Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Your Right to Use Vitamins Is in Jeopardy, Senators Push Regulatory Assault on Vitamins
HUMAN EVENTS ^ | 09.03.03 | Dr. Julian Whitaker

Posted on 06/09/2004 7:11:35 PM PDT by Coleus

Your Right to Use Nutritional Supplements Is in Jeopardy
Senators Push Regulatory Assault on Vitamins

by Dr. Julian Whitaker

Posted Sep 3, 2003

alt
alt alt alt
alt Story Options
alt Text Size:  S   M   L
alt printer-friendly
alt email to a friend
alt
alt
alt Related Stories           alt
alt alt alt
alt
We need to take action, and we need to take action now. There is a movement in Congress to push through legislation that would restrict your freedom to use nutritional supplements, and could destroy the nutritional supplement industry?and, in the process, endanger your health.

Here is the problem. Reacting to the hysteria over ephedra, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D.-Ill.) has introduced S. 722, cosponsored by colleagues Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), and Charles Schumer (D.-N.Y.). The bill gives unprecedented power to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to remove nutritional supplements from the market. Here’s how:



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: atkins; atkinsdiet; benny; democrat; dratkins; dshea; fda; food; foodsupplements; health; healthcare; hillary; hillarycare; hillaryhealthcare; jonathanvwright; minerals; nannystate; rights; s722; supplements; vitamins; wod; wodlist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 261-266 next last
To: tpaine

Not entirely true. In general localized bans focus on sale and production but you can ban consumption, though if there's one thing we've learned from the WOD is that bans on consumption don't work too well.

The reason I could see for banning vitamins (again at lower than the fed, it's not their bag) is that you don't know what's in them. While there are legitimate operators in the nutritional supliment industry it is also the last refuge of snake oil salesmen. Selling a product that you claim does X with no actual proof that it does X is potentially fraudulent, of course they all get around that will little warning labels that explain how nothing else you read on the label has ever been substantiated. This is of course why there's frequent cries to regulate the industry.

Other than the fact that it wouldn't work there's nothing stopping the dry counties from banning consumption.

States used to have rights, not anymore though, Ammendment 10 is generally known as the states rights ammendment, that gives them the right to do whatever isn't in the fed's bag and whatever the fed hasn't told them not to.

And given the fact that there are dry counties banning the sale of stuff that's legal on the federal level (like vitamins) follows those basic rights of the Constitution.


101 posted on 06/10/2004 1:46:13 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: Know your rights

I've already given it to you. Look up dry county laws.


102 posted on 06/10/2004 1:47:27 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 99 | View Replies]

To: Dead Corpse

And I'm not supporting a federal ban on vitamins. But I'm against it because it's outside the limited powers the Constitution gives the fed, not because there's some right to use them.

There are right reasons and wrong reasons to oppose something. Making up rights to consume specific products is the wrong reason.


103 posted on 06/10/2004 1:49:00 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: Coleus
Bunch of govt thugs at it again.

Wonder how this will affect Creatine

104 posted on 06/10/2004 1:51:37 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan ("Mr. Gorbachev - Tear down this wall" - Ronald Reagan - 1911-2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: discostu
Since you need food

It's called the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs.

105 posted on 06/10/2004 1:52:51 PM PDT by freeeee ("Owning" property in the US just means you have one less landlord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]

To: freeeee

Life is an unalienable right. You need food to live, therefore food, as a general concept, is an unalienable right.


106 posted on 06/10/2004 1:54:21 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 105 | View Replies]

To: discostu
I'm still waiting for an explanation of why our inalienable right to liberty doesn't include the liberty to take vitamins or eat filet mignon.

Look up dry county laws.

That proves only that liberties are violated, not that they aren't liberties.

107 posted on 06/10/2004 1:58:45 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies]

To: Know your rights

No that proves that, on less than the federal level, you can ban the production and sale of certain products without violating anyone's rights.


108 posted on 06/10/2004 2:00:01 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 107 | View Replies]

To: discostu
Life is an unalienable right.

So is liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Prohibition of a certain cut of steak, even though consumption of the steak itself violates no rights is a violation of liberty and pursuit of happiness.

I mean no personal offense, but the idea that others have some power to deprive you of everthing that isn't essential to basic survival is the creed of slaves, and stands in direct opposition to the basic concept of liberty. That the majority decides these things for you makes no difference. In that case, you simply have millions of masters instead of one.

And to think Americans are being asked to give up their lives abroad in defense of liberty, only to return home to have literally every aspect of their existance lorded over, even down to what they eat. Could there be any higher hypocrisy?

A few quotes relevent to liberty vs democracy...

"Absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority."
- Constitution of the State of Kentucky, Section 2

"Democracy and liberty are often thought to be the same thing, but they are not. Democracy means that people ought to be able to vote for public officials in fair elections, and make most political decisions by majority rule. Liberty, on the other hand, means that even in a democracy, individuals have rights that no majority should be able to take away."
- The Bill of Rights, A Brief History

"The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong. The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority."
- Alexis DeToqueville

109 posted on 06/10/2004 2:04:51 PM PDT by freeeee ("Owning" property in the US just means you have one less landlord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 106 | View Replies]

To: freeeee

I'm not talking about absolute power of any kind. I'm just objecting to rendering the word "right" useless by adding any whim of any whiney journalist to the list of rights.


110 posted on 06/10/2004 2:07:46 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: discostu
on less than the federal level, you can ban the production and sale of certain products

Of course you *can*.

without violating anyone's rights.

You still haven't shown this, but merely claimed it.

111 posted on 06/10/2004 2:08:27 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 108 | View Replies]

To: Know your rights

Well I tell you what, move to a dry county in Kansas and start acourt case and we'll see. Since these things have stood for a long time (even before prohibition) and nobody has managed to get them thrown out as a violation of their rights then I'm standing by them not being a violation of any right. Since you can't prove a negative that's gonna have to do.


112 posted on 06/10/2004 2:10:36 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: discostu
I'm just objecting to rendering the word "right" useless by adding any whim

The right to indulge a whim (that violates nobody's rights) is just as much a right as the right to free speech.

113 posted on 06/10/2004 2:11:36 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 110 | View Replies]

To: Know your rights

It's just as much a silly right that that isn't actually a right as the right to eat vitamins.


114 posted on 06/10/2004 2:12:31 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 113 | View Replies]

To: discostu
start acourt case

You think courts define our rights? I guess there's a right to abortion, then.

115 posted on 06/10/2004 2:12:49 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 112 | View Replies]

To: Know your rights

No, but that's all you got. The courts can be wrong, but right now they're erring on the side of wide open so you should have a good chance.


116 posted on 06/10/2004 2:16:09 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 115 | View Replies]

To: discostu
I'm not talking about absolute power of any kind.

I have no right to take vitamins.
I have no right to privacy.
I have no right to wear paisleys.
I have no right to pick my nose.
I have no right to see the Jackass movie.
I have no right to have chocolate cake for breakfast.
I have no right to be annoying.
I have no right to purchase and consume filet mignon.

All of this because the majority, in their pompous royalty, simply felt like throwing their weight around.

But I do have the right to eat food, simply becuse if I don't I'll die (and dead people don't obey orders or pay taxes). Presumably if a way was found to stay alive and not eat, that could be prohibited too.

And yet I'm supposed to believe this is freedom, even worthy of sacrificing my life for? That's funny. I wouldn't give a used hanky for a country that held such contempt for my freedom.

117 posted on 06/10/2004 2:25:05 PM PDT by freeeee ("Owning" property in the US just means you have one less landlord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 110 | View Replies]

To: freeeee

Yawn. Just because you don't have a right to do it doesn't mean it should be banned from you. It just means it's not a right, it's just there as something you do. Don't take things to ridiculous extremes, this is still a country worth dieing for, and a lack of goofball rights that have never been there, not even in the original drafts of the Constitution, doesn't change that. All it means is you've gathered up a bunch of things to whine about, which is entirely your problem, not mine and certainly not something the government needs to correct.


118 posted on 06/10/2004 2:33:26 PM PDT by discostu (Brick urgently required, must be thick and well kept)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 117 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

Is there anything we're actually allowed to do anymore?


119 posted on 06/10/2004 2:36:38 PM PDT by RightWhale (Destroy the dark; restore the light)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: discostu
It just means it's not a right, it's just there as something you do.

If it's not a right, its a priviledge.

Don't take things to ridiculous extremes

Either we are free, or we are not. There isn't much middle ground.

this is still a country worth dieing for

That has to be earned, and the price is liberty. Laws such as this vitamin ban have the opposite effect. I can get such treatment in any number of other countries, none of which I would defend.

120 posted on 06/10/2004 2:51:59 PM PDT by freeeee ("Owning" property in the US just means you have one less landlord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 118 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 261-266 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson