This bullshit about Cheerios is Big Pharma protecting its turf through its government lackies at FDA

Remember how pissed off you were at the just a few scant moths ago when we found out that Wall Street rgulators had been FUCKING us for years and the result was the meltdown?

This is exactly the same illness. The monied industry OWNS the regulators.

If someone showed that lawn clippings cured cancer simply as a result of lawn mowing, lawns and mowers would be outlawed.

These fucking criminals are operating with as much impunity now as they EVER have.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cfec4710-3f45-11de-ae4f-00144feabdc0.html

And this isn't even about Cheerios. This is a pattern for any food or natural product that even comes close to being shown as better than some melamine laden fucking pill these fucking CRIMINALS make for a quarter cent each in China and sell to us, by prescription, for $10 each.

you're better off using Metamucil (sp) as a fiber source if your aim is lower cholesterol - though he doesn't object to Cheerios. And he's all in favor of avoiding the prescription stuff if it can be avoided. I was just in for a cholesterol check and it had improved with just diet and exercise, but the LDL and triglycerides were still a tad higher than what they want to see in someone my age and with my family history. Fortunately, those are the 2 areas that respond well to niacin so he told me it's safer to double what I've been taking of that rather than go on Lipitor. I go back in 6 months to see if that works.

Note: If you're using niacin for cholesterol don't take the flush free stuff. Both my doc and the "8 Week Cholesterol Cure" say it's worthless. You need to take the real stuff and you can mitigate the flush by taking it with food or taking some aspirin right after you take the niacin.

This is simply the FDA telling a manufacturer that they can't make health related claims on the product labeling without proving it.

This is the kind of regulation of the food industry that the Bush administration completely ignored.

There's nothing wrong with Cheerios, and the warning made that clear. The problem is with their marketing of a food product as though it were a drug.

The complaint was brought, as the article itself states, by the National Consumer League, which has been trying to get the FDA to enforce already existing regulations on food industry advertising for years without so much as a nod in their general direction.

I think you're overreacting just a wee bit.

......... I overreact to something.

That said, it was the exact wrong fight for the FDA to pick. This is a cereal that is pretty much capable of doing what it avers in its advertising, and it is the number one breakfast cereal in the country.

If the FDA wanted to prove a point, there are far more efficacious targets out there.

Allowing for the sake of discussion that the FDA was trying to prove a point by picking this fight, I can think of no better target than the number one breakfast cereal in the country. If Cheerios (meaning General Mills, which I'm sure you know also makes some of the absolute worst breakfast cereals for your health) can't get away with it, no one can.

It's exactly the opposite of the standard "picking on the little guy" of which the FDA is so often accused and which is implied by your OP.

That said, I don't in actuality grant that the FDA was trying to pick a fight to prove any point other than they are now operating in a manner that takes seriously complaints that are filed with it.

And, FWIW, the claims made about Cheerios by its corporate advertisers is overdone. It implies that consuming the cereal, in and of itself, is a method of cholesterol reduction, and it does this without being under the burden of mentioning potential negative side-effects, which is something required of drug manufacturers. I can get the same (or better) result from many other natural products, most of which aren't so gawdawful high in sodium. I, personally, have to watch my sodium intake *and* my cholesterol, which is true of many people with cholesterol problems, and Cheerios is not a viable part of my diet because of its sodium content.