FDA Found Guilty Of Unlawful Censorship

FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Health freedom has just been handed a significant victory by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment rights of a nutritional supplement company when it censored truthful, scientifically-backed claims about how selenium can help reduce the risk of cancer.

Essentially, the FDA applied its doctrine of censorship to these selenium supplements in the same way it oppresses truthful and scientifically-supported health claims across all dietary supplements. The purpose of the FDA's censorship of truthful information about the health benefits of dietary supplements, as NaturalNews readers already know, is to keep the American people nutritionally illiterate and protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.

In this court case, ALLIANCE FOR NATURAL HEALTH, et al. vs. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, et al., the judge ruled that the FDA violated the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs by restricting their free speech about the anti-cancer benefits of their selenium supplements.

As explained by health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord who argued the case before the Court:

"The decision... reaffirms that FDA is subject to the strictures of the First Amendment in its evaluation of health claims and it faults FDA for failing to follow that standard, holding its suppression of the selenium-cancer risk reduction claims unconstitutional."

Emord goes onto explain:

"The Court concludes that the FDA... 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..."

Attorney Jonathan Emord from Emord & Associates is widely regarded as one of the most successful and influential attorneys battling the FDA over free speech and health freedoms.

Interview with Jonathan Emord here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJS...

Emord is also the author of  Global Censorship of Health Information.

What it means for health freedom

The upshot of this decision is that the FDA has just been handed a significant defeat that will set a precedent for other dietary supplement companies to make their own truthful, scientifically-supported health claims.

The FDA will likely continue to terrorize nutritional supplement companies with threats of imprisonment of company founders and seizure of products unless companies voluntarily agree to comply with the FDA's censorship schemes. However, this court decision may finally turn the tide against the FDA's campaign of ignorance that has, for decades, sought to keep the American people nutritionally illiterate.

Achieving a lasting victory over the FDA will require nutritional supplement companies to stop being intimidated by the FDA and start making truthful, scientifically-supported claims -- and then stand behind those claims with a commitment to sue the FDA if they are threatened with censorship. Until now, most nutritional supplement and vitamin companies have been so intimidated by the FDA that they dared not challenge the FDA's authority -- even when they knew the FDA was flat-out wrong!

The FDA can threaten a company using "terrorism-style" tactics such as sending threatening letters that promise to arrest the owners, imprison them, destroy their business, seize their customer records, confiscate their inventory, etc. These tactics have all been used by the FDA to threaten health product companies operating in the United States.

These Gestapo-style FDA tactics have been frighteningly effective, given that most U.S. companies don't have the financial resources to engage in a lengthy legal battle with the FDA in order to stand up for their First Amendment rights. That's why this victory by the Alliance for Natural Health is so important: It provides a legal wedge by which other companies can now begin to stand up for their own First Amendment rights, too.

This could be the beginning of the end of FDA censorship of truthful, scientifically-supported health claims.