FDA Must Be Crazy!!

Antagonists point to the Revolving Door between many government organizations and industry. Where else would Government get subject matter experts for the jobs? My problem with this is when they work for industry, then go to work for the government for a few years, then back to the same industry for a position with much greater income and much less responsibility... sort of like consultants who never have to show up the the office. Smell fishy?

I think they're at it again.

In their recent, "Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues," the FDA seems to be asserting that your multivitamin is dangerous and should be put through the same rigorous testing as pharmaceuticals.

Here's my first problem with the whole thing:
Pharmaceuticals are what we like to call: VERY EXPENSIVE. Your insurance company pays for much of the cost so you don't usually see anything near the real cost. Try to buy some of this stuff without insurance and you'll have to sell your children to the gypsies.

Multivitamins and most botanical supplements by comparison are very inexpensive. Both organizations have pretty low profit margins but a low margin on a low cost product, it would be challengeing to meet these testing requirements to say the least.

My second problem with this is that botanical vitamin companies shouldn't have to justify the fact that known food items are not going to kill you. We've been eating them forever. How often do you really hear about someone getting hurt from vitamins? Really.

Sounds to me like someone is testing the waters to see if they can get away with slimming the competition. More illness caused by poor nutrition puts a lot of money in the hands of a few big pharma companies. Just sayin'.

My personal views are that farmers are responsible for the care and well being of dirt. The dirt being used by the industrial food machine isn't as rich as it used to be so neither is your food. You can do better eating organic, even better eating from local farmer's markets and roadside stands but even then it's hard to get all the nutrition your body needs to thrive and excel in today's toxic environment. We have to be able to supplement and we have to have the freedom to be able to choose our own supplements. If they are found to be less than safe, they will be shut down either by market forces or by the FDA which is more than we can say about many unsafe "food products" the FDA currently calls safe.

Please click here to call your representatives and ask them to shoot this bird out of the sky like a clay pigeon or if you prefer, email them here. It's easy, painless, and with a pre-typed form letter, you only have to fill in a few blanks.


Links:
The Draft Guidance
Call your state representatives
Write a letter to your state representatives
Funny But True Facts About Big Pharma - Bill Maher
GMOs Making America Fat