Fuel your life with the purest vitamins
Jan 23rd 2024
Protecting Our Health Freedoms
When the American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1846, one might imagine it was to further the science of medicine. In fact, the real reasons had a lot more to do with economics.
In 1844, the first medical association in the United States was founded; it was the American Institute of Homeopathy. At the time, homeopathy was extremely popular in both the US and Great Britain (still popular in England; the British royalty have been treated by homeopaths since 1830). When two years later the AMA was established, one of its stated goals was to curb the growth of homeopathy.
Although its ostensible intent was to expose and eliminate “unscientific” health practices and thereby “protect the consumer,” it was well known to early members of the AMA that its real aim was to destroy competition from homeopaths, naturopaths, and herbalists who were successfully treating patients. With wealthy backers like Andrew Carnegie, the AMA accomplished its objective of marginalizing what came to be known as “alternative” health care, and allopathic medicine became the standard of care in the US.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today, allopathic medicine, and the pharmaceutical industry still march under the banner of science, which they falsely lay claim to. They still enlist powerful allies to “protect consumers” by keeping competing healthcare practices at bay and their “cut and drug” approach front and center.
If the cut and drug approach worked, it might not be so bad. Unfortunately its effectiveness is limited while it inflicts major damage. As it is, the health industry—doctors and the drugs they prescribe—has become a major cause of our healthcare crisis. But though powerless to prevent and cure disease, this industry is wealthy, politically powerful, and savvy—and intent upon preserving and expanding its turf.
As the population, about half of which are taking supplements and perhaps two-thirds of which have consulted alternative healthcare practitioners, turns away from the health industry in search of greater health, the health industry is fighting back. With strong footholds in government agencies, Congress and the administration, it uses various means to keep consumers under its thumb; to restrict our choices, and prevent us from acting in our own self-interest, or even knowing what that self-interest would be.
We need to understand threats to our health freedoms, so we can act more effectively in our self-interest, both alone and as part of citizen groups.
Vaccines are being pushed on babies, children, members of the armed forces, and increasingly upon employees. No one should be forced to receive a vaccine. Vaccines are dangerous and ineffective, and greatly increase the risk for autism and other neurodegenerative diseases. The National Vaccine Information Center provides education and support for asserting your right to refuse a vaccine.
Fluoridation, clean air and water, and food safety, including GMOs, are other contentious areas that are crucial to our health and our freedom to choose health.
And now, more than ever, the American public is being pushed to accept the allopathic model of healthcare.
Our government subsidizes prescription drugs with our tax dollars, making them much more affordable than supplements; for those who lack financial resources, drugs and allopathic care are often the only affordable options. Obamacare forces Americans into insurance programs that greatly curtail choice of practitioner and type of healthcare, pushing more and more into the allopathic net.
Meanwhile, the drug industry, with allies in Congress and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), covets the growing supplement market.
A major way giant drug companies have driven smaller ones out of business is by increasing the cost of doing business. Under the guise of ensuring “sound science” and “protecting the consumer,” these ploys are fundamentally strategies for defeating the competition. You’d think it would be self-defeating to raise the cost of doing business, but there’s a simple answer to that: just pass on the cost, classified as R&D, to the consumer!
A favored ploy is the multi-million dollar study, now required by the FDA for drug approval, which effectively eliminates all but the big stakes players. Billions are spent in the name of “sound science” and “protecting the consumer.” Yet drugs are recalled on a monthly basis. Why? Because these costly studies are generally not “sound science” at all, but highly biased junk science that has been bought and paid for by drug companies to support their advertising claims.
Now drug companies are trying to get supplements regulated as if they were drugs, requiring the same extensive, and expensive, testing before approval. Now drugs and supplements are vastly different. Supplements are natural molecules; as such no company can patent them and make millions off of them. Patented drugs are by definition unnatural molecules that are toxic to the human body. Even properly prescribed drugs have killed millions; vitamins haven’t killed anyone. And the supplement industry is already highly regulated.
But drug industry allies in Congress and the FDA claim there is an urgent need for more “supplement regulation” (read more cost to the supplement manufacturer) under the guise of “protecting the consumer.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has proposed the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act, which, in tandem with proposed guidelines for approving new supplement ingredients by the FDA, would place prohibitively expensive requirements on supplement manufacturers for getting approvals for labels and new ingredients. These would drive most supplement manufacturers out of business. As the drug industry gained control of the supplement market, the consumer would face greatly restricted availability of supplements, exponentially higher costs, and almost certainly lower quality.
The FDA has also restricted what supplement manufacturers may say about supplements so much that you cannot even claim that vitamin C cures scurvy – something that is already common knowledge.
The bottom line is nutrients help cure disease and drugs don’t. Drugs control symptoms at the cost of damaging health. This is the “inconvenient truth” that the drug industry is doing everything in its power to suppress.
So what can we do to influence government policies? One way is by supporting the Alliance for Natural Health with donations, by becoming a member, and/or by participating in their “Action Alerts” (just fill in your name and other data to sign on to online petitions that are sent to the appropriate people.) The ANH is a significant lobbyist in Washington, DC, and has had a real impact on legislation. In addition to the issues above, ANH works on food safety issues, like GMOs and BPA.
We can also support the National Health Federation. The NHF is the world’s oldest health-freedom organization. It sends lobbyists to Washington, funds lawsuits to defend the rights of alternative practitioners and health-food store owners, and participates in Codex meetings (Codex is an international agency that attempts to ease trade between nations by “harmonizing” product standards and guidelines.) The NHF addresses many health-freedom issues, including fluoridation, vaccinations, supplement regulation, and much more.
“Liberty” is one of the pillars upon which our country was founded. But even in a free society freedom is never guaranteed. Rather, it must be fought for and won over and over again, as there will always be people and institutions that seek to deprive us of it for their own, short-sighted gain. Now is the time to step up to the plate and do your part. We need everyone’s participation if we are to preserve vital health freedoms!