Who sent in these clowns?
Are cherries unapproved drugs?
That might sound like a trick question, unless the question is being asked in a conference room at the FDA.
Cherries contain antioxidants and other anti-inflammatory components. The scientific evidence behind that statement is irrefutable. But when owners of cherry orchards made antioxidant and anti-inflammatory claims and backed them up with evidence, the FDA ruled that the claims "cause your products to be drugs."
So the trick answer to the trick question is: Yes -- cherries are drugs that, so far, have no FDA approval.
Does that sound crazy? We're just getting started.
Spud love
Recently, Dannon settled a dispute with the FDA by paying out $21 million to several states where the company had advertised Activia yogurt and DanActive dairy drink. In those ads they said the products, "help regulate your digestive system...naturally."
That claim is based on what we know about the benefits of living cultures in probiotics.
But the FDA decided that Dannon was actually claiming that "Activia provided consumers with bowel movements at fixed, uniform or normal intervals." Clearly, that was not the case, but the agency's absurd decision ended up costing Dannon millions.
And FDA officials were just as picky and difficult when it came to walnuts.
They told walnut distributor Diamond Foods that multiple studies showing heart health benefits of walnuts were not sufficient to allow such claims on the Diamond Foods website. Again, the FDA ruled that the health claims classified walnuts as drugs.
Now...if all that seems completely bat-house crazy, brace yourself -- seriously -- because here's what the FDA allows the king of snack foods, Frito-Lay, to say about their products...
"You might be surprised at how much good stuff goes into your favorite snack. Good stuff like potatoes, which naturally contain vitamin C and essential minerals. Or corn, one of the world's most popular grains, packed with thiamin, vitamin B6, and phosphorous—all necessary for healthy bones, teeth, nerves and muscles."
Potatoes and corn -- two of the WORST foods you can eat, even before the processing begins!
So you CAN'T say cherries provide antioxidants that benefit health, but you CAN tell consumers that FRITOS help keep bones and muscles healthy.
It's lunacy! And potato chips?
As I mentioned last summer, a Harvard study found that these three food items top the list for contributing to yearly weight-gain spikes:
- Potato chips
- Potatoes (any type of serving)
- Sugar-sweetened beverages
So if you're struggling to manage your proper weight, a serving of potato chips may actually be WORSE for you than a 12-ounce Coke!
In any rational world we'd be able to storm FDA headquarters and take them all away in straitjackets.
Related articles of interest:
FDA Requires Me to Tiptoe Through My Two Lips
Foods you should eat now, before the government outlaws them!
Could This Summertime Treat Prevent a Deadly Cancer?
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
Jenny Thompson is the Director of the Health Sciences Institute and editor of the HSI e-Alert. Through HSI, she and her team uncover important health information and expose ridiculous health misinformation, most notably through the HSI e-Alert.
Visit www.hsionline.com to sign up for the free HSI e-Alert.
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Comments
Anonymous
Why I am not surprised about what all the FDA does, or not do, it is obvious they will allow something unhealthy to be claim healthy, for the simple reason to keep the population unhealthy, lots of people just because it is approved by the FDA puts blinders on, do not even give it a second thought, some of us knows full well that their blunders surpass any logic, I for one believe that their place of work lacks oxygen and that their interests is not to help the population, remember this, all drugs are a synthetic copy of natural elements the only difference is that our bodies will react against these compounds, but the composition of natural elements our bodies absorb easily, take aloe vera it has so many beneficial properties that we can actually classify as a natural drug, now you try to replicate and it becomes a synthetic drug, it is so simple even a fourth grader will understand yet these people do not comprehend, it is amazing. JAM
Biomechanism
As we all know, FDA rulings are somewhat bias. Cherries has one of the most powerful anti-inflammatories properties, and help prevent free radical damage. Most herbs and exotic fruits are naturally medicinal, they are the original source of prescribed drugs if we dig further. Honestly speaking, FDA can't be serious. People open your eyes, avoid taking prescribed drugs with side effects - go straight to the natural source: fruits, veggies, and herbs!
Bob@gmail
very interesting art
Bob@gmail
Well I meant, to say very interesting article.
MRSA treatment Michelle
Having worked in the Pharmaceutical world for 10 years, what the FDA ruled about cherries makes perfect sense. I'm not saying I like the ruling or agree with how the FDA works, but the ruling is internally consistent with FDA regulations.
Saying that cherries contain antioxidants is not a problem to the FDA. Saying that antioxidants are necessary for your health is not a problem either. But claiming that your product helps a medical condition is a problem to the FDA.
The key is in the claiming. It is sort of irrelevant if cherries really do help people with medical conditions or not, at least to the FDA. What is relevant to the FDA is the claim that was made about the product.
Any product claiming to help with a medical condition is classified as a "drug" by the FDA. Unfortunately, it is very expensive and time consuming to perform all the work required by the FDA to get a product approved as a drug so that medical claims can legally be made.
As a result, the system is inherently biased toward pharmaceuticals, because drug companies have lots of money to afford all the required work for FDA approval. Because there's less money to be make in non-patentable natural products, companies that make them can rarely afford FDA approval as a drug.
I believe that most people in the FDA are trying to protect the public as best they can from within their paradigm of health. But that paradigm is limited and overdue for change.
Here's the crux of the matter: how can the U.S. allow natural products to make legitimate health claims without having to go through the long and expensive conventional FDA approval process?
Finding a workable answer to this question will give natural products an even footing with pharmaceutical drugs as legitimate solutions for health problems. It's going to take a shift in paradigm about health to make it happen. I believe that shift has already started in the public and I'm confident it will move into our health system eventually.
Michelle
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