Health at Gunpoint by James J. Gormley

Author:James J. Gormley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Square One Publishers

According to Loren Israelsen, head of LDI Group and the Utah Natural Products Alliance based in Salt Lake City, the FDA was willing to go to “extreme lengths” to show that it was in control. “FDA was feeling really aggressive, like they could roll us whenever they wanted to,” commented Israelsen in a 2004 article in Natural Foods Merchandiser. “[The agency] began using food additive provisions of the law as a tool to go after dietary supplements FDA did not like. This misuse of the law really ticked off a lot of people, me included.” He also noted, “The FDA Commissioner at that time, David Kessler, had commissioned a panel to study the question, ‘What should we do with supplements if we were to start afresh?’ Initially, FDA refused to make the report public. Ultimately, under pressure they did, and it confirmed our worst fears.” Israelsen added, “This is an example of the long fuse that burned up to 1992 when the first version of DSHEA called ‘The Health Freedom Act’ was introduced.”

The Health Freedom Act, which was designed to protect the right of citizens to choose safe and effective dietary supplements, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Orrin Hatch, along with a similar bill in the House of Representatives sponsored by Representatives Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Elton Gallegly of California. The act proposed to expand the definition of dietary supplements to include herbs and other nutrients, thereby exempting supplement health claims from regulatory approval and prohibiting attempts to regulate supplements as drugs. In Israelsen’s words, “The basic principle of the Health Freedom Act … was that supplements aren’t food additives, they aren’t drugs and they need to be defined.”

Ultimately, however, the Health Freedom Act did not pass—but another bill did. The Dietary Supplement Act, which was added to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, called for a one-year ban on dietary supplement health claims and nutrient content claims. Meanwhile, FDA raids continued, which only deepened the public’s distrust of the agency.

The case that mobilized consumer opinion the most against the FDA was the Jonathan Wright case. Wright, a physician in Washington, had continued to prescribe the substance L-tryptophan to his patients, knowing that the U.S. had temporarily issued a ban on its sale as a dietary supplement. However, the medical use of L-tryptophan had not been explicitly banned.

On May 6, 1992, in what is today remembered as the Tahoma Clinic Raid, the FDA stormed Wright’s clinic with armed sheriffs, who terrorized patients and seized vitamins, equipment, and medical records. According to Alex Schauss, “CFH discovered, after the FDA was forced by the state of Washington to explain the reason for the raid, that it was conducted in retaliation for Dr. Wright having filed a lawsuit against the FDA for restricting the availability of L-tryptophan as a dietary supplement.”

The Tahoma Clinic raid raised concerns among American consumers. “People began to think, ‘Wow, what are they [the FDA] prepared to do to stop us from taking vitamins?’” said Israelsen.

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