A Message from United States
Congressman Ron Paul
This is Congressman Ron Paul; I represent the fourteenth District in
Texas, which is not far from Houston. I am delighted to be with you, to
visit with you on a very important subject.
I am also a physician. I have practiced medicine for 40 years. I am
also very much interested in the issue of dietary supplements, not only
from a medical viewpoint, but from a legal viewpoint. Unfortunately, this
country is going in the wrong direction. I think that our right to pick
and choose what kind of medicines we want to use is being threatened…being
threatened seriously, and it’s not coming from the consensus of
the Congress.
The Congress, fortunately, has heard the message from so many American
people who want freedom in the choice of what they want and what they
choose for medicine. But it’s coming from the bureaucrats who are
working in collusion with the very, very large pharmaceutical plants.
I see this as a two-fold threat.
First, we are losing our freedom and our right to choose and that is
being taken away from us, which means that not only will we have less
choices, but the costs are going to go up dramatically. But the other
thing that I see is that is so harmful is the working together of our
government bureaucrats at the FDA in collusion with the very big pharmaceutical
companies, but they are doing this through something that I see as very
sinister and evil, because it is done through the WTO.
The efforts to harmonize all the regulations and put more burdensome
regulations on the American people and going along with the worst regulations
that come from overseas with the threat that if we don’t do this,
then we will be in violation of what they claim, free trade laws. It is
unbelievable what they do in the name of free trade up here, so in the
name of free trade, and our membership in the WTO, which I consider unconstitutional,
they are saying either we do it or else. Either we lose our freedom of
choice, at the same time they say, well, we’re working for free
trade to make sure that everybody is treated fairly.
So I see this as a serious, serious threat, and it isn’t done through
the legislation. Working with Peter DeFazio and myself, we have gone to
the committees and we testified. The consensus, we believe we have a consensus
here in Congress, and yet, not a strong enough consensus for them to go
in and overrule the bureaucrats. In this country, for the past fifty,
sixty, seventy years, we have, as a Congress, deferred to the administration,
so we have administrative law, we turn over too much power and authority
to our administration and through agency government, we allowed them to
write laws, which are what they call regulations, but not only do they
have the right to write the law, they have the right to enforce the law,
and this is where we have lost a lot in this country…
…and we do know about the raiding of the private establishments
of those individuals who would like to provide dietary supplements and
allow free choice. This is done in the name of freedom, which is such
hypocrisy; such hypocrisy, to say that we’re arguing for free trade,
and of course we are going to protect the safety of the people. Well,
in a free country, people have a right to make free choices.
I as a physician, do not endorse everything that happens in alternative
medicine and dietary supplements, but I strongly argue that we have a
right to it. Besides, I think that much has happened in alternative medicine
that has outshone conventional medicine. There is no doubt about it. But
for me, I don’t take the medical position of saying everything or
anything, but I sure take a very strong stand in saying that we do have
the right and we should never turn this over to our bureaucrats, and we
certainly should never turn this over to an international agency which
undermines our sovereignty, and undermines our domestic law and this is
exactly what is happening. The WTO has already dictated to us that we
rewrite our tax law, and now, under this example, we have the WTO that
will come in, and the FDA and the huge pharmaceutical companies are hiding
behind this free trade sovereignty issue of the WTO, demanding that we
change our law, against the consensus of the American people as expressed
by the U.S. Congress.
So I as a Congressman and as a physician want to do anything and everything
possible, but it won’t hurt for more members of Congress although
we had a consensus, for more members of Congress to get a message, and
hopefully that will happen. Fortunately, we still live in a country that
is free enough that if the message is loud enough and strong enough, that
members of Congress will react. And, if that weren’t the case, I
couldn’t be in Congress, and I think that we should look at this
as a tough fight, but one that we have to engage ourselves in, and do
whatever is possible with the idea that we can win, but if we are complacent,
and we don’t rally the troops and get more people to join us in
making these choices, then I think we are in big trouble, because we have
lost ground in the last ten or fifteen years, and we are going to lose
a lot more ground if we don’t stop this, and especially now, in
this age of anti-terrorism, and the problems that we have,…
…because it’s again, big government taking over and taking
away individual liberty, so I thank you all for your attention. I am delighted
I could visit with you this evening.
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