|
LE Magazine January 1998
As We See It
An Archaic System
The idea of the Food and Drug Administration determining
which health and medical therapies should be made available to
Americans may have been serviceable 50 years ago when far less
medical research was being conducted, and home computers and
the Internet hadn't yet been invented.
Today, however, the idea of the FDA controlling the
availability of new therapies is utterly absurd. There are
thousands of new health and medical studies published weekly,
regular breakthroughs in prevention and treatment, advances in
aging research, and a system that puts much of this
information at the fingertips of anyone with a computer and a
modem.
We've written extensively about the harm caused by the
FDA's longstanding bias against dietary supplements, the
agency's cozy relationship with large pharmaceutical
companies, and its illegal and unconstitutional acts against
Americans and (lately) citizens of other countries as
well.
It's important to understand, however, that even if the
bias and corruption of the FDA were entirely eliminated, the
system itself would remain archaic and obsolete. In order to
better understand why this is so, let's take a look at how the
system operates.
All health and medical therapies go through an extensive
and complex FDA approval process-which costs vast amounts of
money and a great deal of time-before the public is permitted
access to the therapy. The costs of this process must be borne
entirely by the company that wants to offer the therapy to the
public. This makes it extremely difficult for small companies
to obtain approval for therapies, and gives the large
companies huge advantages. Yet, it is usually small,
innovative companies that develop the most exciting
breakthroughs.
Plus, there is the vast number of approval applications
stemming from the explosion of new health and medical
breakthroughs. The FDA has traditionally taken a leisurely,
highly cautious approach to the approval of new therapies, but
in recent years they've been overwhelmed by an onslaught of
new applications for approval of therapeutic claims, causing
long delays.
Also, the increasing percentage of health and medical
breakthroughs with nutrients and other natural products simply
don't fit into the current regulatory scheme. With the
emerging availability of phytochemical and herbal extracts to
add to vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fatty
acids, there are now hundreds of natural therapies-often with
a history of medical use that goes back thousands of
years-which are being proved effective for a wide variety of
conditions and diseases.
It is clearly in the public interest to have information
about these therapies readily available so that doctors and
their patients can decide for themselves if they want to try
them.
Just this past autumn, for example, studies have been
published showing that vitamin E can prevent heart attacks,
ginkgo biloba can slow the progression of Alzheimer's
disease, N-acetylcysteine can prevent flu symptoms,
carotenoids such as lutein can prevent macular
degeneration of the eye, and soy extracts can prevent
various types of cancer . . . to name only a few recent
findings.
These therapies are safe, have multiple health benefits,
and can be purchased easily at affordable prices. It is both
inappropriate and impractical to require government"approval"
(or any other kind of approval) for the use of these therapies
in preventing and treating diseases. To do so would be to
sacrifice people's lives needlessly.
Saul Kent
President
Life Extension Foundation
Back to the
Magazine Forum
|