I don't understand....
Mar. 8th, 2003 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
niankhsekhmetEvery day I respect the US government less and less. I think Im seeing the level of hypocricy go to new extremes. The latest is the newest set of proposals by the FDA for regulating the supplements even further. Nevermind the inroads we made years ago with the DSHEA law - that will be left in the dust. The FDA - an appointed body that is FOR SALE to the highest bidder in the pharmaceutical industry whenever it is polticially and fiancially expedient is doing its level best to bring to an end the last remaining vestiges of self reliance through herbalism and holistic healing. The latest of proposed guildeines for manufacturing of herbs and supplements... aka "if you can't play in the lab with the big boys, get out of the kitchen.... literally.
Joyce from the Herb list posted the following URLS's to the list this one from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/882166.asp
Then of course there is the ever-popular FDA home page of that "lovely" agency itself:
http://www.fda.gov/default.htm
This bit of news is right at the top, FDA Proposes Labeling and Manufacturing Standards for All Dietary Supplements
There is a PDF file that is over 500 pages that I am STILL downloading.
Comments and protests from the public can be recorded for a mere 90 days at:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/voice.html
After such time, I doubt with what is going on in Iraq too many of the laypublic or even the grass roots motivated people will even care. The FDA will do what it wants - which is really not so much what the agency or the people want, but rather what the big business, corporate interests would like them to do.
If all this means that I am turning to a life of crime by being a traditional healer and herbalist....so be it.
I think I am going to move to another country. Right now this one is becoming more and more depressing. I hear land in Brazil is going for $200 an acre.
I hear people dribbling on and on about how America is the land of the free and home of the brave, etc...and yet we are so limited, and so many of our freedoms are being taken away on a grand scale and few if any people are paying any attention! I have to go to a doctor to get a prescription because the herbs I take are not properly prepared or labeled? Baby, I know more about tincturing and formulating than your average person, because I grew up with it! I trust my formulas more than I do something a doctor wrote me a prescription for!! I know Im getting the whole herb, not just an isolated constituent, which may or may not help me at all.
During the 80's and 90's around many of the pagan communities we heard the battle cry - "Never Again the Burning". That was then all about religious rights, and the freedom to have the religious beliefs you want - without the right wing conservatives shoving their religion sideways down our throats. In case you all have forgotten, this reached a fevered pitch under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. While that is important, this - the issue of health freedom, the ability to choose and to find out is of equal importance. What this proposed legislation means potentially is that if we assist the people in our villages as village heralists for example, we can get busted and go to jail if we don't have the proper facility to test the products. If mr FDA-agent man comes into our stores he can shut us down. This is no different than the latest National Organic Product Standards, where it costs each "Organic Producer" to shell out over $1,000 each year to be certified as "Organic"...never mind that Pychadelic and Flower Tiedye have been growing organic foods since the early sixties at their commune...they can't now. They are not ALLOWED to say that they are organic farmers anymore because they don't have the proper piece of paper from the Federal Government. Never mind that they have been doing it for over 30 years - too bad if they cannot afford such designation, there is no "grandfathering in" of organic producers that have done it before it was cool, and whose products and reputations were unquestionable...the government has got to get their piece of the pie.
Is it just me or does this sort of remind anyone else of the Soviet Union when the joke was if you went there to visit or if you were even a resident in order to travel you had to, "show your papers, please" !?
Freedom? I guess I was raised with a far different definition of what that is than what I have seen in this country lately.
Joyce from the Herb list posted the following URLS's to the list this one from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/882166.asp
Then of course there is the ever-popular FDA home page of that "lovely" agency itself:
http://www.fda.gov/default.htm
This bit of news is right at the top, FDA Proposes Labeling and Manufacturing Standards for All Dietary Supplements
There is a PDF file that is over 500 pages that I am STILL downloading.
Comments and protests from the public can be recorded for a mere 90 days at:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/voice.html
After such time, I doubt with what is going on in Iraq too many of the laypublic or even the grass roots motivated people will even care. The FDA will do what it wants - which is really not so much what the agency or the people want, but rather what the big business, corporate interests would like them to do.
If all this means that I am turning to a life of crime by being a traditional healer and herbalist....so be it.
I think I am going to move to another country. Right now this one is becoming more and more depressing. I hear land in Brazil is going for $200 an acre.
I hear people dribbling on and on about how America is the land of the free and home of the brave, etc...and yet we are so limited, and so many of our freedoms are being taken away on a grand scale and few if any people are paying any attention! I have to go to a doctor to get a prescription because the herbs I take are not properly prepared or labeled? Baby, I know more about tincturing and formulating than your average person, because I grew up with it! I trust my formulas more than I do something a doctor wrote me a prescription for!! I know Im getting the whole herb, not just an isolated constituent, which may or may not help me at all.
During the 80's and 90's around many of the pagan communities we heard the battle cry - "Never Again the Burning". That was then all about religious rights, and the freedom to have the religious beliefs you want - without the right wing conservatives shoving their religion sideways down our throats. In case you all have forgotten, this reached a fevered pitch under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. While that is important, this - the issue of health freedom, the ability to choose and to find out is of equal importance. What this proposed legislation means potentially is that if we assist the people in our villages as village heralists for example, we can get busted and go to jail if we don't have the proper facility to test the products. If mr FDA-agent man comes into our stores he can shut us down. This is no different than the latest National Organic Product Standards, where it costs each "Organic Producer" to shell out over $1,000 each year to be certified as "Organic"...never mind that Pychadelic and Flower Tiedye have been growing organic foods since the early sixties at their commune...they can't now. They are not ALLOWED to say that they are organic farmers anymore because they don't have the proper piece of paper from the Federal Government. Never mind that they have been doing it for over 30 years - too bad if they cannot afford such designation, there is no "grandfathering in" of organic producers that have done it before it was cool, and whose products and reputations were unquestionable...the government has got to get their piece of the pie.
Is it just me or does this sort of remind anyone else of the Soviet Union when the joke was if you went there to visit or if you were even a resident in order to travel you had to, "show your papers, please" !?
Freedom? I guess I was raised with a far different definition of what that is than what I have seen in this country lately.
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-08 06:47 pm (UTC)The way the law is presently written anyone indicted of a federal
level felony can have his/her properties seized and sold at auction.
The way the law is written now the appearance of crimes or the associating with terrorists can make you a terrorist and thus eligible, for arrest.
I will go on when my migraine clears. Right now I agree with you.
Well are no longer a republic, let alone a democracy.
Senebty,
Sekhmet-Serqet
no subject
Date: 2003-03-08 07:05 pm (UTC)