FDA Bans Sales of Plant Products that Compete with Drugs: Prostate Treatment TargetedIn its role as Big Pharma Front Man, the FDA bans natural products when they can isolate a drug from them. Products containing Seville orange have already been forced out. Will Willow Bark, from which aspirin was first derived, be banned?by Heidi Stevenson25 March 2011 
It isn't possible to patent nature. Natural plants cannot be patented. So, the logic goes that products made from plants can't be patented. Therefore, drug companies don't sell products derived from plants. That was mostly true—but the FDA-PhRMA found a way around that problem: Simply redefine any plant-derived product that naturally contains a chemical similar to a drug. Call the product a drug and ban it. Voila! Big Pharma's competition from the natural world is ended, so there's no need to patent plants. As reported here in Recall of Supplement Containing Seville Orange Shows Absurdity of FDA's Claims, products containing common Seville orange, routinely used in the finest marmalades, are being banned because a substance found in it can be isolated as the drug sibutramine. The same thing is now happening to U-Prosta, a supplement for promoting prostate health. Disappearing Herbal ProductsU-Prosta's manufacturer, USA Far Ocean Group, Inc., has issued a "voluntary" recall of the product. Of course, the term voluntary has little meaning when a monster agency like the FDA sends a letter stating that your product contains an undeclared drug and issues a public health warning about it. Other products affected like this include:
Please note that this is not a complete list. It's offered to give an idea of what the FDA is doing to keep natural plants off the market.
Symbiotic RelationshipsFrequently, the FDA's notices include the statement that the product's claims are false. The duplicity in such a statement is mindboggling. First, the FDA approves a drug with that same name for having precisely the benefit that the natural product claims. Then, the FDA states that the plant-derived product contains that drug. That claim is routinely associated with claims that the plant-derived product is neither efficacious nor safe. The natural products do not contain a purified, separated drug. To even label the plant products as drugs is fraudulent, since the plants contain the substance bound to a dizzying array of other ingredients. In plant-derived products, the substance that the FDA claims is a drug does not act alone. It acts in symbiosis with all those other substances in the plant. Because of symbiosis, the plant-based products have few side effects. The substance that the FDA defines as dangerous is generally rendered safe in plants, though not in Big Pharma's stand-alone products. The proof of that can be seen in the rarity of harmful effects from medicinal herbs, as documented in Poison Control Reports: Not a Single US Death Caused by Supplements, Herbs, or Vitamins. The FDAPhRMA's claims that the natural products don't work is based on absolutely nothing. They make those claims without investigating. At the same time, they pretend that existing studies showing the plant-form to be effective don't exist. The FDA isn't bound by the truth. Clearly, the problem is in the unbalanced so-called active ingredient that Big Pharma goes for, not in the chemical in its natural state bound with other chemicals so that its effects are buffered. Clearly, nature knows best. ProfiteeringUnfortunately, nature doesn't operate on the profit motive. The FDA and Big Pharma recognize no master other than profit. Therefore, FDAPhRMA has taken the new tactic of isolating the active ingredients, as defined by Big Pharma, from plants, and then banning the products made from them. That leaves the field wide open for Big Pharma. The FDA accepts their bogus testing, ignores the immense harm done by their chemicals, and grants them the FDA seal of approval. And now, it goes one step further. It tests natural products in an attempt to find chemicals that Big Pharma has duplicated—has stolen from nature for its profit machinery. When it finds them, it uses its juggernaut power to force them off the market. The FDA is little more than a front for Big Pharma, using its might to crush anything that gets in the way of Big Pharma or Agribusiness. ***************************************************************************** *****************************************************************************
References:
|
|