Suffolk Life Newspapers May 17, 2006

A Question for Senator Clinton

by Rick Shalvoy

Senator Hillary Clinton recently hosted an open-to-all conference call focused on health care in America. While registering for the call, I submitted the following question prefaced by the following introduction to emphasize the enormity of the impact my question might have for the future health of all Americans:

H.R. 4282, the Health Freedom Protection Act, introduced by Congressman Ron Paul, M.D. (R-TX) et al., is clearly the most important piece of health-related legislation in Congress at this time. The act would allow dietary supplement producers to exercise their First Amendment right to notify the public when scientific evidence regarding a supplement's health benefits has been validated.

All such claims would be scrutinized by the FDA before being approved, and the FDA would retain its authority to attack false or misleading claims. The agency would not, however, be able to continue its present practice of either completely prohibiting or arbitrarily censoring all dietary supplement health claims, which it has done even when overwhelming evidence confirms lifesaving health benefits accompanied by huge health care cost reductions.

Federal censorship of the valid claim that adequate consumption of omega-3 fatty acids significantly reduces the risk of sudden death heart attack, for example, absolutely contributes to the fact that America's heart attack death rate remains so appallingly high. During the past 12 years, while heart attacks have taken the lives of an estimated 6 million Americans, we have known all along that a substantial percentage of these deaths could have been prevented with the omega-3 nutritional intervention. Why, then, does the FDA-approved language for omega-3 fatty acids shortchange the truth that can literally save lives?

While acknowledging my StopFDACensorship.org membership, I must tell you that I am not a paid lobbyist or a dietary supplement industry insider. I'm a cancer survivor who supports clinical and in vitro cancer research.

Dietary supplements that happen to be extraordinarily effective as anti-cancer agents would represent an enormous economic threat to the therapeutic sector and to the many people who have collectively invested astronomical amounts of money in the public corporations that profit from the cancer therapy status quo. If such supplements exist, they should be thoroughly studied and the data should be published.

In fact, such supplements do exist, and the FDA is doing everything in its unrestrained power to undermine these supplements by sabotaging the science that supports their safety and efficacy.

One characteristically vicious campaign began on the morning of February 16, 2005 with an ambush at the home of a board-certified oncologist in Reno, Nevada, who is using a remarkably safe palladium lipoic supplement to save the lives of many Stage IV cancer patients -- patients who have already tried and failed conventional therapy. This oncologist, Dr. James Forsythe [Retired Colonel, U.S. Army Medical Corps], has been conducting an outcome-based cancer study and periodically reporting the unprecedented data to his colleagues.

Federal agents forced Dr. Forsythe to lie down on the floor of his home exercise room, held a gun to his head and raided his entire house while another squad was raiding his medical offices, seizing confidential patient files, computers, and many other business and personal items, obviously terrifying his wife, staff and patients in the process. The government's attempt to justify these horrific raids is mind-bogglingly absurd, involving some convoluted story about "the supplier of one of his suppliers." Although the "supplier's supplier" story has absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Forsythe's impeccably administrated cancer study, obstructing the cancer study ultimately became the focus of the raiders' obsession.

The FDA's seek-and-destroy tentacles have now stretched from Nevada to New York. Once again finding the science to be unblemished, the FDA has resorted to intimidation tactics to make life miserable for a prominent scientist at Stony Brook University who has identified exactly how palladium lipoic complexes induce apoptosis (cellular suicide) in cancer cells while supporting natural healing processes in normal cells.

An enacted Health Freedom Protection Act may clear the way for the free flow of truthful health information, but the FDA's outrageous abuse of power will likely intensify as the agency will surely redouble its efforts to attack scientists who are engaged in research that may give rise to such information.

In this great nation, government censorship that contributes to our horrendous morbidity and mortality statistics and police-state raids on the homes and offices of honorable, superbly credentialed health care professionals are atrocities of unspeakable magnitude.

My question, Senator, is simply this:

Will you please continue to fight for the health and freedom of all Americans by sponsoring the Health Freedom Protection Act in the Senate?

Senator Clinton did not address my question during her conference call, but I think she's working on it. Hillary has a history of becoming actively involved when she sees an opportunity to save lives, prevent suffering and nosedive the cost of health care.