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Posts Tagged ‘Food And Drug Administration’

Dr. Ron Paul Introduces Health Freedom Bills!

Go here to help support the Bill

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27732

As of September 1, 2009 over 91,000 emails sent to Congress!

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August 1, 2009 Announcement

Dr. Ron Paul, health freedom’s friend in Congress, introduced two important bills yesterday that, if passed, would rein in the excessive interference in advanced health products by the FDA and FTC.

Here is the Life Extension Foundation’s description of the bills:

HR 3395: The Health Freedom Act. This bill removes FDA’s power of prior restraint over all nutrient-disease relationship claims. Under the bill, the FDA may not prohibit any statement concerning a nutrient affecting a disease (including treatment effects) from being made in the market and may only act against a statement once made if it possesses clear and convincing evidence that the statement is false. Presently the FDA blocks an enormous quantity of truthful information concerning the effects of nutrients and foods on disease from reaching consumers. That barrier is removed by the Health Freedom Act, but the Act preserves the power of the government to prosecute those who communicate falsehood. The essential purpose of the First Amendment is to disarm the federal government of the power to impose a prior restraint on speech. The FDA has imposed a prior restraint for decades to the health detriment of the public. Passage of the Health Freedom Act will restore constitutional governance by reasserting the supremacy of the First Amendment over the Food and Drug Administration.

HR 3394: The Health Information Protection Act. This bill prevents the Federal Trade Commission from taking action against any advertiser that communicates a health benefit for a product unless the FTC first establishes based on clear and convincing evidence that the statement made is false and that its communication causes harm to the public. Presently, the FTC reverses the Fifth Amendment burden of proof on the government when it charges advertisers with deceptive advertising and then demands that they prove their speech true based on contemporaneously held documentation or be deemed to have advertised deceptively. The Fifth Amendment requires that FTC bear the burden of proving advertising deceptive. It may not constitutionally shift the burden to the advertiser to prove its statements not deceptive. The First Amendment requires that FTC not act against speech unless the speech is probably false. It may not constitutionally accuse a party of false advertising yet lack proof that the advertising is false and condemn advertising based on an absence of documentation concerning the truth of the statement rather than the presence of evidence establishing the falsity of the statement.

These bills go to the heart of the issue of valid health claims for nutrient products: how do companies substantiate the claims they are making. Essentially the bills apply Constitutional principles to the making of claims, which are a type of speech, and are therefore protected from excessive bureaurcratic burden.

In this context it is useful to see what then Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the Supreme Court majority in the leading health claim free speech case, Thompson v. Western States Medical Center – 01-344, decided on April 29, 2002 – 535 U.S. 357 -

“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that regulating speech must be a last – not first – resort.”

“We have previously rejected the notion that the Government has an interest in preventing the dissemination of truthful commercial information in order to prevent members of the public from making bad decisions with the information.”

“Even if the Government did argue that it had an interest in preventing misleading advertisements, this interest could be satisfied by the far less restrictive alternative of requiring each …to be labeled with a warning that the [product] had not undergone FDA testing and that its risks were unknown.”

The basic rule, announced by the case, to determine constitutionally permitted government restrictions on Commercial Speech (speech that makes or is about an offer for a transaction) is a Two Prong Test: the first prong is to ask two questions: (1) is the speech in question about unlawful activity and (2) is the speech misleading. If “no” to both, the speech is entitled to protection unless the Government can carry its burden and prove (1) the governmental interest involved is “substantial”, (2) the regulation must “directly advance” the governmental interest and (3) the regulation of Commercial Speech cannot be “more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest” (quoting Central Hudson v Public Service, 447 US 557, at 566).

Dr. Paul’ s bills make it clear that the government has the burden of proof if it seeks to restrict what marketers say about their health related products. In this way, his bills preserve the Constitutional protections for Commercial Speech.

You can support these bills here:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27732

When you want to know what’s in your tap water, look at your local water utility’s website. You’ll find the source of the water and any chemical pollutants remaining after treatment.

It’s the law.

Many utilities also volunteer their treatment methods. Even if they’re too small to have a website, they mail out periodic water quality reports.

When you pay a premium price of up to 1900% for bottled water, you expect more.

But with rare exceptions, you get less.

All too often, you get nothing. Unless you count hyped advertising come-ons like “crisp,” pristine” or “essential.”

In our book, empty rhetoric means zero. Zip. Nada. Pure drinking water is all about the facts.

An 18-month Environmental Working Group investigation of bottled water labels and websites has found that:

* Only 2 bottled waters disclose water sources and treatment methods on their labels and offer a recent water quality test report on their websites. These best performers are:

o Ozarka Drinking Water

o Penta Ultra-Purified Water

* Just 18% of bottled waters disclose quality reports with contaminant testing results. Among them, all 8 Nestlé domestic brands surveyed:

o Poland Spring

o Nestlé Pure Life

o Arrowhead

o Calistoga

o Deer Park

o Ice Mountain

o Ozarka

o Zephyrhills

* None of the top 10 U.S. domestic bottled water brands label specific water sources and treatment methods for all their products.

EWG recommends

* Filtered tap water It saves money, it’s purer than tap water, and it helps solve the global glut of plastic bottles.

* Stronger federal standards for bottled water to enforce the consumer’s right to know all about bottled water — where it comes from, what’s been done to it, if anything, and what trace pollutants lurk inside.

Until the federal Food and Drug Administration cracks down on water bottlers, use EWG’s What’s in My Bottled Water guide to find brands with high scores for disclosing full water source, treatment and quality and that use advanced treatment methods to remove a broad range of pollutants.

Use the search box below to check out how your water rates from EWG, The Environmental Working Group.

Children’s bath products are often marketed as safe and gentle. However, laboratory tests commissioned
by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found these products are commonly contaminated with formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane – and, in many cases, both. These two chemicals, linked to cancer and skin allergies, are anything but safe and gentle and are completely unregulated in children’s bath products.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees the safety of personal care products in the U.S., but
lacks basic authority needed to ensure that products are actually safe. The FDA cannot require companies
to test products for safety before they are sold, does not systematically review the safety of ingredients and
does not set limits for common, harmful contaminants in products. The FDA also does not require
contaminants to be listed on product ingredient labels.1 As a result, consumers have no way of knowing
if their products contain toxic contaminants.This report is the first to document the widespread
contamination of children’s products with formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 1,4-dioxane is a probable carcinogen.2 The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission states that “the presence of 1,4-dioxane, even as a trace contaminant, is cause for concern.”3 1,4-dioxane is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique called ethoxylation in which cosmetic ingredients are processed with ethylene oxide. Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct,

Formaldehyde is a probable carcinogen, according to the EPA,4 though the risk of cancer from absorption
through the skin is not fully understood.5 The chemical can also trigger adverse skin reactions in children and adults who are sensitive to the chemical.6-9 Contact dermatitis specialists recommend that children avoid exposure to products containing formaldehyde.10 Formaldehyde contaminates personal care products when common preservatives, such as Quaternium-15, release formaldehyde over time in the container.
None of the products tested list formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane on the ingredient label. They are not
ingredients in the products, but are toxic byproducts of chemical manufacturing and product formulation.
To better understand the extent of the problem, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and its partner
Environmental Working Group sent samples of popular children’s bath products to Analytical
Sciences, an independent laboratory in Petaluma, Calif., to be tested. The products chosen for testing contained ingredients commonly associated with 1,4-dioxane or formaldehyde contamination.11

Click here for a complete list of products tested and their results.