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Should the FDA regulate natural supplements and herbal remedies?
Results so far:
| Yes | 55% | 604 votes | Total: 1096 votes | |
| No | 45% | 492 votes |
Yes
by Effie Moore Salem
Created on: June 23, 2007 Last Updated: January 16, 2009
Yes, the FDA should regulate natural supplements and herbal remedies. Yesterday, Legislation was passed giving The Food and Drug Administration the right to set standards on Herbs and other dietary supplements: They must be free of contaminants, (pesticides, microbes, and not empty or less amounts claimed.)
Also, there will be strict scrutiny of the industries to see if the plants and warehouses are up to FDA standards; and, watched closely will how records are being kept and how claims and accusations are being processed.
No longer will just anyone be allowed to set up a business of selling herbal remedies, etc. Up to now it has been lucrative business with hardly any restrictions.
The first legislation giving the FDA power to regulate was in 1994; yesterday, legislation allows for restrictions; however, all aspects of the herbal supplement industry will have until 2010 to fully comply.
Are these restrictions the same as for drugs? No, they do not have the extensive testing requirement. And that's what prompted Senator Richard J. Durbin to comment: "better late than never...the rules do not go as far as they should have".
A January 2009 update: Although the FDA has had the power to regulate supplements, recent headlines show that the problem of why they are not doing such a good job at keeping potential danger away from the American Public. Nanotechnology is one big problem they face states one 2007 headline. And exactly what is nanotechnology? These questions were raised by Science Daily.
Nanotechnology is the "engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale". In other words it's being able to work from the smallest upwards. This is making it difficult for the government to assess the accuracy of what is thought to be contained, or so the alarmist claims.
Yet the easy way anyone can set up health food stores and sell supplements while making all kinds of claims has become a lucrative business and makes for all kinds of copy cat businesses. The use of these new technologies to appease the FDA is not easy detective work for those who must see what's said is true.
At the same time, it is easy to see how some potential dangerous herbs and supplements can be allowed free rein to sell and to advertise in any way they want. Simply because something is an herb does not mean it is not poisonous. Many of the drugs used in pharmaceuticals are from plant sources and many of these if used in sufficient amounts and not used according to the doctor's instructions are deadly.
I would advise anyone who is out to cure themselves by herb therapy to use only those known to be safe. While they may or may not cure the ailment, there is comfort in knowing they are doing no harm.
Learn more about this author, Effie Moore Salem.
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No
by Carel Two-Eagle
Created on: January 24, 2008
There is a gross over-abundance of over-regulation of our lives by the federal government - especially in the area of health - already.
I am a Traditional healer of my People. MD's are not required to learn anything about natural remedies, yet the majority of them are quick to claim that somehow they can tell whether or not a remedy is valid. This is a ridiculous as claiming a person can fly a jet plane after walking through an airport.
In the area of art, a person can get away with such beliefs as, "I'm no authority on art, but I know what I like". In the area of natural remedies and natural supplements, this attitude will hold no water.
The western medical establishment is quick to disrespect both remedies they know nothing about and we who are Traditional healers or what the western medical establishment call 'alternative' practitioners. I've had to stand on my cultural and Treaty Rights more than once in the face of assault by western medicine-trained bigots who claimed that, even though they had no training whatsoever in any discipline other than their own, they were 'supremely' qualified to judge the validity of other disciplines. This is a lie. It is power-tripping by members of the western medical establishment, and an attempt at creating a closed shop in which they are the only members.
The Chinese have practiced acupuncture for something over 4,000 years, yet western medical practitioners, and their official voice, the American Medical Association, have had the gall to claim that acupuncture is 'invalid', 'of questionable validity', and/or 'an unproven treatment modality'. That when it 'appears' to work, it's 'really' the placebo effect.
Right. I'm sure that the Chinese, or any other group, is so stupid that they will delude themselves for 4,000 years to try to prove a method works. Who are these people in the AMA trying to kid?!? (You and me.)
Acupuncture works on horses, cattle, buffalo, camels, dogs, cats, elephants.... So who's the Dr. Doolittle who has convinced these animals that acupuncture works on them? Hm?
When the AMA sorts claim that natural supplements and herbal remedies "need" FDA oversight and regulation, they also claim that it is because there can be side-effects or people can be hurt. And western medicine's poisonous synthetic concoctions have perfect safety records? Thalidomide comes to mind.. as does Prozac, Ritalin, and a host of other 'wonder drugs' from the laboratories of modern 'medicine' that have horrible side-effects.
We survived for thousands of years in fine shape with natural supplements and herbal remedies. The Great Holy didn't make us synthetic, as my Grandmother used to say. We didn't have much in the way of difficulties then, nor do we now, from natural remedies. Moreover, over 85% of "modern" medicines are derived directly from plant sources.
The government, including the FDA, needs to butt out of our lives in many areas, especially this one. What's REALLY going on in this effort is not out of true concern for our health or because there is a lot of bad results from natural remedies. What's REALLY going on in this situation is western medical practitioners and the pharmaceutical industry trying to corral the entire market for treatments of us. It's another effort at bringing fascism to our lives, not democracy. It's anti-Constitutional, it's sophomoric, and the basis of it is one big lie.
THE FDA has no business 'regulating' natural supplements and herbal remedies; especially on the say-so of western medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies, whose honor and honesty in this matter are definitely suspect.
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