Soon you may not be able to purchase the natural supplements and vitamins! You may also have to get a doctor’s prescription before you can buy the remaining versions, in the drug store. Many items won’t be available in ANY form, and prices might be inflated as much as one thousand percent. This may seem like a strange, incredible nightmare but it is a very real possibility, if our government has its way!
__________________commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, lost no time in making his position clear. He has instigated regulations designed to ‘protect’ the public from the ‘fraud’ of our health foods! Parts of this call for the limiting the sale, without prescription, of most dietary supplements and drastically reducing the potencies. Another section makes it a law for nutritional foods to carry a ‘warning’ label, informing the public the product is not really necessary because our average American diet provides all the elements essential for perfect health! Labels would also be prohibited from saying a supplement can improve health or prevent sickness; that our soil is deficient; that the average diet is lacking in nutrients; that modern chemicals or processing destroys food values! This incredibly brazen, dictatorial set of regulations almost did slip through without notice but was detected and will now be suspended until December___ allowing arguments against it.
In other words, no matter what kind of sad garbage a person eats, no matter how much or how little, despite any problems in his chemistry, he will be adequately nourished without any supplementation! This is the ridiculous philosophy of the FDA, which is the basis for these sweeping invasions of your privacy. Even if the ‘half-foods’ in the supermarkets DID supply the natural vitamins and minerals that our government lists as a Minimum Daily Requirement, they would still not be supplying their mythical ‘ample amounts’! The Food and Nutrition Board, composed of top ranking scientists, has clearly stated the MDR tables are ONLY guidelines and NOT to be rigid rules. This eminent group has never condemned supplements, as the FDA would have us believe. Actually, many of them have publicly voiced dismay over this attempt to control dietary practices and Dr. Roger Williams (the discoverer of pantothenic acid) has bluntly claimed it could handicap nutritional progress, if passed.
Every survey ever made by the Department of Agriculture has shown that the American diet is deficient in one or more vital nutrients. Yet, that proposed warning label blandly ignores this fact. Isn’t it puzzling – if we have an adequate diet – that we are the sickest nation on earth? According to government statistics, 98.7% of our citizens DO have medical needs!
No medical school in the country teaches a course in nutrition; ______________is an MD and has their usual deficiency in nutritional knowledge. Nevertheless, he has the brass to set himself up as a dietary dictator, while completely untrained in that field! The majority of his fellow medics are equally ignorant of correct nutrition, care nothing for it and openly scorn its value. Still, they are the men who would decide IF we need a supplement, what kind and how much! The average MD would never write the required prescription, so it may become impossible for you to purchase ANY vitamin. If you DO get synthetic supplements via a prescription, in addition to a doctor’s fee, you will pay astronomically inflated prices for the product itself. (Folic acid used to cost $1 for 100 tabs, 5 milligrams each. Prescription price of that item is now $6.60 for 60 tabs of only 1 milligram!) These pricing patterns will simply make the majority of nutrition aids unavailable to the masses.
But the FDA has only our best interests at heart – they say. Never have they said the supplements, health foods and vitamins are harmful. They merely want to ‘save’ the American public millions of dollars now being wasted on these products’. Isn’t that thoughtful? Yet, they don’t show this same fatherly concern over the much greater amounts spent for cigarettes, liquor, cola, candies, aspirin, patent medicines, sleeping tablets and the many dangerous drugs available without a prescription! Why?
We would be prohibited from informing, enlightening or educating the public to the importance of correct nutritional habits. We would no longer be able to alert the people to influences that destroy their health, under threat of an arrest or fine. The bill would give the FDA strict control over all ‘foods that are for special dietary purposes’ – as they word it. That does take in a lot of territory! I interpret it as an insolent, outrageous invasion of our privacy and a violation of our rights. We would be denied free speech, the right to be informed, the right to criticize these governmental policies, the right to eat as we choose and spend our money as we wish. Where will this path lead – where will it end?
Fortunately, Senator ________of ________has introduced House Concurrent Resolution _____, insisting that Congress review this proposal. So write to your Senators, your Representatives, urging them to support King’s bill and to fight the proposed FDA regulations. Also write President______, tell your friends of this outrageous plot and urge everyone to support the fight. Politicians understand voting power only – let them know we too have many votes to spend! In a nation whose birth was sparked by a ringing cry of ‘ Give me liberty or give me death!’ , this planned mess is a deplorable shame. Today, loss of liberty to choose a diet can lead to eventual results just as dreadful as sudden death, tomorrow. NOW – if ever – is the time for YOU to stand up and be counted!
Oh by the way if you are thinking I am talking about what is going on within the government and the big supplement companies today in 2004/2005 guess again. This editorial was exposing the supplement and vitamin issues that were going on back in the middle 1960s. Some things never change!
Dennis is also a frequent hard-hitting uncompromising freelance contributing consultant for many of the mainstream bodybuilding and fitness magazines published worldwide.
__________________commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, lost no time in making his position clear. He has instigated regulations designed to ‘protect’ the public from the ‘fraud’ of our health foods! Parts of this call for the limiting the sale, without prescription, of most dietary supplements and drastically reducing the potencies. Another section makes it a law for nutritional foods to carry a ‘warning’ label, informing the public the product is not really necessary because our average American diet provides all the elements essential for perfect health! Labels would also be prohibited from saying a supplement can improve health or prevent sickness; that our soil is deficient; that the average diet is lacking in nutrients; that modern chemicals or processing destroys food values! This incredibly brazen, dictatorial set of regulations almost did slip through without notice but was detected and will now be suspended until December___ allowing arguments against it.
