Tell The FDA That Cherries—And Now Walnuts—Are NOT Illegal Drugs!
April 13, 2010
Has the FDA lost its mind–again?
In the latest volley of the US Food and Drug Administration’s bizarre war on scientific freedom of speech, the FDA has sent a Warning Letter to the president and CEO of Diamond Foods stating that the firm’s packages of shelled walnuts are “in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”
Why? As Bill Faloon, co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, explains in a powerful new investigative article, Diamond Foods, a processor and distributor of nuts, dared to list some of the health benefits of walnuts on its website. The FDA says that the walnuts are being “promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.”
In other words, if you say that a food is healthy and may help protect against heart disease, or ease arthritis or inflammation, your words have magically changed that food into a drug, and that’s illegal.
Life Extension magazine has published no fewer than fifty-seven articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts, each article supported with copious scientific references. Yet the FDA says the walnuts “are not generally recognized as safe and effective,” that the manufacturer’s “unauthorized health claims” have caused the walnuts to become “misbranded,” which makes them subject to government “seizure or injunction”!
What Science Says about Walnuts
As Bill Faloon notes (with every statement carefully supported by scientific journals and publications):
- There is a sharply reduced incidence of heart disease in those who consume walnuts.
- Walnuts provide a unique blend of polyunsaturated fatty acids (including omega-3s), along with nutrients like gamma tocopherol that have demonstrated heart health benefits.
- Even moderate consumption of walnuts offers significant reductions in dangerous LDL cholesterol and improvement in the lipoprotein profile.
- Walnuts protect against coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis because they contain key nutrients like arginine, polyphenols, and omega-3 fatty acids.
The National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than thirty-five peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk—yet the FDA, the federal agency responsible for protecting the health of the American public, would apparently rather support pharmaceutical manufacturers’ rights. Imagine what would happen to drug profits if everyone ate walnuts for heart health instead of taking expensive medications!
As Bill Faloon says, the verbiage in the FDA’s Warning Letter to the walnut manufacturer “makes it clear that the FDA does not even consider the underlying science when censoring truthful non-misleading health claims.”
Moreover, Faloon continues, “FDA has issued waves of warning letters to companies making foods (pomegranate juice, green tea, and walnuts) that protect against atherosclerosis. The FDA is blatantly demanding that these companies stop informing the public about the scientifically validated health benefits these foods provide.”
These latest FDA outrages are on top of an earlier attack on cherry growers. In that case, the cherry growers cited excellent scientific research from places like Harvard indicating that cherries reduce inflammation and pain. The FDA sent an injunction letter threatening the usual legal penalties—including jail—if this truthful dissemination of scientific research did not stop immediately.
What is the FDA thinking? Why is it blatantly disregarding its own mission of educating the public and promoting health? Why is it acting like an ignorant bully?
Potato Chips . . . as Health Food?
Faloon points to Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of the food and softdrink giant PepsiCo, makers of Pepsi-Cola®, as an example of the strange double standard the FDA seems to be applying. Frito-Lay sells $12 billion a year of products that include Lays® Potato Chips, Doritos®, Tostitos®, Cheetos®, and Fritos®.
You might not associate these mostly deep fried snack foods as being good for you, but as Faloon mentions, the FDA has no problem allowing the Frito-Lay website to state the following:
Frito-Lay snacks start with real farm-grown ingredients. You might be surprised at how much good stuff goes into your favorite snack. Good stuff like potatoes, which naturally contain vitamin C and essential minerals. Or corn, one of the world’s most popular grains, packed with Thiamin, vitamin B6, and Phosphorous—all necessary for healthy bones, teeth, nerves and muscles.
And it’s not just the obvious ingredients. Our all-natural sunflower, corn and soybean oils contain good polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which help lower total and LDL “bad” cholesterol and maintain HDL “good” cholesterol levels, which can support a healthy heart. Even salt, when eaten in moderation as part of a balanced diet, is essential for the body.
In other words, Frito-Lay can make health claims about its processed fried foods, in opposition to real scientific research, with no repercussions whatsoever, but Diamond can’t make scientifically substantiated claims about shelled walnuts, a health superfood. As Faloon notes:
“For the FDA to allow Frito-Lay to pretend there are heart benefits to ingesting their high-calorie snack products, while censoring the ability of walnut companies to make scientifically substantiated claims, is tantamount to treason against the health of the American public. The simple fact is that walnuts are healthy to eat, while carbohydrates fried in fat are not. FDA permits companies selling disease-promoting foods to deceive the public, while it suppresses the dissemination of peer-reviewed published scientific information.”
Two Things You Can Do
As our regular newsletter readers are aware, on March 23 a bipartisan bill was introduced into the House of Representatives called the Free Speech about Science Act (HR 4913). This landmark legislation, promoted by ANH-USA, protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.
The Free Speech about Science bill has the potential to transform medical practice by educating the public about the real science behind natural health.
For this very reason, the bill will have opposition. It will be opposed by the FDA since it restricts their ability to censor the dissemination of published scientific data. It will be opposed by drug companies fearing competition from natural health approaches based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle.
The public, on the other hand, wants access to credible information they can use to make wise dietary choices. Please don’t let special interests stop this bill. Take action now and ask your Representative to cosponsor the Free Speech About Science Act (HR 4913).
We also have a new Action Alert for you. This one will let you contact Congress to express your outrage about the FDA’s censorship of the scientific evidence supporting the health claims surrounding walnuts (and green tea, and pomegranates, and cherries!). It will also let you tell the FDA what you think about their hypocritical support of deep fried potatoes and corn chips as being “heart-healthy,” while denouncing the scientific evidence of walnuts’ health benefits.
Please take action today and write to the FDA and your members of Congress!
If possible please send in both letters, one supporting the Free Speech About Science Act and the other expressing your opposition to the FDA’s outrageous attack on walnuts (not to mention cherries, green tea, and other natural products). We need to hammer home our message in defense of free speech, common sense, health freedom, and natural health.
I’m not a US lawyer, but couldn’t Bill Faloon protect himself from all this legal gibberish by placing a disclaimer where these FDA Fatheads can’t help but see, saying something like “this report is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report . . . . . . Bla Bla Bla?
This way, we the consumers can read between the lines, and at the same time the FDA can’t give him an “absolute” reprimand for something he didn’t already warn the consumer about.
What is this world coming to? Heil Hitler! That’s what we’re heading for
The FDA is more and more becoming an embarrassment to the USA. They don’t protect us from harmful things like fluoride and genetically engineered fake foods, then try to deter us from knowing the positive effects of the good foods we should be consuming.
They really should be ashamed of themselves.
I agree get real Mr.and Mrs. Natural. Nuts, cherries,potatoes and carrots etc. are all foods to sustain not treat people. Foods are food and drugs are drugs.Quit bitching and spending billions on worthless “supplements”.What a scam.Grow or buy food for sustinance, not treatment.
Do any of you fools, imbeciles and morons at the Federal Death Administration have a degree in anything ? Anything at all? We should eat you, but the level of stupidium in your bodies is probably toxic.
FDA is nuts for picking on such a nutrient food. The public won’t buy their prejudice. Oh, but they think potato chips with oil and salt are good for you. Yeah for heart attacks. Thankfully the American public has caught on to their sloppy rules. Buy natural foods like Diamond Nuts/.
Are we striving to be the most ignorant country in the world?
What are the scientists working for if what they’ve discovered
is kept a secret? Trying to keep people in the dark about cherries,
walnuts, or whatever is not the direction this country should be
heading to. Is the FDA striving for a sicker America?
I am dumbfounded by the pure stupidity of the FDA.
The mindset of the FDA regarding what it seems to thinks is best for us really reminds me of how my septic tank works, all the “sludge” floats to the top, and while there seems to make all these crazy judgments on how to better “protect” us from ourselves. The FDA is another failed example of bigger, better government. While doing their best to take away a persons right to access supplements and healthy foods, while at the same time forcing genetically modified foods down our throats, giving the go ahead to growth hormones in beef, chickens and milk cows, that are scientifically proven to have bad results to at large population and forcing it on our children in school lunch programs. Is it any wonder people see global conspiracies in such government agencies. Is it any wonder that some see them in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies and mega farms, I think not.
Actually, the “F D A” are all …. MASS – MURDERERS … of World – wide proportions for over
50 years now. Devine intervention will soon blow them into the abyss of hell. Aspertame is just
one of their evil, deadly results. (Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc )
maybe the growers need to cough up the standard billion dollar payoff to the fda. Thats what it costs for the right to say something is good for you — health care reform woohoo!
Way to go FDA! You will be the next Federal Agency to be privatized, wherein people with a brain can run it! Our tax dollars are supporting this nonsense! I wouldn’t pay as much attention to this indiscretion, other than Pepsi Co. can put similar info on their junk food! In all fairness, they should be drugs too! Keep it up FDA, and your free ride on the American public will soon be over, and you can stand in the unemployment line with lots of other americans!
unfortunately these FDA claims clearly demonstrate lack of common sense and total disregard for scienctific research. SAD and PATHETIC!!! and they have the audacity to call themselves scientists
That is the allmost the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard that cherry and walnust growers cannot state what research scientists have discovered!?! Incredible!!!
This is a WITCH HUNT by the Pharmaceutical Companies, and the FDA is appeasing them!!!! You know it is sad that the Government is allowing a bunch of rich, greedy, whoremonger , money loving Tyrants control the Health Care System in this Country….Good Nutritional Valued Foods help keep our bodies healthy and free from disease!!!!!!
I’m sick in tired of the Cry Baby!! Cry Baby! Cry Baby! attitudes of the Drugs Companies, when the Alternative/Health Food people come through with a Breakthrough for preventative of foods and supplements for sickness and disease! Do you not get it…..? When people eating good foods and the right kind of foods they are getting the right balanced diet and the body system does what it was created to do! How hard is it to understand that Good foods, plenty of water, exercise and rest is the way to better Health!!! Not food with frutose corn syrup or corn syrup (this is linked to diabetes in children)….Preservetives that are toxic, dyes, metals, cacking agents, etc………????? Rat poisioning for sweetner…. Hey!!! Did you know that it is not wise to give the human race things that kill animals in Science Test Case Studies?????? This is just the a little of what I see and this is how I see it…Bottom Line!
FDA!!! Cherries are a food source they are not Drugs, they carry their own natural nutrients for the purpose of the human race to benefit from them when eaten!!!! Walnuts are not a Drug they too, are benefical to the Human race for oils which are good fats and the mineral content they carry naturally for us to eat……FOOD is not durgs!!! The things that are extracted out of the Foods are still Food and have great benefits to the Health of our Bodies!!!!! WITCH HUNT!!!
All REAL foods are medicinal. Everything we put in our bodies alters it in some way, whether it’s lettuce, walnuts or aspirin. Agribusiness, Monsanto and fast food companies are trying to change this basic truth by producing foods which are chemically and genetically altered, and flooding our food supply system with them. Is the object to make us believe that anything packaged or refined or altered is good for us, but those natural foods which have definite benefits for our bodies are unacceptable drugs? I think we are not yet the lemmings the food industry and the FDA would like us to be.
An internal investigation into the FDA shows that they are not doing a very good job. They say they don’t have enough money to operate properly. After the many hundreds of thousands of deaths from drugs that weren’t properly investigated, why is the FDA now trying to control Walnuts, Cherries, Green Tea and others when not a single death was reported in 2008 from any of these products
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I am fully supportive of the natural side of medicine, though I studied under the conventional way of medicine, but letting the natural therapy get its share of freedom of speech is a must, as it is equally a must for the conventional medical professionals.
I wish you the best in your duty of showing people how to take control of their health and how to live healthy both the mind and the body..
PLEASE…IS THIS A JOKE.?? MY FAMILY HAVE BEEN EATTING BLACK WALNUTS, AND ENGLISH WALNUTS, ALL OF OUR LIVES..AND OUR FAMILY MEMBERS LIVE LONG PROSPEROUS LIVES.. MAYBE THEY ARE TRYING TO “SCARF” ALL THE WALNUTS FOR THEMSELVES..??
The FDA would greatly benefit from the products they are trying to ban. They are good for the brain, assuming the FDA has one!
Until about a year ago I was quite naive and considered the FDA a beneficial organization.
Things like the report above or finding that FDA wants to have control over all phases of
supplements makes me wonder where these enemies of the people come from. Clearly
the FDA has too wide a mandate and is run by idiots.
You say that if I say that a food is healthy and may help protect against heart disease, or ease arthritis or inflammation, my words have magically changed that food into a drug, and that’s illegal. So, would it be illegal to tell someone that WATER is good for their health, especially PURE water?
I guess the answer to that question from the FDA would be a resounding YES!
The FDA most certainly DOES NOT WORK for the American public, who they are supposed to be representing.
I think the FDA needs to be eliminated. They are becoming a terrorist organization.
The do not even test the drugs that go on the market and never have. All they read are fictional papers provided by drug companies and publish them. They are even more untested than the foods we eat that have been around for thousands of years.
I am sick of these stupid arrogant people proclaiming they are smarter than those of us who could make our own decisions if the labels were accurate.
I’m using a SUPPLEMENT to, I believe, hopefully CURE my systemic CANCER I’ve had since 2002! It is my opinion that the FDA law that states that a SUPPLEMENT can not be sold as a treatment for a disease is indirectly MASS_murdering multitudes of uninformed U.S. citizens with this horrible disease: CANCER. I’m TERRIFIED of our FDA finding out the SUPPLEMENT I’m using – reclassifying it as being a drug and having it taken off the market – I would DIE FROM MY CANCER – and no one else would be able to get it either. I swear I’m telling the truth. Read the book “KNOCKOUT” by Suzanne Somers. Is drug company’s influence responsible for this not being HEADLINE new all over the world? I’m sick of their “ads”, “Ask your doctor if this is right for you.”
Yes this from the agnecy that lets Big Pharma roll out drug after drug with 6 page disclaimer notices (recent ad in Newsweek ahd exactly this) about all the side affects. My letters are going out shortly to the FDA and my members of Congress
Please use some common sense when you try to restrict language about food. This is very invasive to American’s freedom of choosing healthy foods. PLEASE……………we are talking food here!
START WORKING FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC, NOT BIG BUSINESS.
Anyone with any common sense realizes that God blessed us with food that would supply us with minerals and nutrients that would keep our bodies strong and healthy and alive. To discuss these blessings should not endanger and destroy our freedom of speech, which the FDA is trying so hard to accomplish. It should not doom us into accepting chemicals and other toxic garbage that the FDA pimps to convince the public that the poisons and not God’s creations are healthy and good for you. God never made the human body to understand and get healthy on chemicals. If that were the case, there would have been a chemical factory in the Garden of Eden. Instead God told us that the animals, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and herbs were what man would need to survive on. There are more health problems today than ever before due to the constant exposure to chemicals in the air, water, and foods. The government thinks they can scare Americans into believing these outrageous lies. If that’s the case, then they have been exposed too long to their own poisons. The government is the only one believing these ridiculous promotions and lies. The American people know better.
I am 100% in favor of HR4913, the Free Speech About Science Bill.
SUPIDITY EXEMPLIFIED!!! And we the people allow ourselves to be subject to the ignorance of the FDA? It is time to remove quite a few heads of this organization, and replace them with some organic eating humanoids.
You cannot fool the public with your idiotic draconian mentality. Enough already! Wise up and get sensible! Thank you!
It is unfortunate that the truth about how healthy God’s food, in its original state, cannot be promoted!!! There is nothing wrong about saying that a food can be a preventative to disease and be supportive of good health. This is our right to know!!! How can Frito-Lay get away with promoting their unhealthy fried products made of most likely genetically modified ingredients that have been sprayed with toxic chemicals be ok???? This is big corporate having their hands in the FDA, as does Monsanto and other Big Ag corp’s!!! It is unfortunate that the people of the FDA are disconnected to God’s way and not honoring the TRUTH. Then again, the FDA does a lousy job at protecting the public because of Big Corp’s money going into their coiffeurs!!!
this is the insanity when back in the 50’s the FDA shut down health food stores for selling honey.
The real truth is :
Is that the FDA is a policing arm of the pharmaceutical cartel.
The true aim is to keep you sick, so the pharmaceutical cartel can get rich
The FDA cares nothing about health, wellness and preventive medicine. It is the guiding light and beacon for the pharmaceutical industry.
This once again has disgusted me.I think the only thing to be done is getting people in Washington that will do the peoples work.Looks like we’ll have to start voting in a smart way by not voting for candidates that media pushes.
Where do you get that kind of idiotic drivel about pure foods? These healthy foods were around long before you were born and healing some of the healthful problems.. Get your heads out of the pharmaceutical’s arses! Think for yourselves–God gave you brains (or were you hiding when He was giving them out) and refuse that big bunch of money handouts to show you are human and not a bunch of blithering idiots!
Big Pharma must be giving the FDA really big time money to make such stupid commentss about food.
Before FDA and government our creator created ont Earth is varied food sources to not only feed us but to help us grow and heal. It’s coomon sense that foods like nuts “walnuts” and cherries, green tea and a host of too many foods to mention are among those that the creator put here for us to use without the intereference of govoernment. To say that the natural benefits of our natural food sources is a drug would require that the creator did not know what he was doing and the FDA does.
Please use common sense when applying the rediculous ruling used and required when INVENTING a drug to also apply to the abundant natural foods originally here for millions of years.
Dear FDA
Please use sober, sane, common sense to dictate that junk food is not health food and natural whole nuts and other organic foods are very healthy. Why is it that Americans are so over weight? It is there very poor policies that FDA has adopted form large food manufacturing conglomerates essentially selling out on real health.
FDA people!!!! And Congress-people. Will SOMEONE educate the FDA about basics about FOOD?????!!!! Having to be told cherries and walnuts are not illegal drugs!!!!!!?????
WTF !!!!!!!!???????? This would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly stupid!!!
As a primary healthcare practitioner in Classical Chinese Medicine, diet is our medicine of first resort. Diet is CRUCIAL to good health: you cannot heave good health without a good diet. However, foods are most certainly NOT drugs. The FDA has become a farce, and should be completely disbanded and re-organized from the ground up. How absurd to assert that the health benefits of foods should not be touted! That is plain ridiculous. Medical research is constantly looking into the various health benefits of foods. I choose specific foods for their specific properties. Anything else would be ignorant or stupid.
TIME TO GET REAL.
cherries and walnuts are NOT drugs in any sense of the word. get a grip!
Revolution is the Solution!
The FDA is NUTZ!
It should be going after MONSANTO, not walnuts.
Wow, my mom was saying the exact same thing about Monsanto!!!
The taxpayers who fund your salaries at the FDA are entitled to accurate information when it comes to food labeling. The labeling laws in this country are a joke to begin with and now walnuts magically become drugs for listing some of their health benifits?!???! HELLO!
Where did you guys go to school?
Are you questioning the education of the article writers, the FDA decision-makers, or that of the commenters? In the science education I received, we learned first to ask very specific questions if we wanted the answers to mean anything.
don’t do me any favors
Seriously, what’s next? Broccoli, carrots? dark green leafy vegetables? almonds? I forgot, if it’s naturally good for you, you can’t say that it is. But if you take a natural product and take it out of it’s natural form, then it’s okay to say that it’s good for you. And we wonder why we have such a high mortality rate and obesity rate for such an industrialized nation.
Do you really care about the health of American people???
Let me get this straight. Foods are only to taste good and have no bearing on one’s health?
ALice, it’s back to Wonderland with you, since it is obviously more sane there than here!
I support the Free Speech About Science Act (HR 4913).
When is the FDA going to stop supporting Big Pharma and the big corporations and start supporting the peoples right to free speech about natural health products. In this day and age of skyrocketing health care costs, why on earth doesn’t our Federal Government support free speech so that the American public can learn and decide for themselves what is best for them and their families. Do you think it is just a coincidence that the percentage for obesity, heart disease and diabetes to name just a few has increased dramatically over the years? No, it’s increased because the American people have poor eating habits with far too many processed and genetically modified foods. Why doesn’t the FDA go after and stop the GMO industry and start regulating some of the ingredients in the processed foods and leave our natural health food and supplements industry alone?
The bottom line is that by promoting free speech about the benefits of natural foods and supplements, we can decrease the percentage of various diseases and therefore lower the cost of health care.
IT IS ALL ABOUT THE DOLLAR.. ALWAYS AND FOREVER… MANY POLITICIANS HAVE HIGH DOLLAR INVESTMENTS GOING WITH THE FDA AND THE PHARMA,…. ANYTIME YOU HEAR THEM SINGING THE PRAISES OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES YOU KNOW THEY HAVE VESTED INTERESTS….CONSEQUENTLY ???? T HEY WILL DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT THEIR INVESTMENTS… BE REALLY EYE OPENING TO GET THE LIST OF ALL THE ONES THAT ARE INVESTED IN THEM…. SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO THAT FOR US..
Natural foods should be promoted for their health and life giving benefits over pharmaceutical drugs that killo thousands of people annually. I have never heard of anyone dying over taking too many walnuts! This bill is exactly that-nuts!
amen!!!!!
is greed more important than people’s health to you? please allow us to state the benefits of food without turning it into a drug.
Thank you for expressing my thoughts & concerns so well!!
The FDA would like for us the eat all GMO food that are terrible for us, rather then allow us to eat foods that are benifical to us. Shame on you Cherries and Walnut are good for us and are not illegal drugs