URGENT: S. 1082 MUST be amended--tomorrow is the vote

Senate bill 1082 which is being amended as I write on the floor of the senate is a sell-out just as the Medicare prescription bill was a sell out.

In order to make this bill one that will protect the American people and not provide Big Pharma with a license to not only rape the us financially but to actually prevent us from making health decisions for ourselves and our families, the following changes MUST be made and I urge you to contact your senators IMMEDIATELY and let them know that their constituents are paying attention and will hold them accountable if they once again sell us out:

I am in favor of the Dorgan amendment that enables Americans to get a fair price on prescription medication.

I am in favor of any Grassley amendment that offers an independent office within the FDA to monitor the safety of drugs already on the market.

I am opposed to the amendment being prepared by Durbin, as food safety is a completely different issue and must be kept out of drug safety legislation so that there can be no confusion between drug safety and food safety laws – which are quite different.

The Dick Durbin amendment is a direct threat to DSHEA, the 1994 bill that protects Americans' access to dietary supplements and vitamins.

Contact your senators and also request the following amendment:

The bill, S1082: The Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Act, is hereby amended to eliminate any reference to the terms food or food ingredients, such that food and food ingredients will not be subject to any jurisdiction or control by the Regan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration.

Intent of amendment:
To eliminate from the bill any possibility that food or food ingredients would be treated like drugs either for safety review purposes or for assessment of their efficacy. It is a fundamental tenet of food and drug law that foods and food ingredients are presumed to be safe and have to be established to be adulterated only if they present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury


This is NOT a Republican vs. Democrat issue. The issue is the manipulation and control of our government by lobbyists and big business.

In fact, ironically, it is Coburn of Oklahoma who is the only senator we can count on in this instance to protect DSHEA. I would urge those of you from Oklahoma is contact him and urge him to create an amendment to protect DSHEA and I would urge each of us to contact our senators and have them work on an amendment with Coburn as I propose above.

This is URGENT. The vote will be tomorrow. I realize that we are all busy with the Iraq vote and the veto, but we can't afford to let this important issue distract us from the amendments needed on S. 1082.

As a post script, I am most disheartened that Ted Kennedy and several other prominent Democrats have been pushing this. As Dorgan said on C-SPAN today, Big Pharma since 1998 has spent over $900,000,000 (that's nearly one BILLION dollars) lobbying in the U.S. Since 2002, they have donated a quarter of a BILLION dollars to campaigns. Selling out the American people is not a Republican issue alone, we have sell outs among our people too and this bill highlights who they are!

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