Thursday, February 12, 2009

Vitamin B-6 declared a "drug" by FDA; to be banned from vitamin supplements


Vitamin B-6 Declared a “Drug” by FDA; to be Banned from Vitamin Supplements

God help us, because the FDA has now opened the gateway for all vitamins to be declared “drugs” and removed from sale by the nutritional supplement industry.

What they have done is declared that pyridoxamine (one of the three primary forms of vitamin B-6) is in reality a “new drug,” thus clearing the way for it to be banned from sale as a nutritional supplement. (See the news article below this commentary for more details.)

Here’s what happened:

Some years back a North Carolina-based firm called Biostratum began research and testing on a pyridoxamine-based drug, which they called Pyridorin. It is designed to prevent the progression of diabetic nephropathy (kidney disease). The company then petitioned the FDA to declare pyridoxamine a “new drug,” clearing the way for them to hold an iron-clad monopoly on its sale.

Today, the FDA agreed with Biostratum, and declared this form of vitamin B-6 to indeed be a “new drug,” using the argument that its medical qualities had been under investigation for years before it was ever used as a nutritional supplement under the DSHEA, which ironically was enacted in 1994 in order to protect nutritional supplements from excessive FDA regulation.

Not to worry, said many observers in the nutritional supplement industry. After all, there are other forms of vitamin B-6 that can still be used in multi-vitamin formulations. The problem is, another drug company has already petitioned the FDA to declare the second most popular form of B-6, pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, which is also called P5P, a “new drug,” apparently for the very same reason pyridoxamine has been declared a drug, i.e., it’s purely medical qualities have been investigated long before it was ever used as a nutritional supplement.

How much longer other forms of B-6 will be declared a “drug”? You can bet your boots the pharmaceutical companies are racing to get in on the FDA’s new fast-track for turning B-vitamins into drugs.

Will All Vitamins Eventually Be Declared Drugs?

Worst of all, the very same argument being used to declare vitamin B6 a “drug” can essentially be made for any vitamin. After all, every known vitamin on the face of the earth has been studied for their medicinal qualities even since the discovery of the existence of vitamins in food back in 1905, when a scientist named William Fletcher realized that foods contained special nutrients that actually prevented disease.

It is easy to see that the day is soon-coming in which all vitamins will be offered solely as “drugs,” by prescription only.

One of the most galling aspects of the whole thing is that the FDA flatly refuses to allow nutritional supplement manufacturers to even mention the incredible medicinal values of the vitamins, minerals and other supplements they sell. Indeed, the FDA routinely claims vitamin and mineral supplements are “useless” and “inert.”Yet when a drug company develops the same natural molecule as a “drug,” suddenly its medical benefits can be touted from the rooftops. The only problem is, the drug company is given a monopoly to produce the “drug,” and what was once a natural product available inexpensively in any health food store in America is now an expensive drug you have to get a prescription for.

Drug-Induced B-6 Deficiency a Growing Phenomena

Another serious issue regarding B-6 is that a growing number of medications actually deplete the body of this vital nutrient that is absolutely essential to life. The syndrome is called Drug Induced Pyridoxine Deficiency, and several drugs, including drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis, Parkinson’s Disease and for cancer are known to cause this syndrome, which essentially turns you into a mental vegetable by depleting your body of its needed stores of vitamin B-6.

Foods that Contain Vitamin B-6 Naturally

Under the circumstances it is important to note that certain foods contain vitamin B-6 naturally. They are, in order of their content percentage of the recommended daily value of the vitamin:

Baked potato, flesh and skin, 1 medium: 0.7 mg ~ 35% DV
Banana, raw, 1 medium: 0.68 mg ~ 34% DV
Garbanzo beans, canned, 1/2 c: 0.57 mg ~ 30% DV
Chicken breast, meat only, cooked, 1/2 breast: 0.52 mg ~ 25% DV
Pork loin, lean only, cooked, 3 oz: 0.42 mg ~20% DV
Roast beef, eye of round, lean only, cooked, 3 oz: 0.32 mg ~ 15% DV
Trout, rainbow, cooked, 3 oz: 0.29 mg ~ 15% DV
Sunflower seeds, kernels, dry roasted, 1 oz: 0.23 mg ~ 10% DV
Avocado, raw, sliced, 1/2 cup: 0.2 mg ~ 10% DV
Salmon, Sockeye, cooked, 3 oz: 0.19 mg ~ 10% DV
Tuna, canned in water, drained solids, 3 oz: 0.18 mg ~ 10% DV
Peanut butter, smooth, 2 Tbs: 0.15 mg ~ 8% DV

More importantly, safe, simple Brewer’s Yeast contains relatively high levels of B-vitamins, including B-6. Capsulated Brewer’s Yeast can be purchased in just about any health food store in the country, or is available through many online sources.

What to Do Now

Legally speaking, as of today, anyone wanting to purchase the pyridoxamine form of B-6, and probably soon the P5P form, will have to have a doctor's prescription to do so.

One thing you can do is go to the web site of the American Association for Health Freedom and sign their petition to stop the FDA from turning any more vitamins into drugs.

You should also write and call your Congressmen and Senators immediately, and tell them you don’t want the FDA banning any more vitamins by turning them into “drugs.”
It is high time we all start expressing our outrage at this outlandish behavior by the FDA and other bureaucracies in regards to their disdain for nutritional supplements. We now have the EPA trying to re-classify colloidal silver as a "pesticide" so they can ban its sale in health food stores. And we have the FDA actually re-classifying common vitamins as drugs. And it is all at the behest of the major pharmaceutical companies.


The handwriting is on the wall. And frankly, it is up to "we the people" to put a stop to this egregious breach of our health freedoms.

-- S. Spencer Jones

FDA Declares Form of Vitamin B6 a Drug, Effectively Banning Pyridoxamine from Dietary Supplements
http://www.naturalnews.com/025606.html

Thursday, February 12, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The FDA has effectively banned a naturally-occurring form of vitamin B6 called pyridoxamine by declaring it to be a drug, reports the American Association for Health Freedom.
Responding to a petition filed by a drug company, the FDA declared pyridoxamine to be "a new drug."

Now, any nutritional supplements containing pyridoxamine will be considered adulterated and illegal by the FDA, which may raid vitamin companies and seize such products. See the history of FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html

Pyridoxamine occurs naturally in fish, chicken and other foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6), putting the FDA in the strange position of banning a substance from dietary supplements even though it is already present in the food supply.

The FDA's war on Mother Nature

It's not the first time the FDA has declared a natural molecule to be a "drug" while attacking nutritional supplements that contain the same molecule. A similar story unfolded with red yeast rice and the lovastatin molecules it contains that lower high cholesterol. The drug companies engaged in biopiracy, ripping off the molecule from red yeast rice to make their now-famous "statin drugs."

Once the statin drugs were patented, Big Pharma and the FDA went after red yeast rice, claiming the supplement was "adulterated with pharmaceuticals." It wasn't really adulterated, of course. It just contained a natural statin-drug-like molecule that the drug companies copied and patented.

It would be like Big Pharma patenting vitamin C, then the FDA claiming that all oranges and lemons were adulterated with drugs because they naturally contain their own vitamin C.

This is the insanity of the FDA as it operates today. You can read more about the FDA on our channel webiste www.FDAreform.org which is updated every few days.

So will this ruling on pyridoxamine affect nutritional supplements? Yes, any supplements containing this form of vitamin B6 can now be declared "adulterated" by the FDA. Manufacturers of such supplements can be arrested and shut down for engaging in "illegal drug trafficking." Such is the nature of the FDA's agenda to criminalize nutritional supplement companies and limit consumers' access to Mother Nature's remedies.

The pyridoxamine "drug," by the way (which is just pyridoxamine), is designed to prevent the progression of diabetic nephrothapy (kidney disease). Most likely, the FDA will eventually approve the "drug" for that condition, even while claiming vitamin B6 supplements containing the very same chemical are useless and inert.

This is another classic oppression tactic of the FDA: Ban the herb, but promote the drug using the same chemicals. The same thing happened with ephedra, a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb known as ma huang. The FDA banned the herb, saying it was "dangerous at any dose," but pharmaceuticals containing the very same molecules (ephedrine) are still being sold over-the-counter as cold medicines, meaning they're available to any child without a prescription.

The bottom line is this: FDA approvals and bans have nothing to do with science and everything to do with protecting drug companies profits. If a drug company can make money selling a vitamin as a drug, the FDA will gladly ban the vitamin and protect the drug. If a drug company can rip off molecules from Mother Nature and patent them, the FDA will ban those same molecules found in nature.

All of this points to the urgent need to reform the FDA. A new petition demanding real FDA reform will be announced here on NaturalNews in the coming days.

Sources for this story include:

AAHF: http://aahf.nonprofitsoapbox.com/in...

NewsFood.com: http://www.newsfood.com/?location=E...

NaturalProductsInsider.com: http://www.naturalproductsinsider.c...Buzz up!5 votes

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org

Would the medical community lie to you for money?

Would the medical community lie to you for money?

The medical community loves flawed medical studies. They use them for two specific purposes:

First, they use flawed medical studies to gain approval for dangerous prescription drugs that kill more than 100,000 Americans per year and seriously injure some 2.1 million more.

Secondly, they used flawed medical studies to “prove” that nutritional supplements and other natural healing modalities are “useless” or even “dangerous.”

In short, raw corporate greed is the main reason the medical community loves flawed medical studies. They make billions of dollars a year selling the latest prescription “miracle drugs” that get approved based upon the results of their flawed studies. And they keep millions of Americans in a constant state of ill-health by using flawed medical studies to promote the idea that better nutrition is worthless.

Only last week it was revealed by Senator Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, that doctors receiving huge pay-offs from the pharmaceutical industry (one doc got over $1.6 million in payoffs) used flawed medical studies to justify the use of potentially dangerous prescription drugs, oftentimes even on children.

Did you hear about that on the news? Probably not. And here’s why: As soon as the story broke, the orthodox medical community released their latest study claiming to demonstrate that multi-vitamins have no beneficial effects whatsoever against cardiovascular disease or cancer. And of course, the news media dutifully ate up that story, plastering it across headlines in the print and internet news media, and running the story ad nauseum on their TV news broadcasts.

Pot Calls the Kettle Black

It seems the orthodox medical community pot is always calling the natural health community kettle black, in order to protect their own turf.

It is almost a proverb that accusers with vested interests in maintaining the status quo and protecting their turf tend to reveal more about themselves in their accusations than they do about their victims. They point the finger and scream “Quackery!” and “Fraud!” at the natural health industry, when in reality it is they who are committing the quackery and fraud. Their accusations against natural health are only designed to hide their own evil doings.

The Study that Studied Nothing

In the news article below, we see the how the news media has loudly touted the latest new “study” by the medical community, which supposedly proves that multi-vitamins are useless. Yet a careful examination of the study demonstrates that absolutely nothing was actually “studied.”

In fact, far from a “study,” it was really more of a poll in which the medicrats simply asked women whether or not they take multi-vitamins and whether or not they have ever had heart disease or cancer. They then concluded that because many people who claim to have taken multi-vitamins later got either cancer or heart disease, vitamin intake must be worthless!

I wonder if they’ve ever done a poll like that, asking people if they’ve ever taken aspirin, and then asking them if they’ve ever had a headache. Obviously, just about everybody would say “yes” to both questions, and the only conclusion that could be deduced from the results would be that aspirin is useless against headaches.

Deceiving the Gullible Public Into Staying Sick and Dependent on Drugs

As usual, the medicrats know exactly what they are doing. The general public is unfortunately very gullible. They believe pretty much everything they hear on the news. And even more so if the name of a prestigious medical group or medical journal is invoked. And they never look any further into it than what their newsman tells them.

Mores the pity, because they have no idea that the medicrats have a vested financial interest in keeping them in a chronic state of ill-health, which means keeping them off of vitamins and other inexpensive nutrients that could bolster their immunity, strength and well-being.

After all, healthy people don’t make the medical community any money. Only weak, unhealthy people do.


Women's Multivitamin Study Seriously Flawed, As Usual
http://www.naturalnews.com/025576.html

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine claims that multivitamins are useless at preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease in women. The mainstream media has predictably picked up on this story, gleefully running it as "proof" that nutrition is worthless and only pharmaceuticals can enhance your health.

What they're not telling you, though, might shock you. Here's the truth about this so-called "scientific" study on multivitamins:

• No multivitamins were even used in the study! The women followed in this study weren't actually given any multivitamins at all. They were simply asked if they take multivitamins!

• There was no quality control in the study. Since no multivitamins were given to women, there was no quality control at all. Did these women take cheap, synthetic vitamins bought at Costco? Or did they take quality supplements from better sources? Nobody knows because it wasn't tracked!

• Most people SAY they take multivitamins, but don't. If you ask most people, they will TELL you they eat healthy, and that they take multivitamins. But in reality they don't. Most people greatly exaggerate the description of their own health habits.

• Multivitamin consumption FREQUENCY was not accurately measured. There was no ability of this study to reliably measure how often consumers actually took their multivitamins. Did they take them once a week? Once a month? Once a year? Even taking them once a year would have counted in this study as "taking multivitamins." Gee, no wonder the results showed no improvement...

In effect, this study did not measure the effects of multivitamins on cancer and heart disease. What it really measured was the degree to which people exaggerate their own claims of health habits, and the degree to which the mainstream media so easily falls for junk science.

The MSM remains utterly clueless about nutrition, and it simply reprints practically any study published in a medical journal, even when that study is obviously based on deceptive science and a pro-Pharma agenda.

All these attacks on vitamin C, vitamin E, antioxidants and multivitamins have the same source: The Big Pharma-funded mainstream media and its effort to try to discredit nutritional supplements in order to please advertisers.

The very idea that nutrition is bad for you but Big Pharma's chemicals are good for you is insane to begin with. But that's what they want you to believe: Nutrition isn't required in the human body, they claim. But pharmaceutical chemicals are essential!

What they want you to do is shut up, eat your (processed) food, take your (chemical) medications, get your (fraudulent) disease screening, pay your taxes, watch television ads, make more (sheeple) babies and stop questioning the status quo. And multivitamins? Stop wasting your money on them. You'll need that money to buy more monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals, after all.Buzz up!3 votes

About the author: Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org