One of the worst things about FTC censorship of supplements is the attempt to take control of our health out of our hands and put it into the hands of those who may not have our best interests at heart. Many notables have warned us of this possibility. Some warnings were as long ago as the founding of the country.

 Benjamin Rush, M.D., signer of the Declaration of Independence, and personal physician to President George Washington, had this to say:

 “Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship… To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic…The Constitution of this republic should make a special privilege for medical freedom…”

 Well, the “undercover dictatorship” he refers to is now established. However, although it appears that the art of healing is dominated by ‘one class of men’, M.D.s, there is another dictatorship that more closely fits the ‘undercover’ element – the institution called Big Pharma.

 In fact, this undercover dictatorship is not as undercover as it desires to be, but it does get pretty clever.

 Television ads for drugs, for example, make it look like drugs will give us a much better life. And, yes, they can be pretty convincing. Studies show that more than 50% of those who request drugs from their doctor say they saw the drug on TV. Some say the drug ad even convinced them they have a problem.

 But when you look at the actual studies upon which the FDA approval of some drugs was based, including those studies that were never published, you often find that the drugs are not what they appear.

 Antidepressants, for example, have often been found no more effective than placebos. Some studies even found placebos work better. And we’re not talking about just a few studies: One analysis on Xoloft research found that more than 50% of the clinical studies concluded that Xoloft wasn’t any better than placebos.

 And, by the way, 40% of the Xoloft clinical studies that were part of that research had never been published. They weren’t easy to get hold of either; they had to be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Not surprisingly, the unpublished studies largely failed to show that Xoloft had any benefits.

 So, yes, Big Pharma is clever. But along with those millions of people who watch TV, go to their doctor and say “I want this drug,” there are also millions of others who are onto the game.

 Until fairly recently, the people who understood the game weren’t really part of the general public. Unless you do a little research, you don’t really find out about undisclosed studies, placebos and so on. The information isn’t hidden, but you do have to have your ear to the ground.

 But if someone else did that research, which more and more people are doing, and told you about it, if they told you that more than 1/2 the studies done on Xoloft showed it doesn’t do anything, wouldn’t you think twice about taking Xoloft?

 

And wouldn’t you consider taking a natural supplement like St. John’s Wort, which has been prescribed for depression by doctors in Europe for decades, if you were told that it has also been in studies with Xoloft and found to be just as effective?

 And wouldn’t you consider taking something other than Xoloft if you knew that Big Pharma spent $7.5 billion on TV advertising that was specifically designed to make you feel like you have an illness and get you to go to your doctor to tell him you want the advertised drug?

 You’d begin to distrust those ads, and the drugs. Wouldn’t you?

 And if you knew that not one death occurred last year as a result of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, herbs or any other nutritional supplement but $100s of millions of dollars were paid out by drug companies in lawsuits over injuries and deaths caused by their products, wouldn’t you think twice about switching to supplements?

 You would. And Big Pharma knows it.

 In recent years public awareness of the dangers of drugs has increased. ‘Natural’, ‘organic’, and ‘green’ are gaining in popularity and more of more of the general public are searching for non-drug solutions. And the FTC has somehow gotten caught in the same trap as the FDA – being dictated to by Big Pharma by censoring natural remedies.

 In all fairness, the FTC also takes positive action. But FTC censorship of supplements isn’t one of them. Really, it’s the wrong target. If the goal of a healthier population is to be realized, the correct entity to put under the microscope is Big Pharma.

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