FDA hoodwinks public over CAM Guidelines comment period, slams door shut on public comments one month early

Tuesday, May 01, 2007 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: the FDA, CAM Guidelines, health news

The FDA has slammed the door shut on accepting public comments over its contentious "CAM Guidelines" that threaten to destroy natural medicine by classifying virtually all health-enhancing foods, juices, nutritional supplements and functional foods as "unapproved drugs." NewsTarget has acquired emails from an FDA employee and key author of the CAM Guidelines. This email contains statements that directly contradict the FDA's own website and reveal a tactic designed to silence public commentary by retroactively declaring the comment period to be closed even while the FDA's own documents state the period should continue for another 30 days.

Check it out yourself: The FDA website says the comment period ends May 29, 2007 (click here to see the screen capture). But in an email received today by NewsTarget, the FDA's Philip L. Chao claims "...the entry (for which you provided the link) was mistakenly changed by an employee in mid-April, and we will correct that error soon. Thus, internet media reports claiming that FDA has extended the comment period to May 29 are NOT correct."

Thus, the public comment period for CAM Guidelines is now closed, one month ahead of what the FDA's own website provides as the comment closing date. And this is explained as being due to a "mistake" by an FDA employee that will be retroactively corrected, only after the public comment period has been officially closed.

Covert tactics at the FDA

NewsTarget editors believe these actions on the part of the FDA are not merely accidental. They are deliberate, and they follow a pattern of deception that appears to be designed to sneak CAM Guidelines under the radar and avoid public scrutiny. Consider this:

• The first draft of the CAM Guidelines was issued by the FDA on the day after Christmas, 2006, but the agency waited until February 26 to post them in the Federal Registry.

• The Guidelines state the public will have a "90 day comment period" in which to post comments on the proposal, but the initial closing date for public comments was posted as April 30 -- leaving just two months for comments, not three as explained in the Guidelines themselves.

• When the public learned of these documents thanks to investigative reporting by the health freedom community (credit goes to Rima Laibow, Ralph Fucetola and others who are staying on top of this issue), and filed tens of thousands of complaints with the FDA, the agency initially capitulated and changed the comment period to May 29. This is the comment period shown in this screen shot (click to view), taken May 1st.

• But even as the health freedom community was rallying its efforts to encourage further public comments on the CAM Guidelines, the FDA today announced the May 29 extension was a "mistake" and the window for public comments is now over.

It's a tactic much like rigging the electronic voting machines to make the voters think their opinion counts. At the FDA, the top priority seems to be creating the illusion of openly listening to the public while, in reality, using every means possible to thwart the public's will. By relying on deceitful tactics like the one being reported here, FDA is clearly operating in bad faith.

The FDA appears to be subject to no law

This is how the FDA operates: Deceive the public by making them think the agency is listening to reason, then suddenly change the rules and leave the public out to dry. The agency operates as if it is subject to no law, rule or regulation of its own. It lies to the public, defends the profits of pharmaceutical companies, and ultimately operates with apparent legal immunity.

In fact, U.S. lawmakers think the FDA is doing such a great job that they are about to reward the agency with even more money, expanding its powers and deepening its financial ties with Big Pharma. The bill in question (click here for the story) is being renamed on practically a daily basis. It started as the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, was renamed the FDA Revitalization Act of 2007, and has just now been transformed into the Enhancing Drug Safety and Innovation Act of 2007.

Does it all seem bewildering? A little too much to track it all? That's the whole point: Distract the public and then steal away the health freedom of Americans under the cover of confusion. It's a brilliant strategy, given that so many Americans have so little time to actually investigate these issues, much less take action on them. And while lawmakers, Big Pharma and the FDA are popping smoke to conceal their tactical movements, the citizens of our so-called "free" nation are having their freedoms systematically stripped from them, right under their noses, spearheaded by the very lawmakers they elected to "represent" them.

(Most NewsTarget readers already know this, but true public "representation" in Congress is a joke. Lawmakers only represent commercial interests, not the public. There are a few exceptions such as Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Charles Grassley who are both fighting the FDA on many fronts.)

The bottom line from this event is simply this: We have learned today that, yet again, we cannot trust the FDA's own statements on its website. Everything the FDA says or posts is apparently subject to retroactive change, without notice, and without any oversight whatsoever.

What we need right now is an FDA Office of Internal Affairs -- an Eliot Ness of modern medicine... someone who can march into the quagmire of modern medical corruption and start making criminal arrests. Until that happens, we are all going to continue to live under a system of FDA tyranny, where the truth is outlawed, free speech is censored, and natural health practitioners are increasingly attacked for daring to help patients heal.

Thanks goodness for the internet, or you'd never hear a word about any of this.