Voodoo Rituals, Toxic Mercury

In response to a Reuter's News Service Article on August 31, 2006
EPA: Quit Using Mercury in Your Voodoo Rituals


"Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S. guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.......mercury’s toxic effects are pronounced in the nervous systems and brains of exposed children, and can damage organs and cause seizures in adults." - Reuter's, Aug. 31, 2006

Barbara Loe Fisher Comments:
OK, EPA, FDA and CDC, you can't have it both ways. Either mercury is toxic and it doesn't belong in the human body; or mercury is no big deal and we can eat and drink it, breathe and bathe in it, as well as inject it into our bodies with no worries.

How come you can close down schools when a kid breaks a mercury filled thermometer on the floor and you are going after practitioners of voodoo for using bits of mercury to ward off evil spirits, but you insist on injecting mercury directly into the bloodstreams of American babies through vaccination?

You are guilty as charged for practicing voodoo medicine and voodoo politics on the American people. Going after the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion in America, is a clever way of deflecting attention from your regulatory responsibilities to insure that products consumed by Americans are free from toxic substances. Why are we subjected to laws which require us to inject mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, and phenoxyethanol into our children through vaccination? Leave the First Amendment alone and do your job.

FDA Paid For By Industry

In response to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2006
Drug Firms Use Financial Clout To Push Industry Agenda at FDA

"For most of its history, the FDA was funded entirely by Congress. But in the early 1990s, companies unhappy with the pace of drug approvals agreed to pay the FDA millions of dollars in' annual fees to help speed its performance. Because the industry and the agency renegotiate every five years over the size of fees-and what they,' can be used for-drug makers can have considerable input, into which pro­grams receive funding. Each time the arrangement has been renewed, the FDA has gained 'new fund­ing. In return, industry has wrung conces­sions. In the 1997 deal, the review time for a standard application dropped from 12 months to 10 months. In 2002, the FDA agreed to a number of changes, including a new deadline for how fast the agency would respond to companies' requests for meetings' about their drug applications." - Anna Wilde Matthews, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2006

Barbara Loe Fisher Comment:
An FDA that is paid by the pharmaceutical industry to do its job is not an FDA that is looking out for the public's interest, it is the FDA looking out for its own interest and the interest of its funder: the industry it is supposed to be regulating. Shame on Congress for allowing the drug industry to bully and bribe the only federal regulatory agency standing between the people and toxic drugs and vaccines.

Unfortunately, most drugs and vaccines that have been fast tracked by the FDA since Pharma began funding the FDA in the 1990's are suspect and should have independent confirmation of their safety and efficacy. With FDA sold out to Big Pharma, the only way the American public can protect themselves is to "just say no" to drugs and vaccines that may not have been adequately tested by an FDA pandering to an industry in search of quick and easy profit making. With Congress failing to do it, Americans have no choice but to protect themselves from dangerous drugs and vaccines licensed by an FDA owned by Pharma.

The Slut Shot

A quote from an article that appeared in The Village Voice on August 17, 2006

"The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) critiques vaccines and educates the public about the risk of serious reactions. According to its website, the NVIC believes that Gardasil was fast-tracked by the FDA without proper safety testing. Their chief concern is that "Gardasil contains 225 mcg of aluminum and, although aluminum adjuvants have been used in vaccines for decades, they were never tested for safety in clinical trials. . . . Animal and human studies have shown that aluminum can cause nerve cell death and that vaccine aluminum adjuvants can allow aluminum to enter the brain, as well as cause inflammation at the injection site leading to chronic joint and muscle pain and fatigue." The NVIC claims that 90 percent of study participants who received Gardasil and 85 percent who took the placebo (which, incidentally, also contained aluminum) complained of one or more adverse reactions including pain, swelling, headache, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, and myalgia." - The Village Voice, Aug. 17, 2006

FDA Approves Spraying Meat with Viruses

In response to an article by the Associated Press and Forbes, August 18, 2006
FDA Says Viruses Safe for Treating Meat

In yet another stunning demonstration of callous disregard for the health of American citizens, a pathetically weak and useless Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to industry microbe hunters to spray cold cuts, poultry and other meats with a mix of viruses that are supposed to eat bacteria contaminating the meat without hurting anyone in the process. Right.

And the best part? Meat producers won't have to tell consumers which meats have been bathed in the viruses so everyone gets a dose eating a hot dog at a baseball game or frying up some ham and eggs for breakfast - whether they want it or not. And when Uncle Leo in the Bronx drops dead from a mysterious infection after eating an italian sub at a neighborhood picnic, the story will be: it wasn't the virus infected sausage that did it, it was - A COINCIDENCE. (But if enough people drop dead after eating virus infected meat, an enterprising drug company will probably develop a food vaccine and convince the CDC to mandate it).

In America, apparently the only way consumers will be able to protect themselves from FDA-sponsored contaminated meat is to become a vegan or go organic. It's an expensive alternative but a small price to pay to keep viruses, chemicals and hormones that don't belong in the food we eat out of our bodies.