The FDA could block compounding pharmacists from making important hormone treatment preparations that are critical for some female patients. 

The federal agency has nominated estriol, estradiol, and progesterone, among other biodentical hormones, to be added to the "Demonstrably Difficult to Compound List" - despite the fact pharmacists have been making such preparations for decades.

Learn more about the issue HERE.

That’s one takeaway from a report just issued about how to implement the sham GMO labeling law that Congress passed last year. Action Alert!

Recall that GMO labeling advocates were handed a defeat with the passage of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. It is a “labeling” law by only the slimmest definition: food companies must disclose GMO ingredients, but the consumer disclosure can take the form of a scannable QR or other electronic code on the food’s packaging.

The law stipulated that the USDA study the challenges of using such codes. What the study (conducted by giant government contractor Deloitte) found is of little surprise.

Significant deficiencies were identified in a GMO labeling system that relies heavily on QR codes to tell consumers about the contents of food. When consumers were observed trying to access the GMO disclosure, “researchers observed key technological challenges that prevented nearly all participants from obtaining the information through electronic or digital disclosure methods.” As we argued before the law passed, this was always just a ploy to enable Big Food to keep consumers from easily accessing the information they want about the food they buy.

The report provided to USDA also slights Americans’ understanding of GMOs. Quoting directly: “Though many consumers care about the issue of bioengineered food, there is limited understanding of the issue…This limited familiarity may result in soft opinions that are more likely to change over time and be sensitive to question wording. With implementation of the Law, consumer attitudes may shift as information about bioengineered food becomes more readily available.”

Translation: many Americans don’t buy the propaganda, repeated throughout the report, that “bioengineered foods are neither more nor less safe than non-bioengineered alternatives”—an assertion that is not borne out by the facts.

But don’t worry. The study recommends that a consumer education campaign be conducted to straighten us out about GMOs and QR codes. Somewhere, George Orwell is chuckling to himself.

Action Alert! Write to your elected officials and tell them that the new USDA report demonstrates that we need a GMO labeling bill that actually works. Please send your message immediately.

We must pressure the federal government to police unscrupulous global players. Action Alert!

We’ve been telling you about the influx of fake organic grain imported from overseas. It’s especially infuriating that the USDA seems to recognize this problem but is doing very little about it. A 2016 USDA report highlights one such challenge:

As organic production and consumption in Turkey grow, so too do the concerns about fraudulent organic products and lack of inspections. According to a EUROPOL report, some Turkish companies have been involved in relabeling or repackaging products as organic and bringing the counterfeit products into the European Union, even though the products do not meet the organic standards.

One Turkish organic certifier, ETKO, seems to be egregiously at fault. Canada and the European Union have singled out ETKO  for its fraudulent certifications and “decertified” the firm —meaning that ETKO-certified organic products are no longer accepted as organic.

The USDA had problems with ETKO as far back as 2009 but, instead of decertifying this company, actually reached a settlement agreement with them in 2016. The firm is now under audit by USDA. We asked the status of the audit and were told that the agency is still gathering data and will be done “soon.”

As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” ETKO appears to have  been fooling people for years, based on Canadian and European action, and it’s time for the USDA to do its job and decertify this company. Not only do consumers unwittingly purchase products falsely labeled by the government as organic, but organic farmers in the US are also affected as they have to compete with fraudulent goods.

Action Alert! Write to Congress, with a copy to the USDA, urging lawmakers to step in to protect consumers and domestic farmers by investigating and if indicated decertifying ETKO. Please send your message immediately.

That is what a Pharma firm lawsuit seeks to do. It also opens up a novel front in the war on natural products by asking the US International Trade Commission to help create a new monopoly by knocking out imported EPA, the most anti-inflammatory kind of fish oil. Urgent Action Alert!

Amarin, the maker of an omega-3 drug, is taking the first steps to corner an important part of the fish oil market by asking the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban the importation of omega-3 dietary supplements that are composed mainly of the omega-3 known as  EPA (not to be confused with the federal agency). EPA is best known for its anti-inflammatory properties. Banning one of the most anti-inflammatory of foods, with inflammation linked to so many illnesses, with so many in pain, and with a pain prescription drug crisis going on, strikes us as almost unbelievable.  Will we let another important,  affordable, natural food or supplement be turned into a costly and difficult to obtain drug?  Note also that this opens a new front in the war on natural products by going to ITC rather than the FDA or FTC to try to create a new monopoly.

Here are some more resources on the importance of omega-3’s and the differences between them.

The Caucus’s new bill ironically misses what is most needed: consumer medical freedom of choice! Action Alert!

Last week, the House Freedom Caucus took steps to move forward on an Obamacare repeal bill. It is the same bill that passed both Congressional chambers in 2015 but vetoed by President Obama.

The bill repeals the individual mandate, most Obamacare taxes, the expansion of Medicaid, and the subsidies designed to help lower and middle-income Americans purchase health insurance.

But the most important part of the bill is what is absent. If passed, the Freedom Caucus repeal bill leaves in place Obamacare regulations that govern what kind of health insurance companies can offer in the Exchanges, such as the requirement for all plans to cover “essential health benefits.”

This is the crucial point. We’ve been arguing that the single most important reform that is needed is to allow a consumer-driven health insurance market to develop alongside government-run insurance. ANH-USA has fought in particular to legalize catastrophic-only insurance policies, which are key to allowing a consumer-driven system.

Legalizing catastrophic policies is essential because they offer consumers the freedom to choose a genuine insurance plan that covers real emergencies while using Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to cover day-to-day needs. Note that HSA’s, can be used to pay for some integrative services, and if not used, can be redirected to pay for retirement. It is the consumer’s money and the consumer tends to spend it carefully.

We suspect that in the long run the consumer run system would take over, because it would bring healthcare costs down. This cannot be done under Obamacare, because that bill helped reinforce all the medical monopolies that drive up health costs.

When the Senate unveiled its health care bill, we were optimistic that a proposal from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) would have allowed catastrophic-only insurance policies. Unfortunately, the language in that bill would have put these catastrophic policies in the same risk pool as Obamacare plans, which would have meant that those purchasing the cheaper catastrophic plans would see their premiums balloon to subsidize the more expensive Obamacare plans.

Unfortunately, the Freedom Caucus bill gets us nowhere closer to a consumer-driven alternative to government-run insurance. This is discouraging. If the Freedom Caucus won’t endorse consumer freedom in medical choice, who will?

The bill faces slim chances of passing. Four GOP senators –Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Susan Collins (R-ME)—have said recently that they would oppose any bill that repealed Obamacare without including a replacement. Assuming those positions don’t change, the bill will not pass the Senate.

Action Alert! Write to your federal representatives and tell them that there cannot be any real health care reform unless a consumer-driven health care system is set up—which the Freedom Caucus repeal bill does not do. Please send your message immediately.

Please write your senators and urge them to allow a parallel healthcare system run by consumers in the next attempt to replace Obamacare. Action Alert!

As of Monday night, the Senate health bill is dead. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) joined Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) in their opposition to the current draft, meaning Sen. McConnell (R-KY) does not have the votes to bring the bill to the floor.

ANH-USA has fought in particular to legalize catastrophic-only insurance policies, which are key to allowing a consumer run system. Under Obamacare, such catastrophic policies were theoretically legal for under thirty year olds, but in practice were unaffordable, costing just as much, sometimes more, than Obamacare bronze policies.

Legalizing catastrophic policies is essential because they offer consumers the freedom to choose a genuine insurance plan that covers real emergencies while using Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to cover day-to-day needs. Note that HSA’s, can be used to pay for some integrative services, and if not used, can be redirected to pay for retirement. It is the consumer’s money and the consumer tends to spend it carefully.

Given the polarized politics of healthcare, a sensible compromise is to allow two different systems. As we’ve written previously, a parallel, free-market medical system could exist side by side with a government run system like Obamacare. Those who want what Obamacare offers could stay with it; those who want different coverage could buy their own healthcare with the catastrophic policy as a back up.

We suspect that in the long run the consumer run system would take over, because it would bring healthcare costs down. This cannot be done under Obamacare, because that bill helped reinforce all the medical monopolies that drive up health costs.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lee drafted an earlier amendment to the healthcare bill that would have allowed catastrophic plans and plans that do not need to follow certain Obamacare rules (like the requirement to provide “essential health benefits”), but Senator McConnell’s revised version of their amendment will not work. Here’s why.

The revised language lumps all non-Obamacare compliant policies in the same risk pool with Obamacare-compliant plans. This means that when older, sicker people buy the more expensive Obamacare policies, costs for insuring these individuals will be passed on to those on the cheaper catastrophic plans, resulting in higher premiums (although taxpayers will also subsidize, as the bill provides for $70 billion to help insurance companies cover high-risk individuals). This is just the same old, same old.

Under Obamacare regulations, in fact, insurers would be required to increase premiums for both catastrophic and Obamacare plans by the same percentage because they’re in a single risk pool. The end result would be catastrophic plans that are just not affordable.

Keep in mind also that, as is the case currently under Obamacare, it is the young and healthy who will largely be burdened with paying for the old and sick. This is true even though in today’s America it is the young who are poorest and the old who are best off.

There are other problems with this bill. Sen. Paul wrote eloquently how it is rife with crony capitalism. This legislation would deliver billions more taxpayer dollars to the private insurance industry. Is it really the government’s job to subsidize the profits of private insurers that are already making billions?

Before the new bill was released, we were cautiously optimistic that the Cruz/Lee proposal would create what this country sorely needs: a consumer-driven alternative to Obamacare. We hope that future attempts to reform our broken healthcare system will include such an alternative.

Action Alert! Write to your senators and urge them to legalize catastrophic policies in their own risk pool in order to allow a REAL consumer run alternative to Obamacare. Please send your message immediately.

Ranchers are suing the USDA in hopes of reinstating country of origin labeling for meat. Keep rotten meat off our plate by calling on Congress to act. Action Alert!

Earlier this month, cattlemen and rancher groups sued the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) over last year’s repeal of country of origin labeling (COOL) for meat. The lawsuit alleges that the USDA’s regulations are in violation of the Meat Inspection Act, which requires slaughtered meat from other countries to be clearly marked. The plaintiffs allege that current USDA rules allow meat from other countries to be sold with a “Product of USA” label alongside real domestic products.

Previously, Congress caved and repealed COOL when the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the law unfairly discriminated against meat from Canada and Mexico. The “logic” was that COOL infringed upon international trade obligations, entitling those countries to take retaliatory measures against US exports that amounted to billions of dollars.

Repealing COOL has undercut domestic meat production. Multinational meat companies can import meat and present it as domestic, rather than paying domestic producers for their products. As a result, domestic farmers and ranchers get lower prices for their meat, and it is driving many out of business..

This matters a great deal. We reported recently on the massive scandal in Brazil’s meat packing industry in which some of the world’s largest meat producers have allegedly been selling rotten meat and poultry for years. Acid and carcinogenic chemicals were reportedly used to make the meat look fresh, while cardboard, potato, and water were mixed in with poultry products to increase profits.

The USDA’s Food Inspection Safety Service recently found [paywall]abscesses, ingesta (the contents of the animal’s stomach), and unidentified foreign material in meat imported from Brazil. As a result, the USDA has put a halt to Brazilian meat imports to the US.

Without COOL, tainted, rotten meat could be sold alongside US-produced meat that must meet US standards, and consumers would be none the wiser. How many other foreign producers are engaged in the same unsanitary practices as the Brazilian companies?

Consumers should have access to health and safety information about their food so they can make informed choices about what to feed their families. Moreover, American ranchers are under assault, which could produce devastating results both for them and our options at the grocery store. For the health, safety, and prosperity of our citizens, Congress must reinstate COOL and not allow the WTO eliminate laws made in the public interest.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and tell your representatives to reinstate COOL for meat. Please send your message immediately.

We need to save this powerful pain reliever now. Action Alert!

Without urgent grassroots support, hurting Americans could lose pivotal access to CBD oil, a key natural pain medication. Momentum is building on Capitol Hill, but our voices must be heard.

In recent weeks we’ve been telling you about recent federal actions that threaten to restrict consumer access to affordable CBD oil—a derivative of the hemp plant that has no psychoactive properties. Nevertheless, this natural supplement has come into the crosshairs of federal regulatory agencies, and we expect their continued pushback against the movement to maintain access to this vital treatment.

Legislation has recently been introduced that will take some important steps towards preserving CBD products. The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act, introduced by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Corey Booker (D-NJ), would allow the possession, production, and distribution of medical marijuana and CBD in the 29 states (not including the District of Columbia) with established marijuana laws.

Importantly, the bill would also exclude CBD from the definition of marijuana. This helps clear up uncertainty and confusion in states where it is legal to possess and use CBD oil but illegal to produce it.

The bill also helps undo the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) recent action to classify CBD (short for cannabidiol) as a Schedule 1 controlled substance like heroin and LSD that has no medicinal benefit. This is an absurd classification, particularly considering the fact that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a patent on CBD oil that covers its use to protect the brain from degeneration and the treatment of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. There are also thousands of published scientific studies on CBD and its beneficial health effects on pain, inflammation, seizures, rheumatoid arthritis, and other inflammatory conditions.

Beyond the efforts in the Senate, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) has introduced the Legitimate Use of Medical Marijuana Act (HR 714) and the Compassionate Access Act (HR 715), both aimed at removing federal obstacles that prevent patient access to CBD as well as medical marijuana. You can see our previous coverage for more details.

This legislation being discussed is a great first step, and we need to mobilize to provide our grassroots support. However, these bills do not address another threat to consumer access to CBD: FDA overreach.

Currently, CBD oil is available as a dietary supplement. But, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that CBD oil is not a dietary supplement because a drug company is investigating it for use in a new drug to treat a rare form of epilepsy. The FDA has already sent out warning letters to companies marketing CBD oil supplements in anticipation of the new drug (currently in Phase III trials) coming to market.

If and when the drug is finally approved, the FDA will then likely become more aggressive against CBD oil supplements, and it will be game over for the hundreds of thousands of Americans that depend on the treatment. Quite simply, CBD oil will become hard to obtain and unaffordable. The company that owns the drug will have a monopoly on CBD which it can use to jack up the price, and a safe, natural medicine that was once widely available will be out of reach to those who can’t afford to visit a doctor and pay monopoly drug prices.

The FDA claims to be concerned about the prescription opioid epidemic that is claiming so many lives, but the move to ban CBD shows where the agency’s loyalties lie: with big drug companies, not with the public.

Action Alert! Write to Congress to support these bills, and ask them to direct the FDA to maintain CBD as a dietary supplement. Please send your message immediately.

That is exactly what we need. Action Alert!

At ANH, we argue that contemporary healthcare systems would be a whole lot less broken if they weren’t so burdened by a range of chronic and degenerative conditions that would be much more effectively dealt with outside the existing hospital/medical/pharma-controlled system.

That means building a system for effective, non-pharma-based self-care. To do that, you need freedom in health choice, therapeutic foods and supplements widely available, and a liberal regime of health claims so people can know what’s good for them. Some people will also need guidance on their health journey, not by a doctor who simply prescribes drugs, but by a suitably qualified and experienced doctor or health professional conversant in personalized lifestyle medicine.

The main features of this parallel system already exist. The new system is akin to the latest breed of electric or hydrogen-powered cars, that most of us already accept will, in the not-too-distant-future, replace vehicles powered by the outdated, inefficient and unsustainable internal combustion engine.

The current industrial players, be they oil or pharma companies, are desperately trying to cling to the status quo from which they’ve profited hugely over the last few decades. But they now need to either adapt or move aside because the business model they’ve relied on has become redundant.

We propose that it’s just a matter of time before the current model of Big Pharma becomes extinct.  This process, we submit, is assured by nature’s immense power, its tendency for self-preservation and its insatiable desire to maintain equilibrium.

-Rob Verkerk, Founder, executive, scientific director of ANH-International

This is an excerpt. The complete article is available here.

Action Alert! Write to your representatives in Congress and tell them that, to truly reform healthcare, we must have a parallel healthcare system. Please send your message immediately.

Another tick borne disease is showing up in increased numbers in certain parts of the US, and people aren’t even being warned.

We are seeing a rise in a tick-borne disease called Powassan, POW for short. Half of those who come in to contact with the virus suffer permanent neurological damage; some patients experience no symptoms; 10% die. There is no treatment for POW, and those infected often require hospitalization, respiratory support, and intravenous fluids.

Scientists think that the same tick that spreads Lyme disease—which has expanded its territory to over half of US counties—has somehow picked up POW from the tick that normally carries it, which is partial to animals in the weasel family. Researchers estimate that about 4% of deer ticks carry POW. By comparison, 30-40% carry Lyme disease.

Also whereas Lyme takes 48 hours to transmit, at the end of a tick bite, POW is transmitted within minutes of the bite.

Public health officials do not have a response to this disease other than to recommend hikers wear long sleeves and pants, using some kind of insect repellant, staying away from high tick areas, and doing thorough tick checks after being outdoors.

ANH ACTION ALERT

Government lies and lack of profit incentive are both leading to lack of treatment. Action Alert!

A new report published in Pediatrics estimates that the overall number of children with elevated lead levels in the US for the period 1999 to 2010 was 1.2 million—double what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously reported. Even that figure is likely far lower than the reality.

Because testing for lead is not required in the US, lead poisoning is often missed. In eleven states, including Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon, more than 80% of children with elevated lead levels were not tested by pediatricians or local health departments. In the remaining 28 states for which data was available, between 40-60% of children with lead poisoning were not tested.

Scientists have determined there is no safe level of lead for children. Even low levels can lower IQ; higher levels can lead to severe neurological damage and the development of conditions like attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders. Additionally, as we’ve reported before, lead exposure is also linked to violent crime.

You’d think that state and federal health officials would be open to therapies that can help people get the lead out of their bodies, but our crony medical system rejects treatments that are not big money makers.

Chelation therapy is the gold standard for removing toxic metals such as lead. Conventional doctors rarely use it, but integrative doctors are well versed in the benefits of chelation therapy for removing lead and other toxins from the body. Predictably, the FDA is hostile toward chelation despite the growing evidence that it is both safe and effective.

Action Alert! Send a message to your state legislature, urging them to look into and address high levels of lead in prisoners and juvenile offenders. Please send your message immediately.

The FDA has been distorting law and trampling on our right to access needed medicine. Now, it’s time for us to fight back! Major Action Alert!

Congressmen Morgan Griffith (R-VA) and Henry Cuellar (R-TX) recently introduced HR 2871, the Preserving Patient Access to Compounded Medications Act of 2017. This is a important first step toward saving many natural, customized medicines from the chopping block.

Without a doubt, this will receive significant opposition from Big Pharma and from the FDA itself making your support crucial for getting this legislation passed.

This is our moment to act. We’ve been telling you for years how the FDA has been waging an all-out war on customized, natural medicines made at specialized pharmacies. FDA actions threaten to wipe these life-saving medications off the map (see here for more background).

The only way to stop this is for lawmakers to step in. Congress has also repeatedly scolded the FDA through language in congressional spending bills for distorting lawmakers’ intent and needlessly limiting patient access to important medications. The agency’s fidelity to Big Pharma is the only explanation we can develop for this lawless behavior.

Beyond codifying congressional intent, the new bill does two important things. It amends section 503A of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to unequivocally allow “office use” of compounded drugs, which allows a doctor to keep a supply of certain medications in his or her office in order to provide immediate treatment to patients who need it.

For example, a patient in extreme pain cannot wait days, get his or her prescription filled and then return to the doctor for an injection. Even if the patient does not require urgent treatment, the delay will greatly increase costs, which seems to be a by-product of everything the FDA does.

The bill also mandates the FDA to accept USP monographs. This is a pivotal issue. In order to be made into a customized medicine, a substance in the past had to meet one of three criteria. It must either:

1. appear on an FDA pre-approved list (the Bulk Drug list);
2. have a USP monograph; or
3. be a component of an approved drug.

Last year the FDA, with no explanation or justification, stated that it would not accept supplement USP monographs. This meant that in order to be used in customized, natural medicines, supplements had to be nominated for the FDA’s pre-approved list. Many supplements were nominated, but, no surprise, the FDA rejected them. Even a supplement, however, like curcumin, with very important medical uses. Behind the scenes, of course, Pharma is trying to turn curcumin or a synthetic analogue in a drug.

This bill doesn’t fix every misguided action of the FDA since the agency began implementing the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013. Patient access to bioidentical hormones like progesterone and estriol is still threatened, since they’ve been nominated to the Demonstrably Difficult to Compound list. Still, this bill is a major first step forward in saving important natural medications from the FDA’s chopping block, and it needs our support.

Action Alert! Write to your representatives in Congress and urge them to support HR 2871. Please send your message immediately.

FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee has voted to limit your access to drugs not made by drug companies. Action Alert!

A few weeks ago, we told you that the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (PCAC) was meeting once again to decide whether patients will have access to customized medicines.

True to form, PCAC voted to reject all the substances that came before them (the meeting minutes aren’t published yet, but you can look at webcasts of the meetings here). PCAC, following the FDA’s guidance, voted to reject artemisinin, nettle, ubiquinol, vanadyl sulfate, and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

As we’ve pointed out in previous articles, this is only the latest group of natural substances PCAC has recommended be banned. In almost all cases, the committee has followed the FDA’s recommendation, which is based on very dubious criteria. In some cases, the existence of a commercially available drug is enough to persuade the FDA that a substance does not need to be available to compounding pharmacies, a clear nod to Big Pharma.

The agency clearly does not understand the concept of customized, natural medicines. Mass market “one size fits all” drugs are not meeting patients’ individual needs, and compounding is needed in many cases. Additionally, the agency does not seem concerned that it is eliminating consumer choice.

These are only recommendations at this point. Eventually the FDA will have to issue a formal rulemaking to add or reject substances to the accepted list of “bulk ingredients.” However, unless the trajectory changes, we can continue to expect the FDA to look out for #1, Big Pharma.

Action Alert! In the meantime, if you haven’t already, send a message to the FDA telling them that Congress has instructed them to specify how office use compounding can continue and to clarify that the FDA does not have the authority to limit the interstate dispensing of customized medicines. Please send your message immediately.

Big Brother is ready to watch you as you hop from doctor to doctor, treatment to treatment, and you have reason to be worried. Action Alert!

Congress has moved us one step closer to establishing a unique patient identifier (UPI) system. The UPI is meant to act like a passport into the healthcare system and to aid healthcare institutions in matching patients with their medical records.

A unique number assigned to every American that gives access to that person’s full medical records to every doctor, hospital, researcher, and public health department in the country. What could go wrong?

If this sounds ominous to you, you’re not alone. This all started with the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA, which required Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue every citizen a UPI. The Act, which allegedly protected patient privacy, actually gave legal access to your records without your knowledge to an estimated 800,000 parties. After a public outcry, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) added language to a spending bill in 1998 prohibiting federal funds from being used to develop UPIs. This language has prevented the development of UPI—until now.

Now, President Trump has signed a bill that makes federal funds available to aid the private sector in developing a “patient-matching strategy.”

The public has demonstrated strong opposition to UPI. Polling has showed that 88% of Americans oppose requiring all patient medical records to be stored in a national computerized database over their lifetime; 78% said that it is very important that no one have access to their medical information without their permission. This desire for privacy is severely undermined now that Rep. Paul’s prohibition has been eliminated.

It would be hard to enumerate all the possibilities for abuse and discrimination with UPI. Medical records can include demographic data, genetic information, family histories, treatments, personal comments, hospitalizations, and lifestyle information. Putting all of this in one place makes it ripe for identity thieves and other criminals—a trend that is already skyrocketing with electronic health records. It could give the government an opportunity to coerce individuals into getting all the CDC-recommended vaccines. Moreover, it could make it more difficult to avoid being an involuntary research subject.

The bottom line is that a person’s medical information is among the most sensitive information there is, and is meant only for that patient and his or her doctor. We must oppose this latest government intrusion into our private lives.

Action Alert! Tell Congress to immediately repeal the appropriations language that instructs HHS to work with the private sector to develop a “patient-matching strategy.” Please send your message immediately.

Fraudulent organics are flooding US shores and coming to a grocery store near you. The USDA response: crickets. Action Alert!

Earlier this year, we reported that millions of bushels of soy and corn imported to the US were fraudulently sold as organic. News reports singled out ETKO, a Turkish organic certifier, as a major source of fraud. ETKO has been decertified in other countries, but the USDA continues to give it a pass.

Now, the Washington Post has reported that 36 million pounds of soybeans arrived in California via Ukraine and Turkey and was falsely labeled “organic.” Most of the grain and soy was destined to feed animals that produce organic milk, eggs, and meat.

Nevertheless, the USDA continues to bury its head in the sand. Despite the fact that half of organic soy and corn is imported and therefore susceptible to these ongoing problems, the USDA says that their system for ensuring the integrity of organic imports is “robust.” To date, the agency has issued no major sanctions for fraudulent imported grain.

The problem could be much more widespread. Products from China imported and sold as organic in the US might not meet USDA organic standards. Testing showed that 37% of samples from Chinese organic farms had more than just traces of pesticide residue.

Most Americans would be shocked to know that the USDA outsources its foreign inspections to third party companies or foreign regulators. Clearly, this is an issue. Different testing criteria can cause large fluctuations in results such that any farm can be made to look organic.

This isn’t just a problem for consumers; the fraudulent organic imports are undercutting US organic farmers and making it more difficult to sell legitimate organic products. Should those farmers be driven out of business by fake organics, there will be little to no confidence that what you purchase at the market as “organic” will be what it claims to be.

Send a message to the USDA, telling them to clean up their act and protect American farmers and consumers.

Action Alert! Write to the USDA and tell them to investigate the supposedly “organic” grain coming from certifiers who are known to be fraudulent, and from major exporters like Ukraine and Turkey that are suspected of widespread fraud. Please send your message immediately.

ANH ACTION ALERT!

Despite false claims, the studies have not been retracted, nor their evidence that vaccines can be dangerous.

Recently, we covered two studies that looked at the health differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated homeschooled children. The results were compelling: they found that vaccinated kids were, on the whole, sicker than unvaccinated kids. Vaccinated children were more than three times as likely to have allergies, six times as likely to have pneumonia, about three times as likely to have neurological developmental disorders, and almost twice as likely to have any chronic illness.

Hours after we published our article, we learned that the studies had been taken down by the publishing journal, the Journal of Translational Sciences. This was followed by reports from skeptic blogs that the studies had been retracted.

Was this a rejection of the data as Big Pharma would hope? Absolutely not. The studies have not been retracted and are back up online. In fact, they can be found here and here.

Here’s what happened.

In 2016, Dr. Anthony Mawson (the lead author of both studies) submitted one of the studies for publication to the journal Frontiers for Public Health. The paper was rejected for publication at that time, a routine decision that does not imply inaccuracy of data. Dr. Mawson then submitted the original paper as well as another study to the Journal of Translational Sciences in March of this year.

Skeptic bloggers falsely reported that Frontiers had retracted Dr. Mawson’s study, which would have indicated a finding that the results were questionable. This led the Journal of Translational Sciences to pull the studies pending an inquiry. When the journal saw evidence that the paper had in fact been rejected for publication rather than retracted, it restored both papers.

Having a paper rejected for publication, reworking the material, and resubmitting it to a different publication is a common occurrence in the academic world. We’ll let you decide whether the skeptic bloggers made an honest error or intentionally distorted the facts to try and get the papers pulled because they didn’t like the evidence or the conclusions.

There is an irony here. Skeptics are typically those who value rationality, data, and scientific inquiry. Yet any study daring to hint that vaccinations may not be 100% safe is immediately denounced as quackery. We applaud the Journal of Translational Sciences for their consideration of Dr. Mawson’s data, their search for the truth, and their willingness to publish this material that should be driving significant discussion around the country.

Stroke and dementia too? Yes, you can add those to the health risks of diet soda consumption.

Natural health advocates have known for quite some time that artificial sweeteners like aspartame are dangerous and to be avoided. They’ve been associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia in men. These health effects aren’t all that surprising when we consider that ten percent of aspartame is methanol, which is converted to formaldehyde which, in turn, is converted to formic acid—which is used to strip epoxy!

According to a new study, we can, in fact, add increased risk of stroke and dementia to the list of dangers.

Read the full story here, and check out our previous coverage of how aspartame originally got FDA approval through blatant cronyism here.

ANH ACTION ALERT!

Our children might be safest in… Sweden, a government bold enough to say “no” to Big Pharma.

The Swedish government recently rejected proposals to both increase the number of vaccinations children receive and to mandate a vaccination schedule. The reasons cited included that mandatory vaccination violated Swedes’ constitutional rights and adverse effects that can occur from vaccinating young children.

This decision sends a powerful signal that could have profound ramifications around the globe.

Many politicians, particularly those who are left-of-center, point to Sweden as a model for the US to emulate. Sweden’s rejection of mandatory vaccinations is an important victory for those who fight for sensible vaccination policy and the freedom to make our own healthcare decisions.

Unfortunately, many state legislatures haven’t gotten the memo. There are bills in a number of states that would limit your freedom to choose whether or not to vaccinate. Check below to see if your state is among them, and click the link to take action.

State-based Action Alerts! Check for your state below, and send a message to your state lawmakers telling them not to force injections of toxic substances upon our children or health workers. Please send your message immediately.

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Nearly one in six couples experience difficulty conceiving, a challenge that leads many hopeful parents to turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF)—when the egg and the sperm are manually combined in a lab and then transferred to the uterus. This process is very expensive: average costs in the US are around $12,000, not including the medications that are needed. It is not uncommon for couples to need more than one treatment to conceive.

Beyond the financial commitment, there are also significant risks, including: ovarian cancer, birth defects, stress, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, nausea and vomiting, premature delivery and low birth weight, and multiple births. The medications that accompany IVF also have the following complications: headaches, mood swings, abdominal pain, hot flashes, and abdominal bloating.

For those couples for whom IVF is the best option, is it worth it? Absolutely. But what if there were a better way?

One such effective, cheaper, and natural path among other options is progesterone. Progesterone during pregnancy helps support the developing embryo. If a woman has low progesterone levels, she may be conceiving but not even know it because her progesterone levels aren’t high enough to sustain the embryo past a few days. For many women, then, using a natural progesterone cream can help them conceive and carry and avoid the expense and side effects of IVF and fertility medications.

Part of the IVF procedure involves three months of progesterone to get women through the first trimester! Why don’t doctors advise taking progesterone before trying IVF? We’ve seen this pattern often in conventional medicine. An invasive, expensive, and risky procedure is favored over a far simpler, far less invasive, and far less expensive natural alternative.

Progesterone can also help after pregnancy. Progesterone levels soar during pregnancy, but plummet right before birth. This radical change can cause some women to experience symptoms of depression that include severe irritability, poor sleep, agitation, and restlessness. Taking progesterone at this stage might help women avoid some of these symptoms.

So what is the FDA doing? It is trying to limit patient access to compounded bioidentical hormones, such as progesterone- which has been nominated to the agency’s Difficult to Compound list. One has to wonder why the FDA continues to show such fidelity to senseless rules that just happen to favor Big Pharma’s monopoly instead of allowing women to explore the best ways to help them conceive.

Look, we understand that these are complex issues, but they are not so complicated that patient and integrative doctor cannot sort them out.

Action Alert! Send a message to the FDA telling them to maintain patient access to bioidentical hormones like progesterone. Please send your message immediately.

Like it or not, Obamacare would not be repealed by the House bill. Action Alert!

Here is just some of what is wrong with it. 

The House of Representatives recently passed their version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), a.k.a. Trumpcare—the bill meant to fulfill the Republicans’ promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. It now moves to the Senate, which will likely create it own bill, which would then be “reconciled” with House bill in a joint committee and voted on again.

Much ink has been spilled about what the AHCA does and doesn’t do, but something has been conspicuously absent from the debate.

As we wrote previously, our main concern with Obamacare is that it allows the federal government to define what health is and what health insurance is. Obamacare mandates severely restricted the market for health insurance. For instance, it is illegal in most cases to sell health insurance in the US that doesn’t cover a wide array of conditions and treatments (deemed “essential health benefits”)—including drug rehab and pregnancy services—which many of us will never want or use.

Under the House-passed AHCA, states can apply to the federal government for waivers that would exempt them from Obamacare mandates. This would include mandated “essential health benefits,” provided it can be shown that the exemption would lower premiums, increase enrollment, etc.

This is hardly repealing and replacing Obamacare with a system that gives Americans the freedom to choose the healthcare they want. What if your state doesn’t apply for any waiver? What if a state’s application is denied?

Even if a waiver application is approved, it has a shelf life of only ten years before having to be reapproved. What if a future president revokes a waiver that was previously granted, or refuses to grant any more waivers? All it would take is another Democrat in the White House and Obamacare would be right back.

Have the Republicans lost their mind? Or did they not really mean it when they promised to repeal the Obamacare policy mandates? If House Republicans think that the voters will view this waiver system as a repeal of Obamacare mandates, they must have a very low opinion of the voters.

Note also that it is these mandates that are driving up the cost of health insurance higher and higher, with most of the cost loaded onto young people, not the older people who actually use the health insurance.

Many people who believe in natural health and integrated medicine must already pay out of pocket for their healthcare. Given the choice, they would buy a catastrophic policy only with a high deductible. Under Obamacare, they must pay sky high rates for services they will never use, and even then face a huge deductible and very narrow choice in doctors, and a constantly changing choice in doctors.

As we pointed out in our earlier article, it doesn’t matter whether Obamacare is repealed and replaced. Let those who like that system use it. But Congress does need to remove the monopoly features of the Obamacare system, so that a consumer-led and -driven system can exist side by side with it.

Action Alert! Write to your members of Congress and senators and point out to them that waivers, which last only ten years and need not be granted, do not repeal Obamacare policy mandates. Please send your message immediately.

Without country of origin labeling, the meat you buy may be from a nation where meat packers are under indictment. Action alert!

Recently, federal authorities in Brazil revealed an investigation into widespread corruption in the country’s meat packing industry involving payments to government officials to forego safety inspections and cover up health violations.

The scandal involves some of the country’s largest meat-packers—including the world’s largest red meat producer—that have allegedly been selling rotten meat and poultry for years. Acid and carcinogenic chemicals were reportedly used to make the meat look fresh, while cardboard, potato, and water was mixed in with poultry products to increase profits.

The investigation has already resulted in the suspension of thirty-three government officials and the indictment of sixty-three individuals.

The scandal has prompted some lawmakers to call for blocking shipments of Brazilian meat into the US. However, many are worried that banning Brazilian meat would open the US up to trade retaliation.

With potentially rotten Brazilian beef still flowing into our grocery stores, the only hope consumers have is information. Sadly, we now cannot know whether we are purchasing beef that is unsafe to feed to our family.

Before it was repealed, country of origin labeling (COOL) for beef let consumers know where the meat they were buying came from—information that would be especially useful right now. Despite its usefulness, Congress repealed COOL for beef in December 2015 after the World Trade Organization ruled that labeling requirements unfairly discriminated against Canadian and Mexican meat, entitling those countries to hit US goods with $1 billion in tariffs.

This means, in most cases, you won’t know whether the steak you’re buying came from American ranches or from Brazil’s tainted meatpacking plants!

To be clear, we are not touting our industrialized food system as a paragon of safety. Consider the following:

• The use of ractopamine has been banned or restricted in 160 countries because of safety concerns, but US pork producers feed this drug to about 80% of American pigs to boost growth rates.
• The European Union and Russia have banned the use of chlorine baths as an anti-microbial treatment for poultry, which is still commonly used in the US.
• American beef products are commonly treated with growth hormones to make the animals grow faster, which are also banned in Europe.
• Potassium bromate, a possible carcinogen, is used in American bread products to make bread whiter and fluffier. It is banned in the EU and other countries.
• Brominated vegetable oil is found in some sugary, citrus-flavored soft drinks. Drinking a lot of this stuff has been known to cause skin and nerve problems. It has been banned in the EU and Japan, but not in the US.
• Artificial dyes like yellow #6 and red #40 break down into carcinogenic compounds when eaten. Occupational exposure to these chemicals is thought to cause around 25% of bladder cancers. For these reasons these chemicals are banned in the EU but—you guessed it—not in the US.
• American milk producers commonly add recombinant bovine growth hormone (rGBH) to dairy cows to increase milk production—a practice that has been banned in the EU, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. RGBH is a genetically engineered artificial hormone made by Monsanto. The individual most associated with rGBH has moved back and forth between high level jobs at the FDA and Monsanto over the years.

Consumers should have access to health and safety information about their food so they can make informed choices about what to feed their families. Congress should reinstate COOL and not allow the WTO eliminate laws made in the public interest.

Action alert! Write to Congress and tell your representatives that you want COOL for beef reinstated. Please send your message immediately.

House and Senate leaders are looking to fast-track legislation that will reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), the law that allows the US Food and Drug Administration to collect fees from pharmaceutical companies to approve their drugs. The user fee program must be renewed before the August recess.

The kicker is that early drafts of the reauthorization bill allow the FDA to collect $160 million more in user fees in fiscal year 2018. This means the agency can make a total of $878.6 million this year from drug companies.

This is still less than what was included in President Trump’s budget, which had user fees to the FDA doubling to a whopping $2 billion in 2018.

User fees are collected by the FDA to fund the agency’s drug approval process, which includes testing both the safety and the effectiveness of drugs. As we’ve said before, we believe it was a wrong move for Congress to mandate that the FDA ensure the efficacy of drugs, following the passage of the Kefauver-Harris Amendment in 1962. This mandate sent the cost of drug approval into the stratosphere, since it requires expensive double-blind random controlled trials (RCTs).

It is easy to see why engaged citizens around the country are taking issue with all of this Big Pharma cash flowing into the FDA—the agency that was meant to be a watchdog of the drug industry. Abuses of this system are rampant. Our FDA Death Meter website documents some of the most egregious examples of FDA officials knowingly approving dangerous drugs; examples of the revolving door between the drug industry and the FDA; and patterns of the agency protecting Big Pharma’s interests by putting profits before people.

Now, our elected officials want to incentivize the FDA’s bad judgment, all in the name of balancing the budget!

With the trendy political cry of the day being “Drain the Swamp,” it is time for that attitude to apply to this abusive agency. When the FDA’s own scientists send a letter to Congress exposing outrageous cases of retaliation against those refusing to sign off on unsafe, unproven, ineffective products, it’s clear that the Food and Drug Administration’s waters are among the most infested and polluted in our nation’s capital.

It is past time for reform. By deepening the financial ties between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, we as a country are inviting more scandal and abuse that will cost even more Americans their lives.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and tell them NOT to increase the user fees that the FDA can collect from the pharmaceutical industry. Please send your message immediately.