Lawson for Congress

One of the most active organizations in pursuit of good government is DownsizeDC. If you haven’t visited their Web site yet, I’d encourage you to do so — their email updates are well-documented and articulate exposes of how our government serves special and corporate interests at the expense of the people.

Two of their recent releases, reprinted below, illustrate my concerns for the so-called “medical industrial complex”, and how so-called regulatory agencies serve corporate masters.

First, the Food and Drug Administration:

Subject: Stop the Killer Horse Hormones

Estrogen hormones derived from animals have dangerous side-effects. Estriol doesn’t.  But the FDA has banned Estriol in favor of the animal derived hormones. Here’s why …

Wyeth Pharmaceutical makes animal derived hormone medications. On October 6, 2005 Wyeth petitioned the FDA to prohibit the use of Estriol, a competitor to Wyeth’s “horse hormones.” Estriol is chemically identical to human estrogen, while Wyeth’s horse hormones are not. Animal derived hormones are associated with a number of health risks, such as blood clots and cancer, while Estriol is associated with a vast number of health benefits, and NO negative side-effects.

On January 9, 2008 the FDA responded to Wyeth’s petition by banning the use of Estriol.

It’s infuriating to note that the FDA’s response to the Wyeth petition calls it a citizen’s petition. It was no such thing. It was a petition from a corporation seeking government aid to prohibit a competing product at the cost of increased danger to women’s health. By contrast, 70,000 doctors, women, and other real citizens petitioned the FDA to deny Wyeth’s request, but the FDA partially sided with Wyeth anyway.

It’s even more infuriating to note that the FDA admitted in a press conference announcing the ban that it knew of no evidence of any harm associated with the use of Estriol.

The American Association for Health Freedom summarizes the case for Estriol as follows: “Compounded bio-identical hormones have been used for 50 years, are listed in the US Pharmacopoeia, are state-regulated, are available only with a doctor’s prescription, and were protected by a previous Act of Congress (FDA Modernization Act 1997).”

The FDA admits that it granted Wyeth’s request simply because Estriol has not endured the FDA’s costly and time consuming approval process. But should the estrogen that naturally flows in a woman’s body have to be approved by the FDA? Of course not. Neither then, should Estriol, which is chemically identical to that estrogen! Estriol is human estrogen.

If Estriol needs to be banned from the market then perhaps all women should report to an FDA lab to have their Estriol removed from their bodies.

We are joining with the American Association for Health Freedom to try to stop this outrage. We want to pass two resolutions in Congress: H. Con. Res. 342 and S. Con. Res. 88. Please ask your Representative and your two Senators to co-sponsor H. Con. Res. 342 and S. Con. Res. 88. You can do so here.

We would also like to note that if Downsize DC’s “Write the Laws Act” were the law of the land this FDA action would not have been possible. Please send another message in support of the “Write the Laws Act,” and use your personal comments to mention the Estriol ban as a reason why we need the “Write the Laws Act.” You can send that message here.

Next, the unexpected results of combining the American Medical Association with Justice Department bureaucrats:

SUBJECT: The AMA Writes the Laws

Should the American Medical Association (AMA) have the power to write laws? Some bureaucrats think they already do.

DownsizeDC.org proposed the “Write the Laws Act” (WTLA) to prevent unelected bureaucrats from writing regulations that have the force of law. Only elected representatives should have that power. We believe there should be “no legislation without representation.”

Sadly, we’ve just learned that the problem WTLA seeks to fix is even worse than we thought. Unelected bureaucrats in the Justice Department have now taken to treating the standards of a private organization, the AMA, as if they had the force of law.

A doctor in Kansas is facing twenty years to life for failing to conform to the standards of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Stephen J. Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda K. Schneider, are charged with illegally distributing prescription drugs, along with several counts of related fraud and illegal monetary transactions.

Did the Schneiders sell illegal drugs? No. They simply prescribed FDA-approved medications to people in pain. Now they face years in prison simply because the Justice Department disagrees with their medical judgments.

That’s bad enough, but there’s more . . .

While the Schneiders are charged with violating the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the Schneiders didn’t actually violate any specific provision in it. Instead, the Justice Department accuses the Schneiders of violating . . .

• The policies of the Health Care Benefit Providers (HCBP’s) whom they billed — if true, then the HCBP’s should sue the Schneiders in civil court.
• Kansas state law  — if true, then Kansas should prosecute them, not the federal government.
• “Industry principles” — but those “principles” aren’t encoded in federal law, and if the Schneiders violated them, they should instead be investigated by medical licensing boards.
• The Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code book, a “privately written, trademarked and copyrighted publication of a commercial affiliate of the American Medical Association.”

The AMA, of course, is a private organization, and while the CPT is used by the government, it is not law.

It’s important to recognize that Justice Department bureaucrats want to imprison the Schneiders because they disagree with the Schneider’s medical judgments, NOT because the Schneider’s broke the law. Mere bureaucrats are treating the guidelines of private organizations as if they were laws. Like a six year-old in a playground game, the bureaucrats are “making it up as they go along.”

This prosecution threatens all doctors — and their patients, including you.

The Schneider’s case, and others like it, will encourage doctors to let their patients suffer in agony rather than risk a prison sentence. But . . .

Under WTLA the Schneider’s case would be dismissed, because the couple isn’t being accused of violating any law enacted by Congress. According to the WTLA, this would constitute a complete defense.

Thomas More is right: if the Devil breaks the law he should be prosecuted, but not before then. The same should go for doctors and everyone else. This is a fundamental principle of free society. Our constitution says that the only valid laws are those enacted by Congress, not those written by unelected bureaucrats or lifted from the guidelines of private organizations by tyrannical prosecutors.

Tell your Representative and Senators to introduce the “Write the Laws Act.” In your personal comments, tell them about the Schneider case and how the Justice Department is treating AMA rules as if they had the force of law. Tell them the WTLA would prevent such a legal travesty from ever occurring again. You can send your message here.

Publicizing these absurdities, worthy of Joseph Heller, would once have been the domain of a vigorous and free press. In the age of media consolidation and endless celebrity scandals, however, it’s up to concerned citizens to ask questions, and reveal the threats we face.

As your Congressman, I will work for a government that respects the Constitution, serves the people, and rejects predatory corporatism. The status quo doesn’t work for us any more — join me and folks at Downsize DC as we work to restore good government this November.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 11:42 am and is filed under good government, healthcare freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.