By Dr. Mercola
The “military industrial complex” has become the military
industrial government... It doesn’t stop with the military;
other industries seem to have taken over our healthcare,
banking, food and agriculture at the federal level as well.
To say that your civil liberties are in jeopardy would be a
gross understatement, and while spy drones and the
reintroduction of yet another cyber security bill1
may seem off topic for a health website, remember that your
right to learn about, apply, and buy alternative health
strategies and products may not be as inalienable as you might
think anymore.
The US government is hard at work suppressing and limiting
your rights to choose your own health care and your right to
take control of your own health in a wide variety of ways.
Health freedom and civil liberties are under attack from
every conceivable angle, which is why you simply cannot afford
to stay idle any longer.
Any attack on your civil liberties will eventually affect
your right to choose what foods you want to buy, the supplements
you want to take, and the healing modalities you want to pursue
to stay healthy.
From Drone Warfare Abroad to Drone Surveillance Across the US
Federal agencies are stepping up efforts to “ensure safety”
by way of massive military and National Security Agency (NSA)
spending. A bill passed last year, which allocates more than $63
billion to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would
unleash some 30,000 unmanned spy drones in civilian airspace
across the United States.2
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):
“Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the
very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This
bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of
aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the
traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and
expected.”
As reported by the Digital Journal:3
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog
group, has brought a lawsuit against the federal government
requesting the FAA release records on agencies, almost 300
of them, carrying authorization for domestic drone
operations.
Jennifer Lynch, an attorney with EFF told Talking
Points Memo the new drone bill increases the importance of
the lawsuit. 'I think the fact that Congress is pressuring
the FAA to expand its UAS program through the FAA
Reauthorization Act only reinforces the need for these
records,' she noted.
It’s important that we learn more about how the
federal government and state and local law enforcement
agencies are already using UASs before we expand their use
further. The privacy concerns posed by the use of drones for
domestic surveillance are too great to excuse the FAA’s lack
of transparency on this issue."
In an ironic turn, President Obama, who entered the
presidency denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use
of executive power in his "war on terrorism" and lack of
transparency is now being attacked in some quarters for using
similar tactics — including secret justifications and
undisclosed intelligence assessments. As revealed in the fall of
2011:4
“American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed
on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior
government officials, which then informs the president of
its decisions, according to officials.
There is no public record of the operations or
decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White
House's National Security Council, several current and
former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing
its existence or setting out the rules by which it is
supposed to operate.”
A War Against Unidentified Foes has No End...
Since then, the Obama administration has been secretly
developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists5
— a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition
matrix.” While conventional wars are winding down, the US
government clearly intends to keep adding names to these
clandestine “kill lists,” creating a sort of bizarre secret
warfare in which no one really knows who the target is or, after
the fact, why the targeted individual was chosen for
assassination in the first place. As stated by the
Washington Post:6
“...Obama has institutionalized the highly classified
practice of targeted killing, transforming ad-hoc elements
into a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining
a seemingly permanent war.”
Not only that, but as OpEdNews recently pointed out:7
“For the first time in history a civilian
intelligence agency is using robots to carry out military
missions -- killing people -- in countries where the U.S. is
not officially at war.”
It will be interesting to see what comes out of the UN’s
investigation into the legality of the US drone program,8
launched late last month. Many are now wondering when the first
drone attack will occur on US soil. Time will tell.
In the meantime, drones are under Moore’s Law and their
ability continues to rapidly improve at the same time that their
costs are decreasing. Inventors are coming up with all sorts of
uses for drones, such as delivering anything from documents to
burritos to your GPS location. Yep, you read that right. One of
the competitors in the AngelHack finals was Burrito Bomber, by
Darwin Aerospace. It’s a drone that finds you based on your
smart phone location, and drops a parachute-endowed tube
containing a hot and fresh burrito into your lap... It didn’t
win, and is not going to be commercialized any time soon, but it
just goes to show there’s no shortage of brains churning out
ideas.
Power Grabs by the FTC are Underhanded Threats to Your Health
But let’s move on to health related issues. The Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have
both taken serious steps to restrict or eliminate your access to
certain foods and supplements. For example, the FTC recently
decided to “make up its own law and squash free speech,” the
Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) reports.9
"Last year, an administrative law judge (ALJ) for the
Federal Trade Commission upheld [POM Wonderful’s] right to
make what the FDA would call structure/function claims in
ads. Structure/function claims include statements such as
'calcium helps build bones.' They don’t directly talk about
curing a disease. At the same time, the ALJ found that some
of the company’s claims went too far (specifically where
they claimed the juice could help heart disease, prostate
cancer, and erectile dysfunction).
Because the ALJ’s decision was a partial victory for
both POM Wonderful and the FTC, both sides appealed, which
necessitated a ruling from the FTC as a whole.
Last Wednesday, the Commission took a much more
unreasonable line. It found that thirty-four of POM’s
forty-three claims were implied disease claims — fifteen
more than the ALJ had found. The full Commission further
ruled that a double-blind random-controlled trial (RCT) is
required for any 'efficacy' claim and two double blind RCTs
for any claim that might seem to be related to a disease.
The $35 million on peer-reviewed scientific research
previously spent by POM was brushed aside because the
studies were not RCTs, which are commonly used for drug
testing.
This is a major one-two punch. The FTC is being
draconian about what it considers an implied disease claim.
One commissioner noted in remarks accompanying the decision:
'It is difficult to imagine any structure/function claims
that POM could associate with its products in the
marketplace without such claims being interpreted, under the
FTC precedent set in this case, as disease-related claims.'"
With its ruling, the FTC grossly blurs the line between the
FTC and the FDA. First of all, the FTC is charged with
regulating advertising only. Its job is to make sure ads aren’t
deceptive or misleading, and you certainly do not need
pharmaceutical RCT trials to determine that. Double-blind RCT’s
required for making disease claims is actually an FDA
labeling standard for drugs — not food. It’s not
for the FTC to demand a product provide such evidence. Such
studies are extraordinarily expensive, and are typically only
done if the substance in question is or can be patented. Natural
substances, such as pomegranate juice, cannot be patented
(unless it’s genetically engineered).
“Now the FTC is unnecessarily and arbitrarily
deciding to use an FDA drug standard for disease claims in
advertising. Some industry observers even wonder whether the
FDA has asked the FTC to do this because the FDA would not
be able to go this far on its own. There is absolutely no
statute justifying this. It is making up law without
congressional approval,” the ANH writes.
Personally, I believe we’re inching ever closer to a point
where you will be completely barred from getting any information
about the healing potential of regular foods. I believe
that’s their end game, because foods and nutritional
supplements are the only competition to the pharmaceutical
monopoly. As the ANH so succinctly points out:
“Who benefits from such a change in policy? Just
follow the money. If the FTC prevails in requiring
double-blind RCTs, only pharmaceutical companies will be
able to make health claims on their patented and
FDA-approved products.”
FDA’s Sordid History of Overreach and Abuse of Power
Meanwhile, the FDA has been, and still is, engaged in its own
shenanigans. The agency, which has been sorely compromised by
the revolving door it keeps with both the pharmaceutical and
biotech industry, has a sordid history of attacking natural
products and procedures that threaten to interfere with big
business, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture and more, while
allowing obviously harmful products to remain on the market.
Here are but a few examples:
- In December 2011, the
FDA reneged on its plan to withdrawal approval of
penicillin and tetracycline antibiotics intended for use in
food-producing animal feed – a measure it had been planning
since 1977.
- In September 2011, the FDA issued a
proposed draft policy on dietary supplements10
that could effectively kill your right to purchase nearly
all of your favorite natural vitamins and supplements; the
proposed policy treats vitamins and other supplements as if
they are drugs but many manufacturers will not be able to
afford the FDA drug trial process. This could either force
supplement companies out of business or make supplements so
expensive you won't be able to afford them.
- The FDA has been fighting a war against raw milk, which
is really an unconstitutional assault on one of your most
basic rights, i.e. your right to choose what you want to eat
and drink; they have stated that Americans have "no absolute
right to consume or
feed children any particular food."
- The FDA has long been the world's number one supporter
of mercury fillings (amalgams), despite the evidence showing
the health hazards of mercury; after making repeated
promises to make an announcement about
dental amalgam by the end of 2011, they let the deadline
pass by unmet.
- The FDA sent a warning letter to Diamond Food for making
truthful, scientifically backed health claims about the
health benefits of omega-3 fats in walnuts. Because the
research cited health claims that omega-3 fats in walnuts
may prevent or protect against disease, the FDA said walnuts
would be considered "new drugs" and as such would require a
new drug application to become FDA-approved.
Why the War on Raw Milk?
It’s important to realize that the "Food Safety Modernization
Act" enacted in 2011 gives the FDA almost unlimited authority to
decide if food is harmful, even without credible evidence.
Raw foods of all kinds have become targets of FDA overreach and
abuse of power, but raw milk is perhaps the agency’s most
prominent foe. About 30 US states allow raw milk to be sold, but
sales are limited to customers within the states’ borders, as
the FDA has a ban on the interstate sale of raw milk for human
consumption. The ban began in 1987, but the FDA didn't really
begin enforcing it seriously until 2006 -- when the government
began sting operations and armed raids of dairy farmers and
their willing customers.
Why does the FDA allow damaging junk food filled with toxic
chemicals, but prevents people from making an educated, informed
food choice in purchasing raw grass-fed milk?
As reported by Food Safety News last December,11
Organic Pastures, the largest raw dairy farm in the US, has
filed a lawsuit against the FDA for failing to address a
“citizen petition” filed by the dairy back in December 2008,
requesting the agency to change its interstate ban on raw milk
sales. According to law, the FDA is required to respond to such
requests within 180 days. After four years of stonewalling,
Organic Pastures is suing for a response. According to Food
Safety News:12
“If the agency doesn’t give him what he’s looking for
when it responds to his request, he wants to press for a
full-on jury trial. 'I want to bring in the experts to talk
about this,' he said, referring to pasteurized milk as 'the
most allergenic food in America.' In contrast, he said, raw
milk has important nutrients in it such as enzymes that kids
need to be able to digest milk.”
Take Action!
Food, drug, and constitutional law attorney Jonathan Emord
has called the FTC’s decision against POM Wonderful “arbitrary
and capricious,” stating that:
“The breadth of [the FTC’s new two-RCT] requirement
is truly astonishing… the health marketplace will be dumbed
down considerably to the detriment of health conscious
consumers… In the end, that will mean a loss in public
health as there will now be a multi-million dollar entry fee
imposed on any who would wish to convey a health benefit to
consumers in the market.”
Indeed, Americans spend more on health care per capita than
any other nation on Earth, yet we
rank among the worst in terms of health among
industrialized nations. There can be no doubt that lack of
truthful information about health and nutrition is to blame for
this, and the suppression of information is engineered by
industries that have no other concern than to make money. And to
make money, they need you to be ill informed and chronically
sick... As long as people are not permitted to learn about the
relationship between food and health, we cannot expect American
disease statistics to improve.
I am however heartened by the introduction of a new bill
called the Free Speech about Science Act13
(FSAS), which would allow natural product companies to cite
peer-reviewed science in their advertising. I urge you to take
action to support this bill:
“The Free Speech about Science Act provides a limited
and carefully targeted change to FDA regulations so that
legitimate, peer reviewed, scientific studies can be
referenced by manufacturers and producers without converting
a healthy food or dietary supplement into an unapproved
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
against false and unsubstantiated claims.”
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.