The FDA and YouI am writing to inform you about a developing situation and to request your assistance and support. We are fruit farmers in northern Michigan in the heart of the traditional tart cherry growing district, farming some 300 acres and employing three dozen people from the community as a family owned and operated business.We recently received a warning from the FDA that if we make information available to the public about research into the potential health benefits of Montmorency tart cherries, that tart cherries are then classified as a drug under Section 201(g)(1)(B) or the act USC 321(g)(1)(B). We are not misleading the public, and we certainly have no intention to do so. Rather, we have a strong and ongoing commitment to educating and informing the public about food and agricultural issues, as well as the potential health benefits of including fresh fruit in their diet, in congruence with the efforts of the USDA and other public agencies. Research demonstrating health benefits from eating fresh fruit and fruit products should be made available to the public if the consumer is to make informed decisions. Encouraging people to improve their eating habits contributes to better public health and less burden on our healthcare system. Family farmers across the country are struggling to preserve their farms in the face of massive and often unfair and illegal competition from overseas as well as pressure here from development. Wholesale commodity prices have been pushed lower and lower as control of the food industry is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer large corporations. To survive, many farmers are adopting direct to retail marketing programs, often on shoe-string budgets and requiring learning new skills and investing scarce resources into these efforts. If we are unable to speak about the health benefits of fresh fruit, then those efforts are crippled and family farming - already under incredible duress - will be further handicapped. The FDA is telling us that we are forbidden to publish or repeat testimony from respected spokespersons from the medical, nutritional and biochemistry fields. This is a serious and unconstitutional abrogation of our right to freedom of speech. We are being threatened with action if we do not cease publishing scientific research abstracts on the Internet. It is very disturbing that we are being asked to register cherries as a new drug when cherries have been safely consumed for centuries, while at the same time the same agency approved drugs such as Vioxx, Celebrex, and many others for which there are now substantial reports that these drugs have marked deleterious effects on people's health. We did not seek out and have no wish to engage in a legal or mass media battle with any governmental agency, but this is our legitimate, ethical and honest business livelihood that is being threatened. As small independent family farmers, we do not have the resources nor time to battle a federal agency that we suspect is more interested in protecting the private interests of the pharmaceutical industry than it is in protecting public health. We are left to reach only one conclusion about this: in order to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry the FDA is willing to trample free speech rights, public health, and family farmers. We request your assistance and input on this issue before it spins out of control and has a negative and chilling impact on agricultural, public health, and freedom of speech issues.
The King Family
1-877-937-5464
also see:
Why is the FDA Picking on Cherry Growers? |