Victory in Selenium Health Claims Case

Victory in Selenium Health Claims Case

From Life Extension:

We are pleased to report that the law firm of Jonathan Emord, Emord & Associates, has defeated the Food and Drug Administration in The Alliance for Natural Health USA v. Sebelius before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The decision issued on May 27, 2010 upsets the FDA's attempt to overturn the six prior decisions Emord has won against the agency's prior censorship of health claims. It reaffirms that the FDA is subject to the strictures of the First Amendment in its evaluation of health claims, and it faults the FDA for failing to follow that standard, holding its suppression of the selenium-cancer risk reduction claims unconstitutional.

In the present case, Emord filed suit on behalf of The Alliance for Natural Health USA; Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw; and Coalition to End FDA and FTC Censorship against the FDA, alleging that its censorship of ten selenium-cancer risk reduction claims violated the First Amendment.

In its decision, the Court held:

The Court concludes that the FDA's position fails under Pearson I. The Agency has not provided any empirical evidence, such as 'studies' or 'anecdotal evidence,' that consumers would be misled by... plaintiffs' claims were they accompanied by qualifications.... Moreover, the explanation the FDA offers to demonstrate that plaintiffs' claims are misleading – that the claims leave out pertinent information – is not support for banning the claims entirely, but rather favors the approach of remedying any potential misleadingness by disclosure of additional information.
The Court further held FDA's lengthy and misleading disclaimers unconstitutional because they were neither succinct nor accurate but defeated the meaning of the claim rather than qualified the meaning. The Court ordered the FDA to reconsider all challenged claims and come up with reasonable disclaimers to accompany them.

This decision is the seventh won by the firm for its clients in federal court challenges against FDA claim suppression. Despite the repeat victories, the FDA continues to avoid compliance with the First Amendment mandates of the courts. Emord and Associates welcomes your inquiries at (202) 466-6937.

They seriously tried to pass something like this? For what purpose? It just doesn't make any sense CS.

Dave228 - The FDA is malicious, and they're indirectly controlled by the pharmaceutical industry.
There are some good scientists in the FDA, but there are some in high places that seem to opt towards drug bias.

The FDA allowed Aspartame and Sucralose (Splenda), two artificial sweeteners that are closer to being pesticides. They allow Avandia and dozens of very dangerous drugs to be prescribed.

IH -- How do you feel about Stevia? I've been meaning to ask you about this. My wife and I are eradicating aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) from our diets and she bought some Stevia packets from Amazon for her coffee and baking.

hadrion - Stevia is okay. My favorite sweeteners are Xylitol and Whey Low, which taste much closer to sugar and are bakeable.

CausticSymmetry wrote:hadrion - Stevia is okay. My favorite sweeteners are Xylitol and Whey Low, which taste much closer to sugar and are bakeable.

Thanks. I'll add those to the list. One of my goals for our house was to get it completely aspartame free and she's on board after reading a lot of the info I've given her about aspartame.

Still can't believe the Japanese forced Coke to use Stevia in diet coke over there for years and now all of a sudden are allowing aspartame to be put in the soft drink after banning it for so long. I wonder how much Coke paid for that. I was always hoping the US was going to follow Japan's lead, but now that isn't happening.