—they were able to dampen the inflammation and reduce the fatty plaque build-up.

But if inflammation and plaque build-up is indeed part of an autoimmune disease, creating a vaccine that increases immune response seems to have a huge potential for things to go awry! Usually in patients who have an autoimmune disorder, the immune system can’t tell the difference between healthy body tissue and antigens. When this happens, the immune response can destroy normal, healthy body tissues.

Another thing to remember is that inflammation is the body’s way of coping with invaders and perceived threats. The build-up of fat and plaque in the arteries is the body’s process of scarring and healing. As Dr. Joseph A. Mercola points out, when inflammation occurs, your blood vessels constrict to keep you from bleeding to death; your blood becomes thicker so it can clot; your immune system sends cells and chemicals to fight viruses, bacteria, and other infectious agents; and cells multiply to repair the damage. If your arteries are damaged, a very similar process occurs inside of your body, but with slightly different terminology: when the “scar” is in your artery, they call it “plaque.”

In order to replace your damaged cells, the body needs cholesterol; no cell can form without it. If you have damaged cells that need to be replaced, your liver will be notified to make more cholesterol and release it into your bloodstream. This is a deliberate process that takes place in order for your body to produce new, healthy cells.

Chronic inflammation—and chronic plaque formation—along with the thickening of your blood and constricting of your blood vessels that normally occur during the inflammatory process, can indeed increase your risk of high blood pressure and heart attacks. But the answer is not to take drugs that artificially lower your cell-healing cholesterol, nor vaccines that artificially stimulate the immune response against arterial fats. Researcher Nilsson stated—and the media has been repeating it ever since—that this can be considered “truly groundbreaking” since it is “the first time that the underlying cause of heart disease has been targeted.” No! Getting a quick-fix vaccination so you don’t have to change your lifestyle is just the opposite of “treating the underlying cause”!

Real treatment of the underlying causes is through a holistic approach to health. To cure inflammation, and prevent it in the first place, you must modify your diet (perhaps significantly), exercise properly, and supplement wisely. The best thing about this is that you don’t have to wait five years for it—you can start right away! Many experts recommend:

Getting 30 to 60 minutes of exercise most days of the week with an emphasis on interval aerobic training as well as muscle-preserving moves
Avoiding deep fried foods, foods high in trans fat, refined foods, processed foods, and too much starchy food
Normalizing your body’s omega 6 to omega 3 fat ratio
Reducing stress
Getting plenty of vitamin K, and especially K2—it is a powerful inhibitor of calcification of arteries and cartilage

Be sure to see your own healthcare professional for a program that is tailored to your personal needs.

Autism Diagnoses Have Risen by 78% over the Last Decade

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:00:36 +0000

How many children must be sacrificed before we get honest answers?The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new report that says 1 in 88 American children has some form of autism spectrum disorder—a 78% increase compared to a decade ago. Boys are five times more likely to have autism than girls.While some of the rise in autism rates may be due to greater awareness of autism spectrum disorder and therefore more diagnoses, this alone cannot account for the huge jump.What most mainstream physicians and most autism specialists seem determined to ignore is its likely link to administering so many vaccines to children at a very young age. The CDC recommends twelve different vaccines be given to children before their second birthday, many of them starting at birth.The human brain develops most rapidly between the third trimester and through two years after birth. Fifty years ago, when the immunization schedule contained only four vaccines (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and smallpox), autism was virtually unknown. Autoimmune disorders are also seeing a dramatic rise in children—from type I diabetes (it afflicted 1 in 7,100 children in the 1950s; now it affects 1 in 400), to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and bowel disorders.Health officials consider a vaccine to be safe if no acute bad reactions occur—like seizures, intestinal obstruction, or anaphylaxis. The CDC has not done any studies to assess the long-term effects of its immunization schedule. Besides autism and ADHD, Dr. Joseph A. Mercola lists a number of neurological disorders associated with vaccinations: encephalopathies, epilepsy, convulsions, mental retardation, depression, anxiety, central nervous system disorders, paralysis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, nerve deafness, blindness, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.The blood–brain barrier, or BBB, is a semi-permeable network of blood vessels with closely spaced cells that makes it difficult for many substances to leave the blood and cross the capillary walls into the brain tissues. But this barrier, which might protect the brain from the toxic effects of vaccines, is not fully formed at birth, making very young children especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of some vaccines.The age at which the BBB is fully developed is open to some debate, though most experts believe it matures somewhere between six months and two years. Even if it is fully formed, the BBB can be broken down by high blood pressure, a very high concentration of a substance in the blood, microwave and other forms of radiation, infection, physical trauma, and inflammation.Children may show signs of autism before the age of 2; it becomes most noticeable when children start to develop communication skills (speech, babbling, gestures, or social skills) and then regress. NIH has published a list of the signs of autism, some detectable as early as 12 months.Not surprisingly, doctors working to update the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association and considered the psychiatry “bible,” have proposed significant changes to the definition of autism. If the changes are carried out as expected in 2013, this could reduce the number of children being given a diagnosis.The reason this is important is twofold. First, the media will note the drop in the number of autism diagnoses, and will no doubt trumpet the change as a significant reduction in the number of children actually afflicted—which of course is nonsense. And second, many of the authors of the DSM-5 have ties to the drug industry. In an analysis of DSM workgroup members’ financial disclosures, most of the conflicts of interest were in groups where drugs are the frontline of therapy. These also happened to be the groups whose proposed changes to the diagnostic categories were the most controversial.A diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is usually followed with treatment that relies heavily on a pharmaceutical approach. SSRIs, tricyclics, antipsychotics, stimulants (like Ritalin), and anti-anxiety medications are the most common drugs prescribed.You may recall our previous coverage of British physician Andrew Wakefield, the author of the controversial British study published in The Lancet linking autism and vaccines. As celebrated investigator Tim Bolen has revealed, the controversies seem to have started because of one man, a freelance journalist named Brian Deer. He wrote a series of articles in the London Times deriding Wakefield’s scientific work. After that, he wrote a similar crop of articles in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The BMJ then accused Wakefield of perpetrating an elaborate fraud, and the Lancet retracted his paper.Since last October, many of the individual elements in the case against Dr. Wakefield have started to crumble. Here is the story as reported in the online newspaper The Age of Autism: Wakefield’s colleagues have been exonerated; the charges of the General Medical Council (which removed his right to practice medicine) have been mostly eviscerated; and the BMJ seems to have been caught in a lie when they said all their allegations against Wakefield had been externally peer-reviewed, which was not the case; moreover, very little fact-checking took place, and one of the editorial’s co-signers was a member of a company backed by a large pharmaceutical company.Brian Deer may have been dropped by mainstream media in Britain—again according to Tim Bolen. Last year Deer submitted a proposal for an article to Nature magazine—an attack on the British medical hierarchy for not treating Andrew Wakefield harshly enough. Nature responded with a simple contract offer, requiring Deer to legally and personally stand behind his writing, indemnifying them against any legal actions that might arise from Deer’s article. (They were understandably skittish after the Wakefield affair.) Deer not only refused, but attacked Nature publicly, and waged a public war of words with the magazine.Dr. Wakefield has moved to the US and has now filed a defamation suit against Brian Deer, the BMJ, and Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s editor and the writer of the two editorials alleging fraud. The suit claims that Deer’s article and the two BMJ editorials “contained unfair, incorrect, inaccurate and unjust criticisms of findings previously reported by Dr. Wakefield and twelve other co-authors” and made “false and defamatory allegations.”Last year, Tim Bolen ran a searing three-part exposé about what the CDC knew, and when they knew it, about the devastating side effects of thimerosal in vaccines—and how they covered up that information. It is long, but well worth reading. Part One shows that in 1998, an internal CDC study on vaccines clearly pointed out the dangers of the autism vaccines, but CDC management changed both the data and the findings. Part Two discusses the lawsuit that biochemical scientist Brian Hooker (who has an autistic child) filed against the CDC, while Part Three offers a shocking timeline of events regarding thimerosal in infant vaccines.

Major Media Picks up ANH-USA Campaign to Expose Dietetic Association’s Race for Nutrition Monopoly

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:01:15 +0000

Last week Michael Ellsberg of Forbes.com wrote an expose on the Dietetic Association's lobbying efforts to push out the competition. Please, read, share and comment! Is the American Dietetic Association Attempting to Limit Market Competition in Nutrition Counseling? Forbes.com April 4, 2012

Surprise: Antibiotics May Be Contributing to the Obesity Epidemic

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:00:46 +0000

Worse, their overuse may also increase our cancer risk.We’ve been telling you about the global threat of superbugs. Much of it comes from handing out antibiotics like medicinal candy to humans or as dietary supplements to animals. Now there’s new evidence of the negative effect of antibiotics on our weight as well as a potentially devastating effect on our children’s (and children’s children’s) health.Microbiologists at New York University have published a new study that says the overprescribing of antibiotics could be making us fat! Researchers fed infant mice low doses of penicillin; after 30 weeks, penicillin-fed mice were between 10 and 15 per cent bigger and twice as fat as drug-free mice.This affirms research from Copenhagen which found that infants given antibiotics within the first six months of life were more likely to be overweight at age 7, even if their mother was of a healthy weight.In the NYU study, when mice were given short courses of higher dose antibiotics—the kind that young children tend to receive for infections—their immune systems became compromised, producing significantly lower numbers of helper T-cells.The study also showed that low doses of antibiotics shifted the balance of certain gut microbes, reducing the numbers of Lactobacillus, a “good” bacterium linked to a lower risk of cancer recurrence. A healthy gut that contains a great variety of good bacteria is our best protection against cancer; after all, our intestines are a powerhouse of our body’s immune system.Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have been studying fossilized feces. This may sound odd but there is a lot to be learned. Among other things they found that ancient feces have more bacterial DNA in common with those of non-human primates and children living in rural Africa than they do with modern, Western gut microbiomes (a word that describes microbes, their genetic elements, and their interactions in a particular environment).It’s not that the new gut microbiome is better—just the opposite, in fact. Changing the composition of the bacterial colonies lining our intestines has been linked to irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, asthma, Parkinson's disease, and many other problems.Carl Lewis, the lead author of the U of O study, said, “My first hypothesis would be that chlorinated water and antibiotics have fundamentally changed human microbiomes....The association between antibiotics and obesity is important to explore.”Lewis didn’t make this connection, but if chlorinated water is harming our gut, what about fluoride, a known neurotoxin? As we reported last month, fluoride in our water supply increases the accumulation of lead in bone, teeth, and other calcium-rich tissues, transporting heavy metals into areas of your body they normally would not be able to go—like your brain. Might it not also affect the gut microbiome?There is an underlying irony to the new questions surrounding antibiotics and other quick fixes to infectious diseases. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, medicine was not a high-prestige profession. It is antibiotics in particular that changed all that. Suddenly, with the emergence of these “wonder drugs,” doctors and conventional medicine were put on a pedestal by most people.This is still observable among some older people, who express the attitudes they grew up with. But today, with resistant pathogens exploding, the pandemic danger increasing, and the unintended consequences of “wonder drugs” becoming clearer, more and more people are looking for a greater degree of humility and openness to new ideas from the conventional medical community.

Will Millions of Newly Insured Patients Under Healthcare Reform Actually Be Insured?

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:00:11 +0000

Most of the recent discussion is about whether all or part of the Healthcare Act will get through the Supreme Court. But let’s assume for a moment that it does.What then? Will the newly insured actually get coverage? It would seem that they would: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) proposes to spell out in considerable detail exactly what coverage private insurance companies must provide. There won’t be any difference in anybody’s coverage—right? Wrong!In fact, the majority of those to be newly insured under healthcare reform changes will be insured by Medicaid. But Medicaid is not run by the federal government. It is administrated and regulated at the state level.This means that the specifics of Medicaid coverage differ from state to state. And due to budget constraints, some states have already started cutting Medicaid benefits to lower and lower levels. For example, states are capping hospital stays:

Arizona plans to limit hospital coverage to 25 days a year (and stopped covering certain transplants for many months).
Hawaii plans to cut coverage to ten days a year with certain exemptions.
Other states have already limited hospital stays under Medicaid: the limit is 45 days in Florida, 30 in Mississippi, 24 in Arkansas, and 16 in Alabama.
If you need more hospital care than Medicaid allows, apparently you will have to pay out of your own pocket or else forgo needed care. Basically you are back to being uninsured.

In 2010, state spending on Medicaid jumped 8.8%, and consequently many states have also trimmed “optional” benefits such as vision and dental, and reduced reimbursements for doctors and hospitals. Not surprisingly, even more doctors are choosing to opt out of Medicaid.The double standard that is built into the PPACA legislation is especially troubling. Private insurers will not be allowed to have any annual or lifetime caps whatsoever on the amount they will spend on an enrollee under the new law. At the same time, Medicaid, as a government program, will not be held to any standard. As John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis and widely known as the “father of Health Savings Accounts,” noted last October in an article that brought this problem to our attention:If a private insurance company denies a breast cancer patient a bone marrow transplant, that’s considered a moral outrage—even if the procedure is experimental and is later shown not to work anyway. If the Arizona Medicaid program denies people organ transplants that do work and save lives, that is considered an unfortunate budget issue.The point is, individuals will be entering an extremely underfinanced and ineffective program. This will only get worse as more people enter the Medicaid pool, in effect creating a program that is hardly worth the money being paid for it. What is the point of getting more people insured if you are taking away much of what they will get? And as usual, it is the poorest people who will suffer from this political sleight-of-hand.When the healthcare reform bill was being debated in Congress, ANH-USA suggested to legislators that they should at least incorporate one much needed reform to help poor people: be sure that uninsured patients do not pay more in a hospital than insured patients. As it stands now, uninsured patients get charged in full, which may mean $8 for an aspirin, while insured patients get their bills discounted after review by the insurer. Why not just legislate that hospitals cannot discriminate against the uninsured? This idea seems so basic to us, but got no interest at all from the drafters of the bill.For more thoughts about the PPACA, please see our Healthcare Reform Overview as well as our earlier articles on the subject.

More Congressional Voices Protesting the NDI Draft Guidance

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:00:39 +0000

Our campaign is catching fire, and Congress is continuing to drive the message home to the FDA. Action Alert!This week fourteen members of Congress—all of them members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee—wrote to the FDA, raising their concerns about the NDI guidance which threatens our access to supplements. They highlighted many of our major concerns about the guidance:

It doesn’t allow innovation: “We believe that regulations should provide useful clarity to the regulated industry [and] allow innovation and market forces to prevail,” they write. “The draft guidance on new dietary ingredients falls short on these criteria.”
It is contrary to the intent of Congress: “Above all, [the guidance should] remain grounded in the statutory authority provided by Congress to the regulators....The draft guidance released by FDA in July of 2011 appears to undermine DSHEA in a number of critical respects....Congress expects and the industry needs FDA to develop a reasonable guidance document on this matter....that is consistent with the DSHEA.”
It is a de facto pre-market approval process that is more appropriate to a food additive market: “FDA may in effect be establishing a pre-market review process for dietary supplements and impos[ing] standards that were deemed suitable for food additives.”
It will cost jobs and harm the economy: “Imposing these regulatory requirements on products that have a long history of safe use will increase costs on manufacturers at a time when we should be encouraging, rather than hindering, their efforts.”
It is redundant: “It appears that this guidance will require multiple filings for the same ingredient...which is at odds with the statute.”
It is beyond FDA’s resources: “Given the FDA’s current workload, it does not seem prudent to follow this course of action.”
It needs to be rewritten, with input from stakeholders: “We respectfully request FDA to reexamine and significantly rework this guidance so it does not undermine consumer access to safe, affordable dietary supplement products....It is our hope that the FDA will engage in meaningful dialogue with the relevant stakeholders in industry.”

It is clear that Congress is now seeing the huge regulatory burden of NDI guidance, not to mention its cost to the economy and the loss of jobs. We also expect more individual Congress members to write to the FDA.In October of last year, the committee announced it would start investigating legislation that is redundant and threatens jobs and the economy. The NDI draft guidance is a perfect example of this, as we pointed out in our economic analysis, and it is heartening to see that Congress recognizes it too.As you know, the NDI comment period is now closed, and FDA is in the review period. It could take months or years before FDA issues final guidance (if ever—the agency can try to stall), but the more pressure Congress can put on the FDA, the better.Please write to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, thank them for writing the letter, and ask them to encourage their colleagues to raise their voices in agreement. Please take action immediately!

“Bad” LDL Cholesterol May Protect Us Against Cancer

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:00:01 +0000

LDL cholesterol is demonized, but we’ve told you the other side of the story. Now a new discovery adds to the growing list of health benefits.There may be a link between low levels of “bad” low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol—that is, not enough of it—and increased cancer risk, according to new research. Scientists at Tufts University looked at 201 cancer patients and 402 cancer-free patients. They found that cancer patients who never took cholesterol-lowering drugs on average had lower LDL cholesterol levels for an average of about 19 years prior to their cancer diagnosis. In other words, they were “healthier” according to the LDL demonizers in today’s medicine.Previous studies, which looked at patients who did take cholesterol-lowering drugs, also suggested a strong link between low LDL cholesterol levels and higher cancer risk.This finding underscores what we have said before. The “HDL cholesterol is good and LDL is bad” message being perpetrated by mainstream medicine is at the very least an oversimplification. LDL is needed by the body to build new muscle, which is important as we age. LDL can protect the brain as we age, and low levels of it can escalate problems such as dementia and memory loss. As Dr. Joseph A. Mercola points out, cholesterol is neither “good” nor “bad,” and attempts to artificially lower your cholesterol can be quite dangerous, in part because of serious side effects such as muscle damage.So why does mainstream medicine demonize LDL cholesterol? Could it be because it benefits the billion-dollar cholesterol drug industry? Statin drugs are taken by one in four Americans over age of 45, and if patients stopped buying cholesterol drugs, Big Pharma would be in a serious financial crisis. In fact, as soon as the study’s cancer findings were published, a heart “expert” immediately warned that “statins used for LDL reduction shouldn't be stopped if there is an appropriate use to lower heart disease risk.”So mainstream medicine’s advice is to hang onto these “miracle drugs” even though they have been linked to nerve damage, muscle damage, liver enzyme derangement, tendon problems, anemia, acidosis, cataracts, sexual dysfunction, an increase in type 2 diabetes, and now cancer.In the long run, statins are going to be a bonanza, but for the trial lawyers, not the drug companies. But by then it will be too late for those taking them now.

Are You Missing One of the Most Vital Ingredients in a Healthy Lifestyle?

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:50:00 +0000

Hint: it helps you lose weight and live longer, it’s enjoyable, you probably don’t do it nearly enough, and there’s important new research about it that you need to know.According to Dr. Mark Hyman, besides eating whole foods and moving your body, the most important thing you can do for your health is to get enough sleep. Sleep deprivation makes you fat, and leads to depression, pain, heart disease, diabetes, and much more.Even mainstream medicine agrees. In its report “Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem,” the Institute of Medicine recently estimated that 50 to 40 million Americans chronically suffer from a sleep disorder, hindering daily functioning and adversely affecting their health and longevity.Harvard Health Publica points out that lack of sufficient sleep can have consequences ranging from the mild to the life-threatening:

A 2009 study in Archives of Internal Medicine showed that people who slept an average of less than seven hours per night were three times as likely to get sick from viral infections as those who averaged at least eight hours.
A 2008 article in the journal Obesity that analyzed findings from 36 different studies of sleep duration and body weight found that lack of sufficient sleep tends to disrupt hormones that control hunger and appetite, and the resulting daytime fatigue often discourages you from exercising. A recent US survey found that the states reporting the most sleep problems—West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama—also have the highest obesity rates.
A 2009 report found health difficulties in people with persistent insomnia (sleeping less than six hours per night): a threefold increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes, and a three-and-a-half times greater risk of high blood pressure.
A study of about 1,000 young adults found that, compared with normal sleepers, insomniacs were four times as likely to develop major depression within three years. Sleep problems in the teenagers preceded depression 69% of the time and anxiety disorders 27% of the time.
A Japanese heart disease study noted a 1.3-fold increase in mortality in sleep-deprived patients compared with those who got sufficient sleep. Severe sleep apnea raises the risk of dying early by 46%. Although only about 8% of the men in the study had severe apnea, those who did and who were between 40 and 70 years of age were twice as likely to die from any cause as healthy men in the same age group.

Teenagers are taking classes earlier and earlier, with buses picking kids up at 5:45 a.m. and classes starting at 6:30 a.m. But is this good for their health? A coalition of Virginia parents, teachers, and administrators says no: adolescents on average need 9¼ hours of sleep per night, but average only 7½ hours of sleep per night (with 25 percent sleeping 6½ hours or less).Sleep deprivation affects teens’ ability to think, perform, and react appropriately and safely, including when driving a car. As parents know, teenagers for some reason naturally become night owls and late risers. Band practice at dawn doesn’t help. Since sleep deprivation contributes to depression, and adolescent brains are undergoing dramatic chemical changes, going without sleep to accommodate a school schedule may also set them up for a dangerous SSRI prescription.How much sleep do the rest of us need? According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night, keeping in mind that individual needs vary and it is important to listen to your body. Similar recommendations come from mainstream and integrative medical experts.Here are a few vital tips for improving your sleep:

A healthy diet and vigorous exercise help tremendously in allowing your body to fall asleep naturally.
Get regular exposure to daylight for at least 20 minutes daily — the light from the sun enters your eyes and triggers your brain to secrete and then release specific chemicals and hormones like melatonin that are vital to healthy sleep.
Honor the natural circadian rhythm—sleep when it’s dark, wake when it’s light. Studies suggest that this will make a tremendous contribution to overall health. It’s not really surprising. Our bodies evolved with sunlight, not electrical lights.
Don’t use artificial light in the evening after going to bed—it shuts down melatonin release. Any sort of light can suppress melatonin release, but recent experiments have pointed the finger at one type in particular: the blue wavelengths produced by many kinds of energy-efficient light bulbs and electronic gadgets. Computer monitors, cell phones, and LED television screens are especially bad. Special glasses to remove blue light will help protect you if you must turn on lights after going to bed. A special nightlight with a red wavelength can make all the difference if you need a nightlight. (None of this should be surprising. Blue light is the light of dawn. No wonder your body is confused when your computer flashes blue lights in the wee hours of the night! And those people who, unable to sleep, get up and turn on their cell phone or computer or iPad are doing the worst thing they possibly can. Maybe we all need to learn to count sheep again.)
Avoid both alcohol and caffeine 4 to 6 hours before bedtime.
Make the room you’re sleeping in as dark and quiet as possible. A cool (though not cold) room is often the most sleep-inducing. If you can’t get away from noise, install some white noise from an air cleaner or similar source. This will cover the other noise and not interfere with sleep. When traveling, you can use some soft ear plugs made by Flynt.
Dr. Mehmet Oz recommends melatonin if you are having trouble going to sleep, but notes that the commonly listed dosage (five milligrams) is more than what most people require; instead, he recommends starting with one milligram and work up to 2.5 milligrams if necessary. Up to 5 or 6 milligrams might be needed on special occasions, such as when you are jet lagged. Melatonin (taken at your new bedtime at the travel destination) is by far the best cure for jet lag.
It is not surprising that melatonin is such an effective supplement. It is the same substance that our bodies use to put us to sleep. It is also a highly important antioxidant and a vital part of our immune system. No wonder our immune systems do so much of their work at night when we are asleep! One word of caution however: a small minority of melatonin supplement users report that it gives them overly vivid dreams. In the unlikely event that you experience this, you can simply discontinue use.
Dr. Hyman also mentions melatonin, and recommends trying supplements like 320 mg to 480 mg of valerian one hour before bedtime; 200 to 400 mg of magnesium citrate or glycinate before bed to calm the nervous system and muscles; as well as theanine (an amino acid from green tea), GABA, magnolia, and 5-HTP. Other authorities mention passionflower for its calming effects. Passionflower can also be used during the day.5-HTP is a close relative of the amino acid tryptophan, which the body needs to make serotonin. When anti-depression drugs (which inhibit the break down of serotonin) first appeared, the FDA banned tryptophan as a supplement, using one contaminated batch as the excuse. Tryptophan is now once again available as a supplement, although at a much higher price than before. It should be taken at night, preferably with a bite of food, such as a few walnuts and a bit of fruit, which will help you make use of the tryptophan.
GABA in particular is the natural hormone that calms us down from an over-anxious state, but many GABA supplements either don’t seem to get through the stomach or else fail to work effectively for some other reason. Pharma GABA by Thorne is effective, although some other brands may work as well.

In general, though, the key to getting a good night's sleep isn't supplements. It is sleeping while it is dark and avoiding light, especially blue light, once you have gone to bed.

FDA Wants $220M from Food Producers After Congress Already Said No

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:00:28 +0000

Can’t get what you want by legitimate means? Just try an end-run around the system!The FDA has submitted its budget funding request for FY 2013. That request includes $220 million in food facility registration fees. FDA would use the money to “increase its capacity to establish an integrated national food safety system and further strengthen food safety inspection.”What’s a food facility? Unfortunately, it may include a family farm or a Mom-and-Pop food stand. As it stands now, it’s anybody the FDA thinks is involved with food.This facility registration user fee provision was in the original version of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). But that, after intense criticism from us and others, was struck from the final version that was signed into law in 2011. What this new budgetary request means is that FDA is trying to circumvent the law—and the clear intent of Congress, just as they did with the NDI guidance document.Food fees can drive small producers out of business. That might make life easier for the FDA. Like other federal agencies, they may find it easier to work with a small number of giant companies. But with or without the fees, food facility inspections can also be a big deal.The original version of the Food Safety bill mandated that every registered facility must be inspected by the FDA. We and others were able to exempt small farms with less than $500,000 in sales from these new federal inspection requirements—so long as the majority of sales are direct to consumers, restaurants, or grocery stores and those restaurants and stores are in the same state or within 275 miles of the farm. However, many small and organic farms make just a little over $500,000 per year or do not meet all these specifications, so they are not exempt.Under the law, as passed, high-risk facilities will be inspected initially within the first five years and then every three years thereafter; low-risk facilities, initially within seven years, and then every five. The FDA would need to hire an additional 5,000 employees to do all the inspections. Big companies love this, because the FDA would be so bogged down inspecting all the smaller operations that they wouldn’t have time to focus on the big guys—where the actual food safety problems arise. Food safety legislation should be targeted at the large industrial farms, but, no surprise, the bill as passed did just the opposite.Inspections are also an opportunity for FDA to go on fishing expeditions when they want to target a particular company or industry—they can be as finicky as they wish, citing harmless paperwork violations as huge offenses, for example.While FDA has not said what specifically they would do with the $220 million in new registration fees they are trying to sneak into the federal budget, it is clear that they are trying to restore what was denied them by Congress in the final version of the Food Safety bill.The agency has also implemented interim rules for administrative detention—rules that give FDA wider authority to detain foods, including supplements. This means that if FDA even suspects that a violation has occurred, they can detain a food or supplement company’s full stock for up to twenty days (with a possible ten-day extension if FDA wishes to initiate legal action), which might be enough to destroy smaller companies.Why does this matter? Just ask the cherry growers, who were almost driven out of business for citing peer-reviewed scientific research about the anti-inflammatory properties of cherries!This can now happen even where FDA only thinks a violation has occurred. Let’s say FDA finds third-party praise for a supplement’s therapeutic properties on a website related or linked to from the supplement company. Even though it’s a gray area, FDA may decide to pull a company’s products and make them battle in the courts for a decision on whether a third-party testimonial is a health claim attributable to the company.After a bill is passed into law, it usually goes through a rulemaking phase, where an agency will flesh out how all the specific provisions in the bill will be implemented. That’s where the FSMA is now—the process of writing all the rules for the Food Safety Act is still in process. FDA delivered four proposed rules to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) toward the end of 2011, but the rules have been “stuck in review” at OMB since then.The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), a coalition of 300 nonprofit consumer organizations, has urged FDA to make public the proposed rules dealing with preventative controls for food, animal feed, produce safety and food imports.FDA has invited comment from the public on many of the topics covered by the FSMA, but the agency has yet to submit those four proposed rules for public comment. We will keep a close watch on the proposed rules, and as we promised to keep you updated on the process, will let you know as soon as they are released and open for comments.One of the things mandated by the FSMA was guidance on New Dietary Ingredients. As you know, their guidance document was a disaster, and ANH-USA has asked them to withdraw the guidance altogether and start over—as have a number of senators and congressional representatives.Regular readers will recall our serious concerns with the FSMA. And then there was the controversial way the bill was passed in the first place—the bill was dead until the Senate resurrected it as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill. You can see the full timeline of FSMA-related battles here.

Superbug Lawsuit: Court Orders FDA to Do Its Job—After a 35-Year Delay!

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:00:41 +0000

This week a judge told FDA to reverse course regarding antibiotic overuse in livestock and protect the effectiveness of the medicine for humans. Action Alert!For the past 35 years the FDA has supposedly been reviewing the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed when in fact the agency was simply sitting on its hands. Then, last December, the agency caved to pressure and quietly withdrew any attempt to require the removal of antibiotics from animal feed.The public was outraged, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations sued FDA to force the agency to reconsider and withdraw approval for most non-therapeutic uses of penicillin and tetracycline in animal feed, unless drug makers can prove in public hearings that the drugs do not harm human health when used this way. The lawsuit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Animals Concerns Trust, Public Citizen, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.On March 23, a federal court ruled in their favor!Back in 1977, FDA concluded that feeding animals low doses of certain antibiotics used in human medicine, namely, penicillin and tetracyclines, could promote antibiotic-resistant bacteria capable of infecting people. Despite this conclusion—and in direct violation of laws requiring that the agency move on its findings—FDA failed to take action for the next 35 years.“For over 35 years, FDA has sat idly on the sidelines,” said Avinash Kar, a health attorney for the NRDC. “In that time, the overuse of antibiotics in healthy animals has skyrocketed—contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that endanger human health....These drugs are intended to cure disease, not fatten pigs and chickens.”As we reported in January, the so-called “preventive” use of antibiotics in livestock is routine and widespread—80% of all antibiotics sold in US go into farm animal feed. Factory farms use them to ward off illness in animals that are kept in overcrowded, filthy living conditions, which are a perfect environment for the spread of illness. These antibiotics are also used to promote increased growth in animals.However, antibiotics given to animals are transferred to humans through direct contact, environmental exposure, and the consumption and handling of contaminated meat and poultry products—making humans vulnerable to antibiotic-resistant superbugs, which are now a global problem. Moreover, a study found that up to half of US meat was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant staph.If FDA truly wanted to focus on food safety, it would address the filthy, toxic factory farm conditions rather than allowing healthy animals to be fed antibiotics preemptively.Big Farma stridently opposes legislative and regulatory attempts to curtail antibiotic usage, making the absurd claim that the science is still inconclusive. So to avoid antagonizing Big Pharma and Big Farma on antibiotics, FDA’s has been issuing voluntary compliance standards. For example, in 2010 FDA issued a draft guidance proposing that farmers voluntarily stop the use of low-dose antibiotics in farms animals.Now, as a result of the lawsuit, FDA is forced to take action on its own safety findings by withdrawing approval for most non-therapeutic uses of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed, unless the industry can prove in public hearings that those drug uses do not affect human health. The judge also ruled that FDA must warn drug makers that the government may soon ban the agricultural use of antibiotics for animals that are not sick.FDA is expected in the next few days to issue draft rules that ask drug manufacturers to voluntarily end the use of antibiotics in animals without the oversight of a veterinarian. But this is not good enough! Please write to FDA today, and tell the agency to stop creating ineffective “window dressing” standards, and finally complete the process they started 35 years ago. Tell them to withdraw approval of non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics in animal feed immediately, as ordered by the court. Take action immediately!

Flawed Red Meat Study: You Are What Your Food Ate

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:56:37 +0000

Are beef eaters doomed to an early death?A recent Harvard study, accompanied by some unduly alarmist articles in the press, found that the consumption of red meat is associated with higher mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer. The study recommends substituting “healthy” protein sources such as fish, poultry, nuts, and legumes to reduce mortality.We see a number of big problems with this study.First, the study was conducted over a very long period of time (28 years for women, 22 years for men) by sending out food questionnaires every four years. Self-reporting, much less every four years, is not a reliable method of data gathering.Second, and even more importantly, the study did not differentiate between organic, grass-fed beef, and non-organic, CAFO-raised beef. As Dr. Joseph Mercola points out, the nutritive value of the each is very different!Because of the conditions and the grain-based feed used in factory farms, conventional beef may contain over twenty times the amount of omega-6 fatty acids (associated with arthritis, chronic inflammation, and cancer) than healthful omega-3 fatty acids (which help blood circulation, reduce inflammation, and strengthen the heart). By contrast, grass-fed beef typically has nearly seven times more omega-3s than omega-6s.In fact, eating moderate amounts of grass-fed beef for even four weeks will give you healthier levels of essential fats, according to a 2011 study in the British Journal of Nutrition. Healthy volunteers who ate grass-fed meat increased their blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and decreased their level of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.Grass-fed beef is far healthier than grain-fed beef for a number of reasons. For example, it has four times the amount of complete complex vitamin E than grain-fed beef. Complete complex vitamin E deficiencies have been linked with diabetes, immune disorders, Parkinson's disease, eye diseases, and lung and liver diseases, so eating grass-fed beef would help prevent that deficiency. And this is just one factor among many. Grass-fed beef is lower in total fat, higher in beta-carotene, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, and higher in CLA, a potential cancer fighter.To make no distinction between grass-fed and grain-fed beef in the study is just absurd. But it is not unusual. Indeed, the whole thrust of USDA policy is to treat all farm commodities as identical and to deny any differences. Not surprisingly, this also reflects the views and wishes of major food producers who do not want competition from differentiated products and who look to government to outlaw claims of differences or even outlaw pricing differences.When we write about “grain-fed beef,” please understand that this is shorthand. One of the feedlot practices involves feeding cattle grain that has been laced with chicken litter, cattle blood, and restaurant leftovers—to boost the nutritive content. In the UK and Canada, the feed may be laced with meat and bone meal, blood meal, and meat scraps, and this proved to be the vector for mad cow disease: it comes from eating brain and other nerve tissues of already-infected animals.So far as we know, mad cow disease is not yet a widespread problem in US, but we wouldn’t count on the USDA to find it. And the disease is propagated through the very same feed practices that our CAFOs currently use. As John Stauber, co-author of Mad Cow USA, notes, “The entire US policy is designed to protect the livestock industry's access to slaughterhouse waste as cheap feed.”In short, if you eat meat, you’re not what you eat—you are what your food ate!A third problem with the study is the authors’ simple recommendation to “eat more fish and chicken.” In fact, a lot of seafood is contaminated with mercury, as well as carcinogenic PCBs. So eating too much fish can be hazardous to your health as well.Chickens in factory farms are also fed slaughterhouse waste. This is one of the factors believed to account for the high salmonella rate: 28.8% of eggs from chickens in factory farms have salmonella, whereas cage-free chickens’ eggs have only a 4.3% salmonella rate. The latter are also higher in vitamins and lower in cholesterol.The conventional food supply is dominated by animals raised in unhealthy conditions, and the government is creating a system that supports factory farms. You may have read about the “lean, finely textured beef”—bovine connective tissue and beef scraps, finely ground and washed in ammonium hydroxide and formed into a paste known as “pink slime” which has been used as a low-cost filler for ground beef— that is reportedly on its way out at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King. But according to Mother Jones, the USDA plans to keep ordering pink slime for use in its National School Lunch Program, which serves low-income students.If ammonium hydroxide, a chemical also found in household cleaners, is unfit for the fast food industry, how is it safe for our school children? Fifty years ago, the USDA was an agency doing its best to make things better. How did it go so wrong?Many human populations following a natural diet—particularly hunter–gatherers—have led remarkably healthy lives feeding predominately on red meat. For example, Native Americans amazed explorers and colonists with their remarkable health even though their diet consisted mainly of animal meat, organs, and fatty parts. But that was organic, free-range, grass-fed meat, not factory farm beef.The Harvard “red meat” study was not only fatally flawed from the outset, it offered reckless (and scientifically unsound) advice.

“FDA Went Too Far,” Says Judge

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:52:08 +0000

A court has stopped FDA’s latest attempt to censor food and supplement science. Action Alert!An FDA disclaimer about green tea and the risk of cancer is so strongly worded that it “effectively negates” the manufacturer’s qualified health claim (QHC) and violates the First Amendment, according to US District Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant.QHCs enable companies to make a health claim about a substance in relation to a disease or condition when the supporting science fails to meet the FDA’s “significant scientific agreement” standard, so long as that health claim is “qualified” in such a way as to not mislead consumers. QHCs have been permitted in the US since the 1999 landmark case of Pearson v. Shalala (brought against the FDA by attorney Jonathan Emord on behalf of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, ANH-USA, and others.In practice, however, FDA rarely approves QHCs: the agency approved only twelve QHCs between 1999 and September 2010—and when they did, they usually created disclaimers that completely reversed the meaning of the claim. It was because of this that ANH-USA sued the FDA over its treatment of the QHC for selenium and cancer. And we were successful in creating a precedent that restricts FDA’s ability to infringe on the right to free speech, a right that is at least in part provided by QHCs.Fleminger, Inc., sells green tea at TeaForHealth.com and discusses the science of antioxidants and the research on green tea’s anti-cancer properties. Fleminger first submitted a health claim petition to FDA in 2004. A year later, the FDA proposed two disclaimers that stated, in part, “FDA concludes that it is highly unlikely that green tea reduces the risk” of breast cancer or prostate cancer. Fleminger petitioned for an administrative review but it was denied.In 2010, FDA sent a warning letter to Fleminger threatening to seize its products and insisting it use the exact language set forth in its qualified health claims. Shortly thereafter, however, FDA proposed a revised claim: “Green tea may reduce the risk of breast or prostate cancer. FDA does not agree that green tea may reduce the risk because there is very little scientific evidence for the claim.” This prompted Fleminger’s suit in the US District Court, asserting that FDA was making Fleminger “choose between speaking exactly as [FDA] wishes, remaining silent, or risking adverse action for its own commercial speech in violation of the First Amendment.”Judge Bryant agreed with Fleminger: The FDA’s language “effectively negates the substance–disease relationship claim altogether....There are less burdensome ways in which the FDA could indicate in a short, succinct and accurate disclaimer that it has not approved the claim without nullifying the claim altogether.” FDA must now draft a new disclaimer statement.Jonathan Emord found the ruling significant: “This is an important decision that adds to the landmark precedent of the Alliance for Natural Health USA v. Sebelius concerning the limits on FDA discretion in drafting health claim qualifications. Once again FDA is taken to task for using the disclaimer to promote its own agenda rather than constraining itself to a succinct and accurate qualification of the inconclusiveness of supporting science.”Outside of QHCs, food and supplements are not allowed to speak of the specific health benefits of their products because the FDA takes the position that any such statement magically turns them into drugs. And, as drugs, they would have to go through exorbitantly expensive drug trials, a cost which the manufacturer could never recoup, since food and supplements are natural products and cannot be patented. Without a patent, anyone can sell them, so paying as much as a billion dollars for a drug trial is essentially money down the drain. This is the “Catch-22” we keep talking about.The great thing about this ruling is that more people may get to learn about the cancer-fighting benefits of green tea. In 2005, UCLA researchers found that green tea extract targeted cancerous cells in the human bladder without harming healthy cells—and made it harder for the cancerous cells to become invasive and spread. And a 2009 study showed that three cups of tea per day reduced younger women’s risk of breast cancer by about 37 percent. Harvard Women’s Health Watch magazine noted that studies found an association between consuming green tea and a reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder. Green tea has also been found effective in preventing and controlling CLL, a killer blood cancer.Even under the best circumstances, QHCs are something of a stopgap measure because of the qualification language FDA is still able to use. A bill before Congress, the Free Speech About Science Act, would allow food and supplement manufacturers to cite legitimate peer-reviewed science without turning the product into a 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 false and unsubstantiated claims.If you have not done so already, please contact Congress and ask your legislators to co-sponsor HR1364, the Free Speech about Science Act. If it passes, this bill has the potential to transform the healthcare field by educating the public about the real science behind natural health. It’s a small bill with vast potential leverage. Please take action today!

The “Wild West” of Supplement Safety

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:42:26 +0000

This week, Dateline NBC ran a “shocking exposé” of “dangerous supplements.” We separate fact from fiction.The episode, which aired this past Sunday, was mainly about a vitamin and mineral concoction called Total Body Formula that was sold four years ago by a store in Georgia. After several users reported horrific reactions—hair falling out completely, fingernails falling off, etc.—an investigation revealed that the formula contained extraordinarily high levels of selenium.It turns out the manufacturer misread the formula when creating the supplement, resulting in selenium levels 200 times higher than the amount indicated on the label. On top of that, the supplement was produced using methods that no reputable manufacturer would use—for example, they strained the mixture through pantyhose!To add insult to injury, an analysis by the product’s certification lab, Atlas Bioscience, didn’t even detect those dangerous selenium levels. So Dateline launched one of their famous sting operations where they submitted to the same lab two “new supplements” which had been secretly (but deliberately) spiked with arsenic and lead, and even asked the lab to check for them specifically—and once again the lab didn’t detect the dangerous chemicals: the lab had clearly fabricated its results.Happily, Dateline got good quotes from the Council for Responsible Nutrition and the Natural Products Association, both of whom underscored the fact that the vast majority of supplements are safe. On the downside, the report clearly implied that giving FDA approval power over supplements would make them safer, which is false.The fact is, FDA approval does not, and cannot, prevent contamination or adulteration. It certainly hasn’t done so for FDA-approved drugs! Supplement quality is maintained through strict adherence to Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs), which the FDA already has in place, and which are extremely stringent.In particular because of the CGMPs, but even without the CGMPs, the FDA has full authority to enforce against contamination and adulteration. In this case, the FDA issued an official warning, and the manufacturer voluntarily recalled the toxic product to avoid lawsuits. The problem is not a lack of regulation but a lack of enforcement. As FDA’s Daniel Fabricant confirmed in the interview, it’s partly a matter of resources: FDA has only 22 agents working on supplements, and this is a $28 billion industry.There is also a widespread belief that at least in the past the agency deliberately decided to minimize enforcement of supplements with the expectation that doing so would lead to a crisis, and a crisis would bring supplements more fully under FDA control. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but there is evidence to support it.FDA pre-approval would not only fail to make supplements safer; it would also threaten our access to supplements. And as we have seen with the FDA’s draft guidance for New Dietary Ingredients, a pre-approval system would greatly diminish access to supplements by removing many of them from the market, and also make the remaining supplements far more expensive.Dateline’s piece paints the regulation of supplements as being like “the Wild West”—that is, without any reliable controls. But FDA certification for laboratories that test supplements is exactly the same as for those that test drugs and food. In both cases, it is a voluntary process.And more to the point, only one certification lab out of all the labs Dateline investigated, the aforementioned Atlas Bioscience, was alleged to be guilty of being a “dry lab”—that is, of providing fraudulent data. One should not use the actions of one rogue laboratory to draw conclusions about the entire industry.The burden is on the supplement manufacturer to ensure that the testing is reliable because ultimately, it is the manufacturer who is answerable. The same goes for food and drug manufacturers. As in all industries, there are bad actors, but as the episode points out, the majority of supplement manufacturers provide products that are safe and consumers use them to stay healthy.Supposed “exposés” like this one never seem to point out that the percentage of adverse event reports for nutritional supplements is much, much lower than those for pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. If the supplement industry is alleged to be "the Wild West," what are we to make of the shocking number of deaths and injuries from drugs and biologics? Nobody says that these are unregulated industries.

Baby’s Being Harmed by Mom’s Antidepressants

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:50:52 +0000

But now we know that “low serotonin”—which is what SSRI’s “fix”—doesn’t even cause depression! Action Alert!A study conducted jointly in the Netherlands and the US has found that babies born to mothers who took antidepressants while they were pregnant had slightly slower head growth and were more likely to be born early. The study did not have any findings about whether there might be long-term effects or not.Of nearly 8,000 pregnant women in the study, 570 had symptoms of depression during their pregnancy but did not take medication, while another 99 took SSRIs. In the womb, babies of women who were depressed gained less weight per week than babies of non-depressed mothers, and their heads grew a bit more slowly as well. With the women given SSRIs, the babies’ head growth was slowed by 0.18 millimeters per week. By the time they were born, those babies' heads were about four millimeters smaller, on average, than babies of non-depressed moms. SSRIs are known to pass through the placenta, according to the lead researcher, and may reach the brain and affect its development.On top of that, ten percent of mothers taking SSRIs had a premature birth, compared to six percent of those with untreated depression and five percent of non-depressed moms. Previous studies have suggested a slightly increased risk of some birth defects in babies of moms taking antidepressants, as well as a greater chance they will end up needing intensive care.In January, the British Medical Journal published a study showing that babies of women who take SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy have a slightly increased risk of a life-threatening condition called persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN) in which not enough oxygen reaches the bloodstream but returns to the heart in an oxygen-poor state. This in turn causes rapid breathing, a rapid heart rate, respiratory distress, and cyanosis. If not caught in time, it can cause shock, heart failure, brain hemorrhage, seizures, kidney failure, multiple organ damage, and possibly even death.This finding is not new, however. In 2006, the FDA warned that women taking SSRIs were six times more likely to deliver babies with PPHN. And in October 2010, a Philadelphia jury ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $2.5 million to the family of a three-year-old boy, Lyam Kilker, who was born with heart defects because his mother took the SSRI antidepressant Paxil during pregnancy.The problem is that mothers who take SSRIs for depression (either during pregnancy or to battle postpartum depression) often find it difficult to stop. SSRIs are not considered addictive by mainstream medicine because they do not create cravings and are not associated with drug-seeking behavior. However, even mainstream medicine agrees that stopping cold turkey can cause an array of symptoms such as dizziness (which can last for days), flu-like symptoms such as nausea, headache, and fatigue, as well as intense feeling of anxiety, irritability, or sadness. It’s so prevalent that it has a name—SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome—and the symptoms are so severe that many people decide to stay on the antidepressant just to stop those side effects.Perhaps most significant for those who take SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, is the news that the theory behind the drug—that depression is caused by having low levels of serotonin in the brain—is being debunked. “Chemical imbalance [brought on by low serotonin levels] is sort of last-century thinking. It's much more complicated than that,” according to Dr. Joseph Coyle, a professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. “It's really an outmoded way of thinking.”While Coyle, who is also the editor of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, says serotonin plays a role in depression, low serotonin is likely not the cause of depression. The theory that it causes depression was propagated only after the introduction of Prozac. As Dr. Joseph Mercola points out, the low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain; it was a hypothesis that tried to explain how the drug might be fixing something. Later, investigations were done to see whether or not depressed people actually had lower serotonin levels, and in 1983 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) concluded that “There is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients.”Worse, if you take an SSRI drug that blocks the normal reuptake of serotonin, you end up with the very problem the drug is designed to treat—low serotonin levels. SSRIs cause the brain to behave in ways it was never designed to do. No wonder it causes teens to attempt suicide, and other people to have inexplicably violent psychotic breaks, as we reported a year ago.In other news the FDA has responded to our petition to put a Black Box warning on SSRI labeling that discusses the risk of violence. In the agency’s letter to us, FDA acknowledges that the issue is a complex one and that they are looking into it further, though there is honestly little hope that they actually mean to do so. Let’s keep the heat on FDA to mandate a Black Box warning—please contact FDA today and express your concern over this serious issue!

FDA’s Huge Conflicts of Interest with Big Pharma

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:45:22 +0000

Tragically, the drug they endorsed is killing the women who take it. Why is FDA doing this?The birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, which were endorsed by an FDA advisory committee last December, contain a drug called drospirenone. Women who take it are nearly seven times more likely to develop thromboembolism (obstruction of a blood vessel by a blood clot, which can cause deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, stroke, heart attack, and death) compared to women who do not take any contraceptive pill, and twice the risk of women who take a contraceptive pill containing levonorgestrel. Thousands of women have filed a lawsuit against Bayer, saying they were injured by Yaz or Yasmin.Why would the FDA approve such a dangerous drug? An investigation by the Washington Monthly and the British medical journal BMJ found that at least four members of the advisory committee have either done work for the drugs’ manufacturers or licensees or received research funding from them. The members reported their industry ties to FDA, but FDA decided it didn’t matter and didn’t make the disclosures public. Each of those four panelists who received money from the pill’s manufacturer voted in favor of the pill. Interestingly, the committee’s ruling that the drug’s benefit outweighs the risks was decided by a four-vote margin.Ironically, while the FDA allowed voting by advisors with business connections to drospirenone, the agency barred another advisor and former researcher, Sidney M. Wolfe, on the grounds that he has an “intellectual conflict of interest.” Six years earlier, Wolfe had advised his readers not to take Yaz based on several years of data—and this was before the latest studies had been published. Because of this, he was barred from voting.So apparently people with monetary conflicts of interest are allowed to vote, just not those with “intellectual” conflicts of interest!FDA also didn’t provide the panel with recently unsealed court documents revealing that former FDA commissioner David Kessler had accused Bayer of hiding data on blood clot risks associated with Yaz and Yasmin. Kessler also reported that they paid $450,000 to a high profile gynecologist to sponsor the pill, including off-label use of the drug, during her book tour.Bayer, of course, has a strong vested interest in getting endorsements for Yaz and Yasmin—in 2009 Yaz was top-selling birth control in the US.This is not the first time that an FDA advisory panel has recommended an unsafe drug. As we reported three weeks ago, an FDA committee endorsed the weight loss drug Qnexa, a diet pill that has documented risks of causing birth defects and heart problems.The conflicts of interest don’t stop with government bodies; they are also rampant among medical professionals of all kinds. Drug companies pay doctors, researchers, and medical experts for speaking engagements and “consulting” jobs—all of which is perfectly legal despite a blatant conflict of interest. The public interest news organization ProPublica has a Dollars for Docs database that shows more than $760 million in payments from drug companies to physicians and other healthcare providers for consulting, speaking, research, and expenses. (For more about pharmaceutical conflicts of interest, please see our other article in this issue!)Many of these physicians and researchers are employed by the state and paid with tax dollars—and they are the ones shaping states’ health policies. In Texas alone, from 2009 through early 2011, researchers and physicians received at least $57 million in cash payments, research money, free meals, and other benefits—on top of their quite generous salaries. The Texas attorney general has sued Janssen Pharmaceuticals and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, for offering kickbacks to state health officials to get the schizophrenia drug Risperdal on the approved list of medications paid for by the state.A provision in the Obama healthcare reform act will require pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of medical supplies to disclose all “payments of value” to physicians and medical professionals on a federal government website. This includes food, entertainment, gifts, travel, consulting fees, honoraria, research funding, stocks, conference funding, and royalties—anything in excess of $100 a year. Penalties for noncompliance can reach as high as $1 million.Critics are concerned that the disclosure law won’t show context—some doctors, for example, might spend months studying the effects of the drug, but people visiting the website will assume that all such payments are payoffs, thus tarnishing the reputations of supposedly upright medical professionals. But how can one be truly independent if one takes money from a drug company? The disclosure provision merely attempts to bring greater transparency to the relationship without outlawing the practice altogether. The rule may also bring down healthcare costs if doctors stop recommending the more expensive drugs which are marketed so heavily.

American Lung Association Does Vaccine Maker’s Bidding

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:40:12 +0000

And some states want to take away your right to decide about vaccinations for your kids. Urgent Action Alerts!The American Lung Association is partnering with Sanofi Pasteur, the largest company in the world devoted entirely to vaccines, in an educational campaign endorsing the annual flu vaccine. The two have launched the Faces of Influenza campaign with a website containing frightening stories about the dangers of flu and touting the safety of the flu vaccine.Why is an organization that is supposed to set the standard on lung safety and health doing the bidding of a pharmaceutical company? Why are they repeating figures which have been proven to be fabricated and false? Between 1979 and 2002, data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics show an average of only 1,348 actual flu deaths per year—a mere 5.7% of the CDC’s frequent citation of 24,000 deaths per year.Medical societies in particular are often greatly influenced by Big Pharma. They often have relationships with drug companies that are hidden from the public view. Look, for example, at the Heart Rhythm Society. Their cardiologists set national guidelines for patient treatments, lobby Congress about Medicare reimbursement issues, fund research, have disease awareness campaigns, and are important sources of treatment information for the public. But as ProPublica reported,

From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week’s Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches for drugs and medical devices. St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads are splashed on buses, banners and the stairs underfoot. Logos splay across shuttle bus headrests, carpets and cellphone-charging stations. At night, a drug firm gets the last word: A promo for the heart drug Multaq stood on each doctor’s nightstand Wednesday. Who arranged this commercial barrage? The society itself, which sold access to its members and their purchasing power. [Italics ours]

Many medical societies don’t make their sources of funding public. Senator Chuck Grassley (R–IA) recently requested this information from thirty-three professional organizations—including the Heart Rhythm Society. (For more about pharmaceutical conflicts of interest, please see our other article in this issue!)Conflicts of interest are especially rampant in the vaccine industry. Vaccines are extremely profitable for drug companies, and only a few manufacturers make them, which drives up the price. The real problem, of course, is the question of vaccine safety. And with it, the need for consumers—and especially parents—to be able to have the right to choose whether their family receives vaccines or not. It’s all about informed choice.But informed choice is being threatened at the state level. A bill in Vermont’s legislature, H.527 and S.199, would threaten a parent’s right to refuse vaccination for their child using a philosophical exemption.Many states offer philosophical or religious exemptions from compulsory vaccination. In some states, religious exceptions include personal religious beliefs, whereas other states require the individual to be a member of a religion whose written texts explicitly prohibit invasive medical procedures. Even in states with exemptions, there are generally only two options: be vaccinated on the schedule recommended by CDC, or else get no vaccines at all. These laws do not allow for modified vaccine schedules or selectively vaccinating for some, but not other diseases.

Vermont

The Vermont bill, however, would remove the exemption on philosophical grounds entirely. The bill has a lot of traction—the Senate’s version has already passed, and it’s on its way to the House. If you are a Vermont resident, please take action immediately!

Arizona

There is also legislation in Arizona attacking vaccine exemptions. HB2846 would require written certification signed by a guardian and a health professional on an annual basis in order to claim any exemption, whether religious, medical, or philosophical. If you are an Arizona resident, please take action immediately!Two positive vaccine bills have been introduced.

Virgina

In Virginia, HB1112 would remove the HPV vaccine requirement for school children. As we recently reported, no other vaccine lists and thereby acknowledges the serious side effects that the HPV vaccine does. One particularly alarming side effect, acknowledged by the manufacturer Merck even in advertisements, is the risk of seizure. Pain at the injection site, headache, fever—these are fairly commonplace reactions. But none of the others has the acknowledged serious side effects that the HPV vaccine does. If you are a Virginia resident, please contact your legislator today and support this bill!

West Virgina

In West Virginia, HB2119 would prohibit all forms of mercury in vaccines (including thimerosal) unless absolutely no other alternative exists. As we note in our Position Paper, thimerosal, which is 49.6% mercury by weight, is a deadly substance that remains in many vaccines, and may one of the causes of the skyrocketing autism rates. After a study in 1977 found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of mercury than those given to American children suffered brain damage, Russia, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries banned thimerosal in vaccines. If you are a West Virginia resident, please contact your legislator today and support this bill!

Resources

ANH-USA — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:00:30 +0000

http://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-law.pdfhttp://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-chemicals.pdfhttp://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-safe-harbor-numbers.pdfhttp://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-regs.pdfhttp://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-settlements-2010.pdfhttp://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Prop-65-resources1.docx

New Scientific Data Forces Government to Reverse Its Stance on Fluoride in the Water Supply

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:00:44 +0000

Why are some states simply ignoring the latest studies, and passing new laws that will hurt your teeth and harm your health? Action Alert!Water fluoridation was introduced to the United States in the 1940s as a way to use waste product from the manufacture of aluminum, a waste product that was expensive to dispose of and which was harming cattle and farmland. Since then, the federal government has taken the stance that the fluoridation of drinking water, which conveniently disposed of the waste, is vitally important to help prevent tooth decay; the CDC called it one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century. But the the latest scientific studies have finally made the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) change their tune on how much fluoride is safe.The data indicates that dental fluorosis—damage to the teeth from fluoride, ranging from lacy white markings or spots on the enamel to staining and pitting of the tooth surface—happens when fluoride levels are too high. Water is only one of several sources of fluoride. Other common sources include dental products such as toothpaste and mouth rinses, prescription fluoride supplements, fluoride applied by dental professionals, and exposure through our food, which is often sprayed with fluoride-based pesticides.Today the fluoride in your water mostly comes from the phosphate fertilizer industry—but it’s still toxic waste, containing other byproducts such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. And two studies show that fluoride increases the accumulation of lead in bone, teeth, and other calcium-rich tissues, transporting heavy metals into areas of your body they normally would not be able to go—like your brain.Another study revealed that prolonged, high intake of fluoride can increase the risk of brittle bones, fractures, and crippling bone abnormalities. Longtime readers may recall our 2008 article on the effects of fluoride on teeth and bones (harming kidney patients worst of all); we also noted that fluoride is a known neurotoxin, and can have detrimental effects on the thyroid, which could affect intelligence.Moreover, fluoride can combine with other chemicals in the water to make them even more harmful. For example, when chloramines combine with the fluoride in water, they work together to extract lead from old plumbing systems, which leads to the accumulation of lead in the water supply.EPA and HHS now recommend the level of fluoride in drinking water to be set “at the lowest end of the current optimal range”—that is, no more than 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water instead of the current recommended range which goes as high as 1.2 milligrams.Despite studies so compelling that the federal government has started back-pedaling, the states of New Jersey and Vermont are attempting to mandate the fluoridation of water supply. Unfortunately, the New Jersey bill is very close to being passed. By contrast, Illinois and New Hampshire have introduced bills to prohibit fluoride in drinking water.In New Jersey, both S959 in the Senate and A1811 in the Assembly are on red alert—they have been reported out of committee and are already on the floor, so they can be voted upon at any time. These bills mandate the fluoridation of water. At minimum, this is a freedom of choice issue—citizens should be able to choose whether they want to ingest fluoride or not. Write your legislators and ask them to oppose these bills—take action now!In Vermont, H615 (currently in the Health Care Committee) contains many provisions to do with oral care—so we are specifically opposing section 108a, which mandates fluoridation of water. It requires that any municipality, government agency, or other entity that owns or controls a water system shall maintain fluoride in the water supply. Write your representative and request an amendment to strike out that part of the bill—take action now!In New Hampshire: HB1529 would amend current law to say, “No fluoride, nor any chemical containing fluoride, shall be introduced into the public water supply,” as well as other specific provisions against the the use of herbicides within ten miles upgradient (that is, uphill) from a water intake of a domestic water supply. Write your representative and express your strong support for this bill—take action now!In Illinois: HB5383 would do one thing: repeal the current fluoridation mandate. The bill is now in the Environmental Health Committee. Write your representative and express your strong support for this bill—take action now!

Profoundly Flawed Study Used as Basis for CDC’s New Report on Supposed “Dangers” of Raw Milk

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:00:38 +0000

To hear the media tell it, our lives are in jeopardy if we drink unpasteurized milk. But the facts tell the opposite story.A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declares that raw milk “cannot be considered safe under any circumstances,” and essentially advocates for stricter laws and enforcement against raw milk on the state level. The study claims that the rate of outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk and products made from it was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk. The authors of the study based this conclusion on an analysis of reports submitted to the CDC from 1993 to 2006.However, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, the CDC has manipulated and cherry-picked this data to make raw milk look dangerous—and it has dismissed the same dangers associated with pasteurized milk.What the CDC data actually shows is that there are almost 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year on average. For the fourteen-year period that the authors examined, there was an average of 315 illnesses a year from all dairy products for which the pasteurization status was known. Of those, there was an average of 112 illnesses each year attributed to all raw dairy products and 203 associated with pasteurized dairy products.In other words, pasteurized milk products cause nearly twice as many illnesses as raw milk products, but illnesses from dairy products still constitute only 1.3% of the total, with raw dairy products coming in at less than half of a single percentage point. All of this is minor compared to the health risks of taking prescription drugs or even entering a hospital.Raw milk, despite what the media reports said with such hysteria this week, is simply not a high-risk product. And, as we pointed out last week, there has been not a single death from consuming raw milk in the 38 years the data has been collected—compared to over 80 deaths from pasteurized milk products during that same time period.The time frame examined by the researchers dramatically skewed the results as well. The authors analyzed data from 1993 to 2006. Perhaps they chose that range because one year later, in 2007, 135 people became ill from pasteurized cheese contaminated with e. coli and three people died.Nowhere do the researchers identify the specific reports they analyzed, so the veracity and quality of the reports, and how this might affect the results, are impossible to judge. In stark contrast, the CDC refuses to look at Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting data for the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) because the data is considered “lacking.” Clearly, the agency picks and chooses when it wishes to analyze complete data and when it does not.Another factor that is completely neglected is the source of the milk. Most food contamination products originate in large factory farms or CAFOs. Many people would consider unpasteurized milk from a family farm safer than pasteurized milk from a CAFO, but of course the government does not want to alienate Big Farma by getting into such qualitative distinctions.The CDC study also utterly neglects any analysis of the long-term health benefits of consuming raw milk versus pasteurized milk. The pasteurization process destroys delicate proteins, enzymes, immune factors, and vitamins, and inhibits mineral availability. As we noted last week, based on the latest research, the very healthiest milk would be raw, grass-fed, organic, and from a cow that is only milked for the first six months after giving birth. Of course, now that a judge has ruled against “cowshares” and called them a “subterfuge,” it appears that to get the healthiest possible milk (not milked all through pregnancy), you will have to own your own cow.Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our government valued informed consumer choice instead of relying on misinformation to serve the interests of big food operations?A new farm bill will be drafted soon. We hear that healthy milk, and not just raw milk but even healthier pasteurized products like organic milk, will be under attack in the bill. We’ll monitor the situation and keep everyone posted.

Cancers, Infectious Diseases, and Lifestyle Illnesses: Why “Miracle Drugs” Are the Problem, Not the Solution

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:00:24 +0000

The medical industry’s obsession with bigger, more powerful (and above all, patentable!) medicines may lead to killer pandemics.We frequently discuss the global threat of superbugs—drug-resistant bacteria, which are created in two ways:

If a drug can kill, say, 95% of bacteria, the 5% that remain are by definition much stronger than the others, not killed by current medicines, and can then reproduce without any interference or competition from other bacteria, allowing them to quickly take over.
Drugs target specific bacterial proteins, so any new mutation in these proteins will interfere with or negate the drug’s destructive effect, resulting in antibiotic resistance. Drug resistance is a natural response to pressures imposed on any living organism: you must adapt, or you die. Many adapt. Many become resistant to more than one drug, making them even harder to kill.

A few weeks ago we told you about weeds becoming resistant to the lethal pesticide Roundup, creating strains of “superweeds.” It’s the same principle at work.Drug resistance has wide-reaching effects. Cancer cells may develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs. And multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is one of the most widespread diseases in the world today.What is causing this “epidemic” of drug-resistant bugs? For one thing, as we noted two weeks ago, animals in CAFOs are given a steady diet of antibiotics to prevent disease—and then the antibiotics are passed to us in their meat and milk, and run-off from these factory farms puts antibiotics into the water table. At the same time, drug-resistant bacteria can arise from seemingly safe activities such as the use of bleach, hand sanitizers and antibacterial soaps.Using standard antibiotic regimens, there is a one-in-ten chance that treatment of an E. coli infection will fail because the bacterium is resistant. As more bugs become resistant, there will be increasing pressure to use more powerful antibiotics, called carbapenems, which are the last line currently available—and resistance to those is already emerging: in the last two or three years, some organisms have come along which destroy carbapenems.The pharmaceutical industry is all too aware of the problem of resistance, and experts openly fear we’re letting ourselves in for diseases that will be impossible to treat. At the same time, drug companies have lost interest in developing new antibiotics—partly because it is so difficult to find new agents, especially ones that can be proven safe. More to the point, it is not commercially viable—antibiotics are taken only for a few days at a time, compared with, say, a heart drug which may be taken for life. To maximize their investment, Big Pharma wants drugs that will give them a constant income stream.There are exceptions. There is buzz about a compound found in Chilean avocados which lowers the amount of antibiotics needed; they hope it could increase the efficacy of antibiotics against superbugs. So of course researchers are now trying to synthesize and patent it as a drug. Critics fear this synthetic will only create super-superbugs.This approach—using bigger and bigger guns, to which the bugs also respond by becoming bigger and more lethal—is as wrong-headed as it is possible to be. Natural cures are not only safest, they’re also far more effective.Look, for example, at the use of intravenous vitamin C as an antiviral and a cancer therapy. Silver is one of the most effective agents against pathogens—and they can’t develop resistance to it. A new study also shows that silver packs as much of a punch against cancer cells as a leading chemotherapy drug, and could reduce the negative side effects that accompany such treatment. Insulin potentiation therapy, or IPT, similarly shows great promise against cancer when coupled with ordinary chemotherapy drugs used in very low doses, and may also be coupled with other natural therapies such as IV-C.Dr. Frank Shallenberger has been exploring various treatments for hepatitis and liver disease—which more than three million Americans battle—and finds great promise in intravenous vitamin C (he also agrees that IV-C is a good treatment for most major viruses).Manuka honey has exceptional antibacterial properties, and has been found to be effective against MRSA (staphylococcus aureus), strains of bacteria which are notoriously resistant to antibiotics. Several herbs are powerful antibacterials, and garlic has strong antibiotic and antifungal properties.And of course vitamin D may be the best tool of all to fight colds, flu, and flu pandemics.The great difficulty is that there are so many natural treatments available, but most people won’t ever learn of them for two reasons:

Natural substances cannot be patented in their natural form. If they’re not patentable, big companies won’t make big bucks from them, and they won’t shell out the millions and millions of dollars necessary to do the double-blind studies that would prove the substances’ efficacy and safety. The best they can do is to synthesize one element of the substance, patent it, take it through the drug trials, and then prevent everyone else from selling the natural forms of the substance.
Supplement manufacturers and natural product distributors aren’t allowed to talk about why their product is healthy for you. They aren’t allowed to cite even peer-reviewed scientific studies—you may remember that cherry growers and walnut processors were found to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for daring to mention their health-giving properties, because by saying they prevent, mitigate, or treat disease, you are causing them to be drugs.

At least this second problem is fixable today. Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R–UT) and Jared Polis (D–CO) have introduced the Free Speech about Science Act (HR 1364). 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.If this bill passes, it 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. Support the Free Speech About Science Act by writing to your congressional representative and asking him or her to co-sponsor the legislation. Take action today!

Dietitian HQ Now Resorting to Sneak Attacks

ANH-USA — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:00:48 +0000

Your activism is once again bearing fruit—but the dietetic monopoly is fighting back with its most underhanded move yet.We are seeing a number of state victories in the battle against monopolization of nutrition services by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (see below). You may know it better as the American Dietetic Association, or ADA—the organization changed its name last month to explicitly claim authority over the word “nutrition”!Certified nutritionists and concerned citizens are voicing their objections to the organization’s blatant collusion with the junk food and big pharmaceutical industries (visit the Really Eat Right campaign website for details on why this is such a vital health issue), and because you are fighting back, the legislation they sponsored is being defeated in state after state. As a result, dietitian leaders are feeling the pressure—so they are striking back with sneaky and frankly disingenuous maneuvers. In one state, dietitians were able to get an amendment inserted into a completely unrelated bill with almost no notice to the public!WisconsinThe Wisconsin Dietetic Association attached an amendment to AB 547, which was being considered by the Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Homeland Security and State Affairs for a vote. Why wasn’t it introduced before a health committee? Because that’s where advocates would be expecting it, and this was a way to have it slip by unnoticed. There was no public notice of the amendment until one day before the hearing—hardly a democratic process!—and so there was almost no opportunity for the public to give their input to their legislators. The bill itself, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with nutrition.The bill’s language changes what is currently certification to licensure, since many private insurers will not reimburse for nutrition services unless providers are licensed. However, even the current “certification” law is deeply biased because only Registered Dietitians (that is, those who have passed the exam administered by the Commission on Dietetic Registration of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) can become certified.This will give RDs an economic advantage and severely affect the business of other nutrition professionals. It will also give nutritionists second-class status in the eyes of the public—because even though nutritionists are are equally qualified (or more highly qualified) than dietitians, by Wisconsin law they cannot be licensed as nutritionists unless they are dietitians!The bill passed the committee with the amendment intact—and with only two legislators opposed. Next the bill goes before the full Assembly, where it will be far more difficult to stop. There will, however, be one more hearing—probably on March 6—so there is time to oppose the bill. If you are a Wisconsin resident, please take action now!IllinoisWisconsin’s neighbor to the south, Illinois, already has a horrible monopolistic scope-of-practice bill carved out for dietitians. With SB 2936, however, AND (formerly ADA) is attempting to amend the existing law that regulates dietitians to make it more comprehensive; it also increases fines to $10,000 per violation for practicing dietetic or nutrition services without a license. SB 2936 also makes the state board even more biased, changing the composition from seven members (with a physician and a nurse required to be members) to five members (and no medical professional as a member)—with four of the seats being filled by licensed dietitians!We are working with our allies in Illinois to fight the bill. If you are a resident of Illinois, please take action on now!Some Recent VictoriesBecause of your excellent grassroots activism and our working with a coalition of nutritionists and educating state legislators, some of our recent campaigns have found success. Thank you for making your voice heard!

In California, AB 575 was defeated! We are now setting up meetings with legislators to continue to educate them.
In Indiana, HB 1187 was defeated! The bill died in committee.
In Colorado, HB 1060 was defeated—seven legislators voted against it when it was heard in the committee! Even though the Colorado regulatory agency has stated that Colorado did not need licensure for RDs and that this was unnecessary legislation, the Dietitians HQ (the AND, formerly the ADA) sponsors a new bill in the state every year in an attempt to strengthen its monopoly.
In Virginia, HB345 was a controversial bill that would have allowed only licensed dietitians to practice a wide range of nutrition services including nutrition diagnosis and intervention. Because citizens opposed it so strongly, the decision to hear the bill was passed over till 2013! We will keep close watch on the bill if and when it is picked up again next year.
In West Virginia, HB4045 was a bill whereby only licensed dietitians could practice dietetics or medical nutrition therapy. Four of the five board members would have been registered or licensed dietitians, and since the exam to qualify for licensure will be board-determined, it would almost certainly be the dietitians’ exam. Practicing without a license would have brought a fine of between $100 and $1000, or a jail sentence of up to six months. Thousands of ANH-USA members in West Virginia took action and met with their state representatives, and ANH-USA lobbied the state legislature. They heard our case and refused to take up the bill in the House Judiciary committee. We built great relationships in West Virginia and will continue to work there whenever nutrition access is threatened. The bill will officially die tomorrow, February 29.

Work Still Needed in Other States

In Hawaii, HB 2570 has been heard twice (and amended twice after exhaustive hearings). The current version of the bill is slightly better but the language is vague enough that it will not provide enough protection for nutritionists. Penalties remain at $1000 per violation, and each day’s violation is deemed a separate offense. If you are a resident of Hawaii, please take action now!

The status of A5666 in New York and S833 in New Jersey have not changed since our report a couple of weeks ago. Many of our readers have emailed to volunteer their help, so we are continuing to work on educating and meeting with legislators. If you are a resident of New York, please take action here! If you are a resident of New Jersey, please take action here!

FDA Advisory Panel Green-Lights Toxic Weight Loss Pill

ANH-USA — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:00:36 +0000

The FDA had previously rejected this very same drug for safety reasons. So how do they explain the sudden flip-flop?Last week, the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drug Advisory Committee voted 20 to 2 to recommend approval of Qnexa, a diet pill that has documented risks of causing birth defects and heart problems. The committee’s approval pretty much paves the way for full FDA approval. If approved, Qnexa would be the first new prescription weight-loss medication since 1999. There is only one other diet prescription medication currently on the market: Orlistat (marketed under the trade name Xenical), which tends to cause loose, oily stools, along with a host of other possible side effects, some of which may be serious.Qnexa was rejected twice, once in October 2010 over heart risk concerns, and again in January 2011 because one of its ingredients can cause cleft lips in the children of women who take it. Qnexa is a combination of two existing drugs, the appetite suppressant phentermine and the anti-seizure medication topiramate. Both have serious risks.PubMed Health lists 63 side effects for topiramate. It can prevent you from sweating and make it harder for your body to cool down when it gets very hot. It can also harm fetuses and cause birth defects, cause kidney stones and osteoporosis, and alter your mental health “in unexpected ways” and cause you to become suicidal. Last year, the FDA reclassified topiramate as a class D drug, meaning that it carries risks to a fetus but may still be acceptable for use in pregnant women despite the risks!Side effects of phentermine include cardiovascular adverse effects (heart palpitations, dizziness, chest pain, edema, and increased blood pressure), not to mention vomiting and diarrhea. Other reported adverse effects include convulsions, hallucinations, hostility with urge to attack, mania followed by depression, and panic.Put the two together and you have a real winner of a diet drug! What’s more, diet drugs often exert their weight loss effects only while the drug is being taken. This promotes “yo-yo dieting,” which leads to more weight gain and is more likely to increase the risk of heart attack, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and other serious health problems.Does anyone imagine that the average overweight patient who is prescribed this drug will have a clue what’s in it, or what they could be letting themselves in for?Officials for Vivus Inc., Qnexa’s manufacturer, have proposed a “tightly controlled system” for prescribing Qnexa to prevent birth defects, including “limits on which pharmacies can dispense the medication, such as registered mail-order pharmacies.” Of course, we can think of another way to prevent birth defects or cardiovascular problems from Qnexa: don’t approve it in the first place! As Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, points out, “Diet drug history is littered with those banned only after they found out about cardiovascular risk areas.”What is causing the reckless and irrational approval of such an obviously dangerous drug? One of the driving forces is the pharmaceutical industry’s sense of panic. The patents on their biggest money-making drugs are expiring, which will cause drug prices (and profits) to plummet when generic versions become available. So Big Pharma is desperate for new blockbuster drugs—and FDA is beholden to the pharmaceutical industry. The drug industry, having been exposed for over-hyping the “cholesterol problem” for the sake of its own profit, now sees the obesity epidemic as the next opportunity for exploitation.Predictably, according to investment experts, Qnexa is poised to become “the next Lipitor” (as if that's a good thing!). The cholesterol drug Lipitor had $10.7 billion in sales in 2010 before losing patent protection last year. Analysts say Qnexa, if approved, may generate $448 million in sales in 2015.With so few weight loss medications on the market and obesity at epidemic levels in America, the panel felt that the risks posed by obesity outweighed the drug’s side effects. Dr. David Katz, of the Yale Prevention Research Center, said, “This is far from a great drug. The FDA panel recommended approval of Qnexa only because the ranks of useful weight loss drugs are so thin, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Approval of Qnexa would reflect that...desperation.”The irony, of course, is that healthy, natural solutions for weight loss and management are being ignored, as we explained in our popular article on the subject. And just last week, natural health expert Dr. Joseph A. Mercola explained how eating fat does not make a person fat—but the overconsumption of carbohydrates does: “Overeating carbohydrates can prevent a higher percentage of fats from being used for energy, and lead to an increase in fat production and storage. It also raises your insulin levels, which in short order can cause insulin resistance, followed by diabetes. Insulin resistance is also at the heart of virtually every chronic disease known to modern man.”The FDA is expected to decide by April 17 whether or not to accept the advisory panel’s recommendation to approve Qnexa. The agency usually follows the recommendations of its advisory panels but is not required to do so.How outrageous is it that FDA will consider green-lighting an incredibly toxic drug, but won’t let supplement producers make weight loss claims for safe, natural products? FDA has created a situation where consumers cannot be told about the health benefits of nutritional supplements and natural foods because FDA is censoring the manufacturers. This forces consumers into a situation where they only hear the endless advertisements from drug makers and major media—something that will increase dramatically if Qnexa gets approved.

A drug manufacturer has petitioned FDA to stop supplement producers from even mentioning the words “weight” or “weight loss” in ads. If the FDA agrees, food or supplement competition for weight loss drugs will be wiped out in one stroke. Don’t let them think we’ve fallen asleep on this issue—take action now!

USDA Decides the Current Rush to Rubber-Stamp GMO Foods Is Too Slow!

ANH-USA — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:00:41 +0000

And who’s siding with Monsanto? Phony “food safety advocates” masquerading as political progressives.In an attempt to cut already too rapid approval times for genetically engineered seeds in half, the US Department of Agriculture will, under forthcoming rules (expected in March), give GE seed companies—including the Monsanto Company—faster regulatory reviews.USDA now says it plans to invite public comments as soon as seed developers file a complete petition for deregulation rather than waiting until the end of the review process. However, faster rulings will almost certainly mean that public comments will get short shrift. The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, will get to address the public’s concerns (that is, argue against them) earlier in the process, and GE crops reviews will get rubber stamped even faster than the current average of about three years.This is precisely what the GMO industry wants. If they can get the approval time reduced, they can sidestep opposition and start getting sales that much faster.In 1906, American author Upton Sinclair wrote a scathing book about the meat packing industry called The Jungle. The book caused such an uproar that within a few months, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act—two of the most important early food safety laws in the country—were passed by Congress.Leading the call for food safety reforms were people who came to call themselves progressives; in fact, one of the biggest platforms for progressives of the era was to improve food safety. Yet today, one of the largest “public interest” food safety advocacy groups is in fact a biotech apologist—and an active defender of genetically engineered foods.The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says its mission is to “reduce the burden of foodborne illnesses” and “provide solid safety advice to consumers,” while their “staff of experts encourages policymakers, government regulators, and the food industry to work harder to protect American consumers from contaminated food.” At the same time, however, CSPI firmly sides with Monsanto and the GE industry.Currently, CSPI is defending former Monsanto lobbyist Mike Taylor—who is now the head of food safety at FDA—from a petition that’s gaining speed online. The petition urges President Obama to reconsider the appointment and remove Taylor from his position. Michael Jacobson, CSPI’s executive director, wrote in an open letter to MoveOn.org, “Michael Taylor is a devoted public official and I thought it was outrageous that he was being attacked in this mindless petition.”Mindless petition? Why exactly is President Obama, a self-described political progressive, putting a Monsanto executive in charge of food safety? What would Upton Sinclair say about that? How can this be anything but a betrayal of progressivism’s roots? And how can CSPI defend what it is doing?Here is what a MoveOn director says about it: “Michael Taylor is just another example of the revolving door between lobbyists and government that has made the American people so distrustful of Washington politics. Mr. Taylor went from working at the FDA to working at Monsanto and back to the FDA. Of course this back-and-forth raises questions about his ability to remain impartial regarding decisions that impact Monsanto's bottom line.”Shockingly, CSPI even wrote FDA asking the agency to silence companies that have been telling customers their foods do not contain GE ingredients!One of CSPI’s harshest critics has been Doug Gurian-Sherman, PhD. He is a senior scientist in the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where he focuses on agricultural biotechnology and sustainable agriculture. He is the author of numerous papers and reports, including Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops, and CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations.But note this: he was the founding co-director and science director for the biotechnology project at CSPI! And he says the organization is wrong on GMO:

CSPI seems to have forgotten basic biology in its new report, complaining that APHIS and FDA are taking too long reviewing petitions to deregulate genetically engineered (GE) crops.... CSPI is simply wrong on the science.... GE causes unintended effects, where even the same gene inserted into the same crop as previously done can cause new unexpected, possibly harmful, changes in the plant.

The current pace and volume of GMO approval at USDA is already out of control, as we’ve seen with recent corn, alfalfa, and sugar beet approvals, even in the face of court rulings to slow down. Now with USDA ready to implement a set of “easy pass” regulations for GE foods, the floodgates will be open wide. Presumably that’s the idea: make it happen so fast it will be irreversible, and if it destroys organic agriculture in the process, that’s just too bad.Environmental policy seems to change from administration to administration, but GMO policy, which is such a threat to our environment, doesn’t change at all no matter who is in power. Why are food safety advocates—both citizens and politicians— who should be the most zealous supporters of natural and organic foods, so blind to the terrible dangers of genetically engineered crops and foods?

Toxic Chemical Being Sold as a Health-Conscious Sweetener

ANH-USA — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:00:45 +0000

Splenda Essentials pretend to be health-supporting, when in fact they seem to have more in common with pesticides than with sugar.Sucralose, sold under the brand name Splenda, is simply chlorinated sugar; in chemical terms, it is a chlorocarbon. The idea behind this is that the body would no longer recognize it as sugar. But, as Johns Hopkins-trained physician and biochemist James Bowen, MD, points out, chlorine is “nature's Doberman attack dog—a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid.” Common chlorocarbons include chlordane and DDT, a product so harmful that it is now banned for agricultural use the world over.Now Splenda is selling a product called Splenda Essentials. Different formulations contain B vitamins, antioxidants (vitamins C and E), or fiber. The marketing and advertising appear to be targeting health-conscious people who are interested in vitamins and nutrition—despite the fact that Splenda is highly toxic and has no place in a healthy diet.Splenda’s advertising says the addition of B1, B5, and B6 “help support a healthy metabolism.” The antioxidant product “contains vitamin C and E, like those found in fruits and vegetables,” while the fiber product is touted as containing “one gram of healthy fiber.” It is worth noting that the regular Splenda product already contains fiber—the powdery dextrose and/or maltodextrin that forms the carrier for the sweetener—but only between 0.5 and 1.0 grams of it. For the fiber product, they bumped it up an even 1.0 grams. Whoopee.For the vitamins, Splenda has added 20% of the recommended daily allowance; for the fiber, they’ve added 0.03% of the RDA. But let’s compare those amounts with the recommendations from the late scientist, researcher, and physician Dr. Emanuel Cheraskin of the International Academy of Science:

	B1	B5	B6	C	E	Fiber
RDA	1.2 mg	5 mg	15 mg	85 mg	15 mg (22.35 IU)	32 mg
Amount per packet	0.24 mg	1 mg	3 mg	17 mg	4.5 IU	1 mg
Cheraskin	25 mg	100–200 mg	25 mg	1,000 mg	450 IU

With the minute amounts of nutrients per packet, one would need to be consuming unconscionable numbers of packets to make any impact at all on one’s health—that is, provided one weren’t also consuming the sucralose itself! As we noted last year, Splenda alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to a Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!) and an elevation of liver enzymes, which hurts the bioavailability of nutrients.In “The Lethal Science of Splenda, a Poisonous Chlorocarbon,” Dr. Bowen says that “any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs. The liver is a detoxification organ which deals with ingested poisons. Chlorocarbons damage the hepatocytes, the liver’s metabolic cells, and destroy them.”Dr. Bowen notes that the high solvency of chlorocarbons like Splenda attacks the human nervous system and can produce cancer, birth defects, and immune system destruction. In test animals, Splenda produced swollen livers (as do all chlorocarbon poisons), calcified their kidneys, shrunk their thymus glands (the biological seat of immunity) and produced liver inflammation.Our colleagues at ANH-Europe point out other adverse effects in animals as a result of sucralose ingestion: DNA damage in gastrointestinal organs, increase in the number of normal cells in the surface tissue of the kidney, hemorrhagic degeneration of the adrenal cortex (which regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism, salt, and water balance), incidence of cataracts, marked gastrointestinal disturbance, and deaths in pregnant rabbits and aborted rabbit fetuses. Splenda’s adverse effects in humans include headaches and migraines and a long list of consumer-reported side effects including skin rashes/flushing, panic-like agitation, dizziness and numbness, diarrhea, swelling, muscle aches, intestinal cramping, bladder issues, and stomach pain.Splenda has replaced aspartame as the number one artificial sweetener in foods and beverages; aspartame’s popularity declined after the public learned that that it is both a neurotoxin and an underlying cause of chronic illness. As Dr. Bowen warns, “We should not be fooled again into accepting the safety of a toxic chemical on the blessing of the FDA and saturation advertising. In terms of potential long-term human toxicity we should regard sucralose with its chemical cousin DDT, the insecticide now outlawed because of its horrendous long term toxicities at even minute trace levels in human, avian, and mammalian tissues.”Splenda’s online marketing includes a series of YouTube videos called Splenda Essential Choices for Healthy Living, which features an ADA-certified Registered Dietitian giving people health advice—though we might call it “natural health lite”—including prominent endorsements of Splenda Essentials.ANH-USA is filing a citizen petition with the Federal Trade Commission regarding Splenda’s deceptive advertising. Their marketing clearly targets health-conscious people interested in nutrition, while trying to pass off a toxic chemical as healthy.

Big Farma Once Again Walking All Over Your Safety—and the Constitution

ANH-USA — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:00:03 +0000

The agriculture industry is trying to make it a crime to be an undercover investigator at a factory farm. Goodbye, whistleblowers! Farewell, freedom of speech!Last year, “ag gag” bills were introduced in a number of states. Happily, most were defeated due to overwhelming opposition from our grassroots activists, concerned citizens, and organizations of all political stripes. Unfortunately, many of these bills are back this year, and the dangers are even greater.The bills introduced last year would have made it illegal to videotape or take a picture on a factory farm—even when an an illegal act was occurring. This is obviously unconstitutional; Iowa’s attorney general even told their legislature so.This year’s bills would make it a crime to be an undercover investigator. A bill in Nebraska, for example, intends “to create the offense of obtaining employment at an animal facility with intent to disrupt operations.” Imagine if such bills were passed—think of all the industries that would line up with similar bills to protect their illegal or unethical operations from your prying eyes!The conditions in these facilities breed disease. Animals are preemptively fed a constant stream of antibiotics to prevent disease, which creates “super bugs”—bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. Moreover, the antibiotics then get into the water table, which we also use and consume.Both the animals and the people that work there are subjected to what can only be described as atrocities. Moreover, confining so many animals in one place produces much more waste than the surrounding land can handle. As a result, factory farms are associated with various environmental hazards, such as water, land and air pollution, and people who live in close proximity to factory farms often complain of high incidents of illness.For years, undercover investigations have revealed conditions on some factory farms that result in extreme animal suffering, and the few safety mechanisms that exist for CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) were created when conditions in these places were exposed and people took action. People have the right—and the responsibility—to know where their food comes from and under what conditions it was produced.Though the language has changed somewhat in this year’s bills, they have the same intent: to shield agribusiness from public scrutiny by punishing whistleblowers.In Iowa, SF431, referred to as the “Whistleblower Suppression Bill,” might be brought up for a vote at any time in the Iowa Senate. SF431 is an attempt by the factory farm industry to criminalize basic watchdog functions at factory farms: the bill would make it illegal to produce or possess a video or audio recording of the facility without prior consent of the facility owner. In addition, the bill defines a broad range of already illegal activities—such as trespassing, theft, and fraud—as “animal/crop facility tampering” and would place harsher penalties on these crimes than if they are committed anywhere else in the state. If you are an Iowa resident, take action now!Nebraska’s LB915 is a new bill that forces CAFO employees to make a report within twelve hours of witnessing animal abuse, and tightens other requirements to make the reporting process more difficult—and ensures that only legitimate employees (who perhaps can ill-afford to lose their job) can make such a report by banning whistleblowers: “Any person who obtains employment at an animal facility with the intent to disrupt the normal operations of the animal facility is guilty of a Class IV felony.” If you are a Nebraska resident, take action now!In Utah, HB187 would make an investigator “guilty of agricultural operation interference if the person, without the consent of the owner of the operation, records an image of, or sound from, an agricultural operation.” If you are a Utah resident, take action now!

Healthy Milk: What Is It?

ANH-USA — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:00:08 +0000

And what’s standing in the way of your getting it?A report from Harvard suggests that milk from factory farms may be associated with hormone-related cancers because of the industrial agricultural practice of milking a cow throughout her pregnancy. The later in pregnancy a cow is, the more hormones appear in her milk. Milk from a cow in the late stage of pregnancy contains up to 33 times as much of a signature estrogen compound (estrone sulfate) as milk from a cow following pregnancy, as well as much higher levels of other hormones.The very healthiest milk would therefore be raw, grass-fed, organic, and from a cow that is only milked for the first six months after giving birth (which would include the first four months of a new pregnancy).Why can’t we get milk that even remotely resembles this ideal?It’s because federal regulatory policy, controlled by special interests like the dairy industry, is making our milk even more unhealthy—and shackling consumer choice.Congress is set to introduce the 2012 Farm Bill, which will set the course of federal agriculture and food assistance programs for the next five years. It will have a major impact on farmers, consumers, rural communities, and global agribusiness—a primary beneficiary of US federal agriculture programs.Current federal regulations are designed to encourage farmers to take dairy cows off pasture and put them into CAFOs (see our article on factory farms in this issue). The regulations, called the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, are written for stationary systems to increase milk production per cow; this is known as the Total Confinement Dairy Model—that is, the huge dairy factory farms. This practice, however, cuts the productive life expectancy of the cow in half or even more, creates unmanageable disease (not to mention an environmental disaster), and hurts smaller organic dairy farmers. The real solution is to find the most cost-effective models specific to a region’s particular environment, and balance that with the health of the cow and the best possible milk product. For example, what works in the arid climates of the western US (evaporative systems to keep cows comfortable) will not work in the more humid climate of the southeast.The federal government seems to feel that “all milk is the same,” whereas the nutrient content (such as butterfat and protein) varies greatly between different breeds of cows. According to our sources, the 2012 Farm Bill may contain provisions to outlaw “component pricing” of milk, in which a producer is paid more for higher protein, or higher butterfat milk. Component pricing tends to incentivize higher quality milk and better agricultural practices, because healthy cows put to pasture will produce more valuable milk than sick cows in stalls. Some states have tried to create better policies for milk. California, for example, has higher standards for components of 1% and 2% milk than the government requires—higher protein content, more calcium, and so forth. Yet the government is trying to stop shut down California’s standards.The federal government is also fighting local, organic, and small dairy producers, mainly because of its cozy relationships with Big Dairy (the USDA’s Dairy Industry Advisory Committee). And then there’s the pseudo-independent Dairy Management, Inc. (DMI), which owns the trade names American Dairy Association, National Dairy Council, and US Dairy Export Council. DMI claims to have been “created by farmers, for farmers, and is funded by America’s dairy farm families—and only by dairy farmers. It does not use any government or taxpayer dollars to promote dairy products in the United States.” What DMI doesn’t reveal, but the New York Times does, is that DMI is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the USDA—the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting, as we discussed last year. Conflict of interest, anyone?You may recall that there is a new proposal afoot to merge USDA’s food safety wing with FDA’s food safety unit. As we noted last month, the real issue is that USDA is in the pocket of the agricultural industry (“Big Farma”)—the administration instead wants to shift food safety over to the FDA, where both Big Farma and Big Pharma rule the roost.As you know, the FDA has a vendetta against raw milk. Raw milk (which is far more healthful than pasteurized milk) is allowed in some states, though the FDA is shutting down raw milk production whenever it can. Just this month, the FDA shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, DC, region. A judge banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, which resulted in the closing of his dairy operation—a decision that enraged Allgyer’s customers, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children. These customers owned “cowshares” and therefore were part- owners of the cow, but the judge ruled that this was a subterfuge.As Dr. Joseph Mercola reminds us, there have been no deaths in 38 years from consuming raw milk—ever since the data started being collected. There have been over 80 deaths from pasteurized milk during that same time period, including 50 people who were killed in 1985 alone by cheese from pasteurized milk.If you have not done so already, please contact your representative and ask him or her to support HR 1830, the Unpasteurized Milk Bill. This bill would allow the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines. This legislation removes an unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell or otherwise distribute—and people who wish to consume—raw milk and milk products. Also ask your senators to introduce and support similar legislation in the Senate. Take action now!

FDA Isn’t Listening—Time to Turn Up the Heat!

ANH-USA — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:50:47 +0000

A champion of supplements in the House sends a warning to FDA. Persuade others in Congress to join him with our Action Alert! As we reported last week, FDA has flatly refused to listen to the Senate, rejecting the call of Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to withdraw its disastrous New Dietary Ingredient draft guidance and start over. You may recall that Harkin and Hatch are the original drafters of DSHEA, the law that requires supplement manufacturers to submit notifications whenever an NDI is introduced into the marketplace. FDA’s job was to articulate how those notifications are to be submitted, but they ignored the original intent of Congress and created a de facto approval system for any supplement or ingredient created or changed over the past eighteen years. Now Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) has composed a letter to FDA expressing regret over FDA’s dismissal of Senators Hatch and Harkin’s request and reiterating that Congress did not intend to give FDA pre-market review of new dietary ingredients, nor did it intend to permit the agency to treat dietary ingredients in the same manner as food additives. The letter goes on to articulate the legal problems with FDA’s proposal, and strongly urges FDA to withdraw its guidance and instead design a fair and workable NDI notification system. It also requests that FDA refrain from taking any enforcement action that is based solely on positions articulated in the draft guidance that are not unequivocally grounded in the law. Rep. Chaffetz’s letter to FDA ends with a warning that, in the unfortunate event that FDA does not withdraw this guidance as requested, legislation to clarify current statute will be considered. Let’s show FDA that the House means business—that there is support from Democrats and Republicans alike to withdraw the draft guidance altogether, so that consumers won’t lose access to thousands of supplements. Please write to your congressional representative and ask that he or she sign onto Rep. Chaffetz’s letter to FDA. Reiterate the serious concerns with NDI guidance—how it severely threatens access to thousands of supplements, even though supplements have a proven safety record (unlike FDA-approved drugs!) And if you haven’t yet asked your representative to make a one-minute floor speech on this subject, please do that as well. Please take action today!

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Please note that because members of US Congress only accepts messages from residents of the districts they represent, this alert is restricted to US residents.

Louisiana State Medical Board Disgraces Itself (Plus an Update on Dr. Burzynski in Neighboring Texas)

ANH-USA — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:30:53 +0000

Eight integrative doctors are under attack in Louisiana. Help them with our Action Alert. We have discussed the biases of state medical boards against integrative practitioners—the problem is systemic across the US. Now there appears to be a pattern of abuse against CAM practitioners in Louisiana. Here’s one example: An integrative physician, who wishes to remain anonymous, was recently subjected to a complaint filed by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME). The complaint represented the LSBME’s attempt to disguise its bias against the doctor’s integrative treatments by targeting a minor record-keeping violation and slapping him with penalties far beyond what such small infractions usually incur. The doctor appealed the decision and had many of the penalties revoked, yet the board still tried to suspend the doctor—against the ruling of the court! After further legal battles, the doctor prevailed, but in the process suffered loss of income and loss of patients, not to mention having to pay for the court battle. Other Louisiana doctors are under attack as well. The LSMBE is reportedly calling compounding pharmacists to find out which physicians are prescribing bioidentical hormones like estriol. Our source revealed that she knows at least eight physicians who have been targeted by the board—at least one of whom was forced to sign a consent decree, because she didn’t have funds to fight the LSMBE. Many doctors sign consent decrees to stop harassment from the board—but often it just makes the situation worse, because boards use those decrees to build a case against the doctor, trying to catch them on consent decree technicalities, and also saying it proves that the integrative treatments are outside the regular standard of care. Part of the problem is that the Louisiana statute for CAM practitioners is contradictory and weak, making it open to abuse by a biased medical board. According to a legal team working on the LSBME attacks, the Louisiana statute “is intended to provide physicians practice latitude, as evidenced by the statement that: ‘The use of integrative or complementary medicine for the diagnosis or treatment of any illness, disease or condition, constitutes legitimate medical therapy...’ [but] CAM therapies are constrained by having to ‘comply with the standard of care applicable to conventional medicine practitioners.’ ” In other words, practitioners are protected only if they adhere to the standard of care applicable to conventional medicine practitioners. The law provides a basis for sanctioning a practitioner for using a CAM therapy or diagnostic procedure—irrespective of the lack of patient harm or the positive outcome of the therapy—simply because the therapy or diagnostic procedure is not accepted by conventional medicine as the standard of care. Ostensibly, the LSMBE has an Integrative and Complementary Medicine Committee. LSMBE put up the website with all the committee members listed, but when the members were actually phoned, it was revealed that the board has never bothered to convene this group or provide them with any funding! It appears that the board is creating the illusion that they are tolerant of integrative medicine when the reality is very different. If you are a Louisiana resident, please write to the LSMBE today. Tell them that Louisiana regulations are supposed to provide integrative physicians latitude—and LSMBE should comply with the law. Tell them the board should not allow personal biases against integrative medicine to influence their oversight. Finally, ask them to make sure the Integrative and Complimentary Medicine Committee is funded and meets regularly—and ask them to listen to the committee’s recommendations.

Louisiana’s neighbor, Texas, has an infamous state medical board, and you may recall our story last November about Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD. Dr. Burzynski developed (using his own money) a nontoxic gene-targeted cancer therapy called antineoplastons. It has been shown to effectively help cure some of the most “incurable” forms of terminal cancer. In the 1980s, the Texas Medical Board charged him with breaking a law that didn’t actually exist, and tried to revoke his medical license. Numerous investigations later—including an appearance before the Texas Supreme Court—found no violation of any law or standard of care. The FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, and the National Cancer Institute, knowing how promising Dr. Burzynski’s therapy was proving to be, tried to duplicate his invention, then tried to steal his patents—but failed. Now the Texas Medical Board is making yet another attempt to revoke Dr. Burzynski’s medical license which, if successful, would result in the closure of his clinic, the abandonment of all his patients, and would forever end any possibility of antineoplastons gaining FDA-approval. Now it is coming to a head—a date has been set for the beginning of the court case: April 11, 2012. Dr. Burzynski’s fight was chronicled in a stunning documentary film, Burzynski: The Movie. More info on the documentary can be found at the film’s website, while the movie itself can be viewed online for a limited time. ANH-USA sent DVDs of the Dr. Burzynski documentary to all the members of the Texas legislature, as well as to Texas Governor Rick Perry—and his copy was signed by the film’s director! If you are a resident of Texas, please write to the Texas legislative Oversight Committees and Gov. Rick Perry, and tell them to stop the TMB’s harassment of Dr. Burzynski.

Can We Succeed in Pushing Back Against Dangerous Genetically Engineered Foods?

ANH-USA — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:00:14 +0000

Yes! There are more and more anti-GMO campaigns across the country—with your help this effort can succeed! Genetically engineered food is the biggest uncontrolled experiment ever conducted on humans. Nearly all of our processed food contains genetically engineered ingredients. A handful of biotechnology companies dominate the US market and claim there is no safety risk to consumers, animals, or the environment. The evidence suggests quite the opposite. Remember the animal studies that showed sterility by the third generation? We’ve partnered with numerous campaigns and combined efforts to stop the GE food take over of our food supply. All of us need to keep taking action to support these campaigns. The federal government, no matter which party is in power, is unwilling or unable to stand up to the GE industry, so citizens must do it instead. The only reason major food manufacturers stopped contaminating the European food supply with GE food sources was because European citizens voiced their objection to GMO in massive numbers. Here are some of the major campaigns for which we need your support:

Petition the FDA to Label GMOs, with Congressional Support

The Center for Food Safety, on behalf of over 400 organizations and businesses, has filed a Citizen Petition with the FDA which states that GE foods are being mislabeled because consumers are mislead as to their origin and cannot differentiate GE foods that have known health problems from non-GE foods. This petition challenges FDA’s claim that GE foods are “substantially equivalent” to non-GE foods and that they therefore do not need to be labeled. According to the petition, non-GE foods that are not labeled as such are in fact misbranded—which FDA must, by law, take seriously. When FDA first stated this “substantial equivalence” policy in 1992, 98% of the public comment opposed it. Despite the fact the FDA has received strong pushback against their stance, FDA has never bothered to address any concerns, nor has the agency ever completed or released any information assessing the human health or environmental effects of genetically modified organisms. On February 6, a Dear Colleague Letter supporting the Citizen Petition was sent by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Please contact your senators and representative today and ask them to sign the Dear Colleague letter!

Please note that because members of US Congress only accepts messages from residents of the districts they represent, this alert is restricted to US residents.

California GMO Ballot Initiative

In October we reported on a California ballot initiative to require labeling of genetically engineered foods. Labeling is a big deal. You may remember the devastating quote from a Monsanto employee: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.” Of course, we would say that’s a good thing! ANH-USA has partnered with the campaign, and we’re doing our all we can to support the efforts. The campaign needs 500,000 valid signatures. Signature collection officially starts on Feb 18, but the campaign is signing up volunteers for signature collection trainings right now. Please go to the LabelGMOs.org events page, sign up, and make a change. You can also visit the Organic Consumers Fund to learn more.

State Bills on GMOs

In addition to California’s ballot initiative, there have been bills in a number of states requiring the labeling of GE foods. Hawaii:

HB2746, Relating to the Labeling of Genetically Engineered.
HB216, Relating to Food Labeling.
HB2034, Relating to Food Labeling
SB2443, Relating to Food Labeling; Genetically Engineered
SB2891, Relating to Food Labeling

Hawaii Residents Action AlertNew York: Four bills introduced in 2011 still need your help. Vermont: HB722, An Act Relating to the Labeling of Food Produced with Genetic Engineering Vermont Residents Action AlertWashington: HB2637 and SB6298 would require labeling of GE foods. Both bills have broad grassroots and bipartisan support. Washington Residents Action Alert

American Dietetic Association Speeds up its Race for Monopoly – Updated

ANH-USA — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:05:30 +0000

The ADA is starting 2012 on the attack by introducing bills in 9 states and preparing for more—trying to sew up a legally enforced national monopoly before opposition can mount. Action Alerts!These bills are very restrictive, and ensure that only ADA-registered dietitians can practice key nutrition services. This not only discriminates against many highly qualified nutritionists (including those who, unlike most Registered Dietitians, have Master’s degrees and PhDs), it also interferes with consumer choice. If trained nutritionists cannot become licensed, they can’t practice—and consumers can’t benefit from their expertise. Moreover, the advice that RDs provide is seriously flawed.As the Really Eat Right campaign notes, internal ADA documents reveal that the ADA is chiefly concerned not with consumer and patient interests, but with eliminating competition in the field of nutrition to allow RDs to operate more profitable and successful businesses. We recognize the ADA’s interest in promoting the profession of dietetics for its members. But the best way to help RDs is not to create a legally enforced monopoly. It is to provide them with the latest and best information in nutritional science. For instance, instead of providing a platform for Coca-Cola to instruct RDs that sugar is perfectly fine for children, they might invite esteemed medical professionals like Dr. Robert Lustig to instruct RDs in the serious health concerns over the consumption of sugar.The ADA receives about $1 million a year in payments from pharmaceutical companies, and allows pharmaceutical companies to market their controversial products at ADA events. At the 2007 ADA Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, GlaxoSmithKline was allowed to promote their first over-the-counter diet pill, Alli, even though the drug’s weight loss effectiveness is minimal and side effects such as hard-to-control bowel movements and anal discharge are common. The FDA has since issued warnings to Alli, noting the possibly of severe liver damage, and consumer groups are asking the FDA to remove Alli from the market.ADA also receives payments from Coca-Cola, Hershey, the National Dairy Council, Mars, PepsiCo, and others, though the organization won’t say exactly how much they receive from these candy and soft drink companies and industry associations. We have deep concerns about any organization having a monopoly on nutrition, but a junk-food-sponsored organization is even worse! The ADA already has a monopoly in many states and in many fields. Have you wondered why the food in hospitals is so poor and even a threat to people’s health? Yes, that is the result of ADA monopoly.Not only that, but the ADA encourages a conventional medical approach, which does nothing for chronic health problems. Nutritionists, on the other hand, and some excellent independent-thinking RDs (many of whom go on to get graduate degrees in nutrition) tend to take an integrative approach and concentrate on genuine prevention.Below we’ll outline the basics involved in each state bill. If you are a citizen of those states, please respond to the Action Alert for your state, or forward the alert to friends or family members who live in that state.If you are interested in getting even more involved, and wish to be part of our lobby meetings with your state legislators, please email us for more information.Please take action today!

California DEFEATED!

AB 575 would create a new Dietitians Bureau Bureau under the Department of Consumer Affairs. Under this bill, nutritionists are forced to take the ADA exam and become licensed as dietitians in order to practice, even if they already have a Master’s degree or a PhD. This is a perfect opportunity for California nutritionists to meet with legislators and educate them on the disastrous effects of the bill if it were to be passed.The bill is currently in committee; it needs to be voted upon there, and if passed, would then be taken up by the entire Assembly and voted on by January 31—or else it is considered defeated and cannot be brought up for further consideration. Given the budget constraints in California, passage of AB 575 won’t be automatic, and with the sponsor of the bill’s recent shoplifting conviction, there may not be another bill if this one is defeated. It is, however, not a “done deal,” and last year’s bill very nearly passed, so we need to stay vigilant and make sure California legislators know we’re not backing down.California residents please take action now!

Colorado DEFEATED!

HB 1060, introduced on January 1, would ensure that only Dietitians can practice (Colorado currently has no statute for nutrition professionals). This is a scope-of-practice bill that controls the practice of dietetics and medical nutrition therapy—which are defined very broadly to include nutrition assessment, nutrition care process, diagnosis, nutrition monitoring, and evaluation (things that nutritionists do as well). It would also create a Board, which would be controlled by Dietitians, thus ensuring a bias against nutritionists. The bill includes a penalty for practicing without a license: a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than six months, with each day of violation constituting a separate offense! Hearing on Monday, February 6! Colorado residents please take action now!

Hawaii DEFEATED!

HB 2570 would allow only licensed dietitians to "practice dietetics". “Dietetics practice” as defined in the bill encompasses a wide range of nutrition services including the integration and application of scientific principles of nutrition, biochemistry and food in achieving and maintaining human health. These are services performed routinely by many qualified and practicing nutritionists. HB 2570 effectively creates a monopoly on nutrition services exclusively for dietitians, denying consumers access to expert advice from nutritionists, some of the most highly educated and well-respected professionals in the field of nutrition.Hawaii residents please take action now!

Illinois

SB2936 effectively creates a monopoly on nutrition services exclusively for dietitians, denying consumers access to expert advice from nutritionists, some of the most highly educated and well-respected professionals in the field of nutrition. Illinois currently has a restrictive law in place for dietitians, but the Dietetic Association in Illinois wants to end any competition to their monopoly. Illinois residents please take action now!

Indiana - DEFEATED!

HB 1187 was introduced on January 8 and has been referred to the Committee on Public Health. This is a scope-of-practice bill that controls the “practice of dietetics” but also covers nutrition therapy (including medical nutrition therapy), nutrition assessments, nutrition care processes, nutrition care services, nutrition counseling, nutrition diagnoses, nutrition intervention, and nutrition monitoring and evaluation. All of the licensure requirements are the same as for ADA dietitian registration; the educational requirements include ADA-type courses not relevant to nutritionists such as taking a course in food management systems.Indiana residents please take action now!

New Jersey

S 833 was reintroduced on January 10. ADA pushed similar licensure bills in New Jersey during the previous legislative session without success, thanks to your activism! They are, however, persistent—so we must continue fighting them.This bill creates a licensure procedure for “licensed dietitians/nutritionists.” By lumping the two professions together, it ignores the vast philosophical differences between the two. This is a scope-of-practice bill which includes medical nutrition therapy, nutrition assessment, diagnosis, intervention, monitoring, and evaluation of nutrition care plans, nutrition support (including parenteral and enteral nutrition, nutritional counseling and education, and nutrition care standards and systems). Qualifications for licensure are the ADA requirements, which ignores the educational achievements of nutritionists and doesn’t acknowledge the differences between the two professions.New Jersey residents please take action now!

New York

A 5666 and its identical companion bill in the NY Senate, S 3556, provide for the licensure of dietitians and nutritionists. This proposed bill lumps dieticians and nutritionists together under one title, “Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist” or “LDN” rather than providing separate licensing for each.Before the legislature adjourned for the summer in 2011, the Senate version of the bill made it as far as the Senate rules committee, making a vote on the senate floor imminent. However, due to a groundswell of opposition from consumers and nutrition professionals in New York, the bill has been referred back to the Committee on Higher Education now that the legislature has reconvened in 2012.We have also learned that due to the many flaws in the bill (pointed out by our activists and nutrition allies) legislators in New York are considering making revisions to the bill. We’ll remain vigilant to make sure they make the right revisions. We have also received confirmation that at least one cosponsor of the bill, Sen. Joseph A. Griffo, has decided to drop his cosponsorship of the bill.A 5666 remains sitting in the assembly committee on higher education, where we left it in 2011.The bill would create a joint board, appointing four members of the ADA and three representing nutritional associations. It does not identify the required exam—but it directs the board to do so. We have run into this problem in other states, where the board, filled via statute by ADA reps, refuses any but the ADA exam. Note further that this is a title provision, meaning that they aren’t preventing the practice of nutrition (subject to these requirements), but they are limiting the title by which one may advertise! If they can’t advertise, that severely restricts their practice. So even though it is a titling restriction, in practice it becomes effectively a scope-of-practice restriction.New York currently recognizes examinations from other groups in addition to the ADA to qualify applicants for licensure—in particular the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists (CBNS), which is specifically designed for nutritionists. This bill allows the board to determine the qualifying exam, so once the ADA-majority board takes its first vote, the openness to CBNS and other organizations’ exams would be stopped. Moreover, along with passing the exam, an individual would still have to fulfill all the other requirements for licensure outlined in the bill—which are all standard-issue ADA.Any new legislation must keep nutritionists separate from dieticians (who will immediately take control of the licensing process), and must ensure the same protections.New York residents please take action now!

Virginia - DELAYED UNTIL 2013

HB 345 would allow only licensed dietitians to "medical nutrition therapy" and "nutrition care process. “ “Medical Nutrition Therapy” and "nutrition care process" as defined in the bill encompasses a wide range of nutrition services including including performing nutrition diagnosis and intervention, all of which fall in the scope of practice of any highly qualified and self respecting nutritionist. HB 345 effectively creates a monopoly on nutrition services exclusively for dietitians, denying consumers access to expert advice from nutritionists, some of the most highly educated and well-respected professionals in the field of nutrition.

West Virginia - DEFEATED

HB 4045 was introduced on January 12. If it passes, only licensed dietitians can practice dietetics or medical nutrition therapy. “Dietetics” is here defined to include the sciences of nutrition, biochemistry, food, physiology, health management; “medical nutrition therapy” is defined as the nutritional diagnostic assessment and nutrition therapy services for the purpose of disease management. Four of the five board members will be registered or licensed dietitians, and since the exam to qualify for licensure will be board-determined, it will almost certainly be the ADA exam. All other requirements are the same as the ADA’s. Practicing without a license would fetch a fine of between $100 and $1000, or a jail sentence of up to six months.West Virginia residents please take action now!

FDA Says No to the Senators Who Drafted DSHEA

ANH-USA — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:09:01 +0000

According to our sources, the rogue agency is digging in its heels on the NDI draft guidance that threatens so many supplements, refusing to listen to Congress or follow the intent of the law.Senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin met with Dr. Daniel Fabricant of the FDA on January 26 to request that the FDA withdraw its NDI draft guidance altogether—a meeting that ANH-USA, together with some trade groups, helped set up. They were following up on their recent letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking the FDA to stop the process altogether, withdraw the guidance, and start again after meeting with interested parties to address the list of significant concerns expressed by consumers and industry.You may recall that the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) required that guidelines be established for supplement manufacturers to notify FDA when a new dietary ingredient was introduced into the marketplace. The FDA’s Draft Guidance for New Dietary Ingredients was supposed to fulfill that requirement.Unfortunately, the FDA’s proposed regulations are in fact completely contrary to the intent of Congress when DSHEA was passed, and Sens. Harkin and Hatch wanted to make that clear to FDA. They should know—they were the two principal authors of the legislation!According to our sources, FDA has turned down the senators’ request. FDA in effect said that it is refusing to reconsider its interpretation of what the NDI section of DSHEA means, regardless of what Sens. Hatch and Harkin say they meant when they wrote the law.Does this mean FDA intends to use the NDI process as a de facto pre-market approval system—something which regulatory observers believe was specifically excluded by DSHEA? In a word, yes. We have been told that FDA claims the NDI process is the only “preventive control” for dietary supplements in federal law. Whatever “preventive control” means, it is completely untrue that supplements are uncontrolled under federal law or that the FDA lacks the power presently to regulate them.In refusing to follow the intent of the law as clearly stated by the law’s authors, the FDA is acting as a rogue agency. If you haven’t done so already, please ask your legislators to make a one-minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s guidance document. FDA’s plan would sweep many supplements off the shelf and make the ones that survive much more expensive.

Why Do We Want to Spray More Agent Orange on Our Crops? Are We at War with Ourselves (and Our Children)?

ANH-USA — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:05:18 +0000

Remember Agent Orange, the notorious defoliant used in the Vietnam War? Are you ready for Agent Orange Ready seeds for US agriculture? Action Alert!One of the two active ingredients that made up Agent Orange is 2,4-D. Despite what Agent Orange did to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people, not to mention a generation of American soldiers, 2,4-D is currently the most widely used herbicide in the world, and the third most commonly used in North America. But apparently we aren’t using this poison enough. By using seeds engineered to withstand it, much more can be applied to our soil and crops. One of the biggest reasons for genetic engineering of crops is that the harsh poisons used to kill weeds also tend to kill the crops themselves. Scientists genetically alter the crops’ DNA so they will resist damage from the herbicides. Most of the attention to date has been on the creation of Roundup Ready seeds—that is, seeds and crops that can withstand the herbicide Roundup from Monsanto. According to USDA figures, 94 percent of soybeans and more than 70 percent of corn and cotton planted in the US contain the Roundup-resistant gene.Not at all surprisingly, weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to Roundup, creating “superweeds” which are “galloping through the Midwest.” So Dow AgroScience created a strain of corn that has been genetically engineered to withstand a different class of herbicides—those containing 2,4-D, a known carcinogen.Dow is now seeking to freely use this 2,4-D-resistant corn. GE modification to create resistance means they will be free to use ever-increasing amounts of the herbicide, with no limits whatsoever.These new herbicide-resistant crops will be planted alongside conventional and organic crops. This increases the potential for cross-contamination, and for the spillover of toxic herbicides into the groundwater and neighboring farms.The manufacturer of this seed will of course reject our use of the term “Agent Orange Ready” seed. But don’t be deceived. 2,4-D was a principal ingredient of Agent Orange—and it is the toxic pesticide that these new seeds are designed to survive.Three million people had health effects and 150,000 were born with birth defects as result of Agent Orange’s use during the Vietnam War. The US Department of Veterans Affairs has a shocking list of the diseases related to Agent Orange exposure, including leukemia, diabetes, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, heart disease, Parkinson’s, and numerous different cancers. It is true that the other half of the Agent Orange recipe was an herbicide whose manufacturing process made it easily susceptible to contamination with an incredibly toxic chemical called TCDD (the most toxic dioxin). But this doesn’t let 2,4-D off the hook, not by any means.The advocacy group Beyond Pesticides discusses the terrible health and environmental effects of 2,4-D at length on their website. There are clear links between 2,4-D and cancer, as well as potential endocrine disruption, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, kidney liver damage, and birth and development defects. This herbicide is far worse than Roundup.In 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the EPA to ban the pesticide. According to the NRDC, there are safer and more effective pesticides, but 2,4-D is often more affordable.Even scarier, Monsanto and Dow now seem to be in collusion with one another. In its petition, Dow states that the 2,4-D trait in the GE seeds will be stacked with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait so that the seeds are resistant to multiple herbicide tolerances. Soon we’ll be eating food with a whole cocktail of different herbicide traits cooked into the seed—all so they can be sprayed with chemicals that are more toxic than ever before! The real solution here is to stop using GE seeds altogether.Unfortunately, our nation is increasingly dependent on mono-cultured GE crops, rather than promoting diversity in crops and organic food and vegetables—which is better for not only for our health but for the environment as well.GE crops are not tolerated in the European Union. BASF, a German biotech company, decided to leave the EU and go to the US where they receive safe harbor from the USDA. Last year, Hungary destroyed roughly 1000 acres of illegal GE corn, and said it plans to make distributing GMO seeds a felony.The USDA’s public comment period for giving a green light to this GE corn ends on February 27. Even if we don’t move USDA, the more comments received, the firmer foundation is laid for Congressional or legal action. USDA has already written an environmental assessment—and not surprisingly it’s a whitewash.Please contact USDA immediately, and protest what is going on in the strongest possible terms. Point out the serious health problems linked to 2,4-D, the danger of cross-pollination and contamination of surrounding farmland by the herbicides, as well as the environmental unsustainability of creating new GE seeds to withstand increasingly poisonous herbicides. We must not accept Agent Orange Ready seed. Please take action today!

Have the Pediatricians Lost Their Minds?

ANH-USA — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:00:34 +0000

The American Academy of Pediatrics, whom we have previously criticized for industry ties, now says all boys between the ages of 11 and 12 should receive the HPV vaccine—the same one that has harmed so many girls. Action Alert!During the Republican Party presidential debates, Michelle Bachman questioned the safety of this vaccine and was roundly ridiculed, especially by the media. Commentator after commentator noted that the government said this vaccine was safe. But let’s look at the facts.No other vaccine lists and thereby acknowledges the serious side effects that the HPV vaccine does. One particularly alarming side effect, acknowledged by the manufacturer Merck even in advertisements, is the risk of seizure. Of the twelve other vaccines recommended by the CDC for children, only two—the controversial MMR combination vaccine and the HiB vaccine—list “seizure” as a safety concern. Pain at the injection site, headache, fever—these are fairly commonplace reactions. But none of the others has the acknowledged serious side effects that the HPV vaccine does. We have created a graphic (click for larger view) showing the side effects side-by-side.

We are emphasizing these side effects (acknowledged in writing by the manufacturer) because Merck, the Centers for Disease Control, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all seem determined to stonewall and deny any significance to the 20,096 adverse events and 1,498 “serious adverse events” associated with the vaccine and reported by physicians. We reported on this sorry state of affairs a number of times last year, most recently in October. These adverse events include blood clots, the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and death.Our readers will note the irony of this. One reported adverse event for a supplement is enough to get the FDA’s full attention. But when it comes to drug and especially vaccine adverse events, everyone in government looks the other way.Wouldn’t you think that 34 associated deaths (there were actually 71 deaths reported through September 15 of last year, but 37 of the reports didn’t have enough information for the report to be independently confirmed) would be worth looking into by somebody? But no. The official party line is that the adverse events are not peer-reviewed research and therefore may be ignored. And the government isn’t about to do any peer-reviewed research into this frightening data.The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) now recommends the HPV vaccine for boys aged 11 to 12. This mirrors a recommendation released last October by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.This is truly Alice in Wonderland medicine, and can only be explained by close—indeed, tight—financial ties between vaccine makers, government, and researchers. For more on the financial ties between Big Pharma and the AAP, please see our previous stories on heat exhaustion and sports drinks, and on cholesterol screenings for pre-pubescent children.To say that the HPV vaccine is of dubious benefit is really an understatement. Although touted as a cancer vaccine, it is still very possible to develop cervical and other cancers even after being vaccinated. As we noted last September, of the 100 different types of HPV, only fifteen might someday develop into cancer, the vaccine targets only two; moreover, the relationship between infection with HPV at a young age and later development of cancer is unknown.Unlike the HPV vaccine, other cancer prevention strategies are free or low-cost. The standard for cervical cancer screening, regular Pap smears, carries no side effects and when performed regularly can easily catch cervical cancer in time for a simple removal without complication. Women who have been vaccinated against HPV must still submit to regular Pap smears since the vaccine does not protect against all causes of cervical cancer. Most insurance plans cover an annual Pap smear, and programs funded by the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program offer free or low-cost Pap tests to women in need throughout the US.Another really powerful prevention strategy is to eat cruciferous vegetables or take the supplement DIM (diindolylmethane, a plant compound found in cruciferous vegetables), as explained by Dr. Jonathan Wright in the December 2011 issue of his newsletter Nutrition and Healing. DIM may also be used therapeutically for those with cervical cancer or pre-cancer. The most effective combination prevention strategy both for viruses and for cancer (and certainly for cancer-linked viruses) is to maintain optimal levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D comes from the sun for free, and vitamin D3 supplements are inexpensive. Most Americans are deficient in the vitamin.Virginia is currently the only state requiring that all children be vaccinated with the HPV vaccine, and Virginia legislators have introduced a bill to repeal the HPV vaccine requirement—HB1112.Please send a message to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC denouncing their recommendations. Point out the major problems with the HPV vaccine—both its dangers and its ineffectiveness—and ask them to withdraw it from recommendation. Please keep in mind that these kinds of messages can also lay the groundwork for congressional or legal action.

In addition, if you are a Virginia resident, please contact your legislators and support the repeal of the HPV vaccine requirement. Together let’s pass this bill.

Why is “Hot Chemo” an Acceptable Cancer Treatment—But IV Vitamin C is “Too Far Out There”?

ANH-USA — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:00:32 +0000

Patients liken hot chemotherapy to “being filleted, disemboweled, and then bathed in hot poison.” Best patient care, or merely the biggest moneymaker? According to the New York Times, hot chemotherapy, which couples extensive abdominal surgery with blasts of heated chemotherapy to the abdominal cavity and its organs, was once a niche procedure used mainly against rare cancers of the appendix. Most academic medical centers shunned it. Now it’s being offered to patients to treat more common colorectal or ovarian cancers. Dr. David P. Ryan, clinical director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, says there is little evidence that it really works and “has almost no basis in science.” The treatment is extremely costly, and is something of a desperation move by leading medical centers because the competition for patients and treatments is so intense. So why is this dangerous, scientifically unsound, and outrageously expensive procedure considered a viable treatment option for cancer patients, when intravenous vitamin C—safe, effective, and far less expensive—is questioned as an adjunct therapy? Why is this common vitamin, administered in high doses intravenously, labeled an unapproved drug by a hostile FDA? Why also is the nutritional advice for cancer patients from the American Dietetic Association so half-hearted? It seems more focused on stopping weight loss during chemotherapy or radiotherapy than it is about using nutritional and other natural factors to help rebuild immunity and get the body more into balance. Could it be because the organization gets about $1 million a year in payments from pharmaceutical companies? You know the old saying: just follow the money. As we reported previously, oncologists are the only doctors allowed to sell—and profit from—their own drugs. Oncologists can buy chemo drugs at a deep discount and then dispense them at the higher rate in their offices. It lets oncologists run a kind of pharmacy as a side business, and represents a considerable part of some oncologists’ income. Contrast that with intravenous C. Because it is a vitamin, IV-C is inexpensive, and it cannot be patented, so no one makes any serious money. Oncologists lose the financial incentive to prescribe it. The overtreatment of minor cancers is a growing problem. This is especially the case for prostate and breast cancer. Not long ago, prostate cancer was commonly detected with a digital rectal examination, which revealed palpable neoplasms. PSA (prostate-specific antigen) testing detected many more cancers—which led to many more biopsies and treatments. However, the observation that the number of cancer deaths stayed the same suggests that a substantial percentage of cases are unlikely to progress. Still, about 90% of diagnosed men seek immediate “curative treatment,” which in theconventional medicine world means chemo and surgery. There is some good news—the tide may be turning, albeit very slowly. A recent statement from NIH stated that “active surveillance” is a viable option as treatment for low-risk cancers. This is a blow to the current standard of care touted by mainstream medicine. At the same time, the active surveillance approach also recommends multiple biopsies to monitor the progression of the tumor. This is extremely problematic for several reasons. First, even the NIH admits that infection through biopsy is one of the side effects of active surveillance. As we reported last year, studies from three countries show that infectious complications from prostate biopsies have more than doubled in less than a decade. As much as five percent of prostate biopsies develop infections from the procedure—or about 50,000 Americans every year, and an equal number in Europe. Nine out of 10,000 men whose tests were negative for prostate cancer died within a month from sepsis and other complications, according to a recent study in the Journal of Urology. The greater risk, however, is that biopsies can cause cancers to spread, usually along the path of the biopsy needle, a phenomenon called “needle track seeding.” A 2004 study concluded that manipulation of an intact tumor, either by fine needle biopsy or by large-gauge needle core biopsy, is associated with an increase in metastases, perhaps due in part to the mechanical disruption of the tumor by the needle. Another study suggests needle track seeding as a possible occurrence with breast biopsies, and concludes that the cancer may recur “if the tract is not excised or radiotherapy not given.” So the way to fix the spread of a cancer via biopsy is to do more surgery and/or radiation! This is exactly what happened to a 62-year-old woman whose needle biopsy caused the cancer in her breast to extend the full length of the needle tract. She ended up losing her entire breast because of the biopsy when only an excision was originally needed. The Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark has studied the effects of mammography on breast cancer risk. They found that for every 2,000 women screened, only one will have her life prolonged, while ten will be treated unnecessarily because of “overdiagnosis” and will in the process be more likely to suffer future cancer and other complications. This kind of early, over-detection causes oncologists to administer conventional treatments even though, if the cancer had been left alone, the cancers in most cases would likely have been managed and controlled naturally by the body. Why does over-diagnosis and over-treatment like this continue? Like chemotherapy treatments, cancer screenings are big moneymakers. This is wrong on so many levels. Hot chemo? Biopsies that spread malignancies? Taking away our right to opt for intravenous vitamin C, basically mandating a one-poison-fits-all, one-size-kills-all approach to cancer? It would seem that if you rely solely on conventional medicine to diagnose and treat cancer, you may go broke from the horrendous expense—but you may also get sicker and die sooner.

All We Need Is One Minute of Their Time

ANH-USA — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:00:45 +0000

Our Action Alert is simple: Ask your senator or representative to make a one-minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s plan to sweep many supplements off the shelf and make the ones that survive much more expensive. Please help! As you know, the comment period for the NDI Draft Guidance is now closed, and the FDA will be reviewing all the comments they have received. During this period, we want to make the Draft Guidance such a hot-button political issue that FDA will be forced to take notice and will address the public’s serious concerns. As we reported last month, two powerful senators and longtime friends of natural health, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and formally asked the FDA to withdraw its guidance document. We thank these courageous senators for speaking out and clearly articulating the problems inherent in the FDA’s proposal. In addition, Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) recently made a one-minute speech entitled “Overregulating Dietary Supplements Endangers Americans’ Jobs and Health” on the floor of the House of Representatives. This was his speech:

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my concern over another example of rampant government regulation.

For seventeen years, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to ignore congressional intent and create a vast new regulatory regime for dietary supplements. Millions of Americans, including many of my constituents and my family, rely on dietary supplements as part of their everyday health maintenance routine. Moreover, they play an important role in ensuring that people take individual responsibility for preventative health care. We all can agree that the FDA should not limit Americans’ access to dietary supplements....

Last week, the comment period on the FDA’s draft guidance closed. Now that they’ve heard from the public, and now that I’m sure they’ve heard from countless Americans who share my concern, I urge them to go back to the drawing board and ensure that they do not limit Americans’ access to dietary supplements.

Simple. Clear. Direct. And painless. Today we’re asking you to send a message to your senators and your congressional representative. Ask them to make a simple one-minute floor speech in opposition to the guidance. Urge them, just as Senators Harkin and Hatch did, to ask the FDA to retract the guidance altogether and start over. Remind them too of the economic impact—an argument that will have a great deal of power right now—that the NDI draft guidance is bad for the economy and costs American jobs. Please send your message today!

If you are a resident of Illinois, please take action here:

If you are a resident of Iowa, please take action here:

If you are a resident of Utah, please take action here:

If you are a resident of any other state, please take action here:

FDA’s New Claim: “Your Body Is a Drug—and We Have the Authority to Regulate It!”

ANH-USA — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:00:26 +0000

In another outrageous power-grab, FDA says your own stem cells are drugs—and stem cell therapy is interstate commerce because it affects the bottom line of FDA-approved drugs in other states! We wish this were a joke, but it’s the US Food and Drug Administration’s latest claim in its battle with a Colorado clinic over its Regenexx-C™ procedure, a non-surgical treatment for people suffering from moderate to severe joint or bone pain using adult stem cells. The FDA asserts in a court document that it has the right to regulate the Centeno-Schultz Medical Clinic for two reasons:

Stem cells are drugs and therefore fall within their jurisdiction. (The clinic argues that stem cell therapy is the practice of medicine and is therefore not within the FDA’s jurisdiction!)
The clinic is engaging in interstate commerce and is therefore subject to FDA regulation because any part of the machine or procedure that originates outside Colorado becomes interstate commerce once it enters the state. Moreover, interstate commerce is substantially affected because individuals traveling to Colorado to have the Regenexx procedure would “depress the market for out-of-state drugs that are approved by FDA.”

We discussed the very ambiguous issue of interstate commerce last September—it’s an argument the FDA frequently uses when the basis for their claim is otherwise lacking. As we noted then, the FDA holds that an “interstate commerce” test must be applied to all steps in a product’s manufacture, packaging, and distribution. This means that if any ingredient or tool used in the procedure in question was purchased out of state, the FDA would in its view have jurisdiction, just as they would if the final product had traveled across state lines. This time the FDA just nakedly says in court documents that the agency wants to protect the market for FDA-approved drugs. No more beating around the bush—their agenda is right out in the open! This appears to be a novel interpretation of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C), as evidenced by the government’s failure to cite any judicial precedent for their argument. The implication of the FDA’s interpretation of the law, if upheld by the court, would mean that all food, drugs, devices, and biologic or cosmetic products would be subject to FDA jurisdiction. The FDA is expanding its reach even to commerce within the state, which we argue is far beyond its jurisdiction, in order to protect drug company profits. Last year we ran a two-part series on the current status of federal and state law—and FDA jurisdiction—and how it affects integrative treatments (part one and part two). The Centeno-Schultz Medical Clinic takes your blood and bone marrow, puts it into a centrifuge machine that separates the stem cells, and cultures it to get more cells before a doctor puts them back in your body to repair damaged tissue. The FDA states that when the stem cells are cultured, they become FDA-regulated drugs. The clinic has argued numerous times that stem cells aren’t drugs because they are components of the patient’s bone marrow from his or her own body. The FDA says otherwise: “Stem cells, like other medical products that are intended to treat, cure, or prevent disease, generally require FDA approval before they can be marketed. At this time, there are no licensed stem cell treatments.” There they go again, saying that components of your body are drugs and they have the authority to regulate them! It’s the only way the agency can claim that adult stem cell therapy is within FDA’s purview. However, the agency seems to be of two minds. When ESPN magazine was doing a story on stem cell treatments, the FDA stated that US policy is to allow the injection of stem cells that are treated with “minimal manipulation,” which federal regulations define as “processing that does not alter the relevant biological characteristics of cells or tissues”—which is certainly the case with the Regenexx same-day procedure. Despite this policy, FDA has been attacking the clinic for the past four years. They have tried injunctions and demanded inspections in their attempts to make the company bend; this court battle is merely the latest salvo. The primary role of adult stem cells in a living organism is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. The hard part has been to get enough of them. But new technology is giving doctors the ability to obtain more stem cells from a patient than previously thought possible, which is why we’re now seeing new treatments. Blood, fat, or tissue is withdrawn from the patient, stem cells are obtained using one of these new processes, and the cells are injected back into the patient where they can repair the patient’s tissue. Gov. Rick Perry received this kind of stem cell therapy. We and others noted that the governor’s defense of freedom of healthcare choice when it came to his own treatment was starkly at odds with his directive to administer HPV vaccines to young girls against their own (and their parents’) wishes. It’s also at odds with his support for some of the most egregious witch-hunters on the Texas State Medical Board, which he appoints. Behind Perry’s blatant inconsistency and the latest FDA attempted power grab lies the same problem: a medical system run by special interests under the leadership of the US government, the same government that is supposed to represent “we the people.”Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article reported that when blood and bone marrow were put into a centrifuge to separate the stem cells, the FDA considered the stem cells to be a drug and claimed authority to regulate them. The article has been updated to reflect that FDA only claims authority to regulate as drugs those stem cells which are cultured before being re-injected into the body.

No Science for You!

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:00:45 +0000

Congress wants to limit your access to research—even though your tax dollars paid for it. If this bill passes, you’ll learn only what mainstream medicine wishes you to know. Action Alert! In 2008, the National Institutes of Health required that all federally funded research publications be made openly available. PubMedCentral (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine. The publishers of the journals weren’t so happy with this new arrangement—they were afraid no one would pay for their publications if the research results were immediately accessible. So the government agreed to give them a full year of journal sales before their research papers had to be posted on PMC, which lets them keep their subscriber base. Journal subscriptions to educational and medical institutions are expensive—and they’re big business. But even this generous arrangement isn’t good enough for the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The trade group liked the old rules, where they could sell the tax-funded research back to the taxpayers. So the AAP got two members of Congress, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), to introduce HR 3699, the Research Works Act, just before the end of 2011. This bill would prevent the NIH or any other agency from causing or even allowing private-sector research work to be disseminated online without prior consent of both the publisher and the study authors—even if the funding came from our tax dollars. The AAP weren’t the only publishers involved. Elsevier—the Reed Elsevier Publishing Group, a multinational company that publishes around 2,000 journals and close to 20,000 books and major reference works—happens to be in Rep. Carolyn Maloney's district, and Elsevier employees made campaign contributions to both Issa and Maloney. (Apparently, it only takes $10,500 to buy two members of Congress.) Said contributors all work for Tom Reller, vice president for global corporate relations at Elsevier. Interestingly, an email about the bill from Rep. Maloney to one of her critics contained language that was nearly identical to language used by Reller when he was defending the same bill! Are members of Congress employing lobbyists as ghostwriters now? This is about access to peer-reviewed scientific information—research that we pay for with our tax money. If this bill passes, Americans who want to read the results of federally funded research will have to buy access to each journal article individually—at a cost of $15 or $30 apiece. In other words, as the New York Times recently noted, taxpayers who already paid for the research would have to pay again to read the results. Access to peer-reviewed scientific research is essential if you are to make informed choices regarding your family’s health—especially if you choose complementary and alternative medicine. Good research will let us choose wisely when it comes to questions of treatment modalities, vaccines, diet, nutrition, and medicine. Right now, supplement companies aren’t even allowed to tell you about the science behind their products, so we must get the scientific information directly from the source.

But that’s just the problem: consumers, integrative doctors, and small businesses might not have the funds to access all these scientific journals—which means your access to the science behind natural products will be limited to what mainstream medicine may wish you to know.

PMC compiles entire studies and has 2.3 million articles going back to 1965. It allows patients, physicians, students, teachers, and advocacy organization like ANH-USA to read about and cite the discoveries that our tax dollars paid for—to keep you informed in these pages, we may review as many as a hundred studies every year. If we needed to pay a publishing company every time we viewed a study which taxpayers have already paid for, we’d be giving thousands of dollars to a publishing company every year instead of protecting your access to natural health. So what can you do? Two things will make a huge difference!

First, help us gain co-sponsors for the Free Speech about Science Act (FSAS). This landmark legislation enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings about natural health products with the public. The problem, of course, is that if it becomes more difficult for supplement companies and consumers to access the scientific studies themselves, the entire point of FSAS is effectively undermined.
The second step is to ask Congress to defeat this new Research Works Act. Please send your message today and explain why limiting access to the results of important studies—which your tax dollars have already paid for—is such a terrible idea. Take action immediately!

New Proposal May Put the Nation’s Food Safety at Even Greater Risk

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:00:22 +0000

The USDA’s food safety wing may come under control of the FDA. This will mean more power, wider scope—and greater corruption. Allegedly as a means of eliminating agency overlap and bureaucratic waste, the Obama administration wants to consolidate a number of federal agencies. Last year the president pointed out that the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in saltwater, and joked, “I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.” According to an official at the Office of Management and Budget, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) would be merged with the food safety unit at the FDA. While the proposal sounds reasonable on the surface, this would do nothing to address the systemic conflicts of interest within the FDA, and would actually increase the agency’s tendency toward crony capitalism. Food Safety News reports that Mike Taylor, the former acting undersecretary for food safety at the USDA and the current deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, has been advocating for a single food safety agency located “anywhere but at the USDA.” Former USDA official Dr. Richard Raymond, who now works as a food safety and public health consultant, believes that “a merger of the two food safety agencies would be an unmitigated disaster,” and unless megadollars flowed with the merger, nothing more could be accomplished than is currently done. We might add that much harm could be done because the FDA knows nothing whatever about farming. The Food Safety Enhancement Act has already put FDA on the farm as a potential rule-maker and inspector, ignoring the agency’s complete lack of expertise in this field. Obama administration officials are said to favor the merger because it would make food safety independent of USDA which, they note, primarily exists to market and promote American farm products. But rather than addressing the real issue—that USDA is in the pocket of the agricultural industry (“Big Farma”)—the administration instead wants to shift food safety over to the FDA, where both Big Farma and Big Pharma rule the roost. Worse than that, the FDA will undoubtedly employ the form of food safety analysis it has learned about from its international counterparts over many years of meetings on food safety at Codex Alimentarius. This kind of food safety tends to say that food additives like aspartame, as well as a whole host of pesticides residues and genetically-modified (GM) foods, are safe, while demonstrating inexcusable scientific ignorance with their dietary advice. If you think crony capitalism is bad at the USDA, just look at FDA’s existing record in regulating agriculture products. Two weeks ago we reported on how FDA crumbled under agriculture industry pressure and announced that the agency would no longer try to restrict the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed. Then there’s FDA’s attempts to win approval for AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon despite overwhelming consumer opposition. Jurisdiction over genetically engineered food is shared by both the USDA (agriculture) and the FDA (food products). Both agencies are heavily influenced by the powerful GMO industry. Consolidation would merely ensure faster passage for genetically engineered products. So much for a new emphasis on “food safety”! FDA is seriously underfunded and notoriously inept—their management of pharmaceuticals has led to skyrocketing prices, drug shortages, and a shocking lack of transparency—even suppressing scientific data about medicines that the drug companies found unfavorable. There is no indication that the FDA becoming a megabureacracy with complete control over food safety would produce better results. Help us reform the FDA! An agency whose approval of dangerous drugs kills 50,000 Americans each year, and which systematically attacks natural supplements and censors scientific research, should not be getting more power and authority over our food supply. Please read about our Reform FDA campaign, and then sign our petition, which we will hand-deliver to Congress!

Statin Drugs Shown to Increase Risk of Diabetes Significantly—Yet the Media Scramble to Protect the Drugs’ Reputation

ANH-USA — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:04 +0000

Statins are taken by one in four Americans over the age of 45, even though diet can fix high cholesterol quicker and more safely. Here’s new evidence of the drugs’ dangers. A University of Massachusetts Medical School study has found that statins significantly increase risk of type 2 diabetes among postmenopausal women—an increased rate of 48% compared to those not on cholesterol-lowering drugs. The data comes from the massive Women’s Health Initiative, which surveyed 161,808 women. Interestingly, this is not the first study to reveal such a link. A 2011 study found that the risk of adult-onset diabetes is much higher in patients who take high doses of statin drugs. And a 2010 meta-analysis found that statin therapy of any dosage was associated with 9% greater risk of diabetes. But in the face of this research, the media is bending over backwards to say that the risk of statins do not outweigh the “benefits”! The headline of the Associated Press article (which was picked up by countless media outlets) says that statins are linked to “small diabetes risk,” calling them “cholesterol-lowering wonder drugs.” The article continues, “Specialists say people who most need statins because of a high risk for a heart attack should stick with the drugs,” and quotes a doctor not involved with the research as saying, “What I fear here is that people who need and will benefit from statins will be scared off of using the drugs because of reports like this.” The AP also notes that more and more doctors are urging otherwise healthy people to use the pills as a way to prevent heart disease. Conspicuously absent is any reference to recent findings from mainstream medical authorities that statins show no benefit whatsoever in reducing cardiovascular disease risk among patients who are currently at low risk of heart attack. WebMD’s analysis of the study quickly states, “Experts say the evidence as a whole suggests that the risks are slight and that for most women who take statins, the benefits for preventing heart attack and stroke outweigh those risks.” Let’s look at some of those “benefits.” As we reported recently, statin drugs:

Weaken the immune system and make it difficult to fight off bacterial infections, and increase the production of cytokines, which trigger and sustain inflammation.
Make some patients unable to concentrate or remember words, and is linked to muscle and neurological problems, including Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Have documented side effects which include nerve damage, muscle damage, liver enzyme derangement, and in some cases even kidney failure, not to mention, tendon problems, anemia, acidosis, cataracts, and sexual dysfunction.

This is all in addition to the blood glucose elevation and increased risk of diabetes. Even more outrageously, some years ago the British Medical Journal advocated widespread use of a polypill that combines six different drugs—a statin, three low-dose antihypertensives (thiazide, an ACE inhibitor, and a beta-blocker), folic acid, and aspirin. In an editorial last year, MedPage Today, a service for physicians that gives medical news from a clinical perspective, suggested putting this combination directly into the water supply—though, it said, “we could probably drop the folic acid.” (Dropping folic acid is not a bad choice, actually: it’s a synthetic, oxidized form of the B vitamin which can build up in the bloodstream and may become carcinogenic if you have too much. If you want plenty of natural folate, eat lots of dark green vegetables or get the reduced form, 5-methyl tetrahydrofolate [5-MHTF] in high-quality supplements!) Now let’s contrast mainstream media’s support of statins and other dangerous drugs with their negative coverage of natural approaches to good health, including supplements. Look how many recent articles have made outrageous and demonstrably false statements like antioxidants not necessarily being good for one’s health, or vitamin use leading to an earlier death. The ultimate irony is that any time safety issues with very high-dose supplements have cropped up, as shown with beta-carotene and later with vitamin E, they’ve always been linked with the isolated, pharmaceutical forms of these vitamins, not the natural forms. Remember the media coverage around the vitamin D study last November? The media said that people who take too much vitamin D were 2½ times more likely to develop atrial fibrillation—which, as we reported, the actual study absolutely did not say—thus scaring people away from an essential supplement. This is especially tragic since at least one-third of all Americans are actually deficient in vitamin D. Do we really need any further evidence that conventional medicine, multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the advertising industry are working hand-in-hand to further their own interests—and are using a compliant media (who are utterly dependent on advertisers) to carry out their agenda?

Big Pharma Routinely Suppresses Data from Clinical Trials—but FDA Approves These Dangerous Drugs Anyway!

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000

Help us persuade Congress to reform the agency with our Action Alert!Drug research, even from clinical trials sponsored by the federal government, is routinely suppressed, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), an international peer-reviewed medical publication. The study found that less than half of all NIH-funded clinical drug trials were published in a medical journal within two and a half years of the trial’s completion—with fully one-third of trial results remaining unpublished even four years after the trial. Why? Because the drug manufacturers didn’t like the data.One example cited in the study was the FDA-approved diabetes drug Avandia, which in 2007 was found to increase heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths—even though the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, had known about the risk before the drug was approved. The BMJ study found that 35 of the drug’s 42 clinical studies had never been published, and were obtained only because a court case required the pharmaceutical company to turn over the data.Not only does this irresponsible practice harm patients, it also increases healthcare costs. Eugene Carragee, a Stanford University orthopedic surgeon and editor-in-chief of the Spine Journal, spearheaded an unprecedented independent analysis showing that the medical device manufacturer Medtronic—not to mention a circle of orthopedic surgeons who received millions of dollars in royalties from the company—systematically failed to report serious complications with Medtronic's bone-growth stimulating back surgery device known as Infuse. The results of a crucial clinical trial of the product were not published until nearly five years after the trial had to be halted because unwanted bone was growing around the spines of the trial volunteers.For two years, Schering-Plough, the maker of the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin, sat on the results of a clinical trial showing that the drug provided no benefit in improving artery health. During that time, the drug was heavily marketed to consumers in TV ads; the marketing was only halted in 2008 after a congressional investigation was launched.In 2003, a clinical trial of Multaq, a drug that treated cardiac arrhythmias, was stopped because more patients who were getting the drug were dying than those who received a placebo—though the study results weren’t published until five years later. Even so, the drug was approved by the FDA in 2009 as a treatment for atrial fibrillation in certain patients—just not as a means to reduce deaths!Why does FDA approve drugs whose data have been suppressed by the manufacturer? Is it because FDA depends on Big Pharma for its budget—and needs drug companies to hire former FDA employees. The Wall Street Journal reported that FDA advisers, in a recent vote, said the benefits of four popular Bayer AG birth control pills outweigh the blood clot risk. What the FDA didn’t disclose is that three of the advisers have had ties to Bayer, serving as consultants, speakers, or researchers!Despite the FDA’s bias in favor of drugs and against supplements, there are tremendous shortages of some drugs (though no shortage of supplements—so far!). This drug shortage prompts some hospitals to engage in price gouging, so a drug that usually costs $26 is being offered for $1,200. Moreover, the FDA artificially inflates drug prices—especially generic drug prices, which should be far lower than they are—as we have reported previously.The shortage in the US drug market also makes foreign counterfeit drugs more popular. Recently, some 65 million counterfeit pills were seized in China; no word yet on how many of them had already made their way to the US.If this is the way FDA oversees dangerous drugs, what will happen if we give them the same authority over supplements? It’s not just that the agency doesn’t have the knowledge to properly oversee supplements—they also don’t have the capacity. If they can’t keep up with the hundreds of drugs already under their purview, how will they cope with the thousands of supplements on the market? One way, of course, is for them to drastically reduce the number of supplements that can be marketed—one inevitable result of the NDI draft guidelines that we have been campaigning against.There must be sincere and honest people working for the US Food and Drug Administration, but it is currently being run in a corrupt and incompetent way. It desperately needs to be reformed. Please help us in our ongoing campaign to overhaul the agency by signing our petition to Congress. As we say in the petition, “Everything about the FDA must be taken apart, reviewed, redefined, and re-created so that it supports, not obstructs, the mission of advancing medical science and vibrant good health for all.” Please take action today!

Click the link above to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Will the White House Finally Bring HBOT to Wounded Vets?

ANH-USA — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:00:07 +0000

A former ANH-USA board member joined with Michelle Obama to announce an exciting new program to help veterans with traumatic brain injuries. A new Action Alert!Health pioneer Dr. Paul G. Harch, associate clinical professor of medicine at Louisiana State University in New Orleans, will participate in the White House’s Joining Forces Initiative. The program will teach medical schools better ways to train new doctors to care for veterans’ needs, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment (HBOT), the premier therapy for brain injuries and PTSD.You may recall our article last month about Dr. Harch’s study which was published in the Journal of Neurotrauma—well, apparently someone listened after all. The White House is recognizing the importance of cutting-edge research like that being done in New Orleans. In her announcement, the First Lady discussed “the mental health challenges many of our troops face once they return home.” Dr. Harch joined Michelle Obama in making the announcement.TBI and PTSD severely and disproportionally affect military who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan—approximately 546,000 have TBI, post-concussion syndrome (PCS), and PTSD, and yet their treatment options are limited. HBOT is an effective and economical treatment for PCS and PTSD, without the very dangerous and negative side effects of antipsychotic medication.By participating in the initiative, LSU’s Health Services Center has promised to mobilize research and clinical care (including HBOT) to treat vets and their families. One important note, however: according to Dr. Harch, the Joining Forces Initiative has not officially committed to actually funding any of these research projects, only to sharing ideas and programs. He hopes the administration, having announced this initiative, will help fund the initiative since the medical schools and state budgets are cash-strapped.In other good news, Dr. Harch has been awarded a $1.2 million government appropriation to further investigate HBOT for TBI and PTSD. This funding is greatly needed, since HBOT is currently FDA-approved for many uses, but not approved as a treatment for TBI or PTSD. This in turn blocks both use and payment.With the White House spearheading this initiative, it could mean that the tide is turning, and FDA’s non-approval of HBOT for TBI or PTSD may be crumbling. Ditto DoD’s absurd refusal to use HBOT because it’s “off-label,” when the department already uses antipsychotic drugs completely off-label for treatment of TBI and PTSD. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, so if he listens to his wife (not to mention scientific leaders and citizens like you) and orders it, the DoD will fall into line.Please write to President Obama today, thank him for the First Lady’s initiative, and ask him to take a strong leadership role in making HBOT the primary therapy for TBI and PTSD. You might mention that he is supporting the troops in a way that will save untold numbers of them from lives of misery after serving their country, and ask him to make sure the Joining Forces Initiative is provided funding so HBOT can actually be administered to our veterans. Please take action today!

Click the button above to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Dietary Supplement Regulation Facts

ANH-USA — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:10:08 +0000

The Food and Drug Administration This agency has significant authority to regulate the dietary supplement industry, including (but not limited to) the authority to:

Stop a company from selling any dietary supplement that is unsanitary or unsafe.
Stop the sale of any dietary supplement that makes false or non-substantiated claims on its labeling
Stop the sale of any nutritional supplement that poses “a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury"

The Federal Trade Commission This agency has the authority to regulate the advertising of the supplement industry, including (but not limited to) the authority to:

Challenge and stop advertising that is not sufficiently substantiated
Negotiate a consent order for a company to change or fix its promotional marketing or advertising practices
Seek substantial civil penalties for violations of trade regulation rules or violations of cease and desist orders

Legislation Regulating the Dietary Supplement Industry 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act

The law gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to require nutrition labeling of most foods regulated by the Agency; and to require that all nutrient content claims and health claims meet FDA regulations

1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

Creates a structure for regulation of dietary supplements by making dietary supplements a new category of regulation within the framework of food and apart from drugs, that included labeling requirements, safety provisions, good manufacturing practices, also created the Office of Dietary Supplements at NIH.

2002 Public Health Security and Bio-terrorism Preparedness and Response Act

Requires registration of facilities with FDA and record-keeping regulations extend to those that transport, distribute, receive, or import foods and dietary supplements.

2006 Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act

Requires a manufacturer, packer, or distributor whose name appears on the label of a dietary supplement—known as the “responsible person”—to report a serious adverse event to FDA within 15 days of receipt of the information

2007 Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act

Prohibits the addition of drugs or biologics to food and to authorize the creation of a “reportable food registry” to collect information about articles of food that may pose serious health risks.

2010 Food Safety Modernization Act

FDA also regulates dietary supplements under FSMA, a comprehensive food safety statute enacted in 2011. Nearly all the provisions of the FSMA apply to dietary supplements.

New Regulations Threaten Insurance for CAM Patients

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:00:31 +0000

There are many questions about how the healthcare act will actually work, but complex regs just released seem likely to doom the very programs that help us pay for our integrative medical treatments. New Action Alert! An important provision of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires insurance companies to use at least 80% of premium dollars (85% for large employer plans) on healthcare expenses and quality improvement, rather than on sales, overhead, and profits. If they don’t, the insurance companies will be required to provide a rebate to their customers starting in 2012. This requirement is called the Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR. The government estimates that up to 9 million Americans could be eligible for rebates starting in 2012, worth up to $1.4 billion—which is intended to put pressure on the insurance companies to keep their administrative and sales costs as low as possible. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued its final standards on how to rebate money from insurance carriers that fail to reach the MLR standards. In essence, the new rules of how MLR is computed discriminate against health plans with higher deductibles. Particularly hard hit will be the Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that help so many of us pay for complementary and alternative medical (CAM) treatments not covered by regular insurance. A bit of background: The advantage of HSAs for those of us relying on integrative medicine is that we control how the HSA money is used. We don’t need insurance company approval. So we can use that money to pay an integrative doctor whose services would not be reimbursable under a conventional insurance policy. We can then add to the HSA a high-deductible (low-cost) conventional medical policy to cover us in case we need those services—for example, if we are injured in an auto accident. If high-deductible plans are eliminated, then our only option is to combine an HSA with a much more expensive conventional policy. That will make integrative care completely unaffordable for many. It will also lead to less demand for HSAs. Before long, they would probably disappear. If HSAs disappear, direct consumer control over healthcare would suffer yet another blow. As many analysts have suggested, the fact that consumers do not directly buy medical services explains much of what is wrong with medicine today. With this background, let’s now return to the new regulations and see why they are a threat to high deductible medical policies and thus to HSAs. The problem is that under the new regulation, any payment for a healthcare service that an individual or family makes, either directly or through an HSA—that is, any payment that’s part of the deductible—doesn’t count toward the requirement that your medical insurer must spend 80 to 85% of all insurance premiums on medical treatments. Only payments for healthcare services that are made by insurers count, not payments by individuals or through HSAs. As with many government regulations, the implications of this may not be readily apparent. Here’s a helpful illustration:

Let’s say I pay $5,000 for in premium insurance policy which has no deductible. I have $4,000 in medical expenses, which the health plan pays. Because the insurer’s payment comes to 80% of my premium, my health plan is in compliance.
However, let’s say I pay $4,000 in premium for a policy with a $1,000 deductible, and I still have $4,000 in medical expenses. I pay the first $1,000 directly to meet my deductible, and the health plan pays the remaining $3,000. That’s only 75% of my $4,000 premium, so the plan is not in compliance with the new MLR regulations, and the insurance company would have to give me a rebate, even though I spent $5,000 out of pocket and received $4,000 in medical care in both scenarios.

Sounds like a win-win situation, right? Except that under these circumstances, insurance companies will simply drop plans that have high deductibles. Only five percent of consumers who have an HSA health plan will have any claims paid by their insurance in the course of a year. Therefore, it is a mathematical impossibility for HSAs to meet the MLR limits when the new HHS rule allows only five percent of HSA payments for health care services to count towards their MLR limit. This means that HSAs will disappear from the insurance marketplace (the state Health Insurance Exchanges) because they rely on higher deductible policies. HSAs, FSAs (Flexible Spending Arrangements), and lower-cost plans were specifically mentioned in the PPACA bill—Congress therefore appeared to want them to be available to the public. To further complicate the picture, the Act itself also endangered HSAs, as we have pointed out in earlier articles, by saying that deductibles in all plans would be limited. The statute says that deductibles cannot exceed $5,000 for an individual under age 30 or $10,000 for a family with parents under 30, and cannot exceed $2,000 for an individual over 30 or $4,000 for a family with parents over 30. However, the statute also says that medical insurance must cover at least 65% of our medical expenses, so even these reduced allowable deductible levels may be reduced further when the 65% requirement is better defined. These provisions of the Act already threatened the existence of HSAs. The new HHS regulations come along and twist the knife in further by interpreting the Medical Loss Ratio requirement in a way that is completely inconsistent with the continued existence of HSAs. Whether the destruction of HSAs was intended or not, we would argue that these new rules are absolutely contrary to congressional intent. The good news is that since HSAs are specifically mentioned in the PPACA legislation, they can’t legally be killed by agency regulations, over and above the injury already received from the statute. Please contact your senators and representatives immediately and ask them to intervene to change these new regulations and help save Health Savings Accounts. Please take action today!

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Big Farma Convinces FDA to Take a Dive

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:00:46 +0000

Just as everyone was making last-minute holiday preparations, the FDA quietly announced they would no longer try to restrict the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed. An Action Alert update!The so-called “preventive” use of antibiotics in livestock is routine and widespread. Factory farms use them to ward off illness in animals that are kept in overcrowded, filthy living conditions that are a perfect environment for the spread of illness. These antibiotics also promote increased growth in animals.In fact, 80% of all antibiotics sold in US go into farm animal feed. Germs resistant to one or more drugs kill 100,000 hospital patients every year in the US, which costs the healthcare system more than $34 billion.In the last eighteen months, the World Health Organization issued a global alert on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant superbugs; antibiotic-resistant bacteria sickened people in three states; and a study found that up to half of US meat was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant staph. The agriculture industry stridently opposes legislative and regulatory attempts to curtail antibiotic usage, making the absurd claim that the science is still inconclusive.For the past thirty-five years, the FDA has supposedly been trying to curtail the routine use of antibiotics. Odd that such a long-lived and concerted effort by such a powerful agency has failed so miserably, isn’t it? In 2008, the FDA issued an outright ban of the cephalosporin for livestock. But the agency withdrew the plan after strong opposition from industry groups that wanted to preserve some uses of the antibiotic.On December 22 (probably hoping no one would notice in the holiday craziness), the FDA quietly withdrew its three-decade-old request to remove antibiotics from animal feed. “FDA believes that by implementing [a voluntary compliance] strategy, it will achieve its goal of promoting the judicious use of antimicrobial drugs in a more timely and resource-efficient manner than could be accomplished otherwise,” the agency said in its announcement. “FDA's experience with contested, formal withdrawal proceedings is that the process can consume extensive periods of time and significant amounts of Agency resources” [emphasis ours].In plain English, FDA is saying that industry opposition makes pursuing a ban too expensive. Big Ag is opposing something that probably every single American, if you stopped them on the street and asked them, would be in favor of—and the FDA is listening to industry rather than the hundreds of millions of Americans who want food that isn’t laden with hazardous antibiotics.Happily, people did notice that FDA had bowed down to Big Farma, and immediately made a ruckus. So last week, to appease public outrage, FDA imposed new (but extremely slight) limitations on antibiotics that will barely make a dent in the real problem.The new rule limits some uses of cephalosporin in some animals, banning routine injections into chicken eggs, and large or lengthy dosing in cattle and swine. This rule is much less strict than the ban proposed in 2008, since it still allows veterinarians to use “off-label” antibiotics, and it doesn’t address small-scale-production animals like ducks and rabbits. Nor does it cover the use of penicillin and tetracycline in feed and water when used for promoting the growth of animals or preventing illness that results from unsanitary living conditions—a practice that accounts for the majority of antibiotic use in agriculture. Why are they used so widely? Because unlike cephalosporin, these antibiotics do not require a veterinary prescription.When asked about the lack of a guideline for the use of penicillin, FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael R. Taylor—who just happens to be a former Monsanto executive!—said, “We’re hopeful that in the coming months, we’ll be able to carry forward on that work.” In other words, “That’s not on our current agenda.”The FDA drastically (and perhaps purposefully) underestimated the number of NDI submissions that will be required under their proposed draft guidance for dietary supplements. If they don’t have the manpower, funding, or scientific clout to do something as simple as standing up to industry pressure on antibiotics in animal feed, how are they going to evaluate thousands of NDI submissions? Talk about skewed priorities! They can’t (or won’t) stop this dangerous practice, but they’re happy to waste their limited resources—and our tax dollars—attacking supplementsWe say it all the time, but it bears continued repeating: Supplements aren’t killing people. Drug-resistant bacteria are.HR 965, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, now has 74 co-sponsors, but the bill has been stalled in the Health subcommittee since March of last year. Please write to your representative and senators today about FDA’s inability or unwillingness to take substantive action, and ask them to take action on this important bill right away! Please take action today!

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Want to Reduce Your Heart Risk By a Whopping Percentage?

ANH-USA — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:00:15 +0000

No, this doesn’t involve diet or supplements or exercise.One of the most altruistic and easiest things to do is to give blood. But you may not realize just how much it can improve your heart health.“Blood viscosity” is one of the most important, but least understood, factors in cardiovascular health. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and a factor in one-third of all deaths. And how thick and sticky your blood is—how much friction your blood creates moving through the blood vessels— is a major factor in determining how much abrasion and damage it does to the lining cells (endothelium) of your arteries.According to Dr. Ralph Holsworth, DO, the top expert in blood viscosity in the US, when your endothelium is damaged, your body “patches” the tissue with lipids (fats) which begin to thicken and harden, forming a “plaque.” And that creates a vicious cycle: abrasion from your blood flow prompts the body to thicken artery walls, which reduces the size of blood vessels, which creates more friction with the blood flow, which makes more “patches” form, until the artery wall becomes so thick that blood can no longer flow through. And that produces a heart attack. A study in Scotland found that a group of patients with extensive heart disease had much higher blood viscosity levels than the healthy control group.As our friend Jonathan V. Wright, MD, put it in a recent newsletter article, “Think for just a moment: If your blood is thick and sticky, is it going to flow along as easily in your arteries and veins as blood that is thinner and less sticky? Does tomato paste flow as easily as tomato juice? Of course not.” Blood that’s too thick also hinders your body’s ability to deliver nutrients like oxygen, which are carried to your cells and tissues by your blood, to the “farthest reaches” of your circulatory system. That’s why the legs, which are the furthest from your heart, often display circulatory problems first.The good news is that your risk of heart attack can be reduced by reducing your blood viscosity—and the best way to do this is to give some blood regularly. Men are much more susceptible to circulatory viscosity problems than menstruating women are: the blood lost from menstruation seems to have a protective effect. However, after menopause women’s risk begins to approach that of men, and women with irregular or absent periods are 28% more likely to develop heart disease than women with regular periods.In the past, men have been told that donating blood will reduce the level of iron in their blood and that this was heart protective. This is true, but it now appears that reducing one’s iron levels, while important, is not nearly as important as controlling blood viscosity.It also appears that the most efficient way to control your blood viscosity is simply to donate some of it! A study of nearly 3,000 middle-aged men found that men who donated blood had 88% less risk of acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) compared to men who didn’t donate.

In light of this research, Dr. Wright suggested that ANH-USA launch a new campaign to encourage not only our readers but everyone to donate blood regularly. This is a great idea. Let’s all do it. We’ll live longer, and we may save someone else’s life!

Blood donations are urgently needed. According to America's Blood Centers, community blood centers have lost thousands of loyal potential donors due to new deferrals put in place by the FDA—some of which have been criticized as unnecessary and based on questionable science.But some people cannot donate blood for quite legitimate reasons. What if you fall into that category? Not to worry! You might be able to find an integrative doctor who will draw your blood, which will not be used for donation. Alternatively you can still reduce your risk of heart attack and lower your blood viscosity by taking high-quality fish oil. As Dr. Wright emphasizes, fish oil should be paired with vitamin E as “mixed tocopherols” to prevent damage from oxidized lipids. Regular vitamin E is alpha-tocopherol alone, so be sure it is mixed tocopherols.Of course, as in most areas of life, there can be too much of a good thing. Too-thin blood can also be a problem, so blood viscosity should be measured before increasing fish oil intake. Have your blood viscosity tested by your doctor to determine how frequently you should donate blood or how much fish oil you should take to reduce your personal risk of heart attack and optimize your blood flow. Dr. Wright’s Meridian Valley Laboratories offers Whole Blood Viscosity tests (you can reach them toll-free at 855-405-8378).

Donate blood! Help yourself, and help another!

The American Dietetic Association’s Monopoly Continues to Grow—But You Can Stop It Cold!

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:56:22 +0000

New bills have been introduced in a number of states that will give the ADA a monopoly over the practice of nutritional therapy—these are the people in charge of the wonderful hospital food. Please take action in your state to stop this power grab and ensure consumer choice!The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has sponsored legislation in over 40 states. These bills lump dietitians and nutritionists into one licensing scheme, and require nutritionists to complete a dietitian program in order to practice nutritional therapy. Even if the nutritionist holds a Masters or a PhD in nutrition, the nutritionist is still required to complete registration through ADA in order to keep practicing. This is the organization that lists among its corporate sponsors soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg’s, candy maker Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world’s consumer products brands in foods and beverages.In some states, individuals are even prohibited from using the words “nutritionist” and “nutritional care.” Such legislation impedes an individual’s right to access highly qualified nutritional therapists of their choice, and prohibits hundreds of qualified practitioners from providing nutritional therapy.Nutritionists and dietitians differ in important ways. In general, nutritionists are health practitioners with comprehensive knowledge of how nutrition impacts the whole body focusing on medical nutrition therapy, metabolism and biochemistry, and work primarily in private practice settings conducting one-on-one nutrition counseling. Nutritionists practice an integrative approach to medicine and concentrate on prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Dietitians, in general, are experts in what passes for nutrition science today, much of it often woefully out of date, with training focusing on institutional diets and food service management—developing diets for hospital patients, school food service programs, and nursing homes. Dietitians can provide individualized counseling on diet and disease and there can be an overlap in the type of work each profession practices.CaliforniaRead our bill analysis HERE The California Legislature is currently considering a bill that would create a new Dieticians Bureau and create and an advisory committee made up of dietitians. Under this bill nutritionists are forced to become licensed as dietitians in order to practice, regardless of whether they already have a Masters degree or a PHd. This bill would effectively eliminate an entire profession and removes all competition in the field of nutrition services. California residents please take action now!New JerseyNJ Assembly bill AB1987 and the senate version in the NJ Senate, S809, is the Dietitian/Nutritionist Licensing Act. This bill lumps together “licensed dietitian/nutritionist,” and the terms are used interchangeably throughout the bill. Instead of noting and providing for the differences between the two, the bill creates a State Board of Dietitians/Nutritionists instead of a separate board for each.Furthermore, the Senate version of the bill requires the completion of a registered exam administered by the American Dietetic Association.This is not the first time we’ve worked in New Jersey on this issue—we were able to kill two different bills last session.New Jersey residents please take action now!New YorkA.5666 and its identical companion bill in the NY Senate, S.3556, provides for the licensure of dietitians and nutritionists. This proposed bill lumps dieticians and nutritionists together under one title, “Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist” or “LDN” rather than providing separate licensing for each.The bill creates a joint board, appointing four members of the ADA and three representing nutritional associations. It does not identify the required exam—but it directs the board to do so. We have run into this problem in other states, where the board, heavy with ADA reps, refuses any but the ADA exam. Note further that this is a title provision, meaning that they aren’t preventing the practice of nutrition (subject to these requirements), but they are limiting the title by which one may advertise! And their certification requirements are standard-issue ADA: a BA, 900 hours supervision, etc.New York currently recognizes credentialing agencies beyond the ADA—in particular the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists (CBNS), which is specifically designed for nutritionists. This would change once the ADA-majority board takes its first vote. Any new legislation must keep nutritionists separate from dieticians (who will immediately take control of the licensing process), and must ensure the same protections.New York residents please take action now!

A Look Back: ANH-USA Celebrates Twenty Years of Natural Health Activism

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:14:58 +0000

And the future looks bright thanks to all your support.In the early 1990s, a small group of practitioners, MDs, and DOs who used nutritional and other complementary therapies in their practices met to share their concerns. Medical freedom was being threatened by the FDA, by powerful allopathic medical organizations like the AMA, by insurance companies, and by state medical boards around the country. Good doctors were losing their licenses or being driven into bankruptcy simply because they used an unconventional, holistic approach to preventing disease and optimizing health.Advancements in medicine were being stymied because good practitioners were afraid of censure. Americans had no access to some of the most cutting-edge medical therapies and technologies available in other countries, while medical costs were spiraling out of control, spurred on by the explosion in pharmaceutical, surgical, and chemotherapy treatments, many of them based on doubtful science and not even effective, despite their high cost.In 1992, this small group began advocating for holistic health practitioners and consumers on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures, in the courts, and with the media. We called ourselves the American Preventive Medical Association (APMA) to reflect our belief that truly preventive medicine focuses on maintaining optimal health with healthy food, key nutraceuticals and dietary supplements, exercise, and complementary medical therapies.It was a critical time: a coalition of health and industry organizations were mobilizing the largest national grassroots effort ever seen in our country. Working with a broad coalition of allies, we were able to persuade Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994—a major reform of the food and drug laws regulating supplements. It specifically prohibited the FDA from classifying supplements as new drugs or food additives, and permitted, for the first time, limited health claims on supplement labels, so long as no specific disease was mentioned. It also stated that the federal government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers to limit or slow the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers.By 2004, the tide seemed to be turning against us with the FDA’s growing power and increased hostility to any approach to health that didn’t bow down before allopathic medicine and FDA-approved drugs. At that time, we changed our name to the American Association for Health Freedom, and channeled our energies into pushing back and saying No to the powers that threatened natural health. We organized a grassroots “Reform the FDA” campaign, and lobbied for the passage of an Access to Medical Treatment Act that would have guaranteed all citizens the right to the medical treatments they desired, as provided by a qualified medical professional.About the same time, we met the folks at the Alliance for Natural Health, a UK-based organization that seemed to agree with us on just about everything. Their work in Europe since 2002 paralleled the work we were doing in the United States, and we benefited from sharing information and ideas with each other. In December of 2009, the two organizations decided to take our relationship to the next level by becoming the Alliance for Natural Health Europe and the Alliance for Natural Health USA, within one parent organization, the Alliance for Natural Health International.This year marks our twentieth anniversary, and you have a great deal to be proud of—for we couldn’t have done the smallest bit of it without your support and grassroots activism. Thanks to you, ANH is changing the way medicine is done, and on an even deeper level, even helping to shift consciousness toward a better understanding of how our connection to nature is intimately connected to our health. Most critically, in our country ANH-USA has played an important role in passing significant legislation that directly benefits the natural health approach while blocking legislation that threatens it. We have also filed lawsuits to accomplish the same aims.

To date, we have filed nine precedent-setting lawsuits against the FDA, which have established qualified health claims for saw palmetto, Omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, vitamin E, vitamin B, and selenium. Our first suit was the landmark case of Pearson v. Shalala—and because we won, there is now widespread public knowledge about the importance of consuming enough folate during pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects. Prior to this legal victory, supplement manufacturers were not permitted to let consumers know about this important nutrient relationship, and many consumers were in the dark.
We also sued the FDA (and won!) for violating the First Amendment as well as the Administrative Procedure Act by not allowing the dissemination of truthful, scientific information on dietary supplement labels.
We also succeeded in having the Health Insurance Accountability and Portability Act (HIPAA) state explicitly that the practice of alternative medicine is not fraud—a critical protection for alternative health care practitioners.
We led the effort to establish the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in 1998. It’s part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), undertakes research, does training, and disseminates data to the public and professionals. NCCAM still isn’t where we want it to be, but we hope to get it there.
We worked with Reps. Chaffetz and Polis to introduce the Free Speech about Science Act in the House of Representatives, which will permit supplement companies to cite peer-reviewed scientific research in support of product health benefits.
We organized an emergency response to a major threat to dietary supplements in Congress: Sen. McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act. ANH-USA activists sent more than 200,000 messages to Congress opposing the bill, and we took out a full-page ad in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, which highlighted misleading remarks from Sen. McCain on the Senate floor. In just three weeks, Sen. McCain took the almost unheard-of step of withdrawing support for his own bill, which subsequently died without a vote.
Our activists, still mobilized and eager to act, were then able to defeat a sneak amendment to the Wall Street Finance Reform bill from Congressman Waxman that would have greatly expanded the FTC’s power to target supplement companies.
Not much later, you sent more than 60,000 messages to Congress opposing Sen. Leahy's Food Safety Accountability Act, which would have established ten-year prison terms for violating FDA regulations, leading Leahy's office to reach out to ANH-USA to develop compromise language requiring proof of actual harm for prosecution. When the bill failed to become law, we worked together to ensure the ten-year prison term language did not make it into the Senate's Food Safety Modernization Act.
It was not long before the FDA and Sen. Durbin made their coordinated attacks on dietary supplements. The response to our call for activists to oppose the FDA's new draft guidance has been nothing short of inspiring (read our exciting news on that subject in this issue!).

We’ve filed petitions to ban the use of the toxic chemical BPA in cash register receipts and children's dental devices. You’ve petitioned the USDA and FDA with us to oppose GMOs, and supported state bills to demand GMO labeling. These petitions are a necessary prelude to lawsuits. We’ve organized a coalition of dietitians and nutritionists to oppose the American Dietetic Association’s ties to junk food companies and anti-competitive legislation, and launched the ReallyEatRight.org website to bring the ADA’s activities to light.And through it all, we’ve continued to bring you The Pulse of Natural Health every week, keeping you up to date on the politics of natural health and much else besides. You've rewarded us with your activism in our campaigns, your insightful comments on our articles, and your generous donations to make all these victories possible.The freedoms we enjoy today are the direct result of the actions of activists like you. As we mark this milestone in 2012, we will continue to work tirelessly to protect and promote natural health and freedom of choice in healthcare. The last twenty years have shown what we can do when we work together. During the next twenty years, as the crisis in conventional healthcare finally becomes evident to everyone, we have a unique opportunity to bring the word about sustainable and effective natural health options to millions of people around the world as well as our leaders in Washington and state capitals.

Too Much Sitting Is Killing Us

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:06:55 +0000

Studies say that even moderate to vigorous exercise doesn’t counteract the damage.A study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation showed that each extra hour of television watching (the ultimate sitting sedentary activity) per day was associated with an 18% increase in deaths from heart disease and an 11% increase in overall mortality. People who watched TV for at least four hours a day were 80% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those who watched two hours or less, and 46% more likely to die of any cause.We have smart readers, and many of you will immediately ask: “Weren’t there other factors, not just sitting, that resulted in this outcome?” Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. There are specific reasons why sitting, in itself, appears to be dangerous. The message seems to be to move around. But if you aren’t moving around, stand or lie down, which humans have done throughout their history. Avoid sitting in a chair, an activity that is relatively new for human beings and not at all good for us.Surprising as it is, the increase in heart and mortality risk observed in the Circulation study affected people who met exercise guidelines—and were independent of eating habits as well! Studies reported significant associations between total sedentary time with blood glucose, blood lipids, and adiposity, even in people who performed moderate to vigorous exercise several times each week.Animal studies also show that how much time we are sedentary is related to how well our bodies process fats. The studies in rats show that leg muscles only produce the lipase lipoprotein (fat-processing) molecule when they are being actively flexed—that is, when standing or, better still, walking around—and low levels of the molecule are associated with health problems, including heart disease. In short, sitting makes this important molecule slow down. In fact, actively contracting the muscles produces a whole suite of substances that have a beneficial effect on how the body uses and stores sugars and fats.“Many people, on a daily basis, simply shift from one chair to another—from the seat in the car to the chair in the office to the chair in front of the television,” said to the lead author of the study. “Even if someone has a healthy body weight, sitting for long periods still has an unhealthy influence on blood sugar and blood fats.”It should be noted that sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little. They do completely different things to the body. Standing recruits specialized muscles designed for low-intensity activity—muscles that are very rich in enzymes. The lipoprotein lipase enzyme grabs fat and cholesterol from the blood, burning the fat into energy while shifting the cholesterol from LDL (the bad kind) to HDL (the healthy kind). When you sit, the muscles are relaxed, and enzyme activity drops by 90% to 95%, leaving fat to camp out in the bloodstream. Within a couple hours of sitting, healthy cholesterol plummets by 20%.A Canadian study reached a similar conclusion. After adjusting for potential compounding factors (smoking, exercise levels, etc.), the study found that the longer people sat, the higher the risk of mortality from all causes except cancer.The good news is that inserting breaks into your sedentary periods can help. Periodically taking time out from your computer, desk, television, and driving time to walk, move around, stretch, and flex your muscles, is good for you. These spurts of activity are associated with a smaller waist circumference, lower body mass index, and lower blood lipid levels, and better glucose metabolism.A stand up desk might be a good idea as well. Don’t have room for one? Too expensive? Then pile some books or something else on top of your existing desk and put your laptop where you can type standing up when you want to, either often or as a break.At ANH-USA, we believe that true health comes from a combination of diet (and supplements), exercise, and lifestyle. Politically, so much is happening regarding supplements and diet that we spend most of our newsletter space focusing on those areas. But science tells us that our lifestyle choices—simple decisions made daily—can make a huge impact on our health, for good or for ill.

Senators Give Supplements a Lifeline

ANH-USA — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:59:57 +0000

Will it be enough to rein in FDA’s outrageous power grab?ANH-USA, together with a number of supplement trade organizations, went to Capitol Hill to plead our case about the FDA’s profoundly flawed NDI (new supplement) draft guidance in the offices of two powerful senators and longtime friends of natural health, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Our visit was preceded by all the letters you have been sending to Congress, which have immeasurably increased the visibility of this issue. As you know, if this draft guidance stands, it would allow FDA to arbitrarily deny the sale of any supplement created (or modified) in the past seventeen years. Immediately after this meeting, Sens. Harkin and Hatch wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and formally asked the FDA to withdraw its guidance document.The senators urged FDA to begin work on a new draft that provides needed clarification on what constitutes a New Dietary Ingredient (NDI)—but, in their words, does not undermine Congress’s desire to provide consumers with access to safe, affordable dietary supplement products. Exactly!These senators were uniquely qualified to make such a request, since they were the principal authors of DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. “When Congress included language in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) directing FDA to clarify when a dietary supplement ingredient is a new dietary ingredient, the expectation was that the guidance would be consistent with DSHEA,” they write. “Unfortunately, the draft guidance serves to undermine DSHEA in a number of important respects.”They go on to outline the various arguments that we have been making in these pages for some time:

The requirement for a manufacturer to submit an NDI notification for every dietary supplement containing an NDI is directly contrary to the language of DSHEA, which requires notification only of the intent to use an NDI;
This new requirement is burdensome and would impose substantial additional costs on manufacturers, would not provide additional safety benefits, and would undermine access to the safe, affordable nutritional supplements that DSHEA was designed to ensure;
The NDI guidance’s assertion that synthetic copies of ingredients can never be a dietary ingredient is without any statutory basis, and is contrary to longstanding FDA policy; and
This guidance is contrary to Congressional intent by grandfathering in only ingredients that were marketed before the enactment of DSHEA—such an argument is particularly specious since “the term dietary supplement wasn’t even defined prior to DSHEA”!

The senators requested that FDA meet with interested parties to work through all of the issues raised in our and others’ comments. Fortunately, FDA can’t just ignore the senators’ request, because the agency is required to work within legislative intent. Otherwise they would be creating new law—which legally they cannot do. This is one of the arguments we have been making all along—that FDA is in fact making new law with this draft guidance, and now Congress is calling them on it!We would like to thank Senators Harkin and Hatch for being such stalwart champions of natural health, and for their leadership in this battle to prevent the FDA from usurping powers that they are not legally entitled to. We also want to thank every one of you for contacting Congress and the FDA and being such a vital part of this process.We aren’t out of the woods yet—we’ll have another update soon with additional action items for you. The time may come for more specific legislative action, and we may find ourselves battling FDA in the courts as well. That’s why your continued support and activism is so terribly important. Together we can win this one, preserve your access to supplements, and keep supplements from costing as much as drugs.

Fox News.com Gets it Right on Supplements

ANH-USA — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:46:46 +0000

Fox News.com featured a fantastic article about FDA's anti-supplement new dietary ingredient guidance. Please read, share, take action and leave comments. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/20/is-fda-trying-to-take-away-your-vitamins/

Personal Identity Thieves Love Health Records

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:00:47 +0000

Security breaches are up 32%—but because of a loophole, if your patient data is stolen, you may not even be told about it! Why wouldn’t an identity thief love electronic patient records? They are a veritable goldmine. Each record contains the patient’s name, Social Security number, birthdate, contact info, and insurance, not to mention private health and treatment data. Security breaches cost the industry $6.5 billion dollars—most breaches occur when a computer is stolen—with the number of thefts increasing dramatically each year; this year there were 32% more breaches, the New York Times reported this week. That 32% comes from data reported to the Department of Health and Human Services. But here’s the zinger: Federal law requires health organizations to report data breaches to HHS only if they affect more than 500 people. And it requires disclosure only in cases that “pose a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm to the individual affected.” Who gets to decide this? The company that was handling the data—and was responsible for the breach. It’s in their own interest, of course, to minimize their exposure. So a record listing your name alone would be ignored; 499 complete records may be ignored; and any number may be ignored if supposedly not posing a risk of harm. In these instances, victims would never be notified. The CDC says about 57% of doctors’ offices use electronic medical records (EMRs); just last year it was only 45%. EMRs are a requirement of the Affordable Health Care Act, and as more and more hospitals and healthcare systems begin to comply, the problem will only get worse in the future. In October, a desktop computer containing unencrypted records on more than four million patients was stolen from Sutter Health, a nonprofit health system based in Sacramento. The theft is now the subject of two class-action suits, each of which seeks $1,000 for each patient record breached. You may recall that ANH-USA has consistently opposed a nationwide mandatory electronic records system. We believe that allowing hundreds of thousands of parties to access your records, including mental health and other sensitive information, is by definition a serious invasion of privacy. At the very least, patients should be able to opt out. Another problem is that EMRs allow state medical boards to go on “fishing expeditions” targeting integrative physicians, because they can more easily search to see what treatments the physicians are using that may be outside some arbitrarily and vaguely defined “standard of care.” Fortunately, EMRs are only mandatory for doctors who participate in insurance or other federal programs; many integrative physicians do not take insurance and do not use EMR. Unfortunately this just means that the patients have to pay twice for healthcare, once for insurance they won’t use, and once in cash to the physician of their choice. Of course, it’s not only electronic data that can fall into the wrong hands. In Minneapolis last month, sensitive medical information was found on the back of a child’s drawing she had made at elementary school—including the patient’s name, account number, birthdate, and job. An attorney’s office had donated old scrap paper to the school for an after-school program; the attorney had been hired by the patient after a car accident, and the office employee who made the donation didn’t think there was any personal information on the papers. The attorney apologized for the mistake, saying that the donation was a violation of the firm’s privacy policies. The elementary school sent out a message to every child in the after-school program to check if any other medical records have ended up in students’ homes, and asked students to return them. Of course, if some cyber-terrorist destroyed the electronic systems, then it might be nice to have paper records like the ones that ended up in elementary school. The larger problem with government mandates is usually one of unintended consequences, especially when we are all forced into a one-size-fits-all pseudo-solution. If government would leave medical professionals alone, they might come up with more creative solutions to the record-keeping problem, solutions that protect our privacy and take into account our individual needs and wishes.

Score One for the Crony Capitalists in the School Lunch Program

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:00:08 +0000

Pizza remains a vegetable and you can have as many greasy fries as you like, all thanks to Congress. What kind of country allows what appears to be open financial corruption to poison its children’s school lunches? The answer seems to be our country. Two of the biggest school lunch suppliers, together with their congressional lapdogs, are strong-arming the USDA. They’re the ones who twisted the regulations so that a slice of cheese pizza could be considered a vegetable, and made sure our kids’ lunch plates could stay filled with French fries. Meanwhile, the management companies responsible for administering the lunch programs are receiving what look to us to be kickbacks from food suppliers and distributors. Last January, the USDA made a feeble attempt to improve the situation by making school lunches healthier through better Dietary Guidelines. As we reported then, the agency’s goals of including more vegetables and whole grains in the lunch program were laudable. But USDA officials didn’t pay attention to real nutrition research, and ended up advocating a diet that can actually make people obese. Unfortunately, other government food programs also rely on USDA guidelines and have notably poor nutrition plans. For example, the government WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program includes soy-based infant formula as an alternative to milk—despite the documented dangers to infants from soy chemicals mimicking estrogen or other hormones. In general, the USDA, which seems more concerned with getting food sold than making our children healthy, gets a very poor grade as a nutrition advisor. But it gets worse. Far worse. Congress just passed an appropriations bill including a particular rider (an additional provision added to a bill which has little connection to the subject matter of the bill) forcing USDA to change its feeble new guidelines in ways that further benefit special interests—and harm kids’ health. Serving the interests of giant food companies, the rider seeks to preserve pizza as a “vegetable” under the school lunch program and also to be sure that unlimited French fries can be served. How exactly, you might wonder, can pizza be defined as a vegetable? In the school lunch program, most pastes and purees get credit for the “actual volume as served,” meaning that there must be half-cup servings to qualify, no matter how nutrient-dense they may be. USDA wanted the tomato paste on pizza to be treated the same way. But Congress carved out an exception for tomato paste and mandated that two tablespoons qualifies as a serving. Why exactly two tablespoons? Because that’s the amount that is used on a slice of pizza. In this way, a slice of cheese pizza gets to be counted as a serving of vegetables, courtesy of our esteemed Congress. The new USDA guidelines also restricted the amount of starchy vegetables in lunches, which includes the potatoes used for French fries, and cut back on the amount of sodium allowed. The new rider overrides those new restrictions too, so kids can be served unlimited fries. According to the Los Angeles Times, the American Frozen Food Institute, which supplies frozen French fries, was one of the heavy-hitters in getting the rider passed. Senators Susan Collins and Mark Udall, both from big potato-producing states, joined with the National Potato Council to fight the limits on starchy vegetables. Schwan’s Food Service, which supplies frozen pizzas to 75% of US schools, is the corporate behemoth of the school lunch program. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, from Schwan's home state, wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack extolling the nutritional value of tomato paste. Schwan donated $4,000 to Rep. John Kline and $6,000 to Rep. Peterson—both of whom also fought to create the tomato paste exception. In August, Schwan’s issued a press release claiming it “has been feeding America’s children at school for 36 years and is a leader in the $9.5 billion school foodservice industry.” They went on to talk about new options with more whole grains and fewer calories from fat, but then sang the virtues of pizza: “Pizza continues to be the choice of students for school lunch, and we’ve created great tasting products that provide the nutrition that kids need.” Well, some of us at ANH-USA have kids in public high school, and they report the pizza served there is the greasiest, sorriest, least-appetizing pizza they have ever seen. But let’s ignore that for the moment and go back to measuring tomato paste. Clearly, for pizza to continue being counted as a vegetable, something had to be done about that new pesky half-cup serving guideline. So the lobbyists went to work, and the legislators did their bidding, apparently without worrying about the kids. Federal lobbying records show that Schwan and the American Frozen Food Institute spent $450,000 on congressional lobbying this year (though there are no specifics on what precisely they were lobbying for). We wish this were all that is wrong with the school lunch program, but it isn’t. The US Department of Agriculture pays $1 billion per year to buy produce and meat for school lunches. Instead of preparing that food on-site in a healthy manner, schools hire management companies, which in turn hire processors to prepare the food. The processors turn chicken meat, scraps, flavorings, and fillers of uncertain origin into things like chicken nuggets, etc. The processors in turn pay what look to us to be kickbacks to the management companies for choosing them over another processor. None of this money goes back to the schools. Those seeming kickbacks—the management companies would call them rebates—are arguably illegal. The New York Attorney General sued one management company and received a $20 million settlement. Even if the school lunch system weren’t corrupt, it would still be unhealthy. In 2003, the USDA approved irradiated meat for the school lunch program. Since then, Congress has placed limitations on irradiated meat in school lunches, but it is still served. Schools can’t even get something as traditional as chocolate milk right these days. Of course recent research does suggest that adding chocolate can make the calcium less bio-available, but let’s not fuss about that. Nor, for a moment, the growth hormones or the antibiotics in the milk itself that we have descried in other articles. But how about the BHT added to the chocolate milk? BHT is a preservative that is also used in cosmetics, pharmaceutical drugs, rubber and petroleum products, jet fuels, and embalming fluids. It causes cancer in animals, and can cause liver and kidney damage, but most notably causes behavioral problems and hyperactivity in children. Perhaps the supposition is that if Johnny acts up, we can just give him some drugs to calm him down (please see our article on that subject in this issue)!

Why Would a Young Person Start Shooting in School?

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:00:17 +0000

Prozac and other SSRIs kill kids—and not just from suicide. A judge now agrees. New Action Alert! Scientists and integrative doctors have been aware of these drugs leading to violence for years, but now it is also the ruling of a Canadian judge, who found that a teenager killed his friend because of a reaction to SSRI antidepressants. Meanwhile more and more kids are being “screened” and pushed to take these prescriptions.In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded that a 15-year-old boy was under the influence of Prozac when he fatally stabbed a close friend. Although the boy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, the judge cited the drug’s side effects as a reason to keep the case in juvenile court and give him a more lenient sentence.Prozac is prescribed to curb depression, but as we reported in March, SSRIs are linked to a shockingly heightened risk of violence toward others. Not just suicide, which a black box warning on the package already warns against. But sudden, unexplained, and often murderous violence against others.In the Canadian case, Justice Heinrich concluded the medication set off a steady deterioration in the young killer’s behavior. “He had become irritable, restless, agitated, aggressive and unclear in his thinking,” the judge said. “It was while in that state he overreacted in an impulsive, explosive and violent way. Now that his body and mind are free and clear of any effects of Prozac, he is simply not the same youth in behavior or character.”In this case, the teenage murderer had a history of smoking marijuana, had abused prescription drugs, and “experimented” with cocaine. Ironically, it was to help him break free of these behaviors that a family doctor prescribed Prozac for depression.Remember, the Columbine High School shootings and the spree shootings at a community center in Los Angeles, two brokerage firms in Atlanta, and a printing plant in Kentucky were all perpetrated by people taking Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil, or a related SSRI antidepressant drug.The US Food and Drug Administration and the Health Protection Branch (HPB) of Health Canada know all this. So why does the FDA require the warning against suicide on the drug package but no warning against acts of violence? It would seem that the FDA simply does not want to take any responsibility for the acts of mass violence in our schools and workplaces that have become increasingly common since the agency’s approval of these drugs.Meanwhile doctors are not only prescribing more and more SSRIs to teenagers, but schools and educational agencies are also pushing teenagers to get mental health screenings. The “teen screen” program uses inducements like free movie tickets to coerce them into being screened, and then asks such questions as whether they ever feel insecure or depressed (what teen doesn’t?). Very often, the answer is more medication from these truly dangerous drugs.Parents can object (if they hear about the screening in advance, which is not guaranteed), but if they do, they may be charged with child abuse, child neglect, or educational neglect!Rep. Ron Paul has introduced the Parental Consent Act of 2011, which would prohibit the use of federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program for kids. HR 2769 also addresses the problem of educational institutions using a parent’s refusal to consent to mental health screenings for his or her child as the basis for a charge of abuse or neglect. Any school or agency that does such a thing would no longer be able to receive federal education funding.Children shouldn’t be automatically screened for mental health issues without explicit parental consent, especially if there is no indication of mental health problems. It violates parental rights, the diagnostic criteria are vague, and federal funds shouldn’t support programs that could lead to the increased over-medication of children.An identical bill has been introduced in the Senate, S 1800, by Sen. Rand Paul.Please contact your senators and representative and ask them to support this extremely important legislation. Take action TODAY!

New Underhanded Tactics from Pharma—Is It Greed, or an Act of Desperation?

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:01:49 +0000

It wasn’t enough that they raised the price of this critical drug from $10 to $1,500 per dose. Now they are going after pharmacists and hitting pregnant low-income women the hardest.KV Pharmaceutical Company is trying a new approach to corner the market for their drug Makena, which helps prevent premature births. They are “raising concerns” about the quality of 17P (17-Hydroxyprogesterone), a hormone that forms the active ingredient in the drug that has been used for many years by compounding pharmacies to make a low-cost version of the pregnancy medicine. The FDA has now agreed to investigate.You may recall from our earlier article that KV took a compounded drug costing $10 per dose, patented 17P, got it approved by the FDA under the Orphan Drug Act, and immediately raised the price to $1,500/dose (or as much as $30,000 over the course of a pregnancy). When the media picked up this story, KV Pharmaceutical eventually lowered its price from $1,500 to $690 per dose—but that’s still an absurd price when the compounded version only costs $10.KV then sent letters to compounding pharmacists, telling them they must stop selling their versions of the drug or else face FDA enforcement actions! After an outpouring of protests from you and other grassroots supporters, the FDA was forced to officially concede that this was in fact not the case.Last month, KV Pharmaceutical presented FDA with data that claims there is variability in the purity and potency of the bulk ingredient and compounded forms of 17P. However, KV has refused to make this data publicly available, so it is impossible to verify their information. FDA has agreed to look into KV pharmaceutical claims and will conduct an on-site review of the laboratory that makes the bulk ingredient.By resorting to such bullying tactics, the drug company seems to be trying every approach it can to stamp out competition. Their questioning the quality of compounded drugs is especially ironic considering their own credibility is on the rubbish heap. This past week, the drug-maker agreed to pay $17 million as a settlement for violating the False Claims Act—the company failed to advise the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that two of its drugs were unapproved and didn’t qualify for coverage. Besides selling unapproved drugs, they also admitted to making false claims and sending out false quarterly reports.Remember last week’s article about the government receiving settlements in lieu of prosecution, because the government doesn’t want to lose the drug companies’ business? Another week, another example of drug company crony capitalism.This comes just seven months after Marc Hermelin, the former chairman and CEO of KV, pleaded guilty to presiding over the production and distribution of morphine sulfate tablets that were larger and contained more morphine than they were supposed to; other tablets were of irregular sizes. He himself was ordered to pay a $1.9 million fine.Compounding pharmacies have been compounding 17P since 2000, with no controversy. So while KV attempts to bolster the price of its stock, now worth 5% of what it was worth four years ago (this year alone it has fallen from over $12 a share to its current $1.75 a share), its latest stratagem appears to us to be a calculated attack on compounding pharmacists and pregnant women—many of them low-income women without insurance who have no way of paying the exorbitant price of Makena.

Finally—Congress Begins to Wake Up about Genetically Engineered Food

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:57:08 +0000

Two powerful new bills will help control GMOs. Spread the word with our Action Alert! Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced two bills that would mandate labeling and provide stricter safety protections for GE products. HR 3553, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act, already has twelve co-sponsors (and bipartisan support). The bill requires labeling of all genetically engineered organisms—including fish, which is especially important since GM salmon approval seems imminent. For animals and animal products, the bill would also require disclosure if the animal has been fed GMO.HR 3554, the Genetically Engineered Safety Act, has a number of excellent provisions. It:

Prohibits open-air cultivation of genetically engineered pharmaceutical and industrial crops, to prevent cross-pollination and contamination;
Prohibits the use of common human food or animal feed as the host plant for a genetically engineered pharmaceutical or industrial chemical; and
Establishes a tracking system to regulate the growing, handling, transportation, and disposal of GE pharmaceutical and industrial crops and their by-products.

This second bill currently has two co-sponsors: Rep. Raul Grijalva and Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark. ANH-USA is working on Capitol Hill to garner greater support for both bills.As we noted in November, the FDA is still reviewing the application for approving GE salmon. The House voted to stop funding the research on the fish but the Senate has not, and it seems a foregone conclusion that FDA will approve the salmon since USDA is funding it.Rep. Kucinich’s bills will fix huge legal loopholes. Current laws require no oversight for GE products—and of course no labeling requirements. There is also a huge data gap regarding the safety of genetically engineered foods, as the few safety studies that have been done have all been sponsored by industry.Dr. Joseph Mercola recently interviewed Dr. Don Huber, an agricultural scientist and expert in microbial ecology at Purdue University who has issued stern warnings about the devastating effects of GE food crops after discovering a brand new organism in GE animal feed—an organism that has since been clearly linked to infertility and miscarriage in cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, and poultry. It’s an interview no one should miss.Our colleagues at ANH-Europe reported last week that one of the world’s largest chocolate producers, Mars, became the primary backer for scientists to produce a genetically modified (GMO) cocoa tree hybrid. As Dr. Robert Verkerk noted, “The last thing subsistence farmers need is GM crops....The push for GM is actually all about control of agriculture and control of the food supply by a handful of very large corporations.”As huge a health issue as genetically engineered foods are, it is also a major environmental issue. GM farming, because of the constant and uncontrollable threat of cross-contamination, has the potential to wreak havoc on crops the world over—and thus have a devastating effect on the future of the entire human race.We are also greatly concerned that the closed-system production of GMOs could cause a major environmental disaster as well. Just because the GMOs are not blowing in the wind, as it were, doesn’t mean we’re safe! Green algae, for example, is cultured for the production of biofuels and essential fatty acids—the DHA and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) used in some baby foods are derived from this cultured algae, as we discuss elsewhere in this issue.While the bioreactors that process the algae are theoretically closed, they are not foolproof. Genetically modified algae could escape into rivers and oceans, and could compete and genetically recombine with natural algae. Creating an oil-rich layer of genetically engineered algae on the surface of the oceans would have unthinkable environmental consequences.We need your help to get through not only to our legislators, but to world leaders as well.

Please take a moment and write to your representative, your senators, and President Obama, and ask them to fight genetically modified organisms by supporting these bills from Rep. Kucinich. Please take action today!

Courts Rule that Prempro Causes Cancer, but FDA Still Promotes It

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:41:51 +0000

Despite large pay outs to victims, Pfizer keeps selling the hormone replacement drug and the government keeps trying to make sure there’s no competition from the natural alternative!This past week, a court told Pfizer Inc., the multinational pharmaceutical company, to pay $72.6 million in damages to three women. Each had developed breast cancer after taking the company’s hormone replacement drug, Prempro (made from pregnant mares’ urine), for treatment of their menopause symptoms. So why is this drug still being sold?In 2002, the National Institutes of Health sponsored a Women’s Health Initiative study that showed Prempro is linked to cancer. The research demonstrated that Prempro, which is already known to increase the risk of breast cancer, also makes it more likely that the cancer will advance quickly and prove fatal.Despite these findings, Pfizer continues to sell the drug—and the FDA has not taken any action to remove drug from the market. In fact, the FDA merely says that “women taking Prempro or other combination estrogen/progestin therapy should consult with their physicians about the relevance of this new information to their treatment,” and that “the FDA is not thinking of taking estrogens or estrogen with progestin drug products off the market at this time.”Pfizer has now lost ten of the eighteen Prempro cases decided by juries since trials began in 2006. The drug-maker got some of those verdicts thrown out after the trial or had the awards reduced, offered settlements on others, and appealed the rest. Pfizer has also had cases thrown out before trial. The drug giant announced in May that it had settled a third of the pending Prempro cases and had set aside $772 million to help resolve the claims.As we reported last week, drug companies can take these settlements in their stride because they know the government will never prosecute them. Besides, Pfizer had already made $2 billion before the 2002 study was released, so the money they pay in settlements is simply chalked up to the cost of doing business.The collusion between Big Pharma and the government has ensured that the safer alternative—compounded bioidentical estriol—is still banned by the FDA. Not a single adverse event has ever been reported for bioidentical estriol.You may recall from our earlier reporting on estriol that FDA essentially created new policy when the agency issued warning letters to compounding pharmacists prohibiting them from compounding estriol. Why would the FDA do such a thing? Because our government follows the dictates of the drug industry. In this case, it was in response to the Citizen Petition which Wyeth (now part of Pfizer) sent to FDA, asking them to pursue enforcement. Wyeth/Pfizer didn’t want competition for Prempro, and the FDA obeyed. The deadly, cancer-causing drug is still freely sold and marketed. Can you imagine the outcry if a supplement caused cancer but was still available for sale?Due to an outpouring of protest from grassroots activists like you, behind-the-scenes lobbying by ANH-USA and other concerned organizations, and conflicting federal court decisions, at the moment there is a something of a stand-off on the issue—no new crackdowns have taken place. But FDA still has not revoked their ban on this natural, safe, inexpensive, and effective alternative to Prempro.

At Least Baby Food Is Safe…Right?

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:36:50 +0000

You’d think so. But even Certified Organic baby food may contain genetically engineered ingredients. Help stop it with our new Action Alert!

Legislation like Rep. Kucinich’s (see our other article in this issue) is desperately needed as GMO infiltrates more and more products. But the big shocker is that it’s now even in organic baby food! As Mike Adams pointed out, Martek Biosciences’ synthetic forms of DHA and ARA oils (docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid—polyunsaturated omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids naturally present in breast milk) are genetically engineered—and now being added to organic infant formula, not to mention hundreds of other USDA Certified Organic products as well.In 2006, National Organic Program (NOP) staff told Martek that the DHA and ARA couldn’t be in organic food because they were synthetic, genetically engineered, and did not qualify as organic. Martek was able to reverse that decision with a simple phone call to NOP acting director Barbara Robinson—though no one knew about the reversal until three years later when the Washington Post broke the story.Martek then formally petitioned the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Shockingly, in a board meeting two weeks ago, the NOSB recommended that DHA and ARA oils be added to the Certified Organic list—so long as they are not extracted with the use of the toxic and air polluting petrochemical hexane.

What baby formulas are affected?

Earth's Best Organic Soy with DHA & ARA (Hain Celestial Group)
Enfamil LIPIL (Mead Johnson Nutritionals)
Enfamil Next Step (Mead Johnson)
Isomil 2 Advance (Abbott Laboratories)
Nestle Good Start Supreme with DHA & ARA (Nestle USA)
Parent's Choice Organic (Wal-Mart)
Similac Advance (Abbott Nutrition)
Ultra Bright Beginnings Lipids (PBM Products, LLC)

(Source: Natural News)

Among other problems, this still allows usage of other chemical solvents in the manufacturing process, which is counter to organic standards. The Cornucopia Institute points out that prohibiting only hexane, instead of all synthetic solvents, could potentially lead Martek to use even more dangerous solvents, like acetone or benzene, to manufacture their nutritional oils for use in organic infant formula. If they were to ban all synthetic chemical solvents, it would effectively work as a ban on DHA and ARA oils, because there would be no way to extract those ingredients.As things stand now, the DHA and ARA oils are, as the Organic Consumers Association put it, produced through genetic engineering, processed with volatile synthetic solvents, and microencapsulated—three things that are expressly banned from USDA Organic!There is hope, however: the decision is not yet final. The NOSB is an advisory body only; the next step in the process is for the NOP to take the NOSB’s recommendations through the rulemaking process, where there will be an opportunity for public comment.There is no specific timeline for the NOP to go through this rulemaking procedure. It could take six months or longer, so we have a window of opportunity.

Please contact the National Organics Program immediately and ask them to reject the NOSB’s recommendation on DHA and ARA. GMO and synthetic chemical solvents have no place in organic food, much less baby food, and should be banned immediately, not allowed to remain while the rulemaking process lumbers on. Please take action today!

We’d love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by ANH-USA readers, not the National Organic Program. Click the button above to send your message to the NOP!

“FDA is Violating Federal Law”—Emord

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:30:12 +0000

Bolstered by a massive outpouring of support from you, we are asking the agency to withdraw its New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) draft guidance completely! The period for comments to the FDA on the draft guidance on NDI notifications closed on December 2. Along with the hundreds of thousands of messages you sent and the 20,000 phone calls you made to FDA and Congress, ANH-USA also submitted formal comments. The problem with the FDA’s draft guidance on New Dietary Ingredients is that it allows FDA to arbitrarily deny the sale of any supplement created (or modified) in the past seventeen years. If you’re a supplement manufacturer or distributor or possibly even a health food store, and you don’t file a NDI “notification” (actually a request for approval) for each ingredient in each product developed since 1994 in just the way prescribed by the FDA, and the court later decides the FDA is right, then you are guilty of product “adulteration,” which is punishable by prison. With your favorite supplements off the market, it also would allow the drug industry to adapt and patent them, and sell them back to you—by doctor’s prescription only—for 10 or 100 (or even more) times what you’re paying now. Our comments, drafted by acclaimed attorney Jonathan Emord on our behalf, show that the FDA is engaged in substantive new rulemaking, in violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA). “The APA says if an agency’s action is legislative in nature, that’s rulemaking,” explained Emord. “The guidance distorts the plain language of the laws that govern supplements. FDA needs to comply with the APA’s formal rulemaking requirements, not issue unilateral guidance as a deceptive means of creating new rules.” We argue that the FDA is acting illegally. The FDA circumvented the regulatory process by issuing a guidance, which gives them cover and flexibility, instead of going through the rulemaking process, which is required when creating a new law—and we believe the guidance in fact does create new law. As a result, FDA’s actions leave interested parties little recourse within the regulatory system. In technical terms, a guidance is supposed to be legally non-binding. It is meant to simply present the FDA’s interpretation of the rule. However, the NDI guidance goes well beyond an interpretation, and we believe it is in fact a legislative rule with legal implications:

The NDI guidance is a departure from the FDA’s previous standards for NDI notifications. It alters and broadens the meaning of what qualifies as an NDI, and creates new—and very expensive—requirements to comply with the NDI notification process (creating what we would call a de facto pre-approval system), counter to what is outlined in Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).
Not fulfilling the NDI notification requirements outlined in the guidance ensures that the supplement will be considered adulterated and therefore illegal. This indicates there’s a clear, legally binding impact to the NDI guidance.
Supplements that are considered illegal can be confiscated, and under the Food Safety Modernization Act, as we noted lasted week, can now be subject to administrative detention as well.

You may recall that Joanna M. Shepherd Bailey, PhD, professor of law and economics at Emory University, demonstrated that FDA grossly underestimated the economic cost of the NDI guidance. Her report found that:

Up to 29,000 nutritional supplements would likely be removed from the market;
The nutritional supplement market could shrink by between 28% and 52.5%, producing an annual loss for the industry of between $7.84 billion to $14.7 billion; and
Between 55,720 and 104,475 jobs in the supplement industry could be lost.

FDA’s analysis did not take into consideration the costs of the expanded reach and requirements of the NDI guidance. The agency therefore misled the Office of Management and Budget, in violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996. FDA has arbitrarily determined that supplement companies need to show at least “25 years of widespread use” in order it to meet the “history of safety” standard in NDI notification. In other words, only supplements on the market before October 1986 could be considered “safe.” This is patently ridiculous, since the cutoff date for grandfathered ingredients assumed to be safe, according to DSHEA, is October 1994. The NDI notification system was intended to ensure safety. The very reason pre-DSHEA supplements were grandfathered is because they had proven themselves safe through years of use by hundreds of thousands of consumers! If safety is of utmost concern to FDA, why does the guidance document burden the supplement industry with regulatory requirements that have nothing to do with proving the safety of the supplements? It appears FDA is acting out of spite—and not in the public’s best interest. Moreover, many of the provisions in the guidance are totally unrelated to safety and serve only to limit consumers’ access to nutritional supplements. We believe FDA will be unable incorporate enough changes to their draft guidance to bring it in line with existing law, preserve supplement access for customers, and remove needless regulatory hurdles for industry. Because of this, we asked FDA in our formal comments to withdraw the draft guidance at the earliest possible moment. Now that the FDA’s comment period is closed, the agency is supposed to review the comments and prepare a final version of the guidance document—though they are under no legal obligation to do so. In fact, because it is guidance, they are under no legal obligation even to take public comments into consideration. Nor is there any timeline: the agency is still sitting on a guidance, now nearly three years old, that was meant to create a distinction between beverages and liquid dietary supplements.

Even worse, since this is presented as guidance and not formal rulemaking, the FDA is very likely to enforce the provisions in the draft guidance as though they were final—with limited legal recourse for affected parties!

We believe FDA’s actions require them to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, which calls for a formal rulemaking procedure. Under this law:

FDA will be forced to have a formal comment period, and to review and consider all comments before they issue a final rule. This includes a rulemaking record that shows the data and analysis behind a proposed rule, and sometimes even public hearings.
If the result is not to the liking of interested parties, “Each agency shall give an interested person the right to petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule.” This means, that unlike a guidance, it is possible to challenge a rule in court. It is very likely that FDA conveniently issued a guidance, instead of going through the rulemaking process, to avoid this very outcome.

Now that the NDI comment period is closed, we will start implementing the next phase of our strategy—which will include both legal and legislative components. We will, of course, keep our supporters and allies in the loop. Thank you all again for your tremendous outpouring of letters and phone calls! It has laid important groundwork for our next actions.

New Study Reaffirms: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Should Be Standard Treatment for Veterans

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:00:22 +0000

So why does the government keep blocking its use? Research from health pioneer (and former ANH-USA board member) Dr. Paul G. Harch published in the Journal of Neurotrauma indicates that hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT, is able to dramatically help veterans with post-concussion syndrome (a form of traumatic brain injury) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Harch is an associate clinical professor of medicine at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. Since January 2007, ANH-USA has been bringing attention to a project to have veterans treated with HBOT. In HBOT, the patient is put in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which saturates the tissues with twelve times more oxygen than can be absorbed by breathing. This greatly enhances the body’s own healing process. Under normal circumstances, oxygen is transported throughout the body only by red blood cells. With HBOT, oxygen is dissolved into all of the body's fluids, the plasma, the central nervous system fluids, the lymph, and the bone, and can be carried to areas where circulation is diminished or blocked. In this way, extra oxygen can reach all of the damaged tissues and the body can support its own healing process. The increased oxygen greatly enhances the ability of white blood cells to kill bacteria, reduces swelling, and allows new blood vessels to grow more rapidly into the affected areas. It is a simple, non-invasive, and painless treatment. According to Dr. Harch’s new study, even three years after the vets sustained brain injury, one month of HBOT was able to induce improvements in brain blood flow, cognition, symptoms, and quality of life, while the veterans experienced fewer suicidal thoughts. Specifically, improvements were seen in 92% of vets experiencing short-term memory problems, 87% of those complaining of headaches, 93% of those with cognitive deficits, 75% with sleep disruption, and 93% with depression. There were also improvements in irritability, mood swings, impulsivity, balance, motor function, IQ, and blood flow in the brain, as well as the reduction in PTSD symptoms and suicidal thoughts. And there was a reduction in—or complete elimination of—psychoactive and narcotic prescription medication usage in 64% of those previously prescribed the medication. One major problem is that the HBOT treatment is currently “off-label.” In other words, it is an FDA-approved treatment for some conditions—but not for traumatic brain injury (TBI) or PTSD. Because of this, the Department of Defense does not allow HBOT to be prescribed for its veterans—they say they don't prescribe off-label medications and treatments for these diagnoses, and claim that they can only use HBOT after it has been approved by the FDA for this use. This is a completely false and misleading statement! The Department of Defense often uses off-label antipsychotic drugs for treatment of TBI and PTSD. This should not surprise us. The FDA receives a large proportion of its budget from pharmaceutical manufacturers. And the government turns to drugs, often very inappropriate and damaging drugs, to treat damaged veterans without even considering alternatives. Nearly 280,000 individuals received antipsychotic medication in 2007. Yet over 60% of them had no record of a diagnosis for which these drugs are approved. Antipsychotic drugs were prescribed off-label for PTSD (42% of the patients), minor depression (40%), major depression (23%), and anxiety disorder (20%)—with about 20% having more than one condition. About 20% of veterans diagnosed with PTSD—or nearly 87,000 patients—are prescribed an antipsychotic each year even though it is an off-label use. TBI and PTSD severely and disproportionally affect military who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan—approximately 546,000 have TBI, post-concussion syndrome (PCS), and PTSD, and yet their treatment options are limited. HBOT is an effective and economical treatment for PCS and PTSD, without the very dangerous and negative side effects of antipsychotic medication. The off-label use of HBOT is a huge freedom of choice issue in medicine. But even more important, if we really want to support our troops rather than just pay lip service, don’t we need to give them the safest, most economical, and most effective treatment for their traumatic brain injuries and PTSD?

Merck—Too Big to Prosecute?

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:30:02 +0000

There is a surprising reason why the government won’t go after drug companies for serious crimes. It is because government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration would then be barred from doing business with them! In 1999 the FDA approved Vioxx, a drug created by Merck and Co. to treat arthritis. Vioxx was pulled off the market in 2004 because evidence showed it greatly increased the risk of heart attack in the 25 million Americans who had taken the drug. Some 50,000 patients sued, and 27,000 of the plaintiffs received $4.85 billion in settlement of their claims. Last week the Department of Justice announced that Merck has agreed to pay a $321 million criminal fine and plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of illegally introducing a drug into interstate commerce. Merck also is paying $426 million to the federal government and $202 million to state Medicaid agencies. Those payments will settle civil claims that its marketing caused doctors to prescribe and bill the government for Vioxx they otherwise would not have prescribed. Please note that these settlements are for rather minor infractions—not for deliberately concealing the danger of a killing drug from patients, the medical community, and their investors. Despite the serious consequences of Merck’s actions, the government won’t prosecute them for any serious charges—because, if they did and won, it would mean they would have to stop doing business with Merck in the future! Federal law makes it illegal for Medicare and Medicaid to do business with “an excluded or debarred entity resulting from serious criminal charges.”

This means that when a company becomes too deeply enmeshed in the government’s business, these companies simply become too big to prosecute!

Paying fines without serious criminal charges does not appear to be enough of a deterrent. A new report from the consumer group Public Citizen shows that the pharmaceutical industry now leads all other industries in fraud against the federal government—and that includes the defense industry! Big Pharma led the pack in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act. Four companies (GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Schering-Plough) accounted for more than half (53 percent or $10.5 billion) of all financial penalties imposed over the past two decades. In 2006, Dr. David Graham, associate director of the FDA’s Office of Drug Safety and a courageous whistleblower, said in an interview, “The FDA is responsible for 140,000 heart attacks and 60,000 dead Americans. That's as many people as were killed in the Vietnam War. Yet the FDA points the finger at me and says, ‘Well, this guy's a rat, you can't trust him,’ but nobody is calling them to account. Congress isn't calling them to account. For the American people, it's dropped off the radar screen. They should be screaming because this can happen again.” If a supplement killed 60,000 Americans, what do you think the reaction would be? It would be pulled from the shelves, the FDA would outlaw it, and the media would be screaming about the dangers of supplements. Vioxx does the same thing, and the FDA gives Merck a slap on the wrist and gets a financial settlement. As Public Citizen told NPR, “The current system of prosecution and recovery isn’t working, because companies can take even the biggest settlements in stride. What's needed is more criminal prosecution—and the prospect of jail time for Pharma executives.” ANH-USA is not trying to put anybody in jail. But if we pass laws, they should apply to everyone, including members of Congress and big companies, whether on Wall Street or in the drug industry. Crony capitalist arrangements between government and special interests should never be allowed to create a special category of “too big to prosecute.”

Hope for Autism Spectrum Disorders: Deborah Ray Interviews a Health Hero

ANH-USA — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:14:59 +0000

	Listen: An Interview with a Health Hero: Part 1 An Interview with a Health Hero: Part 2
Deborah Ray, MT (ASCP)		Shauna Young, PhD, CTN, CBS, OSJ

Recently, ANH-USA Vice President and national radio host Deborah Ray, MT (ASCP) sat down to interview Shauna Young, PhD, CTN, CBS, OSJ. ANH-USA is pleased to make this informative and inspirational conversation available to our readers.Dr. Young, a certified naturopath, is the Owner and Medical Director of the Assertive Wellness Research Center of Durango, CO. At her clinic, she consults with clients from around the world who suffer from Autism Spectrum Disorders with a groundbreaking nutrition-based approach she calls the Spectrum Balance Protocol. She is the Chief Medical Advisor for the NoHarm Foundation, a Colorado not-for-profit organization formed to educate the public about the Spectrum Balance Protocol and its successful applications.In addition to her pioneering Spectrum Balance Protocol work, Dr. Young serves the autism and natural health communities in a number of other capacities, including as a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Allergy Kids Foundation and the Advisory Board for the Colorado Chapter of the Coalition for Natural Health, and as Chairperson of the Legislative & Legal Fund of the Colorado Naturopathic Medical Association. In February of 2008 she was also knighted into the international Sovereign Medical Order of the Knights Hospitaller in recognition of the unique impact of her work with Autism and for positively advancing the field of natural medicine in general.Please use the Play () buttons above to stream Deborah Ray's two-part interview with Dr. Shauna Young, "An Interview with a Health Hero: Forever Changing the Practice of Medicine."

A Holiday Request: Help Us Meet Our Goal!

ANH-USA — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:37:52 +0000

ANH-USA has launched a campaign to raise funds for the Natural Health Alliance Foundation. The Natural Health Alliance Foundation works to educate the public about a natural approach to health and healing, and promote the free flow of information about natural health, through a variety of educational and legal projects. Through grants, NHAF supports much of ANH-USA's work, including supporting the Pulse of Natural Health newsletter and many of our court challenges against the FDA and other government agencies.
NHAF is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization, which means that donations are 100% deductible!As a special bonus, ANH-USA is offering special gifts for donors who pitch in towards meeting our December 31 fundraising goal. Please make your gift today!

TSA Attempts to Cover Up Cancer Threat From Its Airport X-ray Machines

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:04:22 +0000

Forget the embarrassment of your private parts being seen by strangers. The scanners can cause cancer—and TSA is trying to keep you from knowing about it.The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) uses two types of body scanners. The backscatter machines are of particular concern because these X-ray scanners emit low levels of radiation and can cause cancer. The European Union has even put a moratorium on the scanners in light of the cancer threats—member states have been told not to install scanners until scientific assessment of risks has been carried out, and they will be banned completely in April if experts find them dangerous—but the US has so far swept the safety issues under the carpet.According to a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation, up to 100 US airplane passengers could get cancer from the machines each year. As reported by Natural News over a year ago, some noted scientists think that the risk is actually far higher than this because of the particular way that these machines operate, and they wrote TSA with their concerns. They described how the majority of the machine’s energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue—not distributed throughout the volume of the entire body—so the dose to the skin may be dangerously high. This means that the ionizing radiation from the naked body scanners may pose a much higher risk of cancer than one might be assumed from the total radiation emissions, an observation that has so far been totally ignored.Of course, the backscatter machines violate the longstanding principle that humans shouldn’t be X-rayed at all unless there is medical benefit.It should be noted that each exposure to radiation is additive, so frequent flyers are at significantly greater risk. According to Dr. Dong Kim, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ neurosurgeon and chair of the department of neurosurgery at the University of Texas Medical School, “There is really no absolutely safe dose of radiation...and there is no need to incur any extra radiation when there is an alternative.”Through a regulatory loophole, airport X-ray scanners do not receive oversight because they are not used for medical purposes. In fact, the FDA decided not to hold a public comment period on the scanners and, spurred on by a heavy lobbying campaign, allowed the machines to fall under the voluntary standards set by a nonprofit group that is heavily influenced by industry. Industry was also allowed to do the testing on its own machines.After the release of the ProPublica report, TSA Administrator John Pistole agreed to conduct a new independent study of the health effects of backscatters. But now the TSA is refusing to honor its commitment to conduct that safety study. At a recent Senate hearing, Pistole claimed that a draft report on the machines by Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general (IG) might make an independent study unnecessary.The IG’s report has not yet been released, but based on a summary received by ProPublica there is concern that the report does not in fact independently assess the safety of the machines, but merely assesses how well the TSA is inspecting, maintaining, and operating them!Forcing millions of people through these scanners at airports without conducting a proper safety assessment—especially in light of known cancer concerns and warnings of concerned scientists—is a violation of their rights as well as a public safety risk.

What’s Next? Starting Children on Drugs the Moment They’re Born?

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:02:55 +0000

That seems to be the path a new recommendation is putting us on.An expert panel appointed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, is now urging cholesterol screening for all children between ages 9 and 11—before puberty, when cholesterol temporarily dips—and again between ages 17 and 21. News accounts discuss a family who put their daughter on cholesterol-lowering medicines when she was 5 (“that gives me hope that she'll be healthy”) and a doctor at Johns Hopkins who thinks his 12-year-old son should be tested “because he has a cousin with very high ‘bad’ cholesterol.”What is “bad” cholesterol, anyway? Conventional medicine says HDL cholesterol is good, and LDL is bad. But scientists at Texas A&M University have found that LDL cholesterol is actually needed by the body to build new muscle—a finding that is particularly important both for kids and for the rest of us as we get older and lose muscle more rapidly. It also helps get vitamin D around our body.Moreover, as we reported last year, people with high cholesterol live the longest. Dr. Harlan Krumholz of Yale’s Department of Cardiovascular Medicine found that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol. Many studies have found that low cholesterol is in one respect or another worse than high cholesterol. A review of nineteen large studies of more than 68,000 deaths by the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota found that low cholesterol predicted an increased risk of dying from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.But even if you buy into the false dichotomy of good vs. bad cholesterol, the statin drugs that are routinely prescribed are extremely dangerous for people of all ages—and even more dangerous for children. Consider the evidence:

A recent study shows that the statin drug simvastatin, which the government is advocating we take to lower cholesterol levels, actually weakens our immune system and makes it difficult to fight off bacterial infections.
Italian scientists found that the drug, sold under the names Zocor and Simvacor, hinders the ability of the body’s immune cells to kill pathogens, and increases the production of cytokines, which trigger and sustain inflammation.
The Wall Street Journal noted that statins like Lipitor make some patients, most of them women, unable to concentrate or remember words.
Duane Graveline, MD, former NASA astronaut and scientist, demonstrated the link between statin drugs and muscle and neurological problems, including memory loss and Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in his book Statin Drug Side Effects.
Other documented side effects include nerve damage, muscle damage (just what kids need, when their muscles are growing most rapidly!), liver enzyme derangement, and in some cases even kidney failure.
Dr. Joseph Mercola notes a number of other side effects of statins, which he calls “some of the most dangerous drugs on the market”: blood glucose elevation, tendon problems, anemia, acidosis, cataracts, and sexual dysfunction.

It’s not just statin drugs that are harmful. Many common blood-pressure lowering drugs have serious side effects, too: ACE inhibitors lead to kidney failure, Beta-blockers can cause dizziness and impotence, and calcium channel blockers can increase risk of heart attack. Yet researchers recently recommended that blood-pressure lowering drugs be given to everyone, regardless of actual blood pressure level! Will they be starting children on these too?The good news is that every single one of these problems can be fixed entirely through diet. In a recent article, Dr. Mercola stated that the Paleo diet can be very effective for reducing blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels—more effective, in fact, than a statin drug—allowing people to achieve a thirty-point drop in cholesterol in just two weeks.Dr. Stephanie Seneff explains that when you eat a diet high in fructose and other sugars, it overtaxes your liver—which can’t properly make cholesterol while simultaneously processing fructose. As a result, the fructose gets turned into fat, and you end up with impaired cholesterol formation because of your overtaxed liver, which can eventually lead to a cholesterol- and cholesterol sulfate deficiency. At that point, your body begins to form arterial plaque to compensate for this deficiency, because your platelets can produce the cholesterol sulfate your heart and brain needs within that plaque. It's a sort of backup mechanism to maintain proper heart- and brain function.Unfortunately, Dr. Mercola notes, it's not an ideal backup mechanism, because arterial plaque also increases your risk for heart and vascular disease. Simply cutting fructose and most grains from your diet effectively eliminates one of the underlying causes of a number of health problems.Sadly, our culture loves the myth of a pill to cure all ills—which is one reason the number of accidental drug poisonings among children aged 5 and under grew by 22% between 2001 and 2008, according to The Journal of Pediatrics. Prescription drug use by both adults and children is on the rise, and there are simply more bottles of pills in the home—childproof caps are a poor deterrent for a curious child. The biggest culprits were opioid drugs for pain relief, like oxycodone and codeine; sedatives, like muscle relaxers and sleep aids; and prescription heart drugs.

An FDA-Approved Treatment for Osteoporosis that Actually Makes Bones Worse!

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:02:18 +0000

FDA’s prescription for bone health and osteoporosis has been shown to make bones far more fragile in the long term, and may even cause jaw death and esophageal cancer.Bisphosphonate drugs are used for treatment of osteoporosis, a disease in which the bones become extremely porous, are subject to fracture, and heal slowly, occurring especially in post-menopausal women. The drugs, which are sold under the brand names Actonel, Atelvia, Boniva, and Reclast, have supposedly been shown to reduce the risk of breaking a hip by 40 to 50 percent and fracturing a vertebra by between 40 and 70 percent.However, this FDA-approved therapy has become even more controversial now that it has been linked to atypical bone fractures after long-term use. The drugs have also been linked to deterioration of jawbone, jaw death, and potential esophageal cancer. An FDA advisory committee now wants the FDA to limit how long a patient may be on bisphosphonate therapy, but committee members cannot agree on an appropriate time limit.As osteoporosis expert Lara Pizzorno explains, bisphosphonate drugs help prevent fractures in the short-term by suppressing osteoclasts, the cells that remove injured and damaged bone. In doing so, there is no space to replace the damaged bone with healthy bone tissue. Eventually unhealthy bone accumulates and becomes extremely fragile.Bones continue to remodel throughout one’s life, so any therapy prescribed to maintain bone or prevent excessive bone loss must be good for lifetime use. Any treatment that cannot be used in the long term is a waste of time, money, and in the case of bisphosphonate therapy, dangerous as well. As Pizzorno told ANH-USA recently, “The only place bisphosphonates might be useful is in the very short term for cancer patients, and even then the risks may outweigh the benefits.”In her excellent book Your Bones: How You Can Prevent Osteoporosis & Have Strong Bones for Life—Naturally (co-authored with our friend Jonathan V. Wright, MD), Pizzorno discusses natural integrative approaches to preventing osteoporosis and maintaining healthy bones that can be used over a lifetime. She examines the science behind proper nutrition, including vitamins and minerals (such as calcium, vitamins D, K, and B, particularly folate), exercise, and eating particular foods.

New FDA Food Detention Powers Could Endanger Your Access to Food and Supplements

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:54:55 +0000

They no longer need evidence that a product is harmful. Just a suspicion that there’s an error in the paperwork.The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law on January 4 of this year. For the past several months we’ve been sharing our concern over one of the FSMA’s mandates that eventually developed into the disastrous NDI draft guidance. There are only a few days left to tell the FDA what you think about these new anti-supplement rules—FDA’s public comment period ends this Friday, December 2. Please take action today, if you haven’t done so already!There is another rule mandated by the FSMA, which is currently being implemented, that we also want to highlight. It gives the FDA wider authority to detain food products, including supplements. Under the previous law, in order to administratively detain food, the FDA had to show “credible evidence” that a food presents “serious adverse health consequences or death to humans and animals.” The new rule gives the FDA enhanced authority to detain any food or supplement they have “reason to believe” may be “adulterated” or “misbranded.”Using the vague terms “misbranded” and “adulterated” as a standard to detain food is extremely problematic. It gives the FDA too much discretionary power against small food companies and dietary supplements and potentially allows the agency to detain food and supplements on even minor violations. Under the “adulterated” or “misbranded” standard, a farmer’s paperwork error could be treated just as harshly as a multinational corporation that knowingly sells tainted food.As we’ve reported previously, a food or supplement may be considered “adulterated” under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act if some vaguely written FDA rule is deemed to have not been followed. “Misbranded” can mean that the producer makes a completely true statement about the product but without FDA permission. A cherry producer who cites peer-reviewed scientific research from prestigious universities on the health benefits of cherries would, in FDA-speak, have engaged in “false” and actionable “misbranding” which suddenly turns the cherries into drugs. Producers, of course, have the right to take cherries through the vastly expensive new drug approval process!“Administrative detention” means that the FDA can now act without judicial oversight. It doesn’t even have to be true, since the FDA merely needs “reason to believe” that the product is misbranded or adulterated. This makes it an extremely subjective process. By its own admission, the FDA estimates that up to 48% of food detained could prove not to have been adulterated.The food or supplement can be held for up to twenty days, with a possible ten-day extension if FDA wishes to initiate legal action. Many food products are perishable in that amount of time, which would have a severe impact on business, especially small businesses that could not cope with the loss.This new, broader FDA food detention authority opens the door for the FDA to abuse its power and hold any supplement they believe has not filed an NDI notification. If the proper notification paperwork has not been submitted and officially accepted by the FDA, the agency considers them “adulterated” supplements—even though FDA’s interpretation of what a New Dietary Ingredient actually is and what the NDI notification process is supposed to entail are clearly contrary to what Congress intended when they passed the law. It also flies in the face of common sense.This makes it extremely important that the NDI guidance be revised. As it stands now, the rules ensure that most dietary supplements will be found in violation of the FDA’s ludicrous interpretation of the NDI notification process.

There are only a few days left to make your voice heard on this absurd NDI guidance. If you have not done so already, please send the FDA your comments today!

ANH-International Feature: Is the USA setting itself up to squeeze out dietary supplements like in Europe?

ANH-USA — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:13:03 +0000

One of the benefits of being part of an international organization is the invaluable insights we're able to gain from having colleagues overseas at ANH-Europe.In many areas of health practice and education, the European model is greatly restricted when compared to the US model. This means we can often look to what has already happened in Europe if we want to understand the consequences of many of the laws and regulations proposed here in the United States, as the laws and regulations often mimic those already in place in in the European Union.This week, a special feature from ANH-International takes a look at what's happening with supplements in the USA, how it mirrors the European model, and why that spells bad news for American supplement consumers. We think our readers will find this piece informative and illuminating, and help you to better understand the challenges we face here in the USA:ANH Feature: Is the USA setting itself up to squeeze out dietary supplements like in Europe?(If you enjoy the international perspective, be sure to sign up for weekly e-blasts from ANH-Europe. Together with The Pulse of Natural Health, these weekly newsletters provide a comprehensive look at all things related to natural health around the world.)

Durbin and Waxman Strike Again!

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:00:39 +0000

Their latest move targets supplements while giving drugs and vaccines a free pass. New Action Alert!Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Henry Waxman are trying a new tactic in their attack on supplements after previous legislative failures. They have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review adverse event report data—but only for supplements. The GAO operates at the call of Congress, so some action on this request is inevitable. Here is their letter.In a statement, Sen. Durbin said, “The FDA has the tools necessary to determine which supplements can cause and have caused severe health problems—they should use them effectively.”This is nonsense. There is no evidence that legitimate supplements, those that comply with existing law, have caused severe health problems. What the FDA needs to do is not evaluate and approve each supplement, but rather enforce existing law.Durbin’s idea that the FDA has the expertise to evaluate all supplements is pure fantasy. They aren’t set up for it and would fail even if they were. The agency is biased against supplements to boot, because it wants them to go through the drug approval process and thereby contribute to the agency’s budget. Supplements, not being patented, cannot afford all these costs, as the FDA and Durbin and Waxman know well. The end result of this mindset will simply be to clear the shelves of supplements.If consumer safety is really Sen. Durbin’s motivation, we have to ask—why aren’t he and Rep. Waxman also asking the GAO to review adverse event report (AER) data for vaccines and drugs, which are far more dangerous and have far more reported adverse events? Just look at the number of adverse events reported for 2008 alone:

Supplements: 1,080 adverse events, of which 672 were considered serious;
Vaccines: 26,517 adverse events, of which 3,923 were considered serious; and
Prescription drugs and “therapeutic biologics”: 526,527 adverse events, of which 275,421 “had serious outcomes.”

Note that the above figures should be used with caution. Although a serious adverse event is defined by statute, other adverse events are not. What may be considered an adverse event for one category may not be for another. If an FDA-approved drug has listed in the product labeling that it can cause fainting or nausea, or chest pains or seizures, then it is considered to be within the range of expected outcomes! In this case, the adverse event should be reported, but the report is not considered "urgent" and may be delayed for up to a year. At the same time, USA Today noted, when it comes to supplements, what the FDA considers an adverse event can be “anything from a concern that a supplement isn’t working to a serious illness that follows consumption.”Please note also that while the vaccine data we reported above comes from a separate Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, the prescription drugs figures may or may not include vaccines, since vaccines are technically therapeutic biologics. The government doesn’t say.What is clear, however is that there are over 487 times more AERs for FDA-approved prescription drugs than there are for supplements, and 409 times more serious events for drugs than supplements. And Durbin thinks it’s supplements that are endangering the public? The following graph makes the difference obvious:

Ultimately, these latest tactics are meant to move us closer to a pre-approval regulatory system for supplements, which will remove many—or perhaps most—supplements from the market, giving even greater power to the pharmaceutical industry.We believe that Congress shouldn’t look into supplement AERs unless they actually pay attention to major vaccine and drug AERs. The lack of attention to vaccine AERs is a particular scandal, as we pointed out in an earlier story about the cover-up of HPV vaccine adverse events. As you may recall, the Institute of Medicine says it will only look at peer-reviewed research on vaccine AERs, but won’t sponsor any. They then conclude that vaccines like the dangerous HPV shots are “safe” because there is no “evidence” otherwise. If we lived in a sane world, this kind of Orwellian logic wouldn’t be allowed for a moment.We are in discussion with several Capitol Hill legislators to get GAO to investigate and review drug and vaccine AERs if they do supplements—and we’re asking you to write your senators and your congressional representative and make the same request. Please take action today!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter. We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress.

Headlines Scream “Danger”! What’s the Truth about This Week’s Vitamin D Study?

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:00:52 +0000

“Vitamin D Warning!” says MSNBC. “High Vitamin D Levels Linked to Serious Heart Condition” says Fox. What could be behind these terrifying headlines? A new study says that taking excessive amounts of vitamin D may cause atrial fibrillation (AF). The research, presented at the annual meeting of American Heart Association, says that people who take too much vitamin D were 2½ times more likely to develop AF. Well, not quite. That’s what the media have been saying the study says. But it didn’t. It says that in their study of 132,000 patients, AF was found in 1.4% of the study participants whose levels of vitamin D were normal, and in 3.8% of those whose levels were excessive. But the journalists couldn’t even get the basic facts straight. All the articles contained the same blunder that rendered the data meaningless. Everyone rushed ahead, relying only on the press release or the abstract, where the error originated, without waiting for the study itself to be published in the future. The amount of vitamin D in the blood is measured in ng/ml—that is, nanograms of the vitamin per milliliter of blood serum. The press release and the study abstract both say, erroneously, that problems arise when vitamin D levels go over 100 ng/dl—that is, nanograms per deciliter. That’s the equivalent of 1 ng/ml. To say that 100 ng/dl is “excessive” is beyond absurd; anything under 30 ng/ml is considered deficient, and 1 ng/ml is next to impossible to achieve! A quick check with the study authors would have corrected that error—which means the journalists knew nothing whatsoever about the subject, and didn’t bother to do any research. Besides, after correcting for this gross error, there is no real story here—the study merely confirms what scientists already thought:

Under 30 ng/ml of vitamin D is clearly deficient;
30–100 ng/ml is the safety range;
Over 100 ng/ml, and your risk starts to grow.

The optimum level of D is more often debated. The scientists who seem to us most expert on the subject think that 60 to 80 is optimal. The authors of this study say the optimum range is 40–80. The trouble with 40 as an optimum is that it probably won’t protect you from getting a virus, although you should be able to handle it better than if your level is lower. Why is a level over 100 ng/ml ill-advised? The best known risk relates to calcium. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption in the gut; too much vitamin D results in too much calcium in the blood, or hypercalcemia, which can cause nausea, constipation—and sometimes, yes, even atrial fib. The study authors clearly state, however, that “the extent to which 25[OH] Vit D excess may be associated with AF is unknown.” Moreover, while AF was found 2½ times more often in people with levels of D above 100 than with levels of 80 and below, it’s still not a large percentage—only 3.8% of patients. Please note that there’s no magical cut-off where you have to race to the hospital if you take too much D. The higher your blood serum level goes over 100, and the longer you’re there, the greater your risk. According to the Vitamin D Council, what exactly constitutes a toxic dose of vitamin D has yet to be determined, though published cases of toxicity, for which serum levels and dose are known, all involve a consistent intake of at least 40,000 IU per day. It’s really a case of “too much of a good thing,” as Shakespeare put it. There are very few substances under the sun which, when consumed to excess, won’t harm you in the end. Medicines, whether of the natural and herbal variety or the patented and pharmaceutical variety, are dose-sensitive. A few aspirins once in a while (or better yet, white willow bark) can relieve headaches and reduce inflammation; taking a whole bottle will kill you. Heck, even drinking too much water will kill you. But the media emphasis on too much vitamin D in your system is wrong-headed. The real problem, as indicated by the study, is too much calcium. As we have discussed before, taking calcium without the co-factors has been shown to be bad for the heart—you need vitamin K2 and omega-3 fatty acids (and, for other reasons, magnesium too). Did the news stories mention that? So if the vitamin D toxicity doesn’t occur until one has clearly overdosed on the stuff for quite a while, why all the scary headlines? “High dose vitamin D pills ‘can double heart condition risk’ ” says one headline. “High vitamin D levels linked to heart condition” says another. Or worst of all, The Atlantic Monthly’s story on the subject, “Are Supplements Killing You? The Problem With Vitamins, Minerals,” started off with this teaser: “In two recently published studies, researchers suggest that supplements can do more harm than good if taken in addition to a healthy diet.” Outrageous horse-pucky. Another study presented at the same AHA annual meeting, analyzing sixteen years of data gathered from more than 2,000 healthy, postmenopausal women, found a direct correlation between low vitamin D levels and heart problems. About 15 percent of the women with low vitamin D levels either died or suffered heart failure, a heart attack, or stroke during the study period. Which study do you think got more press attention? You guessed it—the one that was thought to imply that vitamins were dangerous. Which of course was not what the study said at all. For more on what this study really said, you can read the Vitamin D Council’s analysis on their website. Besides the scramble for ratings and web page “hits,” is anything else behind this anti-vitamin bias? The pharmaceutical industry is investigating a number of different synthetic versions of vitamin D, all of which are being investigated as treatments for various kinds of cancer. Two of them were complete failures. Two others—one specifically for prostate cancer, the other to be used in conjunction with standard chemotherapy—are showing promise. Interestingly, one of the researchers on the panel that produced the IOM’s anti-scientific vitamin D report sits on the Board of Directors for one of the companies working on the vitamin D drug—a high-potency formulation of intravenous vitamin D. That’s the one–two punch preferred by the pharmaceutical industry and its media partners: first, pretend the vitamin either doesn’t work at all, or will kill you if you take too much of it, and scare off the public; then, reformulate the same vitamin into a drug that can make you millions of dollars. Let’s not forget that much of the major media is currently on financial life support and the support that keeps them alive is coming from Big Pharma. The worst part of what may be a drug company campaign against supplemental vitamin D—and the media headlines warning about the dangers of “excess D”—is that at least one-third of all Americans are actually deficient in vitamin D. Besides causing heart problems in older women, vitamin D deficiency can cause chronic pain, weak bones, frequent infections and illnesses, diabetes, depression, and even cancer. In proper amounts, vitamin D is a potent immune system booster, maintains your calcium balance, helps regulate insulin and blood pressure, and may protect against osteoporosis, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. And of course we have long advocated vitamin D as being the healthy alternative to the dangerous mercury-infused flu shot. It also short-circuits inflammation that can lead to flu-related complications such as bacterial pneumonia or lung infection. Want to be protected from colds and flu this season? Take proper amounts of vitamin D. So what’s the proper amount? How do you get enough, but not too much? Vitamin D supplementation depends on the region where you live, your exposure to sunlight, and your body’s particular ability to synthesize vitamin D3. The only sure-fire way to know if you’re getting enough vitamin D is to have a blood test. Your doctor can do it, or you can go to an independent lab, or you can purchase an easy-to-use in-home test kit and test the levels yourself. The Vitamin D Council has an in-depth discussion of adequate doses of supplemental vitamin D3, but notes that children and adults with chronic health conditions such as autism, MS, cancer, heart disease, or obesity may need twice as much for proper health support. They emphasize that the doses they suggest are just to get you started. There is no substitute for a blood test to help you determine your body’s unique needs.

Shocker: Antipsychotic Drugs Are Being Given to Kids in Foster Care

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:00:25 +0000

Want foster kids to behave? Give them harsh tranquilizers developed for schizophrenic patients!According to a shocking new study published in the journal Pediatrics, foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychotic drugs, even if they’re not mentally ill and they don’t have any psychiatric symptoms. In fact, they’re given the drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid.Kids in foster care with behavior problems are being given two antipsychotic drugs at once, according to the study. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa (and if you want to see something terrifying, just look at the list of Zyprexa’s side effects!). The drugs were developed for schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. But schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are extremely rare in young children, and the foster children in question did not have any psychiatric symptoms. They just came from bad homes.Note that these drugs were never tested on young people during the FDA trials—and certainly not on people with developing brains. The latest research says the brain is still developing into one’s 20s. Foster care ends at age 18.The New York Times reports that doctors and policy-makers have, in recent years, grown concerned about high rates of overall psychiatric drug use in the foster care system, the government-financed program that provides temporary living arrangements for 400,000 to 500,000 children and adolescents. Previous studies have found that children in foster care receive psychiatric medications about twice as often as kids outside the system.The new study focused on one of the most powerful classes of drugs, antipsychotics, which are increasingly being used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric symptoms.These same drugs are being used on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries—when instead, as we have reported previously, they should be treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.Antipsychotic drugs are responsible for many of the suicides among our soldiers. In fact, medications were involved in one-third of the record 162 suicides by active-duty soldiers in 2009. These drugs are extremely difficult to stop, because withdrawal often causes psychotic breaks. (That’s right, antipsychotic drugs can cause psychotic breaks.)And these are the drugs we’re giving troubled children who were removed from bad homes!Even if the antipsychotic drugs don’t cause the very mental disorders they’re supposed to help or produce the most frightening side effects, the study authors said that the drugs cause rapid weight gain and increase the risk for metabolic problems in many people, an effect that may be amplified by the use of two at once. Diabetes and obesity are the greatest health hazards children are facing—and these are the drugs we’re giving them?It’s one thing for adults to rely on pills to cure their own ills. But giving kids from broken homes powerful psychotropic drugs just to keep them compliant is unconscionable.

Breaking News: Outrageous New Attack on Dr. Burzynski—New Action Alert!

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:00:42 +0000

The pioneering cancer doctor is a target once again. But you can help stop the attack.

Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD, is a biochemist practicing in Texas who developed (using his own money) a nontoxic gene-targeted cancer therapy called antineoplastons. It has been shown to effectively help cure some of the most “incurable” forms of terminal cancer.

Dr. Burzynski had tried to get the FDA to review and approve antineoplastons since 1977, to no avail. To make sure he would not get into trouble for using the experimental therapy in his practice, his legal team confirmed that he was acting within the law and could use antineoplastons in his own practice “to meet the immediate needs of patients.” But in the 1980s the Texas Medical Board (TMB) charged him with breaking a law that didn’t actually exist and tried to revoke his medical license. Numerous investigations later—including an appearance before the Texas Supreme Court—found no violation of any law or standard of care. The TMB came up empty-handed.

We have reported on the TMB’s pattern of harassment against integrative doctors a number of times, discussing serious allegations from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the serious attacks on Dr. Bill Rea’s work in environmental medicine and chemical sensitivity, and on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s involvement in appointing board members who actively harass integrative physicians.

As Dr. Joseph Mercola reported in June of this year, the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, and the National Cancer Institute all knew how promising Dr. Burzynski’s therapy was proving to be. Standard cancer treatment is based on very expensive machines and very expensive toxic drugs. There is an enormous amount of money to be made in this paradigm, and Dr. Burzynski’s work single-handedly threatened to overturn much of it. On the other hand, this treatment showed such promise that they wanted to get their hands on it themselves.

So first they tried to copy his invention using a single non-patented ingredient, and when that failed, they tried to steal his patents out from under him. However, they knew they couldn't use the stolen patents so long as he had the ability to defend his rights. So the government spent over $60 million to prosecute him on 75 counts of violating federal law, hoping to tuck him away in jail for the rest of his life.

For the next ten years, Dr. Burzynski was engaged in a lengthy and convoluted legal battle with the FDA. After two trials, he was found not guilty on all counts, and his antineoplastons medication is currently undergoing the FDA approval process. His fight was chronicled in a stunning documentary film, Burzynski: The Movie. More info on the documentary can be found at the film’s website, while the movie itself can be viewed online for a limited time.

Now the Texas Medical Board is back. The TMB is making yet another attempt to revoke Dr. Burzynski’s medical license which, if successful, would result in the closure of his clinic, the abandonment of all his patients, and would squelch any possibility of antineoplastons gaining FDA-approval.

Using the death of two of his terminally ill patients as a pretext, the TMB is charging Dr. Burzynski with the off-label use of FDA-approved drugs. It must be stressed, however, that Dr. Burzynski uses the drugs off-label in order to tailor the medication specifically to an individual’s genetic profile, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. Dr. Burzynski takes blood and tissue samples from his patients to form their molecular profile. From that he chooses from wide variety of existing FDA-approved drugs to tailor his gene-targeted therapy to his patient’s genetic profile specifically.

Multi-agent targeted gene therapies are the way of future. The American Society of Clinical Oncology has stated that they want to focus on “targeted therapies and personalized diagnosis and treatment” over the next decade. Dr. Burzynski is the only one who is using such a treatment on patients today.

The TMB’s complaint concerns a patient who had triple-negative breast cancer, had already undergone conventional cancer treatment without success, and initially felt better after Dr. Burzynski’s treatment and was able to return to work. The board is charging Dr. Burzynski over the side effects of his treatment, though they do not seem concerned with the horrible side effects she experienced with the conventional cancer treatments.

The complaint also concerns a patient with estensioneruoblastoma, a cancer so rare that any medication use would have been “off-label” since there is no recognized treatment for this disease at all. The patient lived for five more years and the tumor decreased in size by 40%, but the TMB complaint is charging that the disease actually progressed during his treatment.

The off-label use of FDA-approved drugs is not uncommon, and it is legal. According to the American Cancer Society, a study showed that 8 out of 10 cancer doctors surveyed had used drugs off-label. And half of the chemotherapy drugs used are for conditions not listed on the FDA-approved drug label.

Please take 20 minutes to watch this brand-new video on the upcoming court case, and share it with friends. Not only does it outline the charges involved in this case, but it also gives you a glimpse at a new side of Dr. Burzynski’s treatment. You’ll be shocked at how flimsy the TMB’s case is—and how doggedly persistent the board is in harassing Dr. Burzynski and others like him.

The Texas Medical Board v. Stanislaw Burzynski trial will begin on April 11, 2012. Please write to Gov. Rick Perry, who appointed a number of members of the TMB, including its heads, as well as the House Committee on Public Health and the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, which oversee the TMB. This is about our right as citizens to choose our own cancer treatment—and not allow decades of important gene-targeted cancer research be flushed down the drain in the name of protecting the profits of an industry that doesn’t want Burzynski to survive. Please take action today!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO GOV. PERRY AND TO THE TEXAS LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not the Texas Legislature, the Governor, etc.

ADA Claims We’re Lying. So Why Can’t They Rebut a Single Thing We Said?

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:00:34 +0000

They call our statements “erroneous,” “ridiculous,” “untruths,” “falsehoods,” and “outright lies,” but each of our “wild accusations” are solidly documented! Last week we ran an article about ReallyEatRight.org, a website designed to shine light on the American Dietetic Association’s partnership with the junk food and pharmaceutical industries and its attempts to monopolize nutrition services. In response, Dietitians in Nutrition Support (a dietetic practice group of the ADA) posted a counter-attack, which contained a letter signed by the president of the ADA, accusing us of presenting a “one sided and misleading portrayal of ADA” and of having “a hidden agenda.” Our agenda is open and transparent. We want the ADA to stop fueling the obesity and diabetes epidemic through their associations with Coca-Cola (allowing Coke to create a program about “urban myths” about the safety of food ingredients, which concluded that fluoride, sugar, artificial colors, and non-nutritive sweeteners are perfectly fine for children), cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg’s, candy maker Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world’s consumer products brands in foods and beverages. The chair of the ADA practice group, whose focus is on giving nutrition support to individuals in inpatient and outpatient settings, including home care and pediatrics, said, “ANH has criticized ADA in the past—and will likely do so in the future—for our alleged efforts to suppress ‘nutritionists’ from earning a living.” (Notice those condescending quotation marks around “nutritionists”?) Well, that’s the other part of our open and transparent agenda: We want the ADA to stop convincing state legislatures that only dietitians can dispense nutritional counseling at the state level. Any state licensure scheme that embraces ADA certification standards exclusively is by definition monopolistic and eliminates competition in the field of nutrition. Please note also that ADA certification only requires a college degree while many of the nutritionists we are defending have masters’ degrees and PhDs in this field. The group goes on to say that “ADA has made a decision not to reply to every wild accusation that is leveled against the Association,” and instead they reprint a letter that former ADA president Judith Rodriguez, PhD, RD, LDN, FADA, sent to ADA members earlier this year. Dr. Rodriguez writes, “We are an Association of professionals in a field based on science and evidence.... ADA will not be distracted by engaging in point-by-point rebuttals of disparaging untruths and insults every time they appear on the Internet.” Fine. We’ll do the point-by-point instead:

Allegation: The ADA receives payments from Coca-Cola, Hershey, the National Dairy Council, Mars, PepsiCo, and others. Is this a lie? No: ADA lists them as corporate sponsors.
Allegation: The credentialing arm of the ADA, the Commission on Dietetic Registration, offers continuing professional courses sponsored by Coca-Cola. Is this a lie? No: The Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness, which created the “Urban Myths” program, is an arm of the Coca-Cola Company.
Allegation: The ADA allowed the junk food company–sponsored “Smart Choices” food labeling program (now considered a failure and an embarrassment) to be introduced at their Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo. Is this a lie? No: The New York Times reported on just how absurd the program was.
Allegation: The ADA is under investigation by Congress. Is this a lie? No: Sen. Charles Grassley asked the ADA and other health advocacy groups for a listing of their payments from the pharmaceutical, medical device, and insurance industries. The senator’s investigation into the ADA’s financial transparency is ongoing.
Allegation: The ADA receives about $1 million a year in payments from pharmaceutical companies. Is this a lie? No: Because of Sen. Grassley’s investigation, the ADA disclosed its payments from the pharmaceutical, medical device, and insurance industries.
Allegation: The ADA allows pharmaceutical companies to market their controversial products at ADA events. Is this a lie? No: At the 2007 ADA Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, GlaxoSmithKline was allowed to promote their first over-the-counter diet pill, Alli, even though the drug’s weight loss effectiveness is minimal and side effects such as hard-to-control bowel movements and anal discharge are common. The FDA has since issued warnings to Alli, noting the possibly of severe liver damage, and consumer groups are asking the FDA to remove Alli from the market.
Allegation: The ADA is trying to gain a monopoly over nutritional therapy practice in the US. Is this a lie? No: The ADA has sponsored legislation in over 40 states that lumps dietitians and nutritionists into one licensing bill and requires nutritionists to complete its own dietitian program in order to practice nutritional therapy. Even if the nutritionist holds a Masters or a PhD in Nutrition, he or she is still required to complete registration through ADA just to continue to practice. In some states, these well-qualified individuals are even prohibited from using the words “nutritionist” and “nutritional care.”

Through Dr. Rodriguez’s letter, the ADA is even trying to suppress dialogue, critique, and discussion among its own members: “Sometimes, unfortunately, the re-posting of falsehoods is conducted (unintentionally, I am certain) by ADA members; I encourage all members...not to believe all that you read, and to make sure the information that you circulate is accurate.” By contrast, our campaign is all about encouraging dialogue and discussion—among our members, among ADA members, with the media, and with the general public—and we are providing responsible RDs with the platform and voice that the ADA is denying them. The ADA is deliberately avoiding an open conversation because our statements are not “disparaging untruths,” as Dr. Rodriguez calls them, but unassailable facts. They do not rebut our points because they have no legitimate defense. We would point out, however, that it is the ADA’s unprofessional, junk-food-and-pharmaceutical-industry-driven, monopolistic behavior that has spurred our campaign in the first place. These are serious issues affecting consumers and nutrition professionals alike. They have a direct impact on the health of Americans and the cost of healthcare. They should be talked about, not censored. If the ADA believes we are spreading “untruths,” we invite them to prove it. Otherwise they are indicting themselves.

Please join our efforts by signing our petition at ReallyEatRight.org. Tell the ADA leadership to return the payments they receive from junk food and pharmaceutical companies, and end their attempts stop attempts to monopolize nutritional therapy through underhanded statewide legislative efforts! (If you’re a Registered Dietitian, nutrition student, or ADA member, please sign this one instead!)

A New NDI Bill: It’s a Step in the Right Direction, but There’s Still a Long Way to Go

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:00:49 +0000

FDA’s disastrous supplement guidance, which threatens thousands of supplements, would be greatly improved by a new bill in the House. But it isn’t enough. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), a champion of health freedom who has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to stand up for consumer choice about supplements, has introduced new legislation that would change the definition of New Dietary Ingredients (NDIs—that is, according to the FDA, new supplements). Currently, all supplements containing new dietary ingredients introduced into the marketplace after Congress passed DSHEA in 1994 are considered NDIs by the FDA, and their manufacturers are required to notify the FDA when they are introduced. But, as we have reported extensively, FDA is attempting to contravene congressional intent by creating a pre-approval process modeled on what the pharmaceutical industry must go through before marketing its often lethal drugs, a change that could mean the loss of thousands of supplements. To prove that a product is not an NDI, and thus exempt from these burdensome requirements, extensive evidence is required to show that the product was marketed before 1994. Rep. Burton’s bill would change that date to 2007. His creative approach would directly address one of the major difficulties with NDIs. Evidentiary documentation is much more accessible (especially with greater Internet data) for newer products than for products that are seventeen years old. A good example is pyridoxamine, a natural and critically important form of vitamin B-6 which we discussed previously. Even though the ingredient was marketed before 1994, manufacturers could not provide sufficient documentation to prove it. Unfortunately, Rep. Burton’s bill is not perfect. It doesn’t address a number key NDI concerns:

FDA can still claim, without basis, that a grandfathered ingredient is “chemically altered”—and that would require a new NDI notification.
FDA would not be stopped from moving its standard for NDI “notifications” closer to the food additive or pharmaceutical drug standard. This will continue to crush future innovation.
FDA expects a different notification for the same ingredient for every different version of the supplement it is in. Contrary to Congress’s original intention—that each new dietary ingredient would provide notification—FDA seeks to apply their guidance to each supplement that contains an NDI. This means that a new magnesium formulation found in twenty different supplements would have to go through the expensive and burdensome process twenty times—once for each supplement. Additionally, the same ingredient at a higher concentration would need a separate notification/approval.
Worst of all, there is always the risk that this bill will give Congress the illusion that the NDI issue is being adequately addressed.

So we need further strengthening of this otherwise excellent bill. Congress traditionally doesn’t like intervention in a regulatory process until it is complete. At this stage, FDA is still theoretically reviewing all of our comments and deciding what their final guidance will look like. Only after the FDA’s final guidance on NDI provisions can we analyze the best legislative solutions. But rest assured that we’ve been having in-depth strategy sessions for an approach that will comprehensively address the mess FDA is attempting to create with its NDI guidance. Clearly FDA and Congress are listening to you! Rep. Burton and others are encouraged to take action by YOUR grassroots activism. But the clock is ticking—we only have a few weeks left before FDA shuts down the comment period! Now more than ever, we need you to keep up the great work and continue to send your messages on the NDI regulatory guidelines. If you have not already done so, please take action now!

Another Fishy Bailout and GMO Produce in Our Future—New Action Alert!

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:00:45 +0000

You may have heard that the USDA awarded a hefty research grant to AquaBounty, the “Frankenfish” creator. But there is more to the story…. What you may not have heard is that the award came just as the company was facing major financial troubles. This was a bailout. And there are more GMO threats in our future coming to the produce area of our supermarket aisles. In September, the US Department of Agriculture awarded $494,000 to AquaBounty to study technologies that would make their genetically engineered Atlantic salmon sterile, so it couldn’t mate with non-GMO salmon. AquaBounty’s current sterilization technology hasn’t proved 100% effective. On its face, the USDA grant was intended to remove one of environmentalists’ biggest objections to the GE salmon, marketed under the name AquAdvantage, although inter-species breeding is not the only known problem. The GE fish may also be significantly more allergenic than natural salmon among other issues. It’s bad enough that government is in bed with industry and cannot possibly be objective in the review and approval process. But it is also noteworthy that the infusion of nearly half a million taxpayer dollars came just as AquaBounty was facing grave financial troubles. The company’s interim report shows a loss of $2.8 million in the first half of 2011 alone, and stated it was “considering options for raising further working capital.” Just a few months later, the USDA obliged by giving the company a nice, fat grant. USDA’s sister agency, FDA, is still in its review process for the GE salmon. In its appropriations bill, the House voted to stop funding of the fish, but the Senate has not included the same language in its own appropriations bill. It seems a foregone conclusion that FDA will approve the salmon if USDA is funding it. Representatives Don Young (AK) and Peter DeFazio (OR) sent a letter to the USDA asking them to rescind the grant. “The USDA should not be in the business of picking winners and losers,” said Young. “Propping up a company who has already researched and developed their technologies should not be the business of the federal government. This company is not losing money due to a lack of research; they are losing money because Americans prefer wild salmon over Frankenfish.” Consumers also face a threat of unidentified genetically engineered foods in their produce aisle. Monsanto plans to dominate the $3 billion global produce market by making their GE seeds the primary source of the nation’s vegetables and fruits. According to Monsanto’s chief executive, “This isn’t a hobby….We’re serious about it.” As the Los Angeles Times put it,

Grocery customers in California and elsewhere are chopping its onions that produce fewer tears, stir-frying its broccoli that decreases cholesterol, and biting into tiny orange tomatoes that last longer on the shelf. Soon, people will be thumping melons bred to be a single serving and shucking sweet corn genetically modified to enable farmers to spray the fields with the company's weed killer, Roundup. To do this, it’s marrying conventional breeding methods with its vast technological resources to bring about changes in fruits and vegetables in months or years, rather than in decades.

Currently, vegetable seeds represent only 8% of Monsanto’s revenue. However, the company has already acquired four vegetable seed companies, 57 research centers, and hired many researchers and scientists. Citizens nationwide are demanding that genetically engineered foods and foods containing genetically modified organisms be clearly labeled as such. Send your message to the USDA, FDA, and Congress, and tell them how concerned you are about Monsanto’s push into our nation’s produce. Take action today!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO USDA, FDA, AND CONGRESS

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Run (or Walk, or Hike, or Ride a Bike) for Integrative Health on December 4!

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:00:31 +0000

Join ANH-USA and the Natural Health Alliance Foundation in a nationwide event to raise money for integrative medicine research—and to find real cures for breast cancer and other devastating diseases!When the cure for breast cancer is often worse than the disease, continued access to important alternative treatments for breast cancer is more important than ever. We are asking YOU to help make that happen on Sunday, December 4.It’s easy. Just go to the “Promote Integrative Medicine” event page and click the black button on the right that says, “Fundraise for this Event.” Choose whether you want to sign up as an individual, start a new team, or join an existing team. If you start a new team, you’ll be able to invite friends to join your team as well. If you wish, you can set a monetary goal for your fundraising event!The main event page has a leaderboard showing which teams and individuals have raised the most money so far, so you can compete with others! Also check out ANH-USA staff’s team page, where you’ll find details of our own 10-mile hike in Washington, DC.Washington metro area members and readers are welcome to join us on our hike! Just email office@anh-usa.org with the subject “Integrative Medicine Hike,” and we’ll send you details (including the hiking route) closer to the day of the event.

New Campaign Seeks to Make Big Changes at the American Dietetic Association—RDs Speak Out!

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:00:14 +0000

Registered Dietitians are tired of their organization being financed by the junk food industry and Big Pharma. Now they’re starting to speak out. EatRight.org is the American Dietetic Association’s website. It claims to offer “food and nutrition information you can trust.” But can we really trust nutrition information from an organization that says sugar, fluoride, and artificial colors are safe for children? We believe the ADA’s partnership with the junk food industry helps fuel the diabetes epidemic. If the ADA succeeds in its attempt to monopolize nutrition services, we will be left with nothing but a deep-fried and genetically modified junk-food-influenced nutrition profession. In response, ANH-USA, Registered Dietitians, Certified Clinical Nutritionists, MDs, and concerned citizens have joined together to help launch ReallyEatRight.org to highlight how the ADA is working to undermine nutritionists—professional colleagues who also care passionately about health and food. We’re also trying to encourage the protection of nutrition services that can prevent chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes. The site is filled with informative articles, including an internal ADA document that specifically discusses eliminating competition in the field of nutrition. The same document plainly states the rationale for the organization’s multi-state legislative effort to monopolize nutritional therapy: because “existing legal and regulatory constraints on practice are unlikely to prevent robust, broad competition” in the “growth area” of nutrition and dietetics. It discusses “significant competitive threats” from holistic nutritionists and naturopathic physicians, as well as nurses, pharmacists, chiropractors, and athletic trainers. The practice of dietetics is one of the many different modalities of nutritional therapy. Many RDs feel that dietitians—and particularly their certification body, the Commission on Dietetic Registration—should respect and compete with other nutrition professions and licensing bodies in the marketplace, and should not subvert competition by creating a government-sanctioned monopoly through legislation. In fact, growing numbers of Registered Dietitians, dietetic students, and ADA members are gravely concerned about the direction of the ADA and the negative impact that direction will have on its 70,000 members. They believe the ADA’s partnerships with junk food companies and the pharmaceutical industry—and the payments it continues to receive from them—have severely damaged the organization's independence and credibility, and have severely compromised the professional legitimacy of dietitians. ADA receives payments from soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi, industrial food monolith Aramark, cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg’s, candy makers Hershey and Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world’s consumer products brands in foods and beverages. It also receives funding from Abbott Nutrition, a division of pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories (which makes Vicodin, a drug the FDA was advised in 2009 to take off the market because of overdoses and liver damage, and Meridia, the weight-loss drug which was withdrawn because it was both dangerous and ineffective). These are just some of the funders that are known. “No group, especially one that receives payments from junk food companies, should monopolize the field of nutrition when there are many other healthcare professionals with advanced nutritional training. The ADA is creating a monopoly over the practice of nutritional therapy—to the detriment of consumer choice and our health,” said David Brownstein, MD, a board-certified family physician who uses nutritional therapies in his practice. “I’ve seen firsthand what the ADA considers ‘healthy food,’ and it is frightening to see their sugary and chemical-laden foods being given to people who are recovering from surgery,” said Dr. Brownstein. RDs and consumers have good reason to be upset. Consider these facts:

Lifestyle and nutrition is essential in preventing many chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer—which currently place a huge burden on US healthcare. In the US, approximately ten percent of healthcare dollars are for diabetes treatment directly. Indirect costs are much higher and include increased work absenteeism, reduced productivity, and lost productive capacity due to early mortality.
Instead of taking important preventive measures, healthcare is focused on treating the disease with drugs.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) has asked the ADA and other health advocacy groups for a listing of their payments from the pharmaceutical, medical device, and insurance industries. The senator’s investigation is ongoing.
The ADA receives about $1 million a year in payments from pharmaceutical companies. Because of Sen. Grassley’s investigation, the ADA disclosed their payments from the pharmaceutical, medical device, and insurance industries.
The ADA receives payments from Coca-Cola, Hershey, the National Dairy Council, Mars, PepsiCo, and others. The ADA won’t say exactly how much they receive from these companies and industry associations.
The credentialing arm of the ADA, the Commission on Dietetic Registration, offers continuing professional education courses sponsored by Coca-Cola.
The ADA allowed the junk food company–sponsored “Smart Choices” food labeling program (now widely considered a failure and an embarrassment) to be introduced at their Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo. One of the biggest critics was Food Safety News (a very mainstream website, not particularly natural-health-friendly), whose reporter said, “The corporate takeover by Big Food was worse than I even imagined.”
The ADA allows pharmaceutical companies to market their controversial products at ADA events. At the 2007 ADA Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, GlaxoSmithKline was allowed to promote their first over-the-counter diet pill, Alli, even though the drug’s weight loss effectiveness is minimal and there are side effects such as hard-to-control bowel movements and anal discharge. The FDA has since issued warnings for Alli, noting the possibly of severe liver damage, and consumer groups are asking the FDA to remove Alli from the market.

You might be interested to know that come January, the American Dietetic Association is officially changing its name to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. According to their press release, “The new name complements the focus of the organization to improve the nutritional well-being of the public.” We wonder if it’s not just a bit of whitewashing—or worse, an attempt to steal “nutrition” as a profession from Certified Nutritionists. ReallyEatRight.org is designed to help RDs stand up and take back their profession from junk food companies, and to insist that their professional association start acting like a responsible partner in health instead of attempting to undermine their colleagues (nutritionists) through legislation. The site features Action Alerts designed specifically for Registered Dietitians and ADA members, as well as the general public. It currently has state-based initiatives for residents of New York and New Jersey! It is our fervent hope that dietitians and nutritionists will be able to work together to improve the health of our citizens, without being weighed down by Big Pharma and junk food company interests. Our goal: To persuade 5,000 nutrition professionals and 25,000 citizens to sign the petitions, which we will deliver to the head of the ADA and request a response, with media documenting the event. Please to go ReallyEatRight.org and sign the petitions today!

A Cautious Victory on the Durbin Amendment

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:00:08 +0000

The senator’s latest volley has failed, but we can expect him to introduce something similar at the next opportunity.Last month we told you about Sen. Dick Durbin’s stealth move against supplements—that he had proposed an amendment to an appropriations (budget) bill, which is a sneaky way of getting controversial laws passed without too much attention.The amendment would have had the Government Accountability Office (GAO) assess the effectiveness and utility of the FDA’s adverse event reporting (AER) system, report to Congress on what actions FDA is taking to ensure that dietary supplement manufacturers are reporting adverse events, and also report on whether FDA has implemented the recommendations GAO made in its 2009 report on dietary supplements.What’s especially sneaky about this is that the GAO’s report recommendations include increased supplement labeling regulations—one of the main goals of Sen. Durbin’s dangerous Dietary Supplement Labeling Act. It also recommends making a clear delineation between food and supplements—a first step toward treating supplements as drugs—another major feature of the Durbin bill.The good news is that this sneaky amendment didn’t make it into the appropriations bill!The bad news is that Durbin is both powerful and tenacious, and will almost certainly be introducing a bill or amendment that gets the same things accomplished some other way. We will, of course, continue to monitor the situation very carefully, so you can take appropriate action.

Natural Medicine: An Editorial by ANH-Intl Executive Director and ANH-USA Science Director Rob Verkerk

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:00:27 +0000

It’s an odd world when those that we entrust with our health—the medical establishment—are so resistant to supporting health in the way intended by nature. Dr. Verkerk’s editorial follows: Many who’ve yet to become fully aware of the extent of contemporary, western society’s disconnect with nature seem to take disconnection for granted. It’s almost as if this disconnected state is becoming the natural state in their minds. We are meant to accept that someone who exhibits symptoms of depression should be given Prozac, despite there being no evidence of any Prozac-deficiency, or any attempt to consider altering the circumstances or environment around the person. Caesarean sections in some countries, like the UK, are now elective for any woman who so chooses. In a society where so many rights are being taken away from us, isn’t it a little puzzling that suddenly the rights of a woman who might want to avoid labor are now being granted? Could there be another motive—is it about scheduling of hospital births or is it about preempting lawsuits? Or could it be even more sinister? The reality is that whether it’s the way we come into the world, the way we protect ourselves from diseases using vaccination, or the food available to us in supermarkets, most of it is darn right unnatural. Scientific evidence for the harm all this unnatural living causes us, in many cases, isn’t robust enough to force governments to recognize it (remember how long it took to force governments to recognize the harm caused by cigarette smoking?). What we find instead is a different type of evidence. There is a growing troupe of us around the world, now likely to represent many millions—not just hundreds of thousands—who have understood this. We are choosing to live our lives differently, especially in how we eat, move or think, and it seems we’re not affected by the same rate of metabolic and psychiatric disease that afflict so many who choose to live off processed food from the supermarket or take a pill for every ill. Let’s face it, who can make money out of diet and lifestyle change? This is why one of our campaign strategies is of course not just to help people to adjust their lifestyles, but also to force governments to wake up to the cost of inappropriate diets and lifestyle, which are the main causes of the “Big 5” killer diseases: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis. Central to our entire campaign for natural health are our efforts to raise awareness. While we provide a lot of material, you’ll understand that the real work in disseminating information far and wide is done by you—not us. Yes, in some areas it is vitally important to force change to bad pieces of legislation, such as those affecting herbal products in Europe, or to get some better sense into the science, another subject that’s very close to our hearts. But the greatest element of change comes from increasing awareness, so that individuals alter their understanding of what the established medical and scientific community tells them with regards their health. Ultimately it’s about us as individuals and social groups making permanent changes to our behavior. This is true self-empowerment, and you don’t even have to wait until tomorrow—you can do it today. If you would like regular ANH-Europe updates, please sign up here.

Readers’ Corner: Are HPV Vaccine-Linked Deaths Being Overstated?

ANH-USA — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:02:47 +0000

With all due respect, the question is not the number of reported deaths, but why they are not being investigated.Jennifer wrote:

I'm slightly concerned by your article posted recently, called “BREAKING NEWS! CDC Has Just Recommended Routine HPV Vaccinations for Boys!” Your article is extremely misleading almost to the point of shoddy journalism....

From your article: “A whopping 1,498 of those events (8%) were considered ‘serious’—such as blood clots, the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and 68 reports of death.”

From the CDC website you use as a source, the number of deaths was in fact 71 but only 34 of those deaths were reported with all the information necessary. The author completely ignored the most relevant last sentence of that section: “In the 34 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination.” It is irresponsible and misleading of your author to be neglecting this point by using the statistic and citing death as a side effect when it is obviously not. While vaccines can pose a risk to people with obvious health complications (family history or allergies, etc.) it is inappropriate to be cherry picking statistics on a site that tries to promote healthy living.

Thanks for your message. After we did our research, the VAERS website added three new unconfirmed deaths of girls who received the Gardasil vaccine, so the total number of deaths through September 15th is indeed 71, not 68. We appreciate the update.Like you, we would like to know more about these deaths. That’s the whole point. Even if the 37 unconfirmed reports can be dismissed completely (though, honestly, why would the deaths have been reported at all if they didn’t occur?)—and even if, to quote the CDC, “some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination”—why isn’t this being checked and why are the other reports of death not creating a gigantic furor? Why is the medical establishment, the government, and the major media refusing both to discuss these adverse event reports related to the HPV vaccine, often submitted by doctors, or to investigate them in any way? Why are they just being swept under the rug?Teenage girls don’t just suddenly die in great numbers. Why did these girls die after receiving the vaccine? Why were there various other serious reported events? Why is there silence about this?The Institute of Medicine, in issuing its report about vaccines in general, totally ignored all adverse event reports. Why? Supposedly because the IOM only considers “peer-reviewed” research. Well, we like peer-reviewed research too (see the Free Speech About Science bill which we wholeheartedly support), but why is no peer-reviewed research being done on reported HPV vaccine adverse events?Many medical researchers, as we know, receive drug company funding. They also realize that any negative vaccine findings will get them in trouble with government medical funders too. Is that why there is no peer-reviewed adverse event research for the IOM to cite? Is massive drug company advertising behind the total silence of the major media?As we have elsewhere noted, adverse event reports for drugs are also mostly ignored. By contrast, the FDA and other drug company allies keep close watch on supplement adverse event reports, which are taken very seriously, but which are so few in number that not much can be made of them.We have more on our government and vaccines in this issue. Please read it carefully. In the case of vaccine risks, the department of the government in charge of vaccines may be engaging in a massive cover up. What is needed is independent and credible research on the subject. Like you, we want to get at the truth of the matter.

Senator Durbin’s Stealth Move against Supplements

ANH-USA — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:10:01 +0000

Since he’s having trouble getting his own bill passed, he’s trying a different approach to get the same results. New Action Alert! For weeks we have been telling you about Sen. Dick Durbin’s disastrous Dietary Supplement Labeling Act, which attempts to impose harsh limits on supplement availability by giving the FDA major new powers to make arbitrary standards and rules that will curtail supplement sales. Initially it orders the FDA to compile, with help from the Institute of Medicine, a list of dietary ingredients (read: supplements) that could lead to adverse events or are otherwise deemed risky in some way. But creating lists of “bad” ingredients or “bad” doses based on completely arbitrary or non-existent standards is a slippery slope. Now Sen. Durbin has proposed an amendment to an appropriations (budget) bill, which is a sneaky way of getting controversial laws passed without too much attention. The amendment would have the Government Accountability Office (GAO) assess the effectiveness and utility of the FDA’s adverse event reporting (AER) system, and report to Congress on what actions FDA is taking to ensure that dietary supplement manufacturers are reporting adverse events; how the AER system “informs the public” of FDA’s efforts to protect consumers; and, most especially, whether FDA has implemented the recommendations GAO made in its 2009 report on dietary supplements. Buried in the GAO’s recommendations in its 2009 report are some of the same provisions that are also in Durbin’s unpopular Dietary Supplement Labeling Act. In our article on the report, we noted that the GAO recommended:

increased supplement labeling regulations—one of the Durbin bill’s main goals;
a clear delineation to be made between food and supplements—a first step toward treating supplements as drugs—this is also in the Durbin bill, and it’s the particular clause we feared he would slip into the appropriations bill; and
an increase in AER requirements: currently only severe adverse events must be reported, but this would force AERs to be filed even for the most minor events.

The GAO undermined its own recommendation in the report by acknowledging that “FDA officials told us that the current regulatory framework is sufficient to identify and act on safety concerns regarding foods with added dietary ingredients.” This supports ANH-USA’s assertion that the FDA is already well equipped and needs no additional authority to do its job. Furthermore, the number of supplement AERs is quite low—only 1,080 in 2008. And keep in mind that over half the US population (at least 154 million individuals) take nutritional supplements, according to data from 2007 National Health Interview Survey. The supplement AER figure is even lower when compared to the 526,527 prescription drug AERs in 2008. In other words, for every adverse event from supplements, there are 488 adverse events from prescription drugs! Remember that it took the deaths of 55,000 Americans before FDA considered pulling Vioxx off the shelves. The fact that Sen. Durbin has suggested this appropriations amendment indicates that he no longer has high hopes for the Durbin bill. Thanks to all the messages you’ve been sending Congress, he is having a difficult time gaining support for it—he has only been able to find one senator so far who is willing to co-sponsor his bill—and so he’s trying to pressure FDA into implementing the bill’s goals via the regulatory system. We believe it is also an attempt to lay stronger groundwork to push his bill through legislatively, once he gets the ball rolling and FDA starts to treat supplements more like drugs. We should also note that Sen. Durbin was the architect of the current AER system, but he was unhappy with the political compromise that was struck when the law was passed originally—Sens. Hatch and Harkin agreed to a reporting system so long as it was only for severe events. Now we see Durbin pushing a requirement to have all adverse events be reported, no matter how minor. What Sen. Durbin clearly wants is for every supplement to be approved by the FDA before it is sold. Everything he does is intended to move things in that direction. There are fundamental objections to this. First, the FDA is biased in favor of drugs, probably because drugs pay the FDA’s bills. Since the agency sees supplements as competition for drugs, not many will be approved. Second, the agency will demand supplement trials just like drug trials—which is not appropriate for supplements. Supplements are like food: it is the combination and balance of what you take that matters, not just the effect of one pill. Third, the cost of complying with the pre-approval process will make supplements, already beyond many people’s budget, too expensive for all but the rich. If this powerful senator can’t win using the direct approach, he’ll try an end-run. It may be politics as usual, but when it affects your family’s health, it’s time to fight back. We’ll keep you posted on the maneuvering around appropriations bills.

In the meantime, if you haven’t yet sent a message to Congress about the Durbin bill, please do it now! But just as important, the appropriations bill is scheduled to be voted on by next Monday, October 31, at which time Sen. Durbin will try to add his amendment. Please write your senators today and stop this language dead in its tracks!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE SENATE

NDI Supplement Guidance is Just a Bait-and-Switch—and Time Is Running Out to Stop It!

ANH-USA — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:00:06 +0000

Only 38 more days to tell FDA and Congress that the proposed rules for supplements could lead to the elimination of thousands of supplements and make the surviving ones much more expensive.When FDA issued their draft guidance for New Dietary Ingredients (that is, supplements), the agency was perverting congressional intent—the congressmen who wrote the original legislation even told the FDA commissioner before the guidance was issued that it needed to be fully consistent with DSHEA! FDA was also attempting to circumvent the notification system Congress intended by instituting a scheme that mirrors the Waxman supplement pre-approval system, introduced in 1993, which DSHEA was intended to stop.Here’s some important background for you.Supplement and integrative medicine champion Sen. Orrin Hatch made this statement when he introduced the bill for DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994:

In our free market society, consumers should be able to purchase dietary supplements and companies should be able to sell these products so long as the labeling and advertising are truthful, non-misleading, and there exists a reasonable scientific basis for product claims.

Unfortunately, not everyone in our federal government shares these views. For more than three decades, FDA has tried to restrict severely the ability of the dietary supplement industry to sell and market its products and, consequently, the ability of consumers to buy them. The agency has repeatedly attempted to impose unnecessarily stringent standards that would leave many if not most supplement companies with no practical choice but to close their doors.

In sharp contrast, Rep. Henry Waxman wanted dietary ingredients and nutritional supplements to be considered food additives and therefore subject to FDA approval—not unlike the system that is used for drugs. So Waxman introduced the Dietary Supplement Access and Claims Moratorium Act of 1993. This bill would have amended the food additive definition to include dietary ingredients (supplements)—thereby making supplements subject to the food additive approval process.Happily, cooler heads in Congress prevailed. Sen. Hatch explicitly stated:

As you know, [DSHEA] makes clear that dietary supplements are not food additives or drugs, and that the burden of proof shall be on the FDA to prove that a product is unsafe.

Consequently, when DSHEA was passed, dietary ingredients were specifically exempted from the definition of “food additives,” making supplements not subject to FDA pre-approval. All that was needed was a simple notification.Now FDA has offered its draft guidance—which attempts to circumvent DSHEA as it was passed and create a new pre-approval system. Everything about this proposal is a perversion of congressional intent, and will (as Sen. Hatch told the world eighteen years ago) severely restrict your ability to buy nutritional supplements and leave many—if not most—supplement companies with no practical choice but to close their doors.

Time is running out—the comment period ends on December 2! Help us protect your access to supplements. We need everyone reading this to send their message to Congress and FDA right now to make sure the FDA and Waxman don’t win! Take action today!