THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTATION –

A VERY CORRUPT AGENCY

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

I. INTRODUCTION

The American Food And Drug Administration or FDA is one of the most powerful and one of the most corrupt of the 47 or so American government regulatory agencies. The FDA is supposed to protect the health of the American people, but it often does just the opposite! Similar agencies in every nation on earth are very similar, or even worse. Among their crimes are:

- Allowing the use of over 3000 chemical additives in our food. These include harmful artificial sweeteners, preservatives, dough conditioners, bromine instead of iodine added to bread, and thousands more toxic chemicals in our food supply.

- Allowing the manufacture and sale of refined, denatured white sugar that has been stripped of most of its nutrients.

- Allowing the manufacture and sale of truly disgusting bleached white flour.

- Allowing the manufacture and sale of refined, or “white” rice.

- Allowing frozen food to be treated with a number of harmful chemicals without this needing to be on the label.

- Allowing GMO foods that are clearly harmful in laboratory tests.

- Allowing other food preservation methods, plastics and more that are harmful to health.

- Allowing hundreds of harmful medical drugs, herbs and other products to be sold.

- Allowing very dangerous vaccines to be made and sold without the ability of the citizens to sue for damages. Many do not know that vaccine makers cannot be sued in America and many other nations. By law in American and elsewhere, vaccine makers are exempt from legal responsibility when their products harm people.

Instead, the American government compensates families of children who are maimed or killed by vaccines (the NVIC program). Bringing a case is very difficult, but the government has quietly paid out billions of dollars, all at taxpayer expense. This needs to change at once to make the vaccine companies responsible for the toxic products.

- More, but this is enough so you will get the point.

They are responsible for the thousands of obviously adulterated food products that take up most of the space in supermarkets around the world.

II. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FDA - CORRUPT FROM THE START

EARLY AMERICA

Before the formation of the Food And Drug Administration, food and drug regulation was done via the free market. This was the plan of the founders for America.

It worked the following way:

- There was (and is) a framework of basic criminal laws. These protect people against crimes such as fraud, libel, slander, negligence and misrepresentation.

- People can sue other individuals or companies in court if they violate these laws.

- Citizens were allowed to establish private organizations that tested products. The groups gave products they liked their “seal of approval”.

- The media such as newspapers and radio were available to everyone equally. No one had a favored status with the media, as occurs today with government regulatory agencies. As a result, the product ratings were disseminated widely.

Products that carried the “seal of approval” sold well because people trusted them and because stores felt safe carrying these products. That is, people would not be harmed by these products. Stores might also be sued if they sell harmful products. Companies that made the good products prospered.

Products that did not carry the “seal of approval” did not sell well because people did not trust them and many stores would not carry them. As a result, the companies that sold the poorer quality products went out of business.

- The product testing organizations were in competition with each other. This helped keep them honest and fair. Also, if they committed fraud, they could possibly be sued. This also helped keep them honest.

- If a product testing organization became infiltrated by special interests, the citizens formed new testing organizations to take over the job of impartially evaluating products.

- No testing group was given “police power” by the government to shut down anyone they did not like. However, if a company produced a very dangerous product, in addition to a lawsuit, people harmed could perhaps get a judge to issue an injunction. This is an order to halt the sale of a product until a trial takes place.

This was the system of private regulation of the economy. No system is perfect, but this system cost the taxpayers nothing, was quite efficient, and fairly difficult to corrupt. It worked well for the first 120 years or so of the American republic.

FOUNDING OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTATION.

All the above changed in America in 1906. Dr. Harvey Wiley, MD, a “health crusader”, convinced the president of the United States, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, to set up the Bureau Of Chemistry. Its job was to be to protect the American people from the new pharmaceutical industry and food chemistry industry. The name of the agency was later changed to the Food And Drug Administration.

This agency was part of what is called the progressive era in America. It was a time of intense growth of the size of the government, in direct violation of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Essentially, the government took over the power to regulate many sectors of the economy and the nation through the establishment of regulatory agencies. America now has about 47 of these, covering every major area of the economy from transportation and communication to health, finances, agriculture and much more. Regulatory agencies now make most of the laws in the United States, again in direct violation of the US national and state constitutions. The same has occurred in all developed nations in the world.

III. FAILURE

In 1912, only six years after the establishment of the FDA, Dr. Wiley resigned his post. He told the president of the United States that he could not protect the American people from harmful foods and drugs. He said his agency was rapidly infiltrated and corrupted by private interest groups representing certain food and drug companies.

Dr. Wiley wrote all about his experience at the FDA in a powerful book, The History Of The Crime Against The Food Law by Harvey Wiley, MD (1928). Chapters include “The Sad Story of Coca Cola”, “The Pathetic Story Of White Flour”, and many more.

If you read the truth about bleached flour or white sugar, you would never eat them again! Dr. Wiley tested all these foods on human volunteers and they all became sick on them! These were and are clearly adulterated foods! He tried to ban them, but he was repeatedly outvoted and outmaneuvered by special interests at all levels of the government.

WHOLESALE CORRUPTION TODAY

Over 110 years after the formation of the Food And Drug Administration, the agency is just as corrupt or worse. If you doubt this, just look at the supermarket shelves.

Pharmaceutical drug regulation is also a mess – with costs rising sharply and “side effects” or adverse effects accounting for thousands of deaths and hospitalizations every year in America and around the world.

One study of FDA employees found that over 50% of its “scientists” received gifts from the pharmaceutical or food industries that they are supposed to regulate. We suspect the actual number is a lot higher.

Regulation of cosmetic products is also a mess with toxic anti-perspirants everywhere, toxic lipstick and makup, even toxic facial tissues today. Regulation of automobiles, communication and every other industry is also a mess in America and elsewhere.

FORGETTING THE ADMONITION OF THE FOUNDERS OF AMERICA

The founders of America studied many governments when they set up the United States. They wrote that government power is the greatest threat to the health and well-being of the people. This is a truth that some people today do not want you to know. This is why they proposed the radical idea of limited government.

People need to realize this and stop asking government to solve all our problems. The purpose of government regulation should be limited to:

- maintaining an even playing field in the marketplace.

- protecting people’s rights to sue to damages.

- protecting the right to information, such as labeling.

IV. WHAT IS THE LESSON?

The lesson is that government regulation of industries does not work!!! It becomes corrupt, self-serving and greatly harms the people.

The founders of America knew this well from their experience with England and from studying the governments of literally hundreds of nations in history. They specifically forbade such agencies in their writings such as the Federalist Papers.

However, corrupt forces in America ignored and violated the rules and set up the agencies anyway. The beginning of the twentieth century in America was the start of the ruination of the nation with such policies. They were given politically correct names such as progressivism, liberalism and socialism.

Among them were the establishment of the Federal Reserve banking system, the income tax, and setting up many other government “departments” such as national parks, the commerce department, the agriculture department and many more.

V. THE PROBLEMS WITH GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF INDUSTRY

Dr. Wiley’s book is a most instructive story of the problems with government regulation of industry. Important problems are:

- Total power is concentrated in the hands of a small agency composed of unelected, and thus unaccountable bureaucrats.

Giving total power to a single agency with the authority to regulate an entire industry makes it much easier for special interests to infiltrate and control the industry. Infiltrators easily bribe, threaten, murder and rape to control the workers the agency.

- The incentives are all wrong. Government workers are not paid more if they produce a better economy. They are paid based upon how many people they supervise and often based upon how long they have worked at the agency.

As a result, their incentive is to grow their agency so they can supervise more people. If the economy runs well without the bureaucrats, the government workers lose power, prestige and perhaps pay. So their incentive is to make trouble so that more government bureaucrats are needed to “fix things”.

- Government employees are often not that smart to begin with. This has several consequences. First, they are not smart enough to regulate an entire industry. Secondly, they are more easily corrupted. Third, they tend to waste the people’s money and just do a poor job.

This is my experience, having worked in two government bureaucracies earlier in my life. Those who take government jobs are usually more security-minded people. The very smart people usually prefer working in the private sector of the economy. This means that the agency will not necessarily make good decisions, yet their decisions are binding on the people.

- Legally, government regulations protect companies that harm people from lawsuits and even from negative publicity. What occurs is that the government sets up “standards” that are often very inadequate and corrupt. However, as long as companies comply with the standards, which their lobbyists often set up), the company cannot easily be sued for damages when their products harm or even kill people.

This goes on with drug companies, food companies, communication companies (cell phones and the lying media), medical personnel and hospitals, and many other areas of the economy. It is horrendous!

- “Government approval” gives people a false sense of security. Centralized government control of an industry gives people the false idea that someone is taking care of them, when this is often not the truth.

This is bad for the society. It would be much better if people were far more suspicious of all products and services in the nation.

In reality, government agencies are never “independent”, “impartial” and “just looking out for the people”. They operate at the whim of the Congress, and are very political places. They also have a mind of their own, as described below. It is always a lie to think they are independent are only thinking of the health, safety and happiness of the people.

- Government agencies have tremendous power in the media. After all, they are the “official” voice of the nation. As a result, they easily get their messages into the newspapers and on television with their often false pronouncements.

Meanwhile, those who know the truth but don’t work in the government have much more difficulty having their voices heard in the mass media. After all, they are just “the little people” – what do they know?

- Overlapping and often conflicting government rules and regulations make it much harder for private citizens to start companies and manufacture and sell excellent products.

Today, many industries are regulated by half a dozen or more government agencies. Hospitals, for example, have to answer to up to 20 government authorities. This stops many people from opening clinics, increases the cost of doing business, and discourages or completely stops innovation.

It also wastes a huge amount of time and money. The business must spend its money hiring sometimes hundreds of employees whose only job is filling out government paperwork to “comply with regulations”. Not only are they stupid jobs. They waste millions of dollars and do nothing to serve the needs of the company’s customers or clients.

This is just a part of the cost of policing or enforcing government regulations. There must also be courts, lawsuits and more in order to enforce all the regulations. Much of this is paid by the taxpayers.

In contrast, private regulation is paid for privately and costs the taxpayers nothing.

- The agencies themselves waste loads of time and money. They are often large bureaucracies with well-paid people pushing paper all day. When the author worked at the US Department of Health And Human Services, he was told he could only work for about half of the work day.

Then, he was told, just “read a book” or “check out the pretty secretaries” for the rest of the day. Otherwise, he would make the other employees “look bad” and that was unacceptable conduct.

The deep state. Also, he found that the employees liked certain policies of the president and Congress. They did their job to promote these policies. However, policies they did not like they just ignored or actively opposed.

Some people call this nonsense the deep state. It is the control of the nation by unelected and unaccountable people who, thanks to their position and power, decide what really happens in the nation. It is pure corruption and it is the rule, not the exception, in all government regulatory agencies.

- The power to regulate is often abused by those in power to favor their friends and get rid of their competition, or anyone they do not like. This is always the truth about government agencies, no matter what anyone claims to the contrary. Abusing regulatory power is one of the old tricks of governments and one of the very worst kinds of corruption.

It means that government regulatory agencies can and are used to promote and enforce government agendas that have absolutely nothing to do with serving the people! This is sometimes called patronage or cronyism.

VII. CONCLUSION - GOVERNMENT REGULATORY AGENCIES WORK AGAINST THE CITIZENS

We hope this short article has helped you understand why government regulatory agencies are a terrible idea and part of tyranny, not democracy or a republican form of government. They are the essence of what is called today socialism, communism and dictatorship.

For more about government regulation, read The Regulatory State.

Courses | About Dr. Wilson | The Free Basic Program