FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans

Thursday, September 09, 2010 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: censorship, FDA, health news

(NaturalNews) Concerned about breast cancer? There are three nutrients that virtually eliminate your risk of the disease, even if you carry "breast cancer genes." Wondering how to cure arthritis? A combination of four different nutrients virtually eliminates arthritis symptoms. Afraid of diabetes? Five different nutrients, all available right now, can help prevent diabetes for mere pennies a day.

And that's just the beginning...

Nutritional cures exist for nearly every major disease, but the FDA doesn't want you to know about them. So it has censored truthful, scientifically-proven information about these substances in order to keep you ignorant about nutritional cures.

Watch my short public service announcement to see more (38 seconds): http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD1D89A1519...

When one U.S. company offering cherry concentrates began linking to government-funded studies that concluded cherries reduce the symptoms of arthritis, they received a threatening letter from the FDA, demanding they remove the links from their website or face "criminal prosecution." (https://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)

Similarly, the FDA went on the attack to censor the truth about walnuts, claiming that "walnuts are unapproved drugs" when they are accompanied by truthful, scientific descriptions about their benefits for heart health (http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/FDA-Say...).

Diamond Foods, a distributor of walnuts, posted a collection of peer-reviewed scientific evidence on its website that described the health benefits of walnuts. In return, here's part of the utterly illogical set of demands Diamond Foods received from the FDA which claim that "walnuts are drugs"...

"Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR). ...Based on claims made on your firm's website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. ...Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs within the meaning of section 201 (g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(g)(B)]. Your walnut products are also new drugs under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)] because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions. Therefore, under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 355(a)], they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application."

In other words, telling the truth about walnuts turns you into a criminal according to the FDA. And if you tell the scientifically-validated truth about how walnuts can help reduce high cholesterol, that act magically transforms your walnuts into unapproved drugs.

And much the same is true when you're talking about green tea or pomegranates or superfoods. If you dare discuss the health benefits of any food or natural substance while you are selling such items, you will be branded a criminal by the FDA, threatened with criminal prosecution and potentially have your company raided by the FDA along with armed law enforcement agents with guns drawn.

Only junk foods are good for you

At the same time the FDA is attacking health foods, it openly allows ridiculous health claims on processed dead junk foods. Frito-Lay potato chips, for example, are allowed to carry claims that they are "heart healthy."

So while genuinely health foods like walnuts and pomegranates cannot make health claims, processed dead foods like potato chips may openly carry FDA-approved health claims!

Are you following this yet? Real food is bad for you. But junk food is good for you. That's what the FDA wants you to believe.

The FDA, you see, doesn't want you to learn the truth about healthy foods. This agency wants you to remain as ignorant as possible about the scientifically-validated health benefits of natural foods, supplements and superfoods while allowing you to be inundated with false and misleading health claims on processed dead junk foods like potato chips.

And can you guess the point of all this? It's fairly obvious, isn't it? The point is to keep Americans in a never-ending state of chronic degenerative disease that will result in a windfall of profits for the drug companies the FDA actually serves.

This is why natural food producers aren't allowed to even link to scientific articles about their foods. The FDA, you see, is in the business of censoring nutritional science.

See more in my short video: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD1D89A1519...

Can't tell the truth about green tea, either

On August 30, 2010, the FDA sent warning letters to manufacturers of green tea beverages, warning them about making health claims about green tea. One such beverage made by Canada Dry carried a claim that the drink is "enhanced with 200 mg of antioxidants from green tea and vitamin C."

In its threatening warning letter, the FDA insisted that green tea and vitamin C "are not nutrients with recognized antioxidant activity." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/...)

Huh? Vitamin C isn't an antioxidant? That's funny, because outside the halls of the FDA offices, vitamin C has antioxidant activity and properties. The laws of chemistry, apparently, are suspended within the FDA's jurisdiction. All the universal laws of physics cease to exist when the FDA is in charge, and they are instead replaced with the FDA's distorted opinions of what those laws should actually be. Antioxidants don't exist. Vitamins are inert substances. Foods contain no medicine. Only pharmaceuticals have biological effects within the human body. These are the far-fetched laws of the universe according to the FDA.

In its never-ending march on nutritional science, the FDA also went after Lipton teas, whose website linked to four scientific studies concluding that green tea has a cholesterol-lowering effect. The FDA warned the Lipton company to remove the links, claiming that they were "misleading" and were effectively making claims that Lipton tea could treat a "disease."

But what if green tea really can help prevent a disease and the FDA just doesn't want you to know about it? That's actually the case with many plant-based nutrients that have powerful protective effects against disease. But according to the FDA's official position, there is no such thing as a food, nutrient or supplement that can prevent or treat any disease.

Vitamin C doesn't prevent scurvy. Vitamin D doesn't prevent rickets. Vitamin B3 doesn't prevent pellagra, according to the FDA. Vitamins are biologically useless substances unless they're patented by drug companies in which case they are magically transformed into "therapeutic chemicals" that may be sold to patients at monopoly prices.

The FDA actually believes that fresh, unprocessed foods have no health benefits whatsoever. That's why no health claims are allowed on such things. But dead processed foods like breakfast cereals can prevent disease, according to the FDA. That's why the agency has allowed such products to carry a multitude of health claims.

It's all part of the FDA's censorship of science about nutrients, foods and supplements. Rather than promoting real scientific knowledge, the FDA is censoring the science to keep the public as ignorant as possible.

In this way, the FDA is an enemy of nutritional literacy because it aims to keep people in the dark about the health benefits of foods, supplements and nutrients.

And because nutritional literacy is crucial to the long-term survival of America, the FDA, through its campaign of enforced nutritional illiteracy, is effectively an enemy of America. The agency has already accomplished incalculable harm to America's population and her economy. And the FDA is just getting warmed up! Now it wants to "step up its enforcement" of so-called "false" food labeling. This is just a cover story to clamp down on truthful health claims the FDA wants to censor.

It is through scientific censorship policies like those practiced at the FDA that America may fall to ignorance, disease and medical bankruptcy. The FDA is actually accelerating America's downfall by isolating people from the nutritional knowledge that could prevent disease, reduce health care costs and save billions of dollars in unnecessary medical costs.

For example, can you imagine the cost savings alone if we as a nation could prevent just one percent of all cancers? According to the National Institutes of Health, cancer costs the USA $228.1 billion in 2008. That's nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Now imagine the savings if we could find a miracle nutrient that could reduce all cancers by three-quarters? That would save America $171 billion per year (not to mention saving human lives at the same time).

And here's the good news: Such a nutrient already exists! It's cheap, safe and readily available. But the American Cancer Society won't talk about it, the FDA won't approve it and your doctor almost certainly won't recommend it. Want to know what it is? Read this article if you don't already know: https://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html

How to end the FDA's reign of ignorance and censorship of nutritional science

First off, I highly recommend reading Jonathan Emord's outstanding book on this subject entitled Global Censorship of Health Information (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982059531).

This is a hugely important book on the subject from one of the industry's intellectual giants: attorney Jonathan Emord.

Secondly, if you're in the USA, support the Free Speech about Science Act, a new effort to end FDA censorship over truthful, scientifically-validated health claims for vitamins, foods and nutritional supplements. Click the following link to learn more: https://www.naturalnews.com/028879_censorship...

Finally, recognize that we are beginning to defeat the FDA in court. In particular, the Alliance for Natural Health recently emerged victorious against the FDA in court over the agency's effort to censor truthful information about how selenium can reduce your risk of cancer. (https://www.naturalnews.com/028929_FDA_health...)

Now we need more companies to stand up to FDA tyranny and take this rogue agency to court in order to stop its campaign of censorship and oppression against the natural products industry.

Just to be clear about what is a valid health claim

Just to be clear, in no way am I advocating that natural products companies should be able to just think up whatever health claims they want and emblazon their product packages with such things. We need to insist that health claims be "scientifically validated."

For example, if a cherry company could cite five studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that conclude cherries can help ease the symptoms of arthritis, then it should be perfectly acceptable for that company to place corresponding claims on its packaging: "Cherries have been shown to reduce the symptoms of arthritis." (With an appropriate citation on its website that points to the qualifying scientific studies.)

Almost everyone who believes in common sense would agree that this is a sensible approach to allowing health claims on foods and supplements. Yet the FDA's position is that foods and supplements are not allowed to carry any health claims -- even if such claims are scientifically validated and true!

The FDA absurdly insists that no food, no herb, no vitamin and no supplement can possibly have any biological effect on the human body... and if it does, then that magically transforms it into a "drug" requiring $400 million in testing and clinical trials before it can be approved by the FDA. And even then, it would only be available by prescription.

Do you see the catch-22 here? It's sort of like the old "floating witch" test in the witch hunt days: If you float, you're a witch and you get burned at the stake. If you sink, you die but you are declared innocent.

The FDA pulls the same thing with nutritional supplements: If it doesn't work, then it's inert and will be tolerated. But if it actually works, then it's now a "drug" and will be outlawed as an "unapproved drug."

I'm not making this up. This is precisely how the FDA operates at present.

It's a logic trap that I believe has been specifically designed to discredit the entire nutritional supplements industry while promoting the "benefits" of pharmaceuticals -- most of which we now know were falsified through pure scientific fraud, by the way.

Watch my short video to learn more about FDA censorship: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD1D89A1519...

And share this video with others. Everyone deserves to know the truth about nutrition and health. The FDA cannot keep us all in the dark forever. With your help, we will shine the light of truth on this issue and end the era of nutritional illiteracy that has cost America trillions of dollars and destroyed millions of lives.