To: IAHF List
Subject: Join Me In Requesting Revelation of Conflicts of Interest on Dr.Schneeman from UC Davis - She Chaired the Committee Which Produced FDA Witch Hunt Report Which Attacks Safety of Dietary Supplements
From: IAHF.COM
Date: 7 Apr 2004 18:22:09 -0000
IAHF List: Below you will find a copy of an email that I just sent to the Public Records Department of the University of California at Davis in search of information pertaining to any pharmaceutical research grants which Dr.Barbara Schneeman may have worked under during the course of her employment there.
Please copy my message into your OWN message, and join me by emailing your OWN request in to UC Davis, it will be very INTERESTING to see what they disclose since they have a public policy requiring such disclosure be made.
Once we get this information, we can hammer the FDA with it, and we can demand congressional oversight pertaining to this biased witchhunt report which is intended to assist the FDA in removing safe vitamin products from the market under false pretenses.
An audio archive of a public briefing regarding NAS's report can be heard at http://www.nationalacademies.org/webcastarchive.html Many excellent questions were asked which cast serious doubt on the intentions of those who created the report.
The National Academy of Sciences has just announced completion of a report which FDA commissioned them to generate on Establishing a Framework to Evaluate the Safety of Dietary Supplements. You can download this free book at
http://books.nap.edu/books/0309091101/html/
In their intro, NAS says "In line with these findings, members of the scientific and medical community have strongly advised that the regulatory mechanisms for monitoring the safety of dietary supplements as currently defined by DSHEA by revised. The contraints imposed upon the FDA with regard to insuring the absence of unreasonable risk associated with the use of dietary supplements make it difficult for the health of the American people to be adequately protected."
HERE IS THE REQUEST I JUST MADE FOR DISCLOSURE OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST INFO on Dr.Schneeman, who CHAIRED this biased report
To: lstemple@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Request for Public Disclosure re Conflict of Interest Info Pertaining to a Faculty Member
Bcc: 73302.2627@compuserve.com, Saul Kent , norman.singleton@mail.house.gov, Ralph Fucetola JD
To: Lynette Temple
Public Records Dept.
University of California at Davis
530-752-3949
Dear Lynette:
Per our converation, please provide me with a complete list of pharmaceutical companies who have provided grant money for any research conducted by Barbara Olds Schneeman, PhD during the course of her employment with UC Davis. While Dr.Schneeman does list her publications in the CV posted on the University website, there is no mention made of who funded any of this research, and I would like full disclosure of this information. Thus far, Schneeman has not responded to an emailed request I made to her in which I sought this information.
I appreciate your assistance in providing this information as soon as possible.
I am very concerned about possible conflicts of interest pertaining to Dr.Schneeman because she chaired a National Academy of Sciences Committee which recently released a paper titled "Dietary Supplements: A Framework for Evaluating Safety" and I feel that any work she may have done in the past for pharmaceutical interests could raise serious questions about the objectivity of this report, as well as about the objectivity of the FDA which commissioned it.
Sadly, the FDA often attempts to evade public scrutiny on controversial issues such as this by contracting non government organizations (including the National Academy of Science) which aren't subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This blocks concerned citizens from having access to both the raw data behind papers such as this, as well as information pertaining to possible conflicts of interest vis a vis those who write these papers.
In our conversation, you told me that UC Davis does make the sort of information I am seeking publicly available, so I await receiving it with interest. I feel that it is in the best interests of UC Davis to have this policy of public disclosure in matters such as this and I would like to commend the University for having this policy.
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
http://www.iahf.com
For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
556 Boundary Bay Road
Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA
http://www.iahf.com
jham@iahf.com
800-333-2553 N.America
360-945-0352 World