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FDA Attacks The Internet
http://www.lef.org/fda-98/fda1-07-00.html
FDA seeks to destroy Alternative Health Web Sites
By William Faloon
The FDA's history is one of incompetence, fraud, deceit and the continuous
striving for more power. Over the past 25 years, the Food and Drug
Administration has sought to gain authoritarian control that Congress never
intended it to have. In every attempt to seize this kind of power, the FDA
has been beaten back by a swell of public protest.
The FDA has just launched a disinformation campaign to deceive Congress into
believing that the agency needs to "protect" the public from health
information on the Internet. The FDA is seeking ten million tax dollars a
year to attack alternative health and pharmacy web sites. If the FDA
convinces Congress to give it the power and money to do this, American
consumers will be denied access to innovative therapies, and will be forced
to pay a good deal more for the nutrient and drug therapies the FDA allows
them to buy over the Internet.
One of the FDA's proposals is to be able to fine Internet pharmacies
$500,000 every time they dispense a drug without a prescription authorized
by the agency. With this kind of excessive fining power, the FDA will be
able to bankrupt any online pharmacy it targets. To make it easy for them to
shut down large numbers of web sites, the FDA wants the power to issue
subpoenas without first obtaining a court order, a totalitarian tactic the
American public revolted against when the agency proposed it in 1990.
Finally, the FDA says it wants to set up "a rapid response team" to
identify, investigate, and prosecute web sites. In other words, the FDA is
seeking to establish an army of cyberspace storm-troopers to enable it to
shut down large numbers of web sites quickly.
The alleged purpose of these new powers is to "target and punish those who
engage in illegal drug sales over the Internet." This may sound reasonable
to the average person, but as members of The Life Extension Foundation well
know, the FDA's history is one of ineptitude and corruption that has caused
millions of Americans to suffer and die needlessly. In 1994, the FDA Museum
was established to document FDA malfeasance, and show that the agency hasn't
the scientific legitimacy to be allowed to police the healthcare of the
American people.
A flagrant example of FDA deception can be found in their current attempt to
control the Internet. The FDA has identified one person who died after
obtaining Viagra from a Web pharmacy without a prescription. The FDA is
using this one death as an example of why the FDA needs to impose
dictatorial power over all health Web sites. One problem with this position
is that, as of November 1998, at least 130 Americans died from taking Viagra
legally prescribed by their doctors. (The total number of Viagra-related
deaths for 1999 has not yet been calculated.) The FDA approved Viagra as
being safe, even though many Americans have died when the drug has been
legally prescribed. The FDA failed to detect this lethal side effect of
Viagra, yet it is now seeking gestapo-like power to attack any Internet
health company it wishes to, without due process. It's time for the public
to speak up again to let Congress know that this kind of FDA tyranny will
not be tolerated by tax payers.
Why Internet Regulation is Doomed to Fail
The powers the FDA is seeking are unconstitutional, and the agency has
neither the competence nor the integrity to police the Internet, but even if
it did, it would be impractical for the agency to do so. There are currently
an estimated 8,000 health sites on the Internet. If Congress gives the FDA
$10 million a year, the best the agency could do is shut down a couple of
hundred sites a year. Within a few years, the FDA would create a litigation
monster whose appetite would far exceed their $10 million annual budget. The
FDA would be bogged down in a quagmire of judicial proceedings, while
thousands of new health Web sites would be springing up that the agency
would be at an utter loss to control. The end result of the FDA's war
against the free flow of information on the Internet would be tens of
millions of tax dollars wasted, with less so-called consumer "protection"
than exists today.
The FDA Already Has The Legal Power It Needs
The charade the FDA is parading before Congress is that they need more money
and stricter laws to regulate e-commerce. The facts are that the FDA already
has the regulatory structure to "protect" the consumer on the Internet. Much
of what the FDA wants is already covered by existing Federal and State law,
but the agency is seeking to add another bureaucratic layer of law and money
to suppress the dissemination of health information.
An Alternative Proposal
The FDA has its own Web site (www.fda.gov) For a fraction of the cost of
becoming the health police of the Internet police, the agency could post its
own evaluation of alternative health Web sites that it thought were
promoting fraudulent or dangerous products. Americans would then be free to
make their own decisions about whether to believe what the FDA says about
health web sites.
However, the FDA has no interest in trying to persuade Americans with
evidence. It wants (and has always wanted) authoritarian powers and as much
money as possible from Congress because it is a political organization
rather than a scientific one. As a result, FDA suppression of information
has been, historically, the leading cause of death in the United States,
while adverse reactions to FDA approved drugs is currently the 4th-to-6th
leading cause of death. Clearly, the FDA lacks the constitutional authority,
the competence, the integrity or the scientific credibility to be given
additional power and money to police the Internet.
A History of Victories Over the FDA
The Federal Courts, Congress and the public have dealt the FDA severe losses
over the past 25 years.
The first citizens' victory occurred in the 1970's when the FDA tried to
turn vitamin supplements into prescription drugs. An uproar from the public
resulted in Congress unanimously rejecting FDA's brazen arguments that
vitamins are so "dangerous" that they should only be prescribed by doctors.
This blatant power grab came at a time when the vast majority of doctors had
little or no knowledge of the health benefits of vitamins.
In 1990, the FDA tried to have a law passed that would have enabled the
agency to make summary seizures of products from companies, and institute
wire taps without a court warrant. The public again defended the Bill of
Rights by inundating Congress with so much mail that the FDA's proposed law
was abandoned.
In 1993, the FDA stated that it wanted to classify all amino acids and many
minerals as prescription drugs. The public expressed such a high degree of
outrage over the FDA's draconian proposition, that Congress passed the
Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (in 1994) that significantly
limited the FDA's authority to regulate dietary supplements.
Since 1994, the FDA has circumvented the will of the people and Congress by
seeking to censor what the public is allowed to hear about supplements and
drugs. The FDA has been defeated repeatedly in the counts, and has been
forced to retreat because of an onslaught of public opposition to all forms
of censorship the agency has proposed.
Orwellian Computer Robots
A nightmare scenario sometimes portrayed in science fiction novels involves
a totalitarian government using advanced computers to monitor the activities
of citizens. In these novels, people who don't behave according to
government standards are targeted for persecution or summary elimination.
The Orwellian prophesy is becoming reality as the FDA is proposing to spend
a million dollars a year on artificial intelligence computer robots that
would scan the Internet for phrases such as "prevents cancer" and
"prescription drug" so the FDA could "swiftly gather the information needed
to prosecute."
The new law the FDA is proposing would mandate that on-line pharmacies first
receive FDA-approval to operate. Pharmacies are currently regulated by the
States, but the FDA is seeking to impose a new Federal bureaucratic layer
that will greatly increase the cost of purchasing products on the Internet.
The FDA needs to convince Congress that American citizens should be
subjected to Orwellian investigative tactics and that tax payer dollars
should be appropriated to pay for these Web robots to assist the FDA in
detecting words it does not want Americans to read.
American citizens who cherish their Constitutional rights against undue
government intrusion should contact their members of Congress and demand
that the FDA not be given the money, nor the legal authority to control the
Internet. This is more than just a health freedom issue. The FDA's Orwellian
proposals are unprecedented and would create lead to a serious breakdown of
our civil liberties if enacted into law.
Just Tell Congress To Say "No" to The FDA
The FDA is using the free-flowing popularity of the Internet in a ploy to
deceive Congress into appropriating ten million tax dollars a year to fund
an unconstitutional witch hunt against free speech. The new powers the FDA
is seeking are blatantly un-American and resemble the kinds of police-state
tactics employed by totalitarian regimes such as communist China.
The FDA's latest fabrication will fail if Americans tell their Congressional
representatives to say NO to any new proposal or law that would give the FDA
more power or money. Included in this message is a letter that can be sent
to Congress. To obtain the name, e-mail address, voice phone number, and fax
number of your member of Congress, check http://www.house.gov or phone the
Congressional switchboard at 1-202-224-3121.
Note: the House Directory at www.house.gov was not working despite repeated
attempts between 7:30 and 8:00 pm EST 1/5/00 but you can find both e-mail
and mailing information for your Representative by selecting "Member
Offices."
We suggest that you also send a copy of this letter to:
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
You can E-mail the President at this White House page:
www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_President.html
You can access the Foundation's Website at www.lef.org to obtain additional
information about the FDA's track record of unlawfully suppressing life
saving information.
We encourage Foundation members to defend the Constitution against the FDA's
latest attempt to gain repressive power over the individual's right to
choose. Please send the following letter (and/or your own letter) to your
Congressional representative:
A Letter to Your Congressional Representative
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