Innocent Casualties

By Elaine Feuer

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Overview

nnocent Casualties exposes the Food and Drug Administration’s attempts to deny Americans access to nutritional products, including banning certain nutrients widely used in other countries and attempting to have vitamins classified as prescription drugs.

In 1989, the FDA stopped a promising AIDS nutritional therapy to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies (see Innocent Casualties for documentation). Innocent Casualties documents a government agency so radical that, in 1992, its agents burst into a doctor’s office – guns drawn – to seize vitamins and herbs.

In 1999, the orthodox medical establishment is still promoting misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of alternative treatments at the expense of public health. It is profit that is threatened, not science. Through research and eye-witness narrative, Elaine Feuer raises the question of whether the American medical establishment has evolved into an "undercover dictatorship."

Prologue

n July 14, 1989, True Health announced the results of their clinical AIDS trial at a press conference held at the Dallas-Fort Worth Medical Center. Although True Health had just reached the mid-point of its 180-day study, the nutritional company decided to go public with its findings since each patient had shown such remarkable improvement in their condition. The implications of the study--that by boosting the body's natural immune system with a non-toxic nutritional supplement, AIDS patients could enter into long-term remission--were too important to stay silent. A few weeks after the press conference, FDA agents Joel Martinez and Ken Davis visited True Health's corporate offices. Despite his previous dealings with the FDA, Stokley assumed the FDA agents had come to congratulate True Health, that after examining the materials True Health had sent them--a videotape of the press conference and documentation confirming the test results--the FDA would provide federal assistance at this critical juncture.

In 1989, the FDA stopped a promising AIDS nutritional therapy to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies (see Innocent Casualties for documentation). Innocent Casualties documents a government agency so radical that, in 1992, its agents burst into a doctor’s office – guns drawn – to seize vitamins and herbs.

In 1999, the orthodox medical establishment is still promoting misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of alternative treatments at the expense of public health. It is profit that is threatened, not science. Through research and eye-witness narrative, Elaine Feuer raises the question of whether the American medical establishment has evolved into an "undercover dictatorship."

Yet, instead of wanting to expand on valuable research that warranted further investigation, the Food and Drug Administration was prepared to do everything in its power to shut True Health down. FDA agents Martinez and Davis presented Stokley with a Notice of Investigation: Martinez, an investigator with the Dallas FDA, led the formal questioning, while Davis, a FDA official with the Texas Department of Health, chimed in on occasion. Robert Williams, Vice President of True Health, was in the room with Stokley during the entire interrogation.

Stokley reminded the agents that True Health had already sent the FDA a videotape and press kit describing the AIDS test. He told them he did not want the FDA as adversaries, that he needed their support in order to make a final determination on the validity of True Health's AIDS test. "Anything you want or need, just ask us and we will provide it for you," Stokley repeated several times during the agents' visit. He explained that although True Health undertook the AIDS study because previous clinical AIDS trials had not involved nutrition, they had not expected a showing of such magnitude.

At first, the FDA officials insisted that True Health's nutritional study had been released too soon; they also expressed concern over the amount of money True Health was charging test patients for the product. Stokley told them it was being supplied free of cost, as were the medical tests and Dr. Pulse's services. Whereupon, the investigators decided that the nutritional supplement should be classified as a drug since it was a possible "cure" for AIDS. Ken Davis asked Stokley if he wanted to proceed with a drug classification, but Stokley immediately declined. To designate True Health's nutritional product a drug would be as ludicrous as writing a prescription for Vitamin C. Moreover, it takes about twelve years and $231 million--from synthesis to approval--of a new drug. AIDS patients could not wait twelve years for the government to approve a non-toxic nutritional supplement. Even if Stokley had wanted to have True Health's product classified as a drug, his small company could never have afforded the exorbitant funds.

Stokley presented the agents with True Health's test results, and requested, once again, for the FDA's assistance so that they could "begin saving lives." Ken Davis replied that whatever worked was fine with him--he didn't care if True Health used peanut hulls in its product.

Davis was determined to talk Stokley into classifying the nutritional supplement as a drug; he even claimed that a couple of items in True Health's supplement could cause the product to be designated as a drug. When Stokley continued to resist, Davis retreated to his original contention, that thirty patients were not enough to consider True Health's test a "good study." Exasperated, Stokley explained how the patients' overall conditions had improved, that Dr. Pulse believed ten of the patients would be dead by now if they had not been taking the product.

After scanning a list of all the ingredients in True Health's product, Inspector Davis spotted an unlabeled bottle of aloe vera and said it would have to be embargoed, ostensibly because it wasn't properly licensed by the State of Texas. Stokley offered to set aside the aloe until it was properly labeled, but Davis insisted the embargoed aloe would have to be destroyed. He offered to send Stokley a licensing application for future use. Stokley protested--in his previous experiences with the FDA, it took months to get anything done. The aloe vera was only being used in the test; it was not being sold. He was concerned that the balance of 180-day test might be interrupted. The FDA officers laughed, saying it wasn't their problem. Seemingly determined to obstruct True Health's AIDS test, the agents detained 283 quart bottles of aloe vera juice until February 2, 1990--exactly six months later.

A few days later, Joel Martinez showed up at Dr. Pulse's clinic in Grand Prairie, Texas. As he browsed through AIDS test patients' files, he told Dr. Pulse and his assistant, Elizabeth Uhlig: "It is against God's law to save those gays." Martinez later repeated the exact same statement to Stokley. Trying to appeal to an iota of decency that the inspector might have, Stokley asked him about the innocent children and adults who were contracting AIDS through blood transfusions. Our representative from the Food and Drug Administration shrugged, "In a war there are always innocent casualties."