Shane Ellison -- What is the FDA's Mission Statement?

People want to trust that their so-called elected government is doing the right thing when it passes regulations to enhance public safety. When the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906 a new watchdog agency, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was born. It would be many years before we as a nation had such luxuries as refrigeration, sanitary food processing standards, and good manufacturing processes (GMP), so in many respects, this law was necessary. So, what exactly does the FDA do?

But times change and unfortunately, sometimes so do mission statements. The growth in knowledge of biochemistry, natural medicine, physiology, molecular chemistry and chemical process methods have yielded millions of new synthetic drugs and treatment options, far more than our grandparents would have imagined at the turn of the century. To ensure growing profits, these new synthetic drugs are aimed at symptom management rather than cures for diseases or chronic conditions. This can be seen by the continued and growing reliance on synthetic medicine. For example, from 1985-1999, there was a 35% increase in medicines used by Americans to treat (not cure) chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, depression, and arthritis. In the year 2000, about $116.9 Billion was spent on prescription drugs. The number of prescriptions dispensed is projected to grow to 2.07 billion by the year 2005! By way of comparison, our up and coming war on Iraq is estimated to cost about $90 Billion. But $90 Billion for a war somewhere in the world every 12 years is chicken feed compared to the costs of drugs and medicines that Americans shell out each and every year. This is approximately $26.9 Billion less than what Americans spent on drugs in the year 2000. Let’s see, $90 Billion for a war once in a while and over $1 Trillion (yes that’s "T" for toy Trillion) for prescription drugs. That’s a lot of pills. As pharmaceutical business has grown, the FDA has changed from an institution that was trying to protect public health from bad food to a rubber stamp government organization that only takes public safety into account when it is forced to by some form of gross public error.

In other words, blind loyalty to doctors and their "symptom hiding pills" is not without consequence; Americans are getting fatter and sicker. Today you can be confident that about 800 Americans will die from obesity, which averages out to be 300,000 obese people dying every year. Additionally, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that by comparing 16 "health markers" considered indicative of good health, the U.S. ranks on average 12th out of the top 13 countries in regard to the health of it's citizens.

Few people realize the impact of these statistics. As we spend more on health care in the form of FDA approved drugs, we becoming sicker. Still though Americans, like cattle, are lining up at the pharmaceutical trough for their daily dose of "just what the doctor ordered". And they are bringing their children with them.

Researchers writing for Pediatrics showed that between 1997 and 2000, approximately 3,750 serious injuries, birth defects and deaths occurred among children under 2 who were secondary recipients of prescription drugs compliments of their mothers via pregnancy, labor, or breast feeding. The study, conducted by researchers at George Washington University and the University of Maryland, found 769 childhood deaths and 664 cases of birth defects or disabilities that could be directly linked to prescription drug use. The FDA has stated that these numbers really only account for about 2% of the actual number of deaths and negative side effects reported! In spite of the carnage committed against the young and innocent, the FDA does not require pharmaceutical companies to test newly released drugs for potentially hazardous effects on children. Yet, according to the New York Times, spending on prescription medicines for pediatric patients has increased by 85% over the past five years!

Call it lack of sufficient funding, integrity, human nature, graft, greed or plain old corruption, the protective motivation that was once the driving force of the FDA is gone! A new kind of bureaucracy has risen up in its place and very few professionals are aware of the change, especially among media channels. Undoubtedly, the general population is grossly ignorant of the FDA’s true mission. To approve life-threatening drugs for profit and to suppress non-toxic, inexpensive and effective natural therapies.

Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD, Member, California State Board of Pharmacy 1980-90, said it best when referring to the FDA and international pharmaceutical companies:

"This collection of serial killers with reckless disregard of human life, extinguishes the hopes and lives of over 100,000 Americans every year. In the past decade they have been responsible for over one million innocent deaths, yet not only have they not faced justice, they have enriched themselves with profits that would make Bill Gates envious. These parasitic killers come not from some cave in Afghanistan, but from plush office suites…"

That the FDA is a watchdog agency for public health interests is a fallacy. The FDA is a lapdog for international, multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies and is responsible for millions of preventable deaths.

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