Walnuts Are Drugs, Says FDA

[thundley4]

Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply.

Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.”

This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.”

The FDA’s letter continues: “We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” Furthermore, the products are also “misbranded” because they “are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” Who knew you had to have directions to eat walnuts?

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/8294-walnuts-are-drugs-says-fda

Bureaucratic idiocy run amok.

[Ptarmigan]

[Boudicca]

Good grief, is Moochelle running the FDA also, deciding for the layperson cuz he or she is too stoopid to feed themselves?

[Evil_Conservative]

Yay for out of control government. 

[thelaughingman]

 

[thelaughingman]

Dr. Margaret Ann Hamburg (b. July 12, 1955, Chicago, Illinois) is an American physician and medical/public health administrator. She has served as Vice President for Biological Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the New York City Commissioner of Health.[1] She was nominated in March 2009 by President Barack Obama to become the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,[2] and was sworn in on May 22, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_A._Hamburg

Just so everyone knows who's at fault here.

[Mr Mannn]

sooooooooo, If I have a walnut tree in my yard...whats the jail term likely to be?
Are walnuts legal in California with a prescription?
Do I have to hide my nuts?
Will the DEA run no-knock raids on squirrels?
Will this mean all the chocolate ship cookies and fudge I ate, had illegal walnut ingredients? Is my mom a criminal?
Are people laughing at the FDA?

[rich_t]

More proof that almost all current US agencies need to be disbanded.

[whiffleball]

sooooooooo, If I have a walnut tree in my yard...whats the jail term likely to be?
Are walnuts legal in California with a prescription?
Do I have to hide my nuts?
Will the DEA run no-knock raids on squirrels?
Will this mean all the chocolate ship cookies and fudge I ate, had illegal walnut ingredients? Is my mom a criminal?
Are people laughing at the FDA?

That's what I'd like to know.  Our tree is full of nuts this year and I expect a good harvest for once.  Will the feds get to it before I do?

[Eupher]

Having had a fair amount of experience in dealing with FDA in the form of inspections, I am not surprised to see this sort of thing.

It's a stretch for FDA to call walnuts a drug product, but we really should keep in mind that FDA's mandate is to regulate FOOD, drugs, and cosmetics, along with biologics (products derived from biological sources, including blood products) and medical devices. I'm most familiar with legal drugs and medical device manufacturing and the regulations that pertain to them.

I found this related story interesting:

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/4604-the-fda-neither-safe-nor-effective

FDA isn't entirely worthless because the agency does provide a public service, to wit the drug debacle involving thalidomide in the Fifties and Sixties. Thalidomide caused birth defects in children born to women who took the drug as treatment against morning sickness. FDA refused approval of the drug for marketing, claiming that the drug required more study. In 1961, thalidomide was proved to cause birth defects.

At any rate, this very lengthy letter (and somewhat dated, from 2004) from FDA explains some of their rationale involving walnuts:

http://www.fda.gov/Food/LabelingNutrition/LabelClaims/QualifiedHealthClaims/ucm072910.htm

[CG6468]

If walnuts are drugs, then the FDA is just plain nuts.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

So anything that is not 100% natural has to be labeled to the point of being unappealing; see: fast food.

Anything that is 100% natural has to be submitted as a drug.



Your life: the next controlled substance.

[thelaughingman]

A typical walnut junkie:

[vesta111]

  ,

Now we get to the question of if all food is not a drug.

Planters Peanuts---- they are coming after you next.  Not only are people very allergic to you but those that can eat you may get fat.

Fresh vegetables Broccoli, Squash, and Lord help us fruits cannot not now advertise they have Vit. C. a drug to prevent Scurvy.

What about sun flower seeds, poppy seeds and pumpkin seeds-------are they a drug also????

Now about that Beer that is not a drug that you enjoy a bit of lime in, darn limes have been a drug to prevent Scervy for hundreds of years so--no lime for You.

Back to hiding under the bed, the people out there scare the hell out of me.