FDA, FTC threaten Dr. Andrew Weil over immune-boosting supplements for H1N1

[EndDaFed]

Originally Posted by Dark_Horse_Rider

You are joking ?

No, I am not. Selling medical snake oil and claiming it can cure disease is fraud.

FTC staff strongly urge you to review all claims for your products and ensure that those claims are supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. The FTC also asks that you notify it via electronic mail at flu@ftc.gov within 48 hours of the specific actions you have taken to address the agency's concerns.

OMG conspiracy! How dare he have to back up his medical claims with *shudder* evidence.

[sevin]

Originally Posted by EndDaFed

Well at least the FDA is doing something useful. People selling products that have so scientific support for the asserted claims are generally scam artists or naive dupes. Certainly you people don't support fraud?

No one here ever said they supported fraud, but in a free country you should be allowed to skip the vaccine and go with alternative medicine if you like. The FDA has a history of quashing cheap effective medicines that might harm the profits of big pharma and vaccine producers.

[youngbuck]

Originally Posted by EndDaFed

No, I am not. Selling medical snake oil and claiming it can cure disease is fraud.

You are clearly extremely ignorant on the subject. What exactly are you calling snake oil?

Do you believe that only pharmaceutical drugs can cure disease, as the FDA defines a cure?

[EndDaFed]

Originally Posted by youngbuck

You are clearly extremely ignorant on the subject. What exactly are you calling snake oil?

Do you believe that only pharmaceutical drugs can cure disease, as the FDA defines a cure?

I believe that drugs should undergo proper clinical trials.

[youngbuck]

Originally Posted by EndDaFed

I believe that drugs should undergo proper clinical trials.

What if it's not a drug? What if it's a food, supplement, or herb?

Did you know that the FDA says that ONLY A DRUG can treat, prevent, or cure a disease. That means, according to the FDA, vitamin C cannot treat scurvy, Vitamin D won't prevent rickets, and iodine has no relation to goiters. Make sense?

[tpreitzel]

In fact, this type of inappropriate bullying prompted me to write my "representatives" in D.C. to complain again about the FDA, Codex, Obama's health-"care", etc. Keep on truckin' .

[Ninja Homer]

If you want to help stop this crap and force big pharma to compete on even ground with alternative medicine, support Ron Paul's 3 health bills:

HR 3394, The Health Information Protection Act, inhibits the FTC from acting against any entity for communicating the health benefits of its products unless the FTC presents "clear and convincing" evidence that those statements are false. In concordance with the Fifth Amendment, the burden of proof concerning an accusation of a false claim is to fall upon the accuser (FTC) to determine, with legitimate evidence, that a claim is false before demanding its removal. As it stands, the FTC has reversed the Fifth Amendment by preemptively and arbitrarily restraining communication without any evidence or reason while demanding that the accused party prove its claim to be true. HR 3394 will reinforce the already lawful Fifth Amendment that establishes the burden of proof upon the FTC to present a legitimate case before impeding any lawful communication. It will restore the freedom to communicate nutrient-disease health claims freely.

Similarly to HR 3394, HR 3395, The Health Freedom Act, will remove the unconstitutional FDA power of "prior restraint" over all nutrient-disease relationship claims. In other words, free speech health claims will no longer be universally banned but will be permitted. The burden of proof will properly and lawfully fall upon the FDA to establish "clear and convincing" evidence against a claim, after it has been made, if it believes a claim is false. The First Amendment of the Constitution was designed to protect the free speech of the people from the federal government imposing "prior restraint" on speech, the very thing the FDA has instated as the foundation for its operating procedure. This bill will preserve the proper and lawful prosecution of those who make false claims, but it will require the government and its agencies, particularly the FDA, to establish legitimate evidence against a claim that it believes to be false prior to taking any action against any person or entity rather, effectively restoring the First Amendment supremacy over the FDA.

Finally, HR 3396, The Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act, addresses the roughly 90% of federal government law that is enacted not by Congress, as is mandated in the Constitution under the non-delegation doctrine, but by unelected bureaucratic agencies such as the FDA and FTC. As such, it would prohibit any law created by these agencies from being enacted without first being passed by Congress in concordance with Article I of the Constitution. HR 3396 will restore constitutional government by returning the responsibility of legislating law to Congress which will in turn protect the public from rogue federal agencies who tend to overstep their bounds and tyrannize the people.

[idirtify]

Originally Posted by Ninja Homer

If you want to help stop this crap and force big pharma to compete on even ground with alternative medicine, support Ron Paul's 3 health bills:

I’m for it, but…

Do we really have to pass bills in order to repeal previous bills? Well whatever it takes I guess, but there seems to be this trend of writing laws that protect us from previous laws. So when the number of “anti-law-laws” equals the number of laws, THEN will we have freedom from government tyranny? (When some smart guy in the future will point out: “Instead of keeping all these billion pages of laws and these billion pages of anti-law-laws, why don’t we just call it even and burn them all?”)

[idirtify]

My biggest beef against Weil in this instance is his suck-up to the Feds in his last line on his website response

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART03081...y-OCT2009.html

to the warning letter: “I fully support the FDA/FTC task force in its efforts.” Man, that stinks of just trying to appease the gods!

[maqsur]

I can agree with the spirit of EndDaFed's argument in that, yes, drugs should undergo clinical trials, etc., because we all want things that are supposedly safe and effective.

However, I also think anybody should be allowed to sell anything in a real free society, without threat of violence or incarceration. As others have said, buyer beware. We all make choices, and we all deal with the consequences.

Nothing wrong with 'natural' remedies, and such, but people should be wary of anybody (individual or corporation) making claims, scientific or otherwise. Use your judgment.

If people want some kind of regulatory agency, it should be instituted as local as possible, and if the desire is to see federal legislation, it should be done as an ammendment to the constitution (if it's that big a deal to people).