To: IAHF List
Subject: Help Needed Researching NAS Conflicts of Interest
From: "IAHF-John Hammell" jham@iahf.com
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 14:29:20
IAHF List: The FDA is once again up to their old trick of trying to hide behind the National Academy of Sciences by having them generate two more biased supposed "safety studies" on dietary supplements. NAS is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, even when they generate studies that the FDA contracts them for.
These studies are always very biased, and produced by mainstream nutritionists who receive a lot of money from pharmaceutical research grants. FDA will be using these biased studies against us at Codex meetings in Germany in order to continue their ongoing effort to set us up for harmonization to a grossly restrictive international standard. (By falsely defining safety, FDA with help from the pharmaceutically dominated NAS is setting us up to lose in a WTO trade dispute which would put pressure on congress to repeal DSHEA.)
If you go to http://www.iom.edu/iom/iomhome.nsf/pages/FNB+Dietary+Supplements
You will see the information about these bogus safety studies that NAS is doing for FDA.
Following is the info from this NAS website, and as you can see it includes the names of the panelists who will be generating these unscientific, bogus studies that will be intended to limit our access to safe dietary supplements, just like they’re doing in the EU now.
I need help doing searches on PubMed http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi" TARGET="_top">http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi>http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi for the full articles generated by these people in order to see what pharmaceutical companies they’re accepting grant money from. We can then examine specific, highly toxic pharmaceutical drugs produced by these companies and take note of any dietary supplements that may compete with them either directly or via a nutritional protocol and see if we can spot any clear cut conflicts of interest.
If you would like to help do this search, it would save me time. Please let me know if you would like to help. See the list below of panelists we’re checking out below:
Framework for Evaluating the Safety of Dietary Supplements
This committee will provide a framework for evaluating dietary supplement ingredients. The proposed framework will focus on ingredients in dietary supplements marketed in the United States. The committee will (1) develop a proposed framework for categorizing and prioritizing dietary supplement ingredients based on safety issues, (2) describe a process for developing a system of scientific reviews with specifications for evaluating the safety of dietary supplement ingredients, and (3) develop at least six scientific reviews as prototypes for the system. The framework will include a methodology to review data with regard to the safety of dietary supplement ingredients, taking into consideration methods other expert bodies have used to categorize and review supplement safety and efficacy issues.
Two reports will be issued: (1) the proposed framework expected 12 months after the project start and (2) prototype monographs expected at the end of the project in approximately 24 months.
Link to Current Projects System
Barbara O. Schneeman, Ph.D., (Chair), Department of Nutrition & Division of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, University of California, Davis, CA
Daniel L. Azarnoff, M.D., D.L. Azarnoff Associates, South San Francisco, CA
Cindy Lynn Christiansen, Ph.D., Boston University School of Public Health, Bedford, MA Alice M. Clark, Ph.D., Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, University of Mississippi, MS
Norman R. Farnsworth, Ph.D., Deparment of Medical Chemistry and Pharmoacognosy, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL
Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., Department of Health Care Services, The George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, DC
Ted Gansler, M.D., M.B.A., American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA
Philip S. Guzelian, M.D., Department of Pharmocology, Englewood, CO
Elizabeth Jeffery, Ph.D., Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois,Urbana, IL
Joseph Lau, M.D., Division of Clinical Care Research, New England Medical Center, Boston, MA Susan S. Percival, Ph.D., Deparment of Food Sicence and Human Nutrition, University of Florida,Gainesville, FL
Cheryl L. Rock, Ph.D., R.D., Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, CA
Allison A. Yates, Ph.D., R.D., Director, Food and Nutrition Board
Marilee Shelton, Ph.D., Program Officer
Janice Okita, Ph.D., R.D., Program Officer
Alice Vorosmarti, M.S.P.H., Research Associate
Sybil Boggis, Project Assistant
Contact Information:
Food and Nutrition Board
Institute of Medicine
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20418
fnb@nas.edu
If you can take the time to help me check these people out, please let me know, it’s a lot to do on my own given everything else I’m also trying to do right now.