Ron Paul on the FDA

[abouthadit]

In today's LewRockwell.com an article entitled "The FDA Has Blood On It's Hands" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi72.html) by Bill Sardi, puts forth Congressman Paul's position and proposed legislation to rein in the runaway FDA bureaucracy.
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The bill, H.R. 2117, the Health Freedom Protection Act, would stop the FDA from censoring truthful claims about the curative, mitigative, or preventative effects of dietary supplements, says Scott Tips of the National Health Federation, a Monrovia, California-based organization that is leading the charge behind this legislation.

In regards to this issue, it’s easy to see why Congressman Paul has said enough is enough, and puzzling why other Congressman haven’t lifted a word in protest to the FDA. A primary example of FDAs absurd policies can be seen in the recent debacle between cherry growers and the agency.
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[Hancock1776]

It is exactly like 1984. It is the Ministry of Health which makes us all sick.

The PATRIOT Act was written by traitors. The Transportation Security Administration steals your stuff when you travel. The Department of Education makes your children stupider. The Department of Homeland Security antagonizes the citizenry.

We'd be better off without all these things. We're safest with a freely armed populace. We are healthiest with open, non-politicized freely flowing scientific information, and best served by a free market.

[jon_perez]

In today's LewRockwell.com an article entitled "The FDA Has Blood On It's Hands" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi72.html) by Bill Sardi, puts forth Congressman Paul's position and proposed legislation to rein in the runaway FDA bureaucracy.Whether or not the FDA is a "runaway" bureaucracy I'm not sure (it just might be), but after reading the article:

"When cherry growers began to cite this scientific study, the FDA followed by sending a warning letter to 29 companies that market cherries, threatening regulatory action if they did not remove the scientific information regarding the anti-inflammatory properties of cherries from their websites. The FDA declared cherries to be "drugs" once health claims for a disease were associated with the product."

... one has to understand that the FDA might have believed that it was just doing its job here. The problem is that if the FDA does not impose strict regulations on therapeutic claims for various products it would lead back to the age of snake-oil salesmen and fake patent medicine.

Whether or not it was justified in acting in this way in this particular situation and whether or not this was because of vested corporate interests as implied by the article is debatable. But I'm not sure people would be better without some kind of government agency (whether FDA or something else) regulating the medicine industry.

[idirtify]

BUMP.

Sorry if it’s been covered (I’m new here, so bear with me) but what exactly is RP’s ultimate position on the FDA? Is it like his position (and mine) on other large federal agencies like IRS and DEA (that they should be eliminated), or is it more like jon_perez’s (“not sure people would be better without some kind of government agency…regulating the medicine industry”)?