(NaturalNews) Big Pharma is constantly finding new ways to destroy the natural supplements market, in much the same way that the American Medical Association once sought to destroy the chiropractic industry (for which it was later found guilty of conspiracy in U.S. courts, by the way). The latest attack against vitamins comes from an FDA petition filed by Medicure Pharma, Inc., which has astonishingly asked the FDA to ban the sale of Vitamin B6!
Vitamin B6, of course, is a naturally-occurring nutrient found in numerous vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Its
natural form is called
pyridoxal 5'-phosphate or
P5P for short. It's an essential nutrient for expectant mothers, growing children and anyone who wishes to be
healthy. It's absolutely crucial for healthy blood cell function, and it's used in over 100 enzymatic reactions involving protein metabolism.
So why would a pharmaceutical company petition
the FDA to outlaw the sale of this essential nutrient? It's simple: Because
Big Pharma wants to market its own form of Vitamin B6 and call it a "drug."Medicure Pharma, Inc., has been studying the clinical effects of Vitamin B6 (which they call "MC-1") on humans. This is part of a process for receiving
FDA approval on MC-1 as a "drug," and then
marketing this drug through the conventional medical system (and selling it at markups that can reach 500,000% over the cost of the actual ingredients).
This issue was reported by the
Alliance for Natural Health, an outstanding
health freedom organization that deserves your support. You can read about this Vitamin B6 issue (along with links to the petition) at:
http://www.anhcampaign.org/news/hand-pharma%E2%80%94us-citizens-have-your-sayObviously, it is in the financial interest of Medicure Pharma, Inc. to not only receive FDA approval for their "MC-1" version of Vitamin B6; it's also crucial to eliminate the competition. After all, if people knew MC-1 was just Vitamin B6, they could go out and buy it on their own, for a fraction of the price of a prescription drug. This is most likely why Medicure Pharma petitioned the FDA to outlaw Vitamin B6
supplements: It's the simplest and easiest way to eliminate the competition and guarantee
profits!
Screwy logic, biopiracy and Big Pharma scams
So what's the logic behind banning Vitamin B6? It's simple: Medicare Pharma wants the FDA to declare Vitamin B6 to be "adulterated" because it contains a drug. Which drug does it contain? Well, MC-1, of course!
Do you see the circular reasoning here? Vitamin B6 is a naturally-occurring vitamin, but if a drug company gets FDA approval on Vitamin B6 (with a different name), then that very same drug company can petition the FDA to
ban Vitamin B6, claiming it contains their drug!
I know this sounds incredibly stupid. And it is. But it isn't unprecedented. In fact, the very same thing happened with
red yeast rice.
A few years ago, drug
companies discovered that red yeast rice (a natural
supplement) contained powerful, natural compounds that balance cholesterol levels. These compounds are called
lovastatins (sound familiar?)
Drug companies ripped off the lovastatin molecules from red yeast
rice, then patented them. Once they achieved FDA approval for their "
statin drugs," it was easy to file a petition requesting the outlawing of red yeast rice, claiming the supplement was "adulterated" with
drugs! Which drugs? Statin drugs, of course -- the very same drugs that were isolated from red yeast rice in the first place!
This is why the FDA has been on a terror campaign to outlaw red yeast rice supplements. They've sent warning letters to online retailers and threatened numerous companies with legal action. The point of all this is to
eliminate red yeast rice from the marketplace because it competes with statin drugs. And it's the exact same strategy now being following by Medicure Pharma in its attempt to get the FDA to ban Vitamin B6.
Was it a move out of financial desperation?
Medicure Pharma, by the way, is losing its shirt. It recently received notice from the American Stock Exchange that it would be "delisted" because it no longer meets the minimum requirement for shareholder equity vs. ongoing fiscal losses. In other words, the company is losing too much
money and has too little shareholder equity to even stay listed in the American Stock Exchange.
This might explain its decision to petition the FDA to outlaw the sale of Vitamin B6 (P5P). If consumers were unable to buy the
vitamins, many would have no choice but to seek out the company's own patented, high-profit MC-1 version of the vitamin, and that would generate a windfall of profits!
Making money in the
pharmaceutical industry, you see, is not about helping people in any real way; it's about limiting their options, controlling the marketplace, and
forcing people to buy products from you at monopoly prices.This is, in fact, the underlying
business model of the entire pharmaceutical
industry: Selling drugs at
monopoly prices while outlawing competing products. Any approval by the FDA is, in effect, a license to engage in monopolistic market practices. And remarkably, the FDA even enforces this monopoly by threatening, intimidating and raiding the warehouses of competing product companies, especially if they're in the "natural" products industry.
Even more remarkably, the FTC, which claims to protect fair market practices in the United States, has utterly ignored the monopoly practices of Big Pharma. Yes, the same
government office that went after Microsoft for creating a "monopoly" user interface in Windows seems to have no interest whatsoever in going after drug companies engaged in widespread, fraudulent monopoly marketing practices that are bankrupting the entire nation! (How's that for selective enforcement of trade practices?)
We must either stop the FDA, or lose all access to herbs and supplements
Do you see where all this is ultimately headed? If the FDA is allowed to keep banning nutritional supplements while promoting the very same drugs synthesized from those natural sources, it could allow Big Pharma to commit widespread biopiracy, stealing all the good
medicine from nature, claiming
patent protection on the useful molecules, and getting the FDA to outlaw virtually all the natural substances from which those
medicines were first derived.
It's not a particularly brilliant strategy, but it is exceedingly effective at defrauding the public out of trillions of dollars in dishonest profits. And the fact that this is going on today gives additional support to something I've proposed for quite some time:
Ending all patent protection on medicines, genes and seeds.
I say,
there should never be a financial incentive for corporations to deny the People access to information and products that could halt disease, end suffering, and enhance their health. And yet today's conventional medical system is set up precisely to profit from the ongoing disease of the People.
It is a system that offers no cures, no education and no honest information to the public about real health solutions. It only offers a lifetime of ever-more-expensive patented pharmaceuticals that lead to a downward spiral of bad health and bad
debt until more and more American families are left diseased and penniless, victims of a profiteering system of medicine that trades lives for profits as the foundation of its business model.
It is time for radical -- revolutionary, in fact! -- changes to our system of medicine, and I believe that begins by ending all patent protection for medicines,
genes and seeds. These things belong to ALL the People, not just the rich, white fat cats who take home $300 million annual salaries by fraudulently selling dangerous prescription medications to people who are only harmed by them.
Watch
NaturalNews tomorrow, for I'll be publishing a grassroots action article that dares to call for revolutionary action designed to rebuild a new health care system following the coming
collapse of the American Empire.
You sense it coming, don't you? A year ago, you were skeptical, but now you know it's true: Skyrocketing fuel prices, hiking food prices, collapsing real estate bubbles, the demise of the U.S. dollar in international markets, failed wars and massive inflation caused by the Fed's bailout of rich white bankers... these are all signs of a modern Roman Empire that's about to collapse under the weight of its debt, disease and disastrous war mongering.
The end of American as we know it is coming. And it will be replaced by a new nation, built upon the ideas of people like you and me (those of us who can still think clearly because we're not all drugged out on Ambien...)
So read NaturalNews tomorrow to learn about what we need to do
after the coming collapse of the U.S. government to rebuild a nation based in individual liberties, Free Speech, true health and respect for
nature.
In the mean time if you want to send your comments to the FDA on this Vitamin B6 petition, the web page for you to file a comment on this Vitamin B6 issue is located here:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&...To file a comment, you have to click the little text balloon beside the phrase "Add Comments." It's difficult to find on the page, which just goes to show you that the FDA isn't really interested in people adding comments in the first place.
Be sure to also visit the Alliance for Natural Health at
www.ANHcampaign.orgCheck NaturalNews.com tomorrow for the rest of this story.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate and award-winning journalist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams launched NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video site featuring videos on holistic health and green living. He's also the founder and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and pursues hobbies such as martial arts, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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