List: I caught the following exchange about 20/20's John Stossel on Quackwatch. Anyone who is an opponent of the FDA is a friend of mine, even John Stossel who has less that a stellar reputation for honest reporting. Sign of the times? I guess one shouldn't quibble about possible political allies, especially with regard to the power TV can have on public opinion. Wouldn't it be nice if each of us were to drop a line to our boy, honest John now and again concerning what we think/know about the FDA. Keeping the FDA on John's radar screen could pay off BIG, particularly now that Solar has shown us that Congress is beginning to wake up about the FDA's arrogance and corruption of the drug review process. Wouldn't it be something if John doesn't know about the latest Congressional inquiries into FDA doings. I'm sure the first thing that will pop into John's head would be to run a follow up broadcast so that ABC and John (of course) can take credit for this Congressional interest. God bless'em, that's EXACTLY what's needed. Roger
]Did anyone see the John Stossel program last night, Tampering With Nature, on ]debunking some of the many myths in our society? There were some heavy ]"hits" on GreenPeace and the myth of global warming and genetic ]engineering...plants to animal. It was the first major TV show that was not ]totally biased towards the sensationalism of some of these myths. I was ]touched with one segment on global warming that had some comments by children ]who were obviously very frightened of being drowned by the melting of the ]polar ice caps! I assume the teacher was a fan of the global warming ]myths.... Anyway, kudos to ABC and John Stossel.... There are some issues with Stossel. On the Skeptics List he is sometimes referred to as a 'junk science pusher', and a bit of a sensationalist. But he has his defenders as well. He's been in hot water before, and is currently being sued over this particular story. Specifically, the parents of some of the children are suing because many of the children's responses were scripted. That is, they were written by the show producers and the impression we get is that these were their actual opinions of the children, which was not always the case. The parents believe this is fraudulent and that they did not give consent for their children to be used this way, and have asked for the footage to be removed from future runs. ABC explains that 'dramatizations' are legitemate journalism. Also, the interviewers represented themselves as a small indie project working on an Earth Day movie, which was also a misrepresentation, probably to ensure the permission of the parents. Regardless, this is becoming a First Amendmant situation. Stossel had to apologize for fraud in another episode he did last year regarding organic foods, and the producer was suspended over the misrepresentation. Personally, I think this was an honest mistake. This actually has some legitemate healthfraud tangents. Specifically, Stossel did a special a few years ago explaining that silicone breast implants were probably perfectly safe, and that cancer clustering has always proven to be a statistical artifact, rather than evidence of a local hazard. And that therefore, all legal settlements surrounding these health issues have been bogus. He also came out swinging for tobacco in the 80s, suggesting that the canonical studies might be flawed. He has no confidence in the FDA, arguing that politics, rather than efficacy, dictates drug approvals and prohibitions. He recommends dissolving the approval process, advocating a 'market solution' instead. -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
