Members
e-Letter Issue 3 (July 2007)
In This Issue
US Congress Votes FDA to Get Expanded Powers and Pharmaceuticals to Gain Stronger Influence.
How YOUR Congress-men Voted on HR 2900
What is HR 2900: An analysis by Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist, Byron Richards
US Congress Votes FDA to Get Expanded Powers and Pharmaceuticals to Gain Stronger Influence.
On July 11, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2900, blocking debate on the law and preventing the introduction of any amendments that might have provided meaningful drug safety protections for consumers. This action demonstrates that the House of Representatives, much like the Senate, is significantly influenced by big pharmaceutical companies at the detriment of the interests of the voters.
Drug companies now have more control over the U.S. Congress. Through a campaign of intense lobbying and financial influence, they have managed to water down a law that once proposed to end the American monopoly on pharmaceuticals and ban advertising on new drugs.
Instead of placing new restrictions on the drug companies and the increasingly dangerous power of the FDA, this new law (a combination of HR.2900 and S.1082, when it is hammered out in conference) will grant more power to the FDA while deepening the financial ties between the agency and drug companies.
The law effectively places American consumers at the effect of a reinforced government system where the FDA will further promote pharmaceuticals, increase censorship of nutritional education and discredit alternatives that threaten drug company profits.
Nothing in the new law protects consumers' access to dietary supplements or natural medicine.
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Read the laws – Direct hotlinks to both HR (House of Representative Bill) 2900 and S. (Senate Bill) 1082 are provided above.
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Read the analysis (hot link provided to the full article available by clicking through the article title above)
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Contact your government representatives and let them know what YOU think about this.
Go to http://www.winhs.org/contactgov.htm
How YOUR Congressman Voted on HR 2900
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 617
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
HR 2900 2/3 YEA-AND-NAY 11-Jul-2007 8:29
PM QUESTION: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended
BILL TITLE: Food and Drug Administration Administration Act
|
|
Yeas | Nays | PRES | No Vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democrat |
216 |
10 |
|
4 |
| Republican |
187 |
6 |
|
8 |
| Independent |
|
|
|
|
| TOTALS | 403 | 16 | 12 |
YEAS 403
| Abercrombie |
Gillibrand |
Oberstar |
|---|
Nays 16
| Berry |
Dicks |
Marchant |
|---|
HR 2900 Analysis: Guest Columnist
FDA Tyranny to Become Law
Friday, July 13, 2007
Byron Richards, CCN – Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist
On Wednesday, July11, 2007 the House passed HR.2900 without allowing the Ron Paul (R-TX) amendments to protect dietary supplements. Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), John Dingell (D-MI), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and others falsely proclaimed that they were doing America a favor by passing this sweeping FDA-supported legislation that grants the rouge agency more power and money, and even transforms it into a quasi drug company.
Both the House and Senate (S.1082) have made the fatally flawed assumption that the reason for so many deaths and injuries from drugs was due to the FDA’s lack of resources. In reality, it is the INTENTION of FDA management that is the problem, combined with the simple fact that multiple drugs are extremely toxic and don’t work as advertised. Giving the FDA more power and money will only cause the agency to speed more drugs onto the market faster with even less safety testing – while abusing its power and actively stamping out competition to drugs.
FDA management is in bed with Big Pharma and this new legislation makes matters significantly worse through the creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA. This new entity places the FDA in charge of drug design, drug patents, drug licenses, and the creation of new marketing entities/companies. Such a relationship with private industry is an unprecedented conflict of interest, totally at odds with drug safety. The current commissioner of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D. is little more than a Big Biotech sales rep with massive industry connections.
The House, like the Senate, will continue to allow direct to consumer advertising of new drugs with unknown risks – a flagrant safety risk that will cost many people their lives. Congressional leaders said they couldn’t prevent this advertisement for fear of violating the first amendment rights of drug companies. What a joke. The FDA routinely squashes the first amendment rights of American citizens to understand natural health options and the science that explains how they can prevent and treat disease. Thus, the first amendment argument is simply a matter of convenience. The FDA wants to actively suppress information that will help people, yet allow highly risky and misleading promotion of toxic substances often for untested uses. The FDA even wants to prevent citizens from suing drug companies when they are injured, thus protecting Big Pharma. FDA tyranny, based on this type of arbitrary and unrestrained exercise of power, is used to promote and protect the pharmaceutical industry while at the same time undermining the dietary supplement industry.
Both the House and Senate think it is completely fine that the drug industry pay the FDA fees so that the FDA can approve new drugs faster. Indeed, the FDA and Big Pharma met 112 times to work out their partnership before the FDA let Congress know what it wanted to see in HR.2900 and S.1082. This is like paying the mob for protection. A careful look at the history of the FDA shows it is little more than a bully that protects vested interests at the expense of human health. It is a pitiful agency. It is little wonder than the majority of Americans don’t trust the FDA.
Big Pharma owns the FDA and Congress. The drug industry sees FDA management and Congressional leaders as a training pool for future Big Pharma jobs – based on how well Big Pharma is supported. There will certainly be plenty of rewards to pass out after this legislation becomes law.
It is a sick situation that this new fake safety legislation provides the FDA with unprecedented new power to stamp out competition to drug companies as well as expose Americans to far greater safety risks than ever before. Provisions within the legislation that creates the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA will allow the FDA to remove any dietary supplement from the market based on its whim.
It is now only a matter of time and a formality before HR.2900 and S.1082 become law. There will be a little bit of haggling in the conference committee, as Big Pharma will takes its last chance at watering down any meaningful reform (of which there is very little). Big Pharma will whine that this legislation is too tough on them, which is a fallacy. This legislation is the Big Pharma dream come true. In a football analogy the only question is the final score. Will Big Pharma win by 28-7 or will it win by 42-7. Big Pharma has just cleaned the clock of Americans. We should not forget the gutless Congressional puppets that made it happen.
A new tone has been set. A new chart has been plotted. Congress has transformed the FDA into a quasi drug company with unprecedented new regulatory power to control all health options in America. How many deaths and injuries will it take for a comatose and medicinally-overdosed public to wake up?
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