Free Republic

Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police. Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies. The same goes for restaurants. It’s not just the usual suspected foods that are being targeted, such a thin mint cookies sold by scouts or M&Ms and Snickers, which sponsor cars in the Sprint Cup, but pretty...

AUSTIN, TX - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expected to issue its new proposed rule for mandatory animal traceability very shortly. While USDA already has traceability requirements as part of existing animal disease control programs, the proposed framework goes much further to require animal tagging and tracing even absent any active disease threat. The framework has raised significant concerns among family farm and ranch advocates, who criticize the agency for failing to provide a coherent, factual explanation for the new program’s necessity. “USDA brags about the success of past programs, but has abandoned the principles that made them...

And with that budget hit, the so-called “food safety” law can’t be implemented—and no money to approve Frankenfish! This is huge! Last week the House of Representatives passed the agriculture funding bill for fiscal year 2012, and the bill included a gigantic cut in FDA’s budget. This is particularly significant because they were tasked with implementing most of the provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act that Congress passed last year. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cost of implementing the Food Safety act would be $1.4 billion over five years. The whopping $285 million budget cut makes it...

The federal government has a growing interest in the eating habits of Americans for the same reason it has an interest in tobacco consumption, said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The reason is money, because three-quarters of medical-spending is driven by chronic diseases, such as obesity and tobacco-related diseases, she said. Sebelius’ comments came at the tail-end of Tuesday’s White House press conference where officials showcased nine new photos that must be carried on cigarette packs. Officials used a survey of 18,000 people to find the images that would have the most distressing...

Dozens of new designs were made, but a winner has been chosen! All kidding aside, I mentioned last November that large labels like the one above are coming... Beginning September 2012, FDA will require larger, more prominent cigarette health warnings on all cigarette packaging and advertisements in the United States. These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years and are a significant advancement in communicating the dangers of smoking. From the FDA "These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years." It would be frightening if boredom with the...

June 20, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – U.S. scientists reported last week they have been able to develop potentially “self-healing” lasers that could be used in the human body for treating diseases such as cancer.  The lasers, however, use human embryonic cells in a controversial experiment that has not yet been approved by the FDA. The experiment findings were published this month in the Nature Photonics journal, by physicists Malte C. Gather and Soek Hyun Yun of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital.  “This is the first time that we have used biological materials to build a laser...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - In the most significant change to U.S. cigarette packs in 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released nine new warning labels that depict in graphic detail the negative health effects of tobacco use. Among the images to appear on cigarette packs are rotting and diseased teeth and gums and a man with a tracheotomy smoking. Also included among the labels are: the corpse of a smoker, diseased lungs, and a mother holding her baby with smoke swirling around them. They include phrases like "Smoking can kill you" and "Cigarettes cause cancer" and feature...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Coming to a store near you: nine more reasons not to smoke. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday is set to release nine new graphic health warning labels for U.S. cigarette packs, representing the most significant change to cigarette packs in more than 25 years. The new labels will take up half of a pack of cigarettes and also will appear on advertisements. Cigarette makers have until the fall of 2012 to comply. Mandates for new warning labels were part of a 2009 law giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco. The announcement follows reviews...

How many of you have not been able to get a drug you needed to properly deliver anesthesia to a patient?” I asked. Every hand in the room went up. “How did that affect your patients?” I asked. “Two of our patients died,” one woman answered. I was speaking to a group of nurse anesthetists, enrolled in a business management program at Marshall University in West Virginia. I wish I could say their experience is unusual. It isn’t. About 90 percent of all the anesthesiologists in the country report they are experiencing a shortage of at least one anesthetic. Drug...

This is a link to a free viewing of a very interesting documentary about a doctor in Texas who seems to have discovered an amazingly effective tool to fight cancer. I am in the middle of watching it, but just watched an undeniable Atlas Shrugged moment that moved me to post it here.... It will only be free to view until midnight tonight. Thought provoking stuff here, and I will be interested to hear what ya'll think.

Senator Snowe said a proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) limiting total servings of starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, green peas, and lima beans) to one cup per week and eliminating these vegetables from breakfast meals is not grounded in scientific data and does not make economic sense. In letters to First Lady Michelle Obama, founder of the Let’s Move campaign, and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Senator Snowe urged reevaluation of the nutritional and economic impacts of this proposal. Senator Snowe recently joined her colleagues in calling on President Obama to resolve a discrepancy within the Administration regarding...

FDA announces review of birth control pills over serious blood clot risks by Peter J. Smith Wed Jun 01 5:32 PM EST WASHINGTON, D.C., June 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Federal drug regulators are now reviewing studies that say some modern birth control pills may pose a serious risk of clots to women who take them. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that they were conducting a safety review of birth control products containing drospirenone, a synthetic female sex hormone or progestin. German pharmaceutical maker Bayer’s oral contraceptives Yaz, Yasmine, Safyral, Beyaz, and their generics are part...

Federal authorities have seized bottles and drums of elderberry juice concentrate from a Kansas winery, contending that the company's claims of its benefits for treating various diseases make the product a drug. (snip) The government contends the juice concentrate is an unapproved and misbranded drug because the winery claims it is used to treat diseases such as the flu, cancer and AIDS. "Products with unapproved disease claims are dangerous because they may cause consumers to delay or avoid legitimate treatments, Dara Corrigan, the FDA's associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, said in a news release. "The FDA is committed to protecting...

ObamaCare supporters fervently believe that science will prevail in systems that are controlled by politicians. It is usually the unstated assumption behind their arguments defending the Independent Payment Advisory Board. They seem to believe it so blindly that they can’t see evidence to the contrary even when it is right in front of their noses.

The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for the spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses. Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations. “Four Loko didn’t have the extraordinary intoxicating effect because of caffeine, but rather because of the phenomenon of situational...

Four weeks after the government moved to shut down Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, unpasteurized milk across state lines, angry moms who made up much of his customer base rallied on the Capitol’s grounds Monday to demand that Congress rein in the food police. The moms milked a cow just across the street from the Senate and served up gallons of fresh milk, playfully daring one another to drink what, if sold across state lines, would be considered contraband product. “The FDA really screwed up this time. They got between a mom and a farmer,” said Mark McAfee,...

Like a single worn edge of a roof tile on a windy day, the town of Sedgwick, Maine invites the winds of change to tear off entirely the roof of the federal government's growing tyranny over every aspect of our daily lives. Sedgwick decided to go to the literal root of the matter, declaring "food sovereignty" over agriculture and it's trade locally. Thrusting the responsibility and liability on sellers and buyers - as would be indicative of any free society - Sedgwick's new ordinance undermines entirely state and federal licensing and regulatory regimes. Few could argue that we as informed...

For Immediate Release: May 6, 2011Media Inquiries: Erica Jefferson, 301-796-4988, erica.jefferson@fda.hhs.govConsumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDAFDA clears first test to quickly diagnose and distinguish MRSA and MSSA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today cleared the first test for Staphylococcus aureus (S.aureus)  infections that is able to quickly identify whether the bacteria are methicillin resistant (MRSA) or methicillin susceptible (MSSA).There are many different types of Staphylococci bacteria, which cause skin infections, pneumonia, food and blood infections (blood poisoning). While some S.aureus infections are treated easily with antibiotics, others are resistant (MRSA) to commonly prescribed antibiotics such as penicillin and amoxicillin. The KeyPath MRSA/MSSA...

Only about half of new drugs approved in the last decade had comparative effectiveness data available at the time of their approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and approximately two-thirds of new drugs had this information available when alternative treatment options existed, according to a study in the May 4 issue of JAMA. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110503161400.htm

Milk might do a body good, but if it’s unpasteurized milk sold by an Amish farmer across state lines, it’s a whole other story… or at least according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Washington Times reports: A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.The product in question: unpasteurized milk.It’s a battle that’s been going on...