Lies and Deception: How the FDA Does Not Protect Your Best Interests

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Did you know that many retired FDA officials go to work as special advisors to the pharmaceutical and food industries?

It’s true. Federal agencies like the FDA—which were created to protect consumers—often behave like branch offices of companies like Monsanto, which they are supposed to regulate. And when the names and dossiers of the individuals who work with allies in Congress and the White House to oppose food safety measures are revealed, the picture becomes even more sinister.

The fact is, it has been widely reported that FDA (Federal Drug Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) officials are frequently rewarded with lucrative jobs at the companies they were regulating.

Conflict of interest

This insidious conflict of interest exhibited by the U.S. food and pharmaceutical industries has been going on for almost half a century. Mark Gold, founder of the Aspartame Toxicity Information Center in Concord, New Hampshire (mgold@holisticmed.com) provides an overview of the situation in his “Analysis of the influence of the Aspartame Industry on the Scientific Committee on Food.” 1

“In the United States, corruption of governmental and scientific committees by the food industry was disclosed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In an article in the journal Science (1972), it was revealed that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Food Protection Committee was being funded by the food, chemical and packaging industries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was relying on the NAS Committee for ‘independent’ information. The Chairman of the NAS Subcommittee investigating monosodium glutamate (MSG) had recently taken part in research partially funded by the MSG manufacturer. Another member of the Subcommittee became a spokesperson for the MSG industry. (Science 1972) Other members of the Subcommittee had ties to the MSG industry.

Since that time numerous governmental committees have been corrupted by the placement of food industry-funded consultants on these committees.” 23

The revolving door

A recent report by the Edmonds Institute lists names of the possible hundreds of men and women who move in and out of “revolving doors” as Federal regulators and directors, commissioners and scientists at the companies they are supposed to regulate.4

Close relationships between regulators and those they regulate are always a cause of concern because the conflict of interest inevitably results in the quality of regulation and oversight of a technology being compromised … which inevitably results in the promotion of foods and drugs that are frequently unsafe.

The Edmonds Institute has been researching these relationships for some time. Here are some examples:

Margaret Miller … former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, … now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).56

Michael Taylor, former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA,…still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, … still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, … and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding … now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.56

Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA “primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications”) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the FDA’s approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation’s formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found “no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug’s approval” and only “one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations”. (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).

The FDA and Monsanto: Strange bedfellows

Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on rBGH to the FDA so the agency could determine the growth hormone’s safety. Margaret Miller put the report together, and in 1989 shortly before she submitted the report, Miller left Monsanto to work for the FDA. Guess what her first job was? Strangely enough, to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto! The bottom line is that Monsanto approved its own report. Miller was assisted by another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen.

But in an article titled “Not Milk: The USDA, Monsanto, and the U.S. Dairy Industry” Ché Green, founder and director of The ARMEDIA Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization focusing on farm animal issues in the United States, writes that, “The results of the study, in fact, were not made available to the public until 1998, when a group of Canadian scientists obtained the full documentation and completed an independent analysis of the results. Among other instances of neglect, the documents showed that the FDA had never even reviewed Monsanto’s original studies (on which the approval for Posilac {rBGH} had been based), so in the end the point was moot whether or not the report had contained all of the original data.” 7

And as though the FDA didn’t already exhibit enough audacity it handed Michael Taylor the responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled. (At the time, Michael Taylor, who had previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto, was executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA.)

In 1994, Taylor ended up writing the rBGH labeling guidelines that prohibit the dairy industry from stating that their products either contain or are free from rBGH. Even worse, to keep rBGH-milk from being “stigmatized” in the marketplace, the FDA ruled that the labels of non-rBGH products must state that there is no difference between rBGH and the natural hormone.8

According to journalist Jennifer Ferraro, “while working for Monsanto,Taylor had prepared a memo for the company as to whether or not it would be constitutional for states to erect labeling laws concerning rBGH dairy products. In other words, Taylor helped Monsanto figure out whether or not the corporation could sue states or companies that wanted to tell the public that their products were free of Monsanto’s drug.” 9

The current situation

Monsanto is suing Maine-based Oakhurst Dairy for labeling their milk “Our Farmers’ Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones.” According to Monsanto, Oakhurst Dairy does not have the right to let its customers know whether its milk contains genetically engineered hormones. What hogwash! Oakhurst says they’ve been labeling their products like this for four years, in response to consumer demand.

Although rBGH has been banned in every industrialized nation in the world except for the United States, Monsanto continues to claim that rBGH-derived milk is no different from the natural stuff, despite documentation that rBGH milk contains substantially higher levels of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1.

This poses a serious risk to the entire U.S. population, which is now exposed to high levels of IGF-1 in dairy products, since elevated blood levels of IGF-1 are among the leading known risk factors for breast cancer, and are also associated with other major cancers, particularly colon and prostate.10

In 1994, Monsanto sued two dairies and threatened several thousand retailers for labeling or advertising milk and dairy products as “rBGH-free.” Despite Monsanto’s intimidation tactics, more than 10% of U.S. milk is currently labeled as “rBGH-free,” while sales of organic milk and dairy products (which prohibit rBGH) are booming.

And just to add insult to injury, in recent months a Monsanto-funded front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign against organic dairies, including Organic Valley, claiming they are defrauding consumers. 11

How Monsanto’s policies have become U.S. policy

Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto’s lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto’s Calgene Corporation. The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto’s Searle pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin’s governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Source: Dairy Education Board)

What can you do?

  1. Contact your state representatives and let them know your views.
  2. Educate yourself about what is really in our food.

Three recommended books:

Max Sidorov, “7 Steps to Health” Amazon Publishing, 2012

Eric Schlosser, “Fast Food Nation” New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

Marion Nestle, Food Politics: “How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.” University of California Press, March 2002..

Eat only organically grown and produced food. Sadly and unfortunately, we cannot trust the FDA or USDA to ensure the safety of our food.

 

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This part deals with topics that are relevant to other general topics such as ITMC's security commitments and how we will inform you when we change this Privacy Policy.

Part I – Information ITMC collects and controls

What information ITMC collects

We collect information about you only if we need the information for some legitimate purpose. ITMC will have information about you only if (a) you have provided the information yourself or (b) ITMC has automatically collected the information. Below we describe the various scenarios that fall under each of those three categories and the information collected in each one.

Information that you provide us

  1. Account signup: When you sign up for an account to access one or more of our services, we ask for information such as your name and email address to complete the account signup process. You may also be required to choose a unique username and a password for accessing the created account.
  2. Summit registrations and other form submissions: We record information that you submit when you (i) register for any event such as webinars or seminars, (ii) subscribe to our newsletter or any other mailing list, (iii) submit a form in order to download ebooks, whitepaper, or other materials, (iv) participate in contests or respond to surveys, or (v) submit a form to request customer support or to contact ITMC for any other purpose.
  3. Payment processing: When you buy something from us, we ask you to provide your name, contact information, and credit card information or other payment account information. When you submit your card information, we store the name and address of the cardholder, the expiry date and the last four digits of the credit card number. We do not store the actual credit card number. For quick processing of future payments, if you have given us your approval, we may store your credit card information or other payment information in an encrypted format in the secured servers of our Payment Gateway Service Providers.
  4. Testimonials: When you authorize us to post testimonials about our products and services on websites, we may include your name and other personal information in the testimonial. You will be given an opportunity to review and approve the testimonial before we post it. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at contact@theitmc.com
  5. Interactions with ITMC: We may record, analyze and use your interactions with us, including email, telephone, and chat conversations with our sales and customer support professionals, for improving our interactions with you and other customers.

Information that we collect automatically

  1. Log files: Like most standard website servers, we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to other personally identifiable information.
  2. Cookies and Other Similar Technologies: Technologies such as cookies or similar technologies are used by ITMC. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.

How We Use Cookies and Other Similar Technologies

To improve the user experience of our Site, ITMC may use the following "cookies".

Provider Purpose
Disqus To enable comment and discussion features on our website.
Vimeo To enable functionality with video features.
Facebook Connect To enable functionality with social media features.
Pinterest To enable functionality with social media features.
Twitter Button To enable functionality with social media features.
SteemIt To enable functionality with social media
Mewe To enable functionality with social media
Gab.ai To enable functionality with social media

Purposes for using information

In addition to the purposes mentioned above, we may use your information for the following purposes:

Your choice in information use

Opt out of non-essential electronic communications: You may opt out of receiving newsletters and other non-essential messages by using the 'unsubscribe' function included in all such messages. However, you will continue to receive notices and essential transactional emails.

Disable cookies: You can disable browser cookies before visiting our websites. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use certain features of the websites properly.

Optional information: You can always choose not to fill in non-mandatory fields when you submit any form linked to our websites.

Who we share your information with

We do not sell any personal information. We share your information only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy, and only with parties who adopt appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

Employees and independent contractors: Employees and independent contractors of all ITMC group entities have access to the information covered in Part I on a need-to-know basis. We require all employees and independent contractors of ITMC group entities to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.

Third-party service providers: We may need to share your personal information and aggregated or de-identified information with third-party service providers that we engage, such as marketing and advertising partners, event organizers, web analytics providers and payment processors. These service providers are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.

Your rights with respect to information we hold about you as a controller

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), you have the following rights with respect to information that ITMC holds about you. ITMC undertakes to provide you the same rights no matter where you choose to live.

Right to access: You have the right to access (and obtain a copy of, if required) the categories of personal information that we hold about you, including the information's source, purpose and period of processing, and the persons to whom the information is shared

Right to rectification: You have the right to update the information we hold about you or to rectify any inaccuracies. Based on the purpose for which we use your information, you can instruct us to add supplemental information about you in our database.

Right to erasure: You have the right to request that we delete your personal information in certain circumstances, such as when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was originally collected.

Right to restriction of processing: You may also have the right to request to restrict the use of your information in certain circumstances, such as when you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Right to data portability: You have the right to transfer your information to a third party in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, in circumstances where the information is processed with your consent or by automated means.

Right to object: You have the right to object to the use of your information in certain circumstances, such as the use of your personal information for direct marketing.

Right to complain: You have the right to complain to the appropriate supervisory authority if you have any grievance against the way we collect, use or share your information. This right may not be available to you if there is no supervisory authority dealing with data protection in your country.

Retention of information

We retain your personal information for as long as it is required for the purposes stated in this Privacy Policy. Sometimes, we may retain your information for longer periods as permitted or required by law, such as to maintain suppression lists, prevent abuse, if required in connection with a legal claim or proceeding, to enforce our agreements, for tax, accounting, or to comply with other legal obligations. When we no longer have a legitimate need to process your information, we will delete or anonymize your information from our active databases. We will also securely store the information and isolate it from further processing on backup discs until deletion is possible.

Part II – General

Children's personal information

Our products and services are not directed to individuals under 13. ITMC does not knowingly collect personal information from children who are under 13 years of age. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete such information. If you believe that a child under 13 years has provided personal information to us, please write to contact@theitmc.com with the details, and we will take the necessary steps to delete the information we hold about that child.

How secure is your information

At ITMC, we take data security very seriously. We have taken steps to implement appropriate administrative, technical & physical safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, use, modification, disclosure or destruction of the information you entrust to us. If you have any concerns regarding the security of your data, we encourage you to write to us at reply@ITMC.com with any questions.

Locations and international transfers

By accessing or using our products and services or otherwise providing personal information or service data to us, you consent to the processing, transfer, and storage of your personal information or Service Data within the United States of America, the European Economic Area (EEA) and other countries where ITMC operates. Such transfer is subject to a group company agreement that is based on EU Commission's Model Contractual Clauses.

External links on our websites

Some pages of our websites may contain links to websites that are not linked to this Privacy Policy. If you submit your personal information to any of these third-party sites, your personal information is governed by their privacy policies. As a safety measure, we recommend that you not share any personal information with these third parties unless you've checked their privacy policies and assured yourself of their privacy practices.

Blogs and forums

We offer publicly accessible blogs and forums on our websites. Please be aware that any information you provide on these blogs and forums may be used to contact you with unsolicited messages. We urge you to be cautious in disclosing personal information in our blogs and forums. ITMC is not responsible for the personal information you elect to disclose publicly. Your posts and certain profile information may remain even after you terminate your account with ITMC. To request the removal of your information from our blogs and forums, you can contact us at contact@theitmc.com

Social media widgets

Our websites include social media widgets such as Twitter "tweet" buttons that let you share articles and other information. These widgets may collect information such as your IP address and the pages you navigate in the website, and may set a cookie to enable the widgets to function properly. Your interactions with these widgets are governed by the privacy policies of the companies providing them.

Disclosures in compliance with legal obligations

We may be required by law to preserve or disclose your personal information and service data to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements.

Enforcement of our rights

We may disclose personal information and service data to a third party if we believe that such disclosure is necessary for preventing fraud, investigating any suspected illegal activity, enforcing our agreements or policies, or protecting the safety of our users.

Compliance with this Privacy Policy

We make every effort, including periodic reviews, to ensure that personal information you provide is used in conformity with this Privacy Policy. If you have any concerns about our adherence to this Privacy Policy or the manner in which your personal information is used, kindly write to us contact@theitmc.com We'll contact you, and if required, coordinate with the appropriate regulatory authorities to effectively address your concerns.

Your consent

By using our Web Site, you consent to the collection and use of information by us as set forth in this privacy statement. We reserve the right to modify, alter or otherwise update our privacy policy, and we will post those changes on this page so that you will always be aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what limited circumstances we disclose it. Continued access or use of the Web Site shall constitute your express acceptance of any modifications, alterations or updates to this privacy statement. However, please note that unless we obtain your express consent, any revised Privacy Policy will apply only to information collected after such time as the revised Privacy Policy takes effect. If at any point we decide to use Personally Identifiable Information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify you by way of email and you will then have a choice whether or not we can use such information in this different manner. If you are concerned about how your personal information is used, you should check back at Privacy Policy periodically.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at contact@theitmc.com.

You may also contact us at: