THE EXCUSE TO REGULATE - CONTROL vs. FREEDOM
By
Byron J. Richards, CCN
July 4, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
Americans are a freedom-loving people. Every July 4th we celebrate this fact. It is interesting that our government has a history of offering protection in exchange for a loss of freedom. On the surface this appears workable to many, mainly due to the unscrupulous individuals who harm others under the protection of everyone’s freedoms. Unfortunately for those of us who value freedom, hard work, act responsibly towards our fellow Americans, and genuinely try to be of help to others, there are plenty of slime bags figuring out new ways to con or injure people while they make money – not to mention our actual enemies. This leads to a never-ending drum beat for more regulation and consequent loss of freedom for all.
A society’s ability to balance rules, regulations, and laws without blunting the creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and general freedoms of its people is one of the great challenges of leadership. But what happens when the regulatory apparatus is infected by cancer? What happens when those who have power over the free are on the take from the unscrupulous? It is a sad commentary on the decay of our society that there is not a regulatory agency in government today that isn’t bought off by the very industries it is suppose to be regulating. And as the catastrophes happen; the oil spills, the financial meltdowns, the massive ongoing yearly drug deaths, etc. – influence peddling remains the norm.
A case in point is the FDA, an organization that is morally bankrupt. This week the Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a new report, “Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks.” The well-documented scientific report says that all food dyes should be removed from the food supply. They are proven to cause cancer, birth defects, allergies, behavior problems, and ADHD in many children. Americans are consuming 15 million pounds of toxic-chemical food coloring a year. While it is nice to see such a report on the blatant adulteration of our food supply, this information is now new. The FDA has been ignoring the issue for decades. In fact, the regulatory power given to the FDA is responsible for this entire issue and all the health-damage it has caused. And this gets back to the point of this article on this July 4th – giving away freedom in the name of protection/regulation is a highly problematic undertaking.
Let us go back in time to 1937. At that time freedom-loving Americans hated regulation and still held a majority in Congress. Despite the unscrupulous purveyors of useless or sometimes dangerous medications (which are the norm today even though granted approval by the FDA), Congress and Americans were dead set against giving the FDA much power. At this time sulfa drug antibiotics were all the rage. Along came a clever chemist, Harold Watkins, working for a small Tennessee-based drug company, S.E. Massengill Company. He added diethylene glycol to the sulfa drug and mixed in some flavoring and presto – the first liquid antibiotic was born. Now parents could easily get their children to take sulfa drugs.
Within days of taking the drug children went into delirious pain as the diethylene glycol destroyed their kidneys. It was an excruciating torturous death, lasting up to 9 days. The FDA received an anonymous tip (oh really?) and tried in vain, initially, to get the product off the market. Eventually all the bottles were tracked down, but not before 100 people, mostly children, were tortured to death. Public outcry was immense. Within six months the FDA regulatory powers that had been frozen in Congress for the past five years were passed into law. This is the story the FDA loves to tell as to why it is so needed.
The chemist, Harold Watkins, was found dead while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide or maybe it was an accident as it apparently happened while he was cleaning his gun. And for those of you who love conspiracies – well maybe he was murdered. Who gave him the idea to use diethylene glycol with sulfa drugs? We will never know, just as we will never know who provided the anonymous tip to the FDA that identified Harold Watkins and S.E. Massengill Company.
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Sulfa drugs were made by the Germans from coal tar. The Germans worked hand-in-glove with large US drug companies like Pfizer (founded by German Americans). Certainly the development of a liquid sulfa drug would be a hot seller. The Germans, unquestionably the top scientists in the world at that time, knew well the chemistry of diethylene glycol – not so for a little country chemist from Tennessee. Yes, I have no proof. But which drug companies would have a vested interest in getting all the little drug company/pharmacy competitors off the emerging drug-making market? They needed regulation and they got it.
Now remember, back in 1937 the Germans were busy building up their NAZI war machine. American oil companies were busy trying to figure out German coal tar patents and were unable to do so. The blending of financial interests between American financial and industrial institutions with NAZI Germany is well documented elsewhere. Germany is a country with few natural resources and plenty of what was considered useless coal tar. One of the primary uses of coal tar became the production of color dyes (the original patent was stolen by the Germans from a British scientist whose government failed to understand the economic value). This not only created the color paint market it led to the production of food coloring derived from coal tar (and today from petroleum).
Getting back to the FDA – would anyone like to guess what one of their first regulatory proclamations was once they gained their new found power in 1937? They granted the approval of food coloring into the US food supply as an approved food additive. Were they any better than Harold Watkins? The first year the Germans dumped 19 billion tons of food coloring into our food supply and so it went. The money was used by Germany to fuel their war machine. The FDA claimed it needed power to protect the public. Instead, the FDA has condoned the insidious poisoning of the American population ever since it got that power.
Unfortunately, this is only one example of the FDA for hire. The FDA acts as a police-force bully gatekeeper for the profits of the industries it is supposed to be regulating. Management at the FDA is in a revolving door with the companies it regulates. This continues to this day. For example, the Obama Administration has placed in charge of food safety at the FDA the Monsanto lawyer/lobbyist in charge of the promotion of toxic GMO food – a disastrous adulteration of our food supply. The FDA feels it is above any law. It actively seeks to suppress health information from the public as well as to stamp out of existence any competitor to its approved monopoly of toxic and profitable products concocted by Big Pharma and Big Agribusiness.
Currently the FDA begs for more money to protect us from food poisoning. They actually want the money to do further research on their pie-in-the-sky wonder technologies as they actively move towards becoming a partner in drug development and putting a health chip in everyone’s arm. True food safety is a horrendous inconvenience for the FDA. But they have been practicing for a long time the principle of never letting a good crisis go to waste. In fact, it often appears that their management can’t wait for the next drug or food crisis to hit them in the face so as to plead for more money – and believe me their gross negligence has far more than 20 major crisis bubbles ready to burst.
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In 1937 one hundred Americans died a painful death, our country was outraged. Regulations were granted that favored large drug companies and no competition, with the FDA in charge. In the process, natural health was set back a century. Today, well over 100,000 Americans die every year at the hands of toxic drugs and almost nobody says a word. Health freedom is always the leading-edge indicator of freedom in any society. Control the minds and health of a population and you control that population. Something is terribly wrong. Americans are getting fed up with government and for good reason. This July 4th freedom teeters on the edge – and a sleeping giant of American will is waking.
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