Monday, April 16, 2007

Loss of Your Freedom, Compliments of the FDA

This excerpt is from the HSI Newsletter. It addresses one of the most important issues related to your health and health freedom EVER. The FDA is attempting to control our supplements and more! Supplement availability, potency and prices all will be negatively affected. The FDA has no right and would add no value to the supplement industry.



Dear Reader,

This might be the most important e-Alert I'll ever send you.

Your healthcare freedom is constantly under attack. And as we've just discovered, that freedom has suddenly come under fire as never before.

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Always something
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Most HSI members won't be surprised to learn that the FDA has launched a plan to impose new regulations on alternative healthcare - regulations that are far more severe than existing regs.

Attempts like this aren't new, of course. Over the years we've diligently monitored such actions so that we can keep you informed through the e-Alert, the HSI Members Alert, and our web site.

Just last month I told you about a new senate bill called the Safe Drug Compounding Act that would limit the freedom of women to choose a safe alternative to synthetic hormone replacement therapy. So far, there's no further news about the progress of that completely unnecessary act, but now a much larger threat looms.

This past December, the FDA quietly put a document on its web site titled "Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration." This document is open to public comments until April 30, 2007 - just a few days from now.

After that, FDA officials will evaluate the comments and decide if they dare proceed with a regulation that might actually make it a crime to take vitamin C for a cold without a prescription.

Sound extreme? Absolutely! This is the most extreme attempt to control the sale and use of dietary supplements I've ever seen.

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The cards are stacked
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The FDA document is 14 pages long, but here's what it boils down to: If you use an herbal or dietary supplement to stay healthy or to help prevent an ailment, that's fine. But if any supplement is used to treat a symptom, then it's a medicine and will be regulated by the FDA, just like any prescription drug.

And there's a qualifying statement to that second part: The supplement will be exempted if it is "generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of drugs, as safe and effective for use under the conditions prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the labeling."

In other words, the freedom to use a supplement to treat a condition will be at the discretion of FDA experts. And given the track record of FDA experts, this is really bad news.

With this spacious latitude, there's no telling just how far the FDA might go to restrict access to supplements. For instance, they could take a widely used supplement off the market if the label states a benefit; such as using lutein to reduce the damage from age-related macular degeneration, or using chondroitin and glucosamine to reduce joint pain, or using probiotics to address digestive problems - the list goes on and on.

As HSI Panelist Jon Barron points out on his web site (jonbarron.org), under the proposed FDA guidelines even bottled water might be considered a drug if used to alleviate severe dehydration, which is an emergency medical condition.

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Time to act!
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Just think of all the e-Alerts I've sent you with details about supplements that address health problems. All of those supplements might become so tightly regulated that you would have to get a doctor's prescription to use them.

Of all the times to raise our voices, none is more important than this time.

You can find the full text of the FDA document at this link:

http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/06d-0480-gld0001.pdf

And you can use this link to submit your comments:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/COMMENTSMain.CFM?EC_DOCUMENT_ID=1451&SUBTYP=CONTINUE&CID=&AGENCY=FDA

In addition, we also need to let our representatives in Washington know that we strongly resist this attack on our healthcare freedom. You can find the names and e-mail addresses for your congressmen at this web site: congress.org.

And finally, I hope you'll forward this e-Alert to other people you know who value our right to make our own healthcare choices.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

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To start receiving your own copy of the HSI e-Alert, visit:
http://www.hsibaltimore.com/ealerts/freecopy.html
Or forward this e-mail to a friend so they can sign-up to receive their own copy of the HSI e-Alert.



Natural Health and Wellness

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Pelosi Delivered Wrong Message to Assad, Israel Says

What does this have to do with health? Well, last I checked, the Dem's were pushing a "cut and run" defeatist attitude. If we abandon Iraq at this critical point, the war comes to the USA. I would much rather fight them over there.


By Julie StahlCNSNews.com
Jerusalem Bureau Chief
April 05, 2007

(1st Add: Includes comments from Israeli and Syrian officials.)
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) -

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the wrong message to Syrian President Bashar Assad from Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said on Wednesday evening.

Pelosi, who is heading a bi-partisan fact-finding tour of the Middle East, met with Assad on Wednesday, a move that angered the Bush administration. Earlier in the week, Pelosi -- the most senior U.S. official to visit Syria in years -- visited Israel and met with Olmert.

At a press conference following the meeting between Pelosi and Assad in Damascus, Pelosi indicated that she had delivered a message that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks.

"We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president [Assad] that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said.

The meeting with Assad "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well," she said.

But the prime minister's office denied that Olmert had asked her to communicate such a message in a "clarification" statement issued on Wednesday evening.

During the meeting between Pelosi and Olmert, the prime minister said that a number of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives had visited Damascus recently and had "received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel."

Since the end of the summer war between Israel and Hizballah in Lebanon, Syria has made a number of overtures toward Israel, but Israel has rejected them, saying that Syria isn't serious about making peace. The last official peace talks between the two countries were in early 2000.

Olmert emphasized that although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, "that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East," the clarification statement said."

In order to conduct serious and genuine peace negotiations, Syria must cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hizballah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran," it said.

Whether or not Syria implements these measures will determine if Syria is sincere about making genuine peace with Israel, Olmert said.

The communication with Pelosi did not contain any change in Israeli policy, the statement said.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz quoted unnamed sources in the prime minister's office as saying that Pelosi had taken "part of the things that were said in the meeting, and used what suited her."

Earlier in the week, Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said by telephone that Olmert had told Pelosi that he didn't think Assad deserved all the attention he was getting.

Nevertheless, when Pelosi offered to deliver a message, according to Eisen, Olmert said that the message was "don't prepare for war and renounce terrorism" and maybe there can be negotiations.

Israeli government minister Ze'ev Boim said he was skeptical about Syria's intentions toward peace. Words come cheap, he said in a radio interview. Syria must back its words up with actions, he added.

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was quoted by the radio as saying that he was concerned about the effects of Pelosi's visit to Syria. The trip might encourage European states to drop their isolation of Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem called for dialogue between Syria and Washington.

Pelosi also drew fire from Washington for saying that the "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Bush's national security advisor, said that that road unfortunately "is lined with the victims of Hamas and Hizballah, the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq."

Johndroe called the trip "counterproductive."President Bush, whose administration is trying to isolate Syria, said that meeting with Assad delivered "mixed messages" since it is a terror-sponsoring regime.

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