FDA Whines About Unapproved Drugs, Claims It Doesn't Have Resources—While Raiding Raw Milk Farms

While whining that there aren't enough resources to stop unapproved drugs, the FDA spends millions—even conducts SWAT raids—for raw milk, herbs, and health food stores.

by Heidi Stevenson

28 February 2011

The Food and Drug Administration is whining because they don't have adequate staff to catch all—or even a small percentage—of the unapproved drug manufacturers. At the same time, they have no trouble finding plenty of money to conduct SWAT operations on raw milk farms and health food stores. The serious problem of dangerous unauthorized chemicals being prescribed by doctors receives minimal support from the FDA, while a bigger and bigger force is being ramped up to place foods and herbs into the class of drugs, and criminalize them.

First, let me make it absolutely clear that I support licensing of drugs, those artificial chemicals created by pharmaceutical manufacturers that nearly always do more harm than good. In that arena, oversight is needed. However, the FDA assigns only a tiny number of staff to that function. In fact, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times, they have assigned only 7 people to the task—and 3 of them are attorneys. The others, the ones who can actually determine whether a product is an unlicensed drug, include a single doctor, a single nurse, and 2 pharmacists to cover the entire United States of America.

FDA's Attack on Natural Foods and Herbs

Food as Drugs

Nonetheless, in the face of their supposed lack of staff, the FDA has thrown down the gauntlet against natural foods and herbs. Using reasoning that can only be described as ludicrous, they have attacked herbs for containing natural substances that have been isolated in labs, synthesized, and then marketed as drugs. Apparently, plants mysteriously turn themselves into drugs after Big Pharma has discovered that they contain a substance that might be used as a drug—always one that might be or has been can be marketed for profits. The fact that the plant is usually safe and the active ingredient acts in symbiosis with other substances found in the plant is simply ignored.

Though little or no risks have been associated with these herbs, the FDA is comparing apples and oranges, natural versus artificial substances. A derived chemical has little relationship to one that develops in a symbiotic relationship within a plant. Yet, the FDA is spending far more effort attacking herbal products than it does going after genuine drugs that have not been approved.

They are attacking foods in the same way. While there are count-the-ways reasons to attack Cheerios, the one that isn't legitimate is saying that its health claim of lowering the risk of heart disease makes it a drug. Those are the actual words used in the FDA's letter to the manufacturer, General Mills:

Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined that your Cheerios® Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug...

Not only does the FDA spend its time on foods for all the wrong reasons, it plays incredible semantics games. Imagine the power of language when a food (or near-food, as in the case of Cheerios⁽¹⁾) can suddenly be transformed into a drug simply because a health claim is made for it. That is precisely what the FDA is doing.

The FDA is playing a game of semantics to eliminate legitimate health claims for foods. They are treating food as if it were nothing more than bags of chemicals, each of which can be dealt with as a drug. And then they use this redefinition to drugs to eliminate any health claims, no matter how well-backed by scientific research. Under the FDA's regime, food has become bunches of chemicals, and each chemical they've identified can be treated as a drug if it's convenient for their goals.

Raw Milk SWAT Team Attacks

Then, there's the continued attack on raw milk. The bottom line here should be obvious: If people want raw milk, they should have access to it. It's a natural product and has never been shown to be unhealthy. It has, in fact, been well documented to be far healthier than pasteurized milk. If the FDA believes it's dangerous, then the FDA should produce information demonstrating that and issue warnings—but allow people to make their own choices. However, the FDA doesn't do that. They simply make claims that it's dangerous, which is completely different from proving it, and then they use police SWAT team tactics against farmers who produce raw milk. There are now indications that they're going to go after people who drink it, too.⁽³⁾

Health Food Store SWAT Team Attacks

Organic food buyers club, Rawesome Foods in Venice (a small section of Los Angeles), California. People, employees and customers alike, were held at gunpoint while the store was ransacked. The charges were merely misdemeanors. Why would such a raid be held, at enormous cost to the public and potential death to innocent people, unless it's to protect the interests of powerful corporations? As Rawesome's owner, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, stated:

This is about control and profit, not our healt. How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?

In LaGrange, Iowa, the Stowers' family home was raided in a full swat team operation. They were "guilty" of running a food cooperative, Manna Storehouse. This raid, organized by the USDA, was supported by the FDA. While this was going on, the FDA was claiming that meat purchased from Costco that had proven to be tainted was "safe". The juxtaposition of the FDA's claims and this particular attack clearly points to a coordinated attempt to end the local food movement. Is there any doubt that the FDA and USDA are attempting make it impossible for people to have genuine free choice in what they put in their bellies? Or what they use as medicine?

The Loss of Liberty to Big Pharma and Agribusiness

Why is the FDA reclassifying foods and herbs as drugs? Why are they doing swat operations on raw milk farms and health food stores? The answer, of course, is that the FDA is not run for the people's benefit. It's run for Big Pharma and Agribusiness, which should not be a surprise, since their massive resources are used to purchase favors and control thinking. Consider Michael R. Taylor, who's in charge of the Office of Foods. His entire career, when he hasn't been inside the FDA covertly aiding Monsanto, has been either inside the company or acting for it as an attorney. Key personnel often move from the FDA to luxe positions in Big Pharma. The FDA acts as the key to jobs that pay enormous salaries—if the employees play their cards right, which of course, means promoting the interests of Big Pharma and Agribusiness.

Is it any wonder that the FDA's resources are focused on eliminating the competition of Big Pharma and Agribusiness? If the FDA gets more money, the obvious goal of its whining, what are the chances that most of it will be spent to benefit anyone other than Big Pharma and Agribusiness?

With each raid pursued by the FDA or USDA, our freedoms are abrogated. Each day, the freedom to choose our own food is being taken from us. The freedom to determine how to maintain our health and treat our ailments is being handed over to Big Business. The world of Big Brother is on our doorstep. A statement from one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, has frequently been quoted around the internet, but is well worth restating here:

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

Can there be any doubt that we're facing the worst sort of tyranny? Each day, we are losing our most basic rights, the right to be free within our homes, the right to eat the foods we choose, and the right to manage our own health.

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