Bureau-Rats

Recently, while reading the latest issue of Life Extension (my favorite health magazine), I learned that all of my life I’ve been using an illegal drug: walnuts.

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The lead editorial reprinted warnings taken from a letter issued by the Food And Drug Administration to Diamond Foods, Inc., one of the country’s largest distributors of packaged nuts, including walnuts. I was shocked by the harshness and absurdity of the FDA admonitions. To me, they sounded more like Hitlerian Schutzstaffel death threats than rational thinking by the FDA bureaucrats responsible for monitoring the health efficacy of consumables available to Americans. These excerpts support my opinion:

“Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, And Cosmetic Act…. Based on claims made on your firm’s website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs….” “Additionally, your walnut products are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.”

Obviously, the FDA bureaucrats ignored scientific publications that, for years, have confirmed that eating walnuts in moderation is extremely beneficial. For instance, the New England Journal Of Medicine recently published clinical studies confirming that eating walnuts on a regular basis significantly reduced dangerous LDL (low-density lipoprotein) levels and improves endothelial (tissue lining blood vessels) function. Furthermore, the American Heart Association published a study showing a sixty-four percent improvement in endothelial function when walnuts were substituted for other fats. The censorious FDA even went so far as to ignore findings by another government agency! In the United States National Library of Medicine database, anyone can read the results of numerous peer-reviewed studies indicating that ingesting walnuts is beneficial to vascular health. Why is the FDA taking such draconian actions against a nutritious food that human beings have enjoyed for centuries, while allowing manufacturers of artery-clogging junk foods to promote some of their products as “heart healthy”? Concurrent with its blunt, undocumented warnings issued to Diamond Foods about walnuts, the FDA continues to give the nod to web site information provided by Frito-Lay, a major manufacturer of mostly fried snack foods:

“Our all-natural sunflower, corn and soybean oils contain good polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which help lower … LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol and maintain HDL ‘good’ cholesterol levels….”

Holy Healthfulness! Why would consumers opt for plain old walnuts — or pomegranate juice and green tea (also on the FDA’s hit list), for that matter — when they can pig out on snack foods and be confident that they’re not lining their blood vessels with atherosclerotic plaques of fatty material? Apparently, the FDA’s bullying bureaucrats, exercising virtually unlimited discretionary powers, proclaim to protect Americans by encouraging them to ingest toxic calories and not worry about the country’s obesity epidemic. If true, they are worse than bureaucrats (if that’s possible): They are bureau-rats.