Jonathan Emord: FDA pursues interests of drug companies at expense of human life

Author, attorney, and medical patient advocate Jonathan Emord appeared on the May 19th Coast to Coast AM radio show to speak on the corruption and political ruthlessness that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses as political agents for the drug companies, and against the safety of the Americans people. During the three hour program, Emord provides references to thousands of cases where patients sought alternative methods for treatment of cancer and other diseases that current FDA approved drugs could not resolve, only to have the government agency deny access to these treatments and clinical trials which led to their deaths.

John B. Wells: Jonathan, let me ask you something. Who are these people that run the FDA, and how do they arrive at their positions of power?

Jonathan Emord: What we have is a system that is dominated by political managers. Not by scientists and not by Doctors. These are people who might have an M.D., PhD, but have made their career in government to the positions where they are appointed, based on their political acumen, and their ability to protect interests that control this government.

These political agents run a gauntlet through Congress, and once their appointed, pursue the interests of these drug companies, even at the expense of human life. - Coast to Coast AM, May 19th, 2012


In his decades long fight against this government agency, Emord has an unprecidented record of seven court victories over the FDA, and is currently pursuing a new class action suit to demand patients the right to choose experimental drugs when current pharmaceuticals no longer work.

The FDA was started by the Roosevelt administration in the first decade of the 20th century, and sought to provide protections for people in the food processing and medical industries. Initially created as the Pure Food and Drug Act, the agency evolved primarily from the public outcry generated by Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle.

Over the decades, the FDA has regulated scientists and Doctors out of the drug creation business, as it now requires billions of dollars and political protections within the government to test and bring a drug to market. This limits the number companies that can create and market drugs to only a handful of corporations who not only dominate the market, but inevitably place executives into the FDA as head of of the agency.

Additionally, a little known law passed by Congress in 2004 virtually turned over the FDA to the pharmaceutical industry, and away from public control. The new provisions entailed moving funding for the agency over to the drug industry, and drug evaluations and trials would be conducted by the companies themselves, not the FDA.

The FDA, like the Treasury Department, are two of the most egregious examples of cronyism in our government, where private corporations control government agencies meant to protect the America people from harm. Yet, without advocates like Jonathan Emord, to both instruct the public on corruption in their government, and to fight in the courts for their right to decide their own health options, many more deaths may take place through the political decisions made by an agency originally created to protect the health of the American people from the mechanisms of corporations.

http://www.examiner.com/article/jonathan-emord-fda-pursues-interests-of-drug-companies-at-expense-of-human-life