Cancer Cover-Up News & Views

Monthly Newsletter | April 2002

Who Is The Real Snake Oil Salesman?

On September 11^th, our nation was subjected to the most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor. In the months that followed, we set aside our petty differences and came together in common cause to defend our freedom. What many of us do not realize, however, is that on September 10^th, the day before Osama Bin Laden’s thugs killed thousands in the World Trade Center bombing, another vicious assault on our freedom occurred.

The perpetrator of this crime, however, was not some fanatical group of foreign extremists. Nor was it some homegrown radical organization. It was the United States Senate. Louisiana Senator John Breaux and his colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Aging held a hearing on September 10^th that was in fact the opening shot in a battle to deny Americans one of their most precious freedoms – the freedom to choose the form of medical therapy they would employ to ensure their own health.

The failure of the committee to provide even a semblance of balance in the representatives it selected to testify would dismay any American. All but two of the dozen witnesses either represented federal agencies with a vested interest in expanding the scope of their influence and power, or were long-standing critics of dietary supplements and alternative medicine. Indeed, the very title of the hearing “Swindlers, Hucksters and Snake Oil Salesmen, the Hype and Hope of Marketing Anti-Aging Products to Seniors” clearly demonstrates that Senator Breaux and his colleagues had made up their minds well in advance of any testimony that might have been presented. Similarly, the Government Accounting Office report you commissioned was titled “Health Products for Seniors, Anti-Aging Products Pose Potential for Physical and Economic Harm.” Most Americans have the impression that the GAO, like the Congress, was supposed to present balanced analyses of issues. The title of the GAO report hardly meets this standard.

Even more unsettling was the selection of Glen Braswell and his associate as the sole representatives of the supplement industry. Breaux must have been aware that both of these individuals would exercise their rights under the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify. Clearly, they were not called in an effort to seek information but rather as a theatrical prop to discredit all companies in the industry.

Had Breaux so chosen, the hearing could have provided the American public with important information about the alternatives available to them when conventional medicine fails. Instead, he used the forum as nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to expand federal regulatory authority. It was little more than a Kangaroo Court aimed at pillorying the dietary supplement industry. This tactic can be effective, but few would have expected a body as august as the United States Senate to engage in such a charade. Especially given the track record of conventional medicine in regard to cancer.

It is now 30 years since President Nixon declared  “war on cancer”.  Despite spending vast amounts of money on traditional medicine, current statistics paint a chilling picture:

1. One person dies every minute from cancer.

2. Three people are diagnosed with cancer every minute.

3. It is anticipated that within a few years one person out of every two will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime.

4. The fifth leading cause of death in America is from prescription drugs used as directed.

Perhaps the committee’s energies could be redirected to address the real problem facing our Senior citizens, the abject failure of traditional medicine to successfully treat chronic diseases.

Continued on the next page

Contact Kathleen Deoul, Media Matters
Email: admin@cancer-coverup.com