The Senate Bill 3546 (SB3546) travesty was signed into law just as stealthily as Congress passed it with their vote to pass it without a vote. This bill is a hostile action against dietary supplements and the availability of these to consumers.
The White House daily publishes notice of bills that are signed and usually with some blurb about the benefit of the bill.
The president can kill a bill after Congress passes it by a veto or by not signing a bill after a limited period of time which is called a pocket veto.
Normally the White House announces bill signings with the bill numbers. On the cusp of the deadline for a pocket veto of SB3546 an unusual notice appeared from the White House, “Statement by the Press Secretary on Bill Signings”.
The unusual statement from the Press Secretary was a lengthy list of multiple bills with only a single, partial statement, “On Friday, December 22, 2006 the President signed into law:” These were listed only by number and title with not so much as a blurb about benefit from any of these mostly innocuous bills. W-a-a-a-y down near the bottom of the list was SB3546.
Just prior to scurrying away for Christmas break President Bush signed away yet another portion of American freedom adding his own cowardly action to those of the Congressional cowards that passed this bill by taking a vote to pass it without taking a vote on it.
Senate Bill 3546 blurs the lines between drug damage and harm from supplements. It allows for nutrients to be blamed for injuries caused by drugs.
Tens of thousands of Americans die and are hospitalized due to drug injury EVERY WEEK from government approved drugs as documented by medical authorities. There are not even ten deaths in one entire year or even in multiple years from dietary supplements. There should be more efforts to stop the countless, continuous waves of deaths and injuries from drugs – much more efforts – rather than any effort to “protect” consumers from the barely detectable ripple of harm alleged from dietary supplement use.
The War OF Drugs ON America
The day after Christmas a prominent headline noted, “Osteoporosis drug gives lasting protection”. The article promoted a study on the Merck drug Fosamax published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The “news” article (media propaganda) declared that Fosamax protected “women from broken bones for five years after they stopped using it”.
The actual data revealed that more than 1,000 elderly women were divided into two groups. One was given Fosamax for 10 years. The other group took Fosamax for 5 years and then was switched without their knowledge to a placebo for the next 5 years. It was reported that “the bone fracture rates for both groups were basically equal.” This shows that taking Fosamax or NOT taking Fosamax doesn’t make any difference for protection against bone fractures!
By the way, the study was funded BY Merck.
Also by the way, at about this same time a class action lawsuit against Fosamax for causing bone loss was reported in another news report though it received scant attention.
On the same day after Christmas another study noted that those taking popular anti-heartburn drugs had a dramatically increased risk for hip fractures. That article was also published in JAMA regarding a study on about 150,000 individuals.
Medical madness continuing
On New Year’s Eve it was reported that doctors are now newly recommending that all pregnant women be screened for a Down Syndrome baby rather than just those around 40 years of age and older when Down Syndrome predominantly occurs. More tests for all rather than just a few means a lot more monetary allotment for all these doctors! It was noted that there is now another procedure besides amniocentesis and the risks that accompany that traditional procedure.
Yet right after New Year’s there was much fanfare in the news about embryonic stem cells being found to be available through amniotic fluid. It was noted that in this way babies would not die in providing stem cells. Yet accessing the amniotic fluid has traditionally been restricted because of the risk to the baby that includes death by miscarriage as reported only a few days earlier.
Also, the alleged benefit of embryonic stem cells from amniotic fluid was noted by the researchers of the study as being many years away from even being tested in humans. This fact was omitted in all but one of the many reports I heard or read on the subject.
Happy Holidays? Perhaps for that unholy trinity of BIG government, BIG pharma and BIG media that acts together as one for their own vested interests that are decidedly against the very best interests of you and of yours.
