"What I'd Put On A Non-FDA-Approved Medicine Package" by Pete Hendrickson

Date:   5/18/2013 4:47:48 AM ( 11 y ago)

You've probably seen the FDA "disclaimer" label before:

"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

Pete Hendrickson writes:

What struck me about this disclaimer was its inherent denigration of the product (which certainly IS intended to treat a disease) and its simultaneous elevation of the state. I was also struck by what was left unsaid, and that I believe ought to accompany and dramatically overshadow this protectionism-payoff disclaimer (which is added to forestall an assault on the manufacturer by bureaucratic thugs on the pretense that without it, the product must be falsely seeking to present itself as being "FDA approved").

For instance, would it not be appropriate to add the following?
"We are obliged to make this disclaimer because the state will pretend that without it we would be trying to fool you into thinking our fine product has been "tested" and verified as "safe" and "effective' by its politically-driven charade of a vetting process (at huge expense to you, by the way). The idea is that you should assume that products not so "tested and approved" are basically no good, despite the fact that the vast majority of things that HAVE been through that testing and approval process were made or packaged and marketed for eons before the FDA was even dreamed up in 1906 (and that its real purpose at that time and since has been to harass and suppress producers disfavored by the state and to hinder newcomers from competing with established, campaign-contributing producers of the same or similar goods).

We think that on reflection you will agree that determination of "effectiveness" is not something anyone in his or her right mind wants left to the state. For one thing, this puts way too much arbitrary power in the state's hands, because "effectiveness" is a nuanced term. If "effectiveness" is defined as "providing the full range of nutritional value available in milk, undiminished by any pre-cooking", for example, then raw milk is "effective". The FDA, however, disagrees. It thinks its view of "safe" trumps YOUR view of safe and effective, and authorizes the agency to interfere with you being able to come home after a long day of hang-gliding or bungee-jumping and enjoy a nice, refreshing chock-full-of-nutrients glass of ice-cold raw milk.

...

at one time, we were capable of recognizing that even the scare stories used back in the day to foist the FDA on us were largely hype, hucksterism and hooey. "Snake oil" sometimes found a market, of course-- products like "Dr. Pepper", "Moxie" "Coca-Cola", "Fig Newtons", "Graham Crackers", "7-Up" and many more were originally marketed as medicines, some with ingredients the manufacturers would rather everyone just forgot about. ...

Because Americans were more grown-up about these things back in 1906, the FDA was stealth-marketed as merely the "Pure Food and Drug Act". As indicated by that label, the measure was ostensibly intended to do nothing more than ensure that foods and drugs crossing state lines were not "adulterated" with undeclared additives.

Unfortunately not enough of us anticipated the "mission mutation" potential of that bent-in-the-womb enactment. It is a classic irony that marketing of the FDA was among the biggest MIS-labeling scams of its time, with the bureaucracy it vomited forth quickly becoming the expensive, heavy-handed crony-capitalist, nanny-with-a-gun monster that it has remained for many decades now.

...

More:
http://losthorizons.com/MidEditionUpdate.htm#FDA




 

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