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FDA Running Extortion Racket: Supplement Companies Threatened with Arrest if They Don't Pay Up!

By Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor  Posted by Stephen Fox (about the submitter)       (Page 1 of 10 pages)   2 comments
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(NaturalNews) NaturalNews has learned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is running a criminal extortion racket designed to drain cash from health supplement companies and shift it into the pockets of top FDA contractors. This organized crime operation has been running for years, and it has operated with impunity because each company targeted by the scam feels isolated and alone, unable to face the astronomical legal bills of going to court and battling the FDA. So one by one, they agree to "settle" with the FDA for crimes they never committed. Part of the settlement, of course, involves the payment of FDA employees or contractors who pocket the money extorted from health companies.

NaturalNews has interviewed executives from three different companies who have been targeted for extortion by U.S. Food and Drug Administration employees. At their request, the names of those companies are being kept confidential until legal action being taken against them is resolved. Interviews have been recorded, with permission, with two of those companies and will be released to the public at a later date. Documents proving this FDA extortion racket are included here.

How the FDA extorts money from nutritional supplement companiesThe FDA extortion racket works like this: FDA employees use keyword-scanning software to scan the web pages of natural health product and supplement companies, searching for terms like cancer, cures, treatment, remedies and other "forbidden" words. FDA employees then review the discovered pages to determine if they contain any words that might inform consumers of the health benefits of the nutritional products. FDA employees also look for links that might point web users to scientific articles from peer-reviewed medical journals that further explain the health benefits of specific foods, supplements or nutrients.

When offending words or links are found by the FDA, their extortion team goes into full swing. First, they contact the company and warn them to remove all information and links from their websites. This is the most important step from the FDA's standpoint, because by doing this, they can keep the health-conscious public in a state of nutritional ignorance about the scientifically-supported healing properties of natural supplements. Cherry products, for example, cannot link to scientific articles explaining the simple biological fact that cherries ease inflammation in human beings. Such links are considered "drug claims" by the FDA.

NaturalNews has even learned that companies are now being targeted for simply posting customer testimonials, even when those testimonials make absolutely no health claims. FDA and FTC agents are now threatening the owners of such companies with imprisonment if they do not immediately remove all customer testimonials from their websites and marketing materials.

If the company being targeted for extortion refuses to fully comply with the FDA's requests to remove all educational information from their website, the FDA then escalates the extortion tactics by threatening the company principals with arrest and seizure unless they agree to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to top FDA contractors and sign a "consent decree" where the company "admits" to committing various crimes (see below). This consent decree is a blatant violation of the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, of course, and it violates numerous sections of the Bill of Rights (Amendments #1 and #5, at the very least).

The FDA employees or contractors receiving the extorted money, it is claimed, are being paid to "review web pages" to make sure they don't contain anything that might inform consumers about the scientifically-validated benefits of the health products being sold. FDA extortion agreements specify that FDA employees should be paid the rate of $100 per hour, with no limit on the number of hours they may bill the company for. The extortion agreement also requires companies to pay for all the following:

• $100 per hour for the travel time of FDA employees.
• Hotel rooms for FDA employees.
• Storage fees for all products seized by the FDA.

The same agreement also requires the company to comply with FDA demands by never placing any links or "illegal" information on its website, where "illegal" means anything that offers an accurate description of the health benefits offered by natural health products.

The Consent DecreePart of the FDA's strategy for oppression and control is to force targeted companies to sign a "consent decree" where they admit to crimes they never committed. NaturalNews obtained a copy of a public court document the FruitFast company was forced to sign due to FDA threats and extortion tactics.

You can view this document yourself at: http://www.NaturalNews.com/investig...

This document requires the FruitFast company to admit to crimes it did not commit; namely:

"Violating the Act, by introducing or delivering for introduction, or causing to be introduced or delivered for introduction, into interstate commerce articles of drug that are misbranded within the meaning of 21 U.S.C. SS 352(f)(1)."

What "drugs" did the FruitFast company introduce that were "misbranded?" Cherries, it turns out. Cherry juice concentrate was being sold with the accurate statement that it helped eliminate gout (which it does). This, according to the FDA, was enough to magically transform cherry juice into an "unapproved drug" and cause it to be "misbranded."

It also requires targeted companies to contractually agree that they have:

"...removed all claims from Defendants' product labels, labeling, promotional materials, websites owned or controlled by Defendants, and in any other media that cause that product to be a drug and/or contain unapproved or unauthorized health claims within the meaning of the Act; and

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