F.D.A. APPROVAL: Is It Overrated?

What does the F.D.A. really approve and why?
Why are so many people so sick?

Don't even get me started on this one. If I ever had one issue I could call my pet peeve, this is it. The audacity of a government agency to dictate what a health food purveyor may and may not say about his product never fails to raise the hackles on the back of my neck.

It has the small business person, along with the largest of health product manufacturers, running scared. When I started selling a certain health drink I was told to be very careful about any claims I made for the product. The last thing the big boys at the top wanted was to have some snot-nosed new distributor making fantastic claims that it would cure something. All our statements had to be couched with such words and phrases as "some say," or "it's been said," and always it must be followed by a lengthy disclaimer like this one I used at the end of all my flyers: Disclaimer: This is a nutritional product and does not claim to cure any condition. The benefits described above are the results of getting the required daily amount of antioxidants and phytonutrients to help your immune system function properly and strengthen your entire body at the cellular level. This product does provide a simple and convenient delivery system to get those nutrients into your body on a regular basis. -w

It's enough to make a guy paranoid. I was truly starting to believe that were I to stand before a small group of potential distributors in my living room, hold up a lime (or a picture of a lime) and make the claim that this is a cure for scurvy, the feds would be raiding my living room, clapping me in irons, and hauling me away to Guantanamo Bay for the rest of my natural life.

So, you can imagine how I would feel whenever anyone would ask, "Is this approved by the FDA? I wouldn't want to take anything into my body that wasn't approved by that upstanding government agency." Yeah, right!

"It's been said" that the FDA isn't interested in approving food. They only want to approve drugs. Why? You can probably figure it out if you just think about it a while. You may think you pay a lot of money for food, but just compare that with what you pay for drugs. And what food comes with a long list of side effects like "may cause liver failure, kidney failure, stroke, heart attack, sudden death?" If these are the drugs they approve which ones do they disapprove?

The worst part of all of this is that the medical profession, made up of doctors who graduated Med School with altruistic dreams of helping down-trodden humanity to gain a healthier, disease free life, are now forced to work with their hands tied and may only prescribe what has been approved by the God of Medicine who is called by the name, FDA.

Well maybe that's not the worst part. Maybe that comes when I have something to offer that has helped people all over the world to a healthier lifestyle with fewer aches and pains, but a person can't try it without first consulting with his or her doctor to find out if it is compatible with the myriad of drugs they are now on. How did they get on those drugs? Probably from other drugs, prescribed for what may have been a minor problem, at first, but led to several side effects calling for other drugs, which came with their own laundry list of side effects. And the beat goes on. Maybe that's why so many people today are suffering from so many diseases.

What do you think? If you have had a similar experience, good or bad, I'd love to hear your comments.