By Byron J. Richards, CCN

October 26, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

On October 19, 2006, the FDA fired off twenty-four warning letters to small nutrition companies that made claims they had natural remedies to help with diabetes. At first glance, one might think the FDA was actually doing its job. With tremendous bravado they announced to the world their trouncing of internet fraud. It is interesting how the FDA is now teaming up with Mexican and Canadian health authorities to attack American companies, part of the FDA’s illegal North American Union.

The mighty FDA muscle had not been flexed so diligently for almost a year. The last victims were cherry farmers, terrorized for quoting solid science that cherries may help people reduce inflammation and pain without any side effects. The FDA knew Vioxx posed cardiovascular risks, yet they let it on the market to kill over 50,000 Americans. We should be proud the FDA was able to defend us from healthy fresh fruit.

All Americans have to do is walk down any grocery store cereal or juice aisle to see outlandish health claims for heart disease and cholesterol reduction being placed on sugar-laden junk food. It pays to be a big company; profiting by producing garbage food that helps create obesity and consequently diabetes.

The FDA is like the neighborhood bully that only picks on people that have little chance of winning or even fighting back. If they actually had to tackle a real issue they would cower in their boots and run for cover.

The FDA Protects Big Pharma from Competition

The FDA was within their rights to send warning letters. True enough, some of these small companies had stepped over the line. Had they harmed anybody? Most of the nutrients in the products being offered actually have considerable science showing they may help diabetes. What is the FDA really afraid of? People getting better? People learning what options they have to the drug racket of the sickness industry? Maybe the FDA is trying to distract the public, portraying themselves as effective while they continue to this day to allow thousands of Americans to be injured and die in the name of profits for Bayer.

The FDA justified beating up on small American companies in this way: “We will not tolerate practices that raise false hopes and bilk consumers of precious health care dollars,” said Margaret O’K. Glavin, FDA’s Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs. “Diabetes requires effective treatments and aggressive management, not bogus and unproven products.”

And what are these effective treatments? A commonly used FDA-approved diabetes drug, Actos, has been found to increase edema and heart failure and have no benefit to diabetic patients. Another diabetes drug, Metformin, is known to cause B12 deficiency that will certainly increase the risk for neuropathy. Then there is the expensive new diabetes drug, Januvia, expected to have sales of a billion dollars. Once again, the drug only treats symptoms and does not fix the cause of the problem. When doctors put patients on insulin to control type II diabetes the typical outcome is that blood sugar is lowered by stuffing calories into fat, a medical treatment that causes fatigue and further obesity. If we took the FDA statement about “bilking consumers” at face value many common FDA-approved diabetes treatments would need to be shut down. Is it any wonder individuals are desperately looking for help?

The FDA is Guilty of Selective Enforcement

The FDA is discriminatory against small nutritional companies. This is because the FDA is avidly seeking to create a New World Order in which all supplement companies are owned or controlled by Big Pharma, and all therapeutic nutritional supplements are removed from the free market.

Conspicuously missing from the list of companies receiving a diabetes warning letter is Nutrition 21, a company whose largest shareholder is Wyeth. Nutrition 21 filed for and the FDA approved a limited health claim that states, “One small study suggests that chromium picolinate may reduce the risk of insulin resistance, and therefore possibly may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. FDA concludes, however, that the existence of such a relationship between chromium picolinate and either insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes is highly uncertain.” This health claim may be used for any chromium picolinate product.

Emboldened with this limited health claim Nutrition 21 makes wild health and curative disease treatment claims about its product, going far beyond any approved claim. Examples from their website include:

• Learn about Nutrition 21's chromium science--and its therapeutic role relevant to many various disease states.
   
• Learn about Nutrition 21’s once-a-day nutritional support for people with diabetes.
   
• Diachrome™ is a patented combination of Chromax® chromium picolinate and biotin designed especially for people with diabetes. Diachrome’s efficacy has been validated by pre-clinical and clinical studies.
   
• Biotin is already used as a nutrition therapy in Southeast Asia for people with diabetes.
   
• Nutrition 21, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXXI) reported results from a new clinical trial that shows long-term daily supplementation with Diachrome, a proprietary combination of chromium picolinate and biotin, can significantly improve blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes who had poorly controlled blood sugar levels and were taking prescription antidiabetic medications.

It doesn’t matter if these claims may be true, just as it doesn’t matter that the claims made by the twenty-four companies receiving warning letters may be true. The Nutrition 21 website clearly implies that their products are for the treatment of diabetes. And certainly the FDA is aware of their website. Their website is easily converted to Spanish, so even the Mexican health authorities could read all about it. What is going on?

A nutritional trade organization, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), has been taken over by Big Pharma. Their top priority is forcing unnecessary regulation on the supplement industry. CRN members now include Bayer, BASF, Wyeth, and other multi-national corporations. As I explain in Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America, CRN, working with the FDA, is actively seeking to undermine health freedom in the United States through Big Pharma-sponsored implementation of Codex Alimentarius and the North American Union. Nutrition 21 is a CRN member. None of the other twenty-four companies attacked by the FDA are in CRN.

Shockingly, the heads of numerous network marketing companies such as Mannatech, Shaklee, Herbalife, Nu Skin International, and GNLD International, along with big health food chains like GNC, are in CRN and actively participating in this scam, selling out health freedom for their place in the New World Order. Their distributors and customers should revolt. CRN has recently sponsored a full-time outside attorney to attack supplement companies. Yes, we’ll see how many CRN companies this attorney goes after.

Big Pharma is taking over the supplement industry. The FDA warning letters are designed to reduce competition for new drugs as well as to clear out competition for Big Pharma-connected vitamin companies. Large nutrition companies are encouraging these regulatory activities under the guise of boosting public confidence, when in fact the primary goal is eliminating competitors with lower overhead.

The FDA is a Major Part of the Diabetes Problem

The FDA has contributed to the epidemic of diabetes in a variety of ways. They have approved massive adulteration of the food supply with thousands of toxic chemicals (such as coal-tar derived food coloring), addictive sweeteners (like aspartame and Splenda), and neurotoxic chemicals like MSG that damage appetite regulation. On top of that, the FDA and EPA allow a variety of hormone-disruptive chemicals in the food supply. They also allow the thyroid glands and brains of our citizens to be poisoned with perchlorate and fluoride. The cumulative effect of these multiple metabolic insults is creating a society that is addicted to junk food and heading for rampant obesity and diabetes.

The FDA allows the illegal off-label promotion by drug companies of the diabetes-inducing atypical antipsychotic medications on our children. Eli Lilly makes over 4 billion dollars a year poisoning children in this manner, making our kids and many adults obese and diabetic at taxpayer expense. Talk about a bilking job! The FDA is capable of bullying small nutrition companies. They are a sissy organization when it comes to standing up to Big Pharma, Big Agribusiness, and junk food producers.

One of the FDA’s crimes against humanity is condoning and approving profit-driven strategies for large corporations that either directly or indirectly cause obesity and diabetes. Look with a jaundiced eye when the FDA misdirects public attention onto the foibles of a few small companies. The FDA attack is not remotely proportionate to the real issues. The FDA cannot possibly make up to society all the damage it has caused and continues to cause. Wake up Americans, we need to fight for our health and what is right!
 

Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources, is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, educator, and author.

Richards encourages individuals to take charge of their health, stand up for their health rights, and not blindly succumb to propaganda from the vested-interests who profit from keeping Americans sick.

As founder of Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN (since 1985), he has personally developed 75 unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas.

Charter Member of the International and American Associations of Clinical Nutritionists (IAACN) (since 1991) Richards has presented hundreds of educational classes to health professionals and individuals who want to take charge of their health!