Amish farmer jailed over chickweed salve, bloodroot salve

http://www.kyfreepress.com/2017/03/fda-v-sam-girod-complete-story-video/

Better to read the transcript, because this ongoing incident is pretty dense ( dense in the sense that there is lots of detail, all of which is important).

This is a case of FDA domineering overreach, pure and simple. The local sheriff supports Mr. Girard, told federal authorities not to arrest him, which they went ahead and did anyway, and is now working on a petition for a presidential pardon. Lets see if the Pres's pardon pen is where his mouth is. If he wants to scale back the bureaucracy, FDA is clearly the place to start. As. Ms. Oh points out, the persecution of one Amish salve compounder has cost you and me millions.

I think there is a bit more involved here than picking on Amish because they don't believe in defending themselves. For one thing, the bloodroot is apparently quite effective against skin cancers, which suggests to me that someone wants to patent the active ingredient and then prevent anyone else from growing or using the herb at all.

A number of libertarian sites have picked up this incident, so I hope someone will do some in depth reporting, looking at matters such as why this particular farmer why now, and exactly who is the federal prosecutor and who is the federal judge, who appointed him and what are his associations and alliances.

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Mary Bennett

TheOtherMaven's picture

because it raises all kinds of questions about proper boundaries, personal liability, public safety, proportional response, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

And most of all about the role of MONEY.

We are fast - very, VERY fast - approaching the status of "Everything Not Explicitly Permitted Is Forbidden". Never mind the 9th and 10th Amendments - they're dead letters, like all the other Amendments except the 2nd, and like half the main body of the Constitution as well.

We have too much law, and only as much "justice" as you can buy.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven At least considering the disconnect between how it is written and practiced.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

Granma's picture

@TheOtherMaven Did you read the story at the link? There is much more information there.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@Granma

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riverlover's picture

Can I be prosecuted for collections of wild things (plants and fungi) on the property I pay taxes on if I then try to sell them? How is not not a hunter-gatherer? Living off the land, likely stewarding that, because it's income? How is that different from people who buy at barn sales and estate auctions, with a good eye, and turning around to sell at profit?

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

"effective" against skin cancer, or any other cancer.

a couple of studies have shown mild tumoricidal properties, but only in the petri dish.

it can also be pretty dangerous.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd @UntimelyRippd I typed "apparently quite effective". If there is no "scientific proof", what possible objection can there be to this man compounding a non-toxic, by FDA's own admission, salve and selling it, WITH a label modified as per FDA instructions?

Please, help us out here. Just what is the objection to someone using their own ingenuity to make and distribute a product from commonly available ingredients?

FDA inspectors also questioned the man's comfrey plant. I also have a comfrey plant. It produces good compost material and provides food for pollinators.

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Mary Bennett

@Nastarana
to the contrary, it is not "apparently" effective in the least, nevermind "quite", and some damn fool who buys it from this farmer thinking it's going to magically melt away his melanoma is probably going to end up dead, and almost certainly going to be in a bad way.

like this guy, who rather than going to the doctor to get a diagnosis, decided to heal himself:

CASE REPORT 1: A 53-year-old man with unremarkable medical history developed a 5-mm papule on his chest that gradually blackened. The patient searched the Internet for "herbal cures" and found bloodroot salve as a therapy for skin lesions. The patient applied bloodroot black salve for 10 days. After 6 months the remaining lesion resumed increasing in size. The patient restarted bloodroot treatments despite intense pain. After 6 weeks the lesion doubled, became ulcerated and purulent, prompting presentation to the Emergency Department. Pathological examination of the lesion revealed malignant melanoma.

What the FDA objects to is people selling false hope -- and in particular, dangerously false hope.

None of which means I am taking a particular side in this case. I'm just noting that if you've got cancer, there's no particular reason to think that bloodroot salve is going to do you any good.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@UntimelyRippd @UntimelyRippd
That's why I stuck to general principles.

There is a point past which prosecution becomes PERsecution - and the FDA stampeded way over that line a LONG time ago, probably in the wake of the DEA, ATFE, and other hypercontrolling agencies.

There is no legislation that will cure stupidity.

Edited to add another thought: maybe if seeing the doctor didn't cost an arm, a leg, and several back teeth, more people would be willing to do that instead of trying to treat themselves.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

PriceRip's picture

@UntimelyRippd

          But as a scientist I tend to avoid walking through some sections of Trader Joe's and Ashland Food Co-op · · · go figure.

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earthling1's picture

They don't complement the new age Moneychanger Christians. So, a War on Fake Religions is born. Next they will be deemed "savages" and you know what follows. Forced relocations, trails of tears, desert lands, starvation.
I smell the stench of Dominionests at work here.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

are illegal. Considering what is legally sold, from tobacco to Roundup to pesticides, I tend to think that a salve compounded from beeswax, olive oil and herbs, none of which are poisonous--we are not talking about castor beans or hemlock here--seems rather benign. The author of the article is a journalist, for those who demand "professional" testimony; she stated that she has used this man's products herself to good effect and with no harmful side effects. Nor were the prosecutors able to find any witness who had suffered harmful side effects. The unnamed person whom FDA claimed had been harmed mysteriously did not show up to testify and no evidence as to that anonymous person's identity or harm done to him or her was introduced at the trial.

We have seen a lot of these prosecutions of farmers in the last decade, under Republican and Democratic administrations in which testimony from satisfied customers who are willing to spend their hard earned money on out of the mainstream products is routinely dismissed as unworthy of consideration. I can't help thinking that in addition to commercial motives, there is also at work in these cases a certain corrosive jealousy on the part of incompetent keytapping apparatchiks.

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Mary Bennett

Granma's picture

The farmer was scheduled for court today. Will you please post verdict, or a link to the article about what happens in court? This bothers me a lot. I hope the whole thing against him is dismissed.

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@Granma http://www.wkyt.com/content/news/WKYT-UPDATE-Jury-finds-Amish-farmer-gui...

I intend to be writing to my congresswoman, even though I live in another state. There is a vibrant and economically successful small farm food scene here in the Mohawk Valley, as well as an Amish population. I believe I can speak for most upstaters when I say that we admire and value our Amish neighbors and we don't want to see these industrious and peaceful Christians being persecuted by out of control govt. agencies.

The sheriff is said to be getting up a petition for a Presidential pardon. I guess we will be finding out just how "libertarian" Mr. Trump really is.

Any ideas anyone might have about what to put in a letter to one's congressperson would be most welcome.

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Mary Bennett

pproved pharmaceutical drugs kill 1 person every 19 minutes. Merck’s FDA-approved Vioxx killed over 68,000 people. Nobody in Big Pharma goes to jail. They pay out billions in fines (after making billions in profits.) No companies close, nobody goes to jail. Nobody. Even after killing and harming 100s of thousands of people.

4. Sam Girod and his products have hurt no one.

Those statistics come from the reporter, Ms. Ohl. As a reporter she can surely be considered A Professional, so I think her figures, result of her research, can be accepted. Just to repeat that, Vioxx killed 68,000 people. Perhaps some knowledgeable person can link to or describe the prosecution of the company which put Vioxx in the marketplace? How many convictions? What fines paid or jail time served?

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Mary Bennett

@Nastarana @Nastarana

HUGE article,with a wealth of detail - would highly recommend reading in full at source, if at all possible.

The situation has, unsurprisingly, further deteriorated since among the powerful Big Pharmaceutical Mafia, only now, less of the evidence is officially even sought...

https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/drugs-medical/fda_lawsuit...

FDA Used to Shield Big Pharma From Lawsuits
May 12, 2006

May 12, 2006, 12:00:00AM. By Evelyn Pringle
In January 2006, the FDA announced the Bush administration's latest gift to Big Pharma in a statement that said people who believe they have been injured by drugs approved by the FDA should not be allowed to sue drug companies in state courts.

"We think that if your company complies with the FDA processes, if you bring forward the benefits and risks of your drug, and let your information be judged through a process with highly trained scientists, you should not be second-guessed by state courts that don't have the same scientific knowledge," said Scott Gottlieb, the FDA's deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs. ...

... The ploy was also readily recognized by state lawmakers and trial lawyers as another attempt to reduce the public's ability to hold Big Pharma accountable. "Eliminating the rights of individuals to hold negligent drug companies accountable puts patients in even more danger than they already are in from drug company executives that put profits before safety," said Ken Suggs, president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

"The fact that the drug industry can get the FDA to rewrite the rules so that CEOs can escape accountability for putting dangerous and deadly drugs on the market is the scariest example yet of how much control these big corporations have over our political process," Mr Suggs told the Washington Post. ...

... Upon learning of the FDA's power grab, the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group that represents state lawmakers, accused the FDA of trying to seize authority that it did not have. The organization bases its opposition, in part on the following:

"FDA has usurped the authority of Congress, state legislatures and state courts. There is no statutory authority in the FDCA for FDA to preempt state product liability laws as they relate to prescription drugs.

"Instead of seeking valid congressional authority, unelected agency officials are seeking to preempt state product liability laws by writing this preemption into a final rule, thereby undermining state policy and judicial decision made in this area.

"State tort laws and civil justice systems serve as an important check on federal standards. Our civil justice system establishes a duty of care that protects citizens when the federal government is too slow to act or when federal standards are insufficient. States have the ability to achieve greater protections for their citizens through successful product liability lawsuits."

In an earlier gift delivered to Big Pharma in December 2005, Republican leaders, and specifically Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), attached protective provisions to a Department of Defense appropriations report that gave the industry "unprecedented immunity," according to Democratic lawmakers who described the underhanded move as follows:

"Republican leaders added provisions to the conference report after cutting a back-room deal in the middle of the night. The conference report grants sweeping immunity to drug companies for injuries caused by vaccines and drugs and for the administration of those vaccines and drugs, even if they are made with flagrant disregard for basic safety precautions.

"Moreover, the compensation program is a sham, leaving people who become injured from a drug or vaccine without recourse." ...

... The latest revelation on this little stunt came on May 8, 2006 when the Tennessean reported that vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Frist secretly amended into a bill, according to e-mails obtained by Pubic Citizen, a public advocacy group.

The industry group, called the Biotechnology Industry Organization, wanted the vaccine liability language in the bill, the e-mails proves.

"At Senator Frist's staff's request, this morning, BIO (Tom and I) participated in a meeting with three other industry representatives (Sanofi and an outside counsel who works for both Pfizer and Roche, I believe), administration staff (HHS, DoJ and WH Leg Affairs), and Liz Hall to further discuss liability," BIO official Dave Boyer wrote in a November e-mail obtained by Public Citizen.

Other E-mails and documents show that BIO met privately with Frist's staff and the White House to figure out ways to give drug makers protection from people injured by vaccines.

"The lack of any restriction on jury trial is problematic," the BIO analysis said. "Where injured parties have no other avenue for relief, juries are likely to find ways to award damages."

In another e-mail, Boyer described a meeting in which Karl Rove said it was "important to the President that a bill move this year," and said "they had invited industry to discuss what they understood to be a few key remaining points" of contention.

Republicans members of Congress had tried on several occasions to enact similar legislation of its own, but with voters already so angry over soaring drug costs, they finally had to back off. ...

But all you hear about now is the knee-jerk 'anti-vaxxer' Monsanto/Bivings-style propaganda, no concerns about potentially unsafe vaccines and other pharma drugs in some cases becoming mandatory '... even if they are made with flagrant disregard for basic safety precautions. ...'

Citizens producing small quantities of balms or traditional herbs in competition with Big Pharma (having more wealth and power than small countries, in many cases due to their fostering at citizen expense by especially the US government, among others) are a whole 'nother story.

Edited to add a missing i and a missing t to two different words, as my keyboard sometimes sticks and I needz to press harder, drat it!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.