There was a political firestorm over dietary supplements and herbs in the early 1990's. Natural medicines in the U.S. were about to be regulated out of existence by the government, and all supplements would need F.D.A. approval that required the same prohibitively expensive testing process as pharmaceutical drugs. Thankfully, enough concerned citizens stood up for their right to have unfettered access to dietary supplements. No government has a right to regulate God's natural medicines or to prevent nutrition. Because of the selfless work of our community, The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 was passed. Since then, there have been periodic threats to our health freedoms; all of which have been quashed.
Reuters has reported that Consumer Reports is screaming that dietary supplements need more regulations. According to Consumer Reports, some supplements are tainted with pharmaceuticals, and that the F.D.A. doesn't have enough authority to regulate them. They argue that the F.D.A. needs to have more control over supplements.
Of course, the F.D.A. already has the power to regulate any product which contains pharmaceuticals. That is, in fact, what we expect for them to be doing; instead of harassing cherry growers. There is, however, another possibility. When we consider that a large portion of pharmaceuticals are based upon old herbal medicines, then what Consumer Reports detected as 'pharmaceuticals' could actually be the natural makeup of the herbs. In other words, instead of pharmaceuticals being put inside herbs, perhaps the pharmaceuticals were derived from, and rely on the same compounds that are inside herbs. It would be an unintentional, yet glowing endorsement of the power of herbal medicine. To take a history trip into where some of the herb-based pharmaceuticals really came from, then just take a browse through the Pharmacopoeia of 1909.
"In addition, the FDA has not inspected any supplement factories in China, even though the agency set up field offices there starting in 2008."
— Consumer Reports
The F.D.A. does not need more power to inspect factories for contamination. It just needs the resolve to actually do its tasks, which is another issue entirely. Consumer Reports is quite obviously grasping at straws in an attempt to support the FDA in getting more authority than it needs. If the F.D.A. can't do its job correctly now, then giving it more responsibilities is about as logical as spending to escape debt.
"In May, the Government Accountability Office found that sellers of ginseng, Echinacea and other herbal and dietary supplements often tell consumers the pills can cure cancer or replace prescription medications."
This is where the article becomes really telling. They are threatened by the concept of cheap herbs being used to replace pricey prescription drugs. We have yet to find anyone anywhere claiming that either ginseng or echinacea cures cancer, so that statement looks like a straw-man argument for the intent of propaganda. The real and realistic fear behind the smoke is that people might become free from the medical establishment. That is what it is really all about. Just like Codex Alimentarius, our nation's elitists wish to regulate supplements into such small amounts that they become useless, and only pharmaceutical companies will be able to afford the mandated approval process.
Consumer Reports also expressed concerns about supplements containing more than the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) created by the F.D.A., as if those numbers are supposed to be some type of cut-off limit. Those numbers are instead supposed to represent the absolute minimum that a person needs to stay healthy; but those numbers actually mean nothing in reality. It is not unusual for people to safely and beneficially use 20 to 30 times the recommended amount of vitamin C, for instance. The F.D.A. recommends a minuscule 90 mg. of vitamin C per day for grown men, which is just enough to avoid the most obvious symptoms of scurvy. Two time Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling recommended 2000 mg. (2 grams) of vitamin C every day to prevent cardiovascular diseases, and 5 - 6 grams for those at high risk. This same doctor managed to keep his prostate cancer benign and relatively symptom free for 20 years with vitamin C, before it finally got him in his 90's.
More regulation upon dietary supplements is actually the opposite of what we need. Our freedom of speech is already ignored, and supplement companies are not allowed to honestly tell customers what their products do on their product labels, because that would be making 'unapproved health claims'.
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