Obama’s FDA: Cheerios Are a “Drug” and Can’t Make Health Claims
By David Theroux on May 12, 2009 in Business, Drugs, Food, Healthcare, Nationalization, Regulation, Science, Technology
The Obama administration blunders onward in its “progressive” (i.e., authoritarian) absurdities. According to CBS News, now the FDA has sent a letter to General Mills, the makers of Cheerios, warning them to stop including health claims in their advertising not because they are false, but because such claims make Cheerios a “drug” which “may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”
Current boxes of Cheerios are touting what the company calls exciting news—the cereal’s ability to help lower cholesterol 10 percent in one month. . . . According to a letter from the FDA General Mills’ advertising violates the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The agency said claims that Cheerios ingredients can lower cholesterol within a certain amount of time, all while providing cancer-fighting and heart-healthy benefits, essentially makes Cheerios “a drug” by their definition. . . . The FDA gave General Mills 15 days to explain how it will correct the statements on Cheerios boxes. . . . In a statement issued Tuesday, General Mills said this dispute is over language, not science. The company pointed out that the FDA’a complaint doesn’t actually question whether Cheerios can help lower cholesterol levels—it only talks about how the health benefits are advertised.
For an extensive critical analysis of the enormous harms from and alternatives to the FDA food and drug bureaucracy and police, see our website FDAReview.org.
The country is financially going to hell in a handcart and their priority is the wording on a cereal box. Not any false claims, just the wording.
Thanks for looking after the truly important things. I’ll mark this down for review before the next election. What’s on today’s agenda? Barbies attire?
Ron Kostiuk | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the link to the FDA Review. That is a great resource. I work with medical devices so I know first hand about the harm that the FDA causes on the health of our country. I’ve always argued that it must be abolished if we are ever seriously going to try and bring down the cost of healthcare. In addition, people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they choose so long as fraud is not committed.
Are there any other projects like this one from the Independent Institute that make the case against various departments of the government?
Will | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Yeah, we can’t have people lowering their cholesterol with things like diet and exercise; that’d be fewer people stuck on statin drugs for the rest of their lives.
So there you have it—Team Obama’s even more in the tank for Big Pharma than Team Bush. Change you can believe in.
Curious observer | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Scary.
Speedmaster | May 13, 2009 | Reply
As someone who has studied health and nutrition, I disagree that grains are healthy. However, I think the FDA is terrible at protecting our health and that this is step being taken with Cheerios is ridiculous. The FDA is nothing more than a drug pusher.
Matt R. | May 13, 2009 | Reply
The FDA has double standards in their “regulations”. For those that don’t know—the FDA has also decided that our very own stem cells (autologous cells), in our own bodies are also a drug!! They say the process of making those stem cells clinically relevant to put back into our bodies, makes them a drug. However, fertility clinics have gotten away with their handling of their process for years.
The American Stem Cell Therapy Association (ASCTA) is a physician run organization dedicated to establishing best practice lab and clinical guidelines for adult stem cell use. The ASCTA considers the clinical use of the patient’s own adult stem cells which have been minimally culture expanded to be the practice of medicine; not developing a new “drug”, as the FDA would have you believe. ASCTA is doing what the fertility clinics do in the process of in vitro fertilization.
Double standards.
B. Luis | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Once again the media is leading people around by the nose. The FDA is simply doing its job. This is not news or a major plot. Except for those that want to see it that way. If you are selling food and say it can resolve a medical issue by definition you are selling a drug and need to get FDA approval. End of story.
Is that the best you can do to get people upset about the current administration? Man, they must be doing pretty good.
H Thomas | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Thought you might be interested:
http://weirdthings.com/archives/2495
Alison | May 13, 2009 | Reply
OK—this government tortures, murders, steals, lords over us with myriad regulations, imprisons non-violent offenders that have violated their rules.
How dare these b@stards!
The government is a criminal gang of murderers, thieves, and thugs.
EDN | May 13, 2009 | Reply
Alison,
The FDA most definitely has and does restrict advertising which is the point of their letter to General Mills. As such, FDA policies are clear infringements on the First Amendment. And despite your claims to the contrary, my posting clearly notes that the FDA is not disputing the claims by General Mills, but simply that the FDA insists that Cheerios be registered as a “drug” for the firm to be allowed to continue communicating its product’s proven merits. In other words, there is no issue of fraud here, other than the FDA’s claims themselves to be protecting the public from eating Cheerios.
Moreover, your blanket endorsement on your web site for brown-shirt (i.e., police-state) shakedowns by the FDA of business firms for doing nothing other than voluntarily providing honest goods and services to customers who like their products is nothing other than an apologia for corporatism.
Again, those interested in in-depth examinations of the fraud, waste, and health risks created by the FDA should go to FDAReview.org.
David Theroux | May 13, 2009 | Reply
I mentioned this to my wife this morning. She’s a pharmacist so she knows the industry. She immediately speculated that the FDA jumped on this small issue because they are looking out for their big pharma buddies. Heaven forbid people might actually be able to lower cholesterol through diet. That would put a crimp in the profits drug companies make on statins. That is what this is really about.
Also, I have a question for Mr. Theroux or anyone else here. Is anyone watching what’s going on with Gardasil, the HPV vaccine for young women? I ask because the other day the FDA issued a warning concerning the dangers of Hydroxycut, an over-the-counter weight-loss pill, because there was one death linked to it. I haven’t heard anything similar from the FDA on Gardisil even though there have been 32 deaths and thousands of adverse reactions linked to it. Once again my wife, the pharmacist, offered up that the reason we haven’t heard much is because Gardisil is produced by Merck, the biggest pharmaceutical company in the U.S. The FDA hasn’t wanted to rock that boat yet; maybe after a couple of hundred die?
RickC | May 14, 2009 | Reply
How about this: Cheerios becomes drug-related topic so they can endorse it, but now, it cannot be bought as a food product with government money, because it is a suplementary health-food product?
Jumpinjm | May 15, 2009 | Reply
The government is so greedy that they will mess with anything to get a dollar. Our country is going down the toilet and this is what they want to do instead of figuring out what to do about the economy falling down. I predict that by 2020 we’re going to be so broke people are going to rob each other for their underwear—I mean we’re already seeing people get shot for sneakers. It’s getting bad out here, real bad.
Joey | May 18, 2009 | Reply
H. Thomas and Rick C.—Thank you for having common sense.
I am not sure how appropriate it would be to find fault in the Obama administration for upholding the law as it was clearly set in place by two very historically significant Republicans. It would seem here that the iconic Reagan or Roosevelt (your choice) is to blame for regulation that prohibits distribution of foods, vitamins, etc., under any label other than that of a “drug.”
If you really want to trace it back to the truth it would look like this:
Theodore Roosevelt (R) In office at the time of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 Sec 8—precursor of he FDA Act that affects Cheerios).
Ronald Reagan (R) in office at the time that the FDA created the policy.
William Clinton (D) in office at the time of the first revision.
George W. Bush (R) in office at the time of the 2nd and final revision.
Date Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations
The Truth | May 19, 2009 | Reply
Mr. The Truth—
If you REALLY want to trace it back, trace it back through the mass advertising media. Upton Sinclair writes a series of newspaper articles (in 1906, newspapers dominated the mass advertising media) which are eventually published as “The Jungle”, which leads the government to act by passing the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Reagan, Clinton, and Bush do their dances for the advertising industry (mostly TeeVee, but also magazines) and the drug manufacturers. This leads to the NFL banning Erectile Dysfunction remedies from broadcasts of their events, due to numerous complaints from families.
So, now Cheerios is not in trouble for “being” a drug, but “advertising” like one in the mass advertising media.
If you sell bottled water, don’t ever advertise that it “prevents dehydration”!
Tall Paul | May 19, 2009 | Reply
I think that Obama is being ridiculous.
It’s cereal for godsake! Children and adults alike eat it and its excellent. It’s delicious and healthy. So what if the label says that? Its actually doing some good in this country so he should just leave it alone.
Alyxx | May 26, 2009 | Reply
Oh for the love of all things Holy. This is the SAME FDA that has been in power for years, banning drugs that were approved and doing wonderful things in the UK and other countries. It’s not changed just because Obama is president. He didn’t change the entire staff of the FDA in a little over 100 days. You can at least catch onto the fact that the FDA has been a problem for YEARS.
Chloe | May 26, 2009 | Reply
One Big Ass Mistake America…….get it?
Laura | Jun 19, 2009 | Reply
But, the box doesn’t say Cheerios WILL lower your cholesterol…..it says Cheerios MAY lower your cholesterol. Doesn’t the wording make the FDA’s poing moot? I mean, they aren’t saying, ‘If you eat these your cholesterol will definately decrease’.
Laura | Jun 22, 2009 | Reply
Food is not a drug. The Obama administration is either seriously retarded or they are simply the single most sinister government in history.
Even children understand that proper nutrition is vital to good health. If we allow these people to declare that healthy foods are drugs, then we are really doomed. Food prices will go the way that drug prices have and the federal government will have control over the food supply. That worked so well in Somalia, so let’s try it here.
jimm | Jun 27, 2009 | Reply