Food and Drugs and Opinions

March 3, 2007

I just read a couple of articles while in search of another topic (something along the lines of “ten G rated things to do with herbs…”) for the herbs section of this site.

First, here are the articles:

So you think you live in a free society?
http://www.newstarget.com/001681.html

Top 10 Things the Food Co’s Don’t Want you to Know
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_1515.cfm

The first article rants about the FDA, which is fine by me, since I’m a libertarian conservative semi-athiest warmongering tree-hugger and I like a good rant as much as anyone does. I think that he skipped certain tidbits in his rant, though.

I’m not even going to argue that either article is wrong.

The FDA not only listens to the corporate lobbying, it listens to the lawsuits brought by (I’ll be nice here) trial lawyers regarding consumer complaints about various substances, eg: ma huang (mentioned in his article.)

So here you have a massive gov’t bureaucracy powered and influenced by several things: All the employees and policy makers in the FDA follow a “cover your ass” policy, politicians (D’s and R’s) demand the group do something (I hate it when Pols want to do something), lawyers demand action, corporate lobbyists want to protect corporate profits, and so on.

Given all this how can anyone expect the FDA to be a smooth, competently run agency? Imagine the DMV (especially in the SF Bay Area.) Multiply that by a lot. That’s our FDA.

Now imagine the FDA controlling all aspects of health care. That’s what government health care wouild be like. Do you really want gov’t health care? Really?

The FDA is one of the reasons our drugs are so expensive, whether or not you think drugs are a good thing. Even after research costs the Drug Co’s pay a huge amount in costs to keep the FDA happy and more in costs to keep the lawyers rich.

So instead of just slamming the FDA, which it probably richly deserves, how about we include a few other parties in our rants?

Free society? Heh. This is a nanny state and most of us very much want to be nannied.

Here’s another thought. Assuming the drug Co’s are these evil things, and assuming that there really are snake oil salesmen among the alternative healers, what would happen without an FDA and without the trial lawyers?

And about those organic foods… The big producers want to make a profit. Fine by me. The Organic producers want to make a profit (and I’m not talking about your own garden grown stuff) which is fine by me. The more the better.

But…

Have you noticed that they argue in exactly the same manner? Both slam the others as lacking in anything other than blind greed. Both call the other side liar. Both say the other is just a paid shill for the (industry.)

So do your homework and follow the money.

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Posted in Alternative Healing, Just for fun