a letter

[old82]

what do you think? i wrote it in response to some new food safety laws being created.... so... anyway...

I must note that continued production of details in our law gives way to continued proliferation of devils of which may hide in those details. Our government must back down from this continued production of complexity or soon, if we don't already, we will need bureaucracies to aid us in doing the most mundane of tasks lest we be arrested and/or fined for doing them. While steps are needed to make sure live is reasonably safe, the intrusion of government into every facet of business and life will only serve those who have the time and money to make sure of their compliance with these complex regulations and laws, and will harm and burden all others.
It has become increasingly clear that enough laws cannot be made to correct every evil in the world as society itself must cure many of them. In the process of trying to make enough laws to correct every evil we are creating a framework for a new breed of evil to hide within the complex details of this framework so that it may use this framework to harm and even destroy those smaller and less able to afford lawyers and other persons to wade through this increasingly complex regulation so as to make sure compliance with it is held.
This creates a dilemma in which the few will hold power over the small and the many by means of the government, as those with staff enough to handle the complex bureaucracy would necessarily be and only be the larger corporate entities, and thereby create a relationship between business and government that is inappropriate due to the manner in which such a plutocratic intertwining would conflict with the ideals of a republic.
Beware the visions created by fear, for they may coerce the law to go places it has no right and no competence for, and by doing so create a means for social dissonance that will have grave and bold consequences.
Of course, what I warn you of in this letter may already be so as I have recently noticed signs of this type of plutocratic intertwining throughout much of our law.

[AeroSim]

The question is: What new food safety laws are we talking about? Do you have a link?

[old82]

http://aahf.nonprofitsoapbox.com/ind...id=871&Itemid=

i may have been had by another corporate entity when i sent off a petition from that website... but i figured the above presented scenario was more frightening.

[Meridian]

Can I just point out that the Europeans are NOT banning supplements. What they are saying is that if you are claiming that your product has health benefits then it will be treated as a medicine and it must follow all the rules that they do. It's designed to stop (amongst other things) supplements being sold using (generally) false claims - for the vast majority of people they are a complete waste of money. But it's also designed to stop all sorts of rubbish being sold as cures for all sorts of things: most of these "health" yoghurts (also a waste of money) would again have to be tested for instance. If they pass the tests, fine - you can call them a medicine and sell them. If the products fail (and most will) then they cannot be sold with anything that suggests it is a health product. In most cases this would mean people would stop buying. In most cases people should anyway, but sometimes the only way to stop fools parting with their money is the law.



M

[old82]

while that may be the apparent purpose of it, it could also be used in more nefarious ways when combined with other laws.

the problem also comes to be that just because you have a study to prove something doesn't mean that study is honest. Remember vioxx?

and how is it the law’s job to tell people what they can and can't buy anyway? you realize that some of this stuff does work? traumeel, and I’ve used it and it works VERY well, is a very effective and harmless homeopathic anti inflammatory and is a good alternative to things such as prednisone, which is fda approved and has nasty side effects such as shutting your adrenal gland off, osteoporosis, and diabetes.

What I worry is that this law will be used by the drug companies to control the market and reduce my options based on opinions, and note that I said opinions as these studies are many times rigged.

And besides, all the supplements and treatment options that supposedly are worthless, even though millions of people use them, already have labels on them that say the statements presented on their packaging are not approved by the FDA. What exactly is the point in banning them? I think it’s because these things are gaining a larger hold of the market share and are threatening the profits of the drug companies.

For example, millions of people swear by joint supplements, but supposedly these things haven’t proven to be effective, even though every athlete I know says that they help. Should we ban them? Who has the right to tell me I can’t use a joint supplement?

And what would suggest they are a health product? The fact they’re sold in a health food store perhaps?

I also find it interesting that supplements are under such attack as when you take a drug from the doctor and that drug doesn’t work you’re merely told “well, that med works on some and not others, let’s try something else”, or when it causes side effects you’re told “well, you shouldn’t be taking that”, yet no one has banned these drugs for not doing anything good for many of the people who take them, even drugs that can damage you to the degree that prednisone can.
Why shouldn’t supplements be granted that same leeway that drugs are given?