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Conventional medicine

Electronic medical device proven to treat depression suddenly denied approval by FDA

Thursday, August 19, 2004
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: conventional medicine, chronic depression, electromedicine


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A medical device company known as Cyberonics, Inc. is outraged at a recent FDA decision to deny approval for an electromedicine device that treats depression in patients. The device stimulates the vagus nerve and had been clinically shown to effectively treat depression as well as or better than antidepressant drugs. But the device uses no drugs whatsoever -- rather, it uses electrical stimulation, which is a part of a growing trend in pioneering medicine called electromedicine.

What's interesting here is that the FDA's own panel of experts, which reviews both medical devices and drugs for either approval or denial, had initially recommended that the FDA approve this device. But in a last minute change, someone higher up in the FDA blocked the approval, going against the full recommendation of the FDA's own panel of experts. This is something that rarely happens.

Executives at Cyberonics have their theories for why this device may have been blocked for approval by the FDA, but I have my own theory: electromedicine competes with prescription drugs. If a device can stimulate the nerve of a depressed patient and give them effective treatment, then that patient very likely won't need to be taking prescription drugs like Prozac and Paxil. And there's no recurring revenue in an electrostimulating device -- a patient buys it once, and from that point forward, treatments are essentially free, because electricity is virtually without cost.

Prescription drugs, on the other hand, are very expensive and must be taken over and over again -- sometimes for a lifetime -- by patients who believe the advice of their doctors. Therefore, the FDA denied approval of this device in order to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, which of course seems to be the primary mission of the FDA based on agency actions we have observed over the past several years. That's not a new idea, either -- more and more critics are speaking out against the FDA, and noting that the FDA seems far more interested in protecting the profits of Big Pharma than protecting the health of the public.

Clearly, if an electrostimulating device could safely help patients with depression, it would be in the interest of public health to approve it. It would also be a financial benefit to people if they could buy a device with a one-time payment rather than shelling out monthly payments for overpriced prescription drugs. Again, this is only my theory, but I think that is precisely why the FDA blocked the approval of this device, and I have little doubt that executives from Cyberonics, Inc. privately agree with this assessment.


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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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