Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Consumers Union Promotes Awareness of "Natural" Remedies

Consumers Union, nonprofit independent publisher of Consumer Reports, has added a "Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database" to its online health databases. For nineteen bucks a year, you can have access to this database, along with its prescription meds and medical treatments databases.

The Washington Post's article has a curious passage in it:

Many users erroneously regard these products as safe because they are "natural" and do not consider them to be drugs, Metcalf noted. In fact, the efficacy of many products is untested, their purity unknown and their safety uncertain because they are largely exempt from the scrutiny of the Food and Drug Administration.


The CU's actions here help to point out the fact that we don't need the FDA anymore. We just need people working cooperatively, either in nonprofit groups like CU, or in for-profit ventures, to distribute the information. I mean, nineteen bucks a year for access to all that good info is chicken feed. I'm sure more money than that is taken from my federal taxes to keep the FDA running.

Even if CU decides that it's too much work to maintain the database, I'm sure several profit-seeking entrepreneurs would be glad to offer subscriptions to the "natural remedies" crowd for similar undertakings.

FDA delenda est!

Peace,

Tor

This is this week's post. In a nutshell, any topic is allowed, at my discretion, till midnight tonight, my time. I'll post the links here Wednesday morning.

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