The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is playing a dangerous game, risking revealing to the American public their true purpose, which is not serving our people. Even state legislatures, which often initially believe the FDA's and DEA's claims regarding the dangers of Kratom, are regularly being persuaded otherwise by adept lobbyists and testimonies by kratom consumers. This is not making the FDA look good, but this is a healthy development for the people of this country.
We are learning -- those who are paying attention, anyway -- that we are burdened with a health care system that is immensely profitable, but the stories I hear from patients are often tales of woe and mistreatment. A popular meme in the kratom community points out that "The Pharmaceutical Industry Creates Customers, Not Cures." We need to realize that a health care system that is motivated by creating the most profit for its management and shareholders is not devoted to producing inexpensive cures -- and actually is motivated to discouraging natural methods that help the public feel better and healthier.
It should be no surprise that federal agencies should be magnets for managers who will do the bidding of giant industries, while they pretend to protect the public interest. We see this in the Environmental Protection Administration, just as we do in the FDA.
We all want the products we consume to be made in a sanitary and scientific fashion, with a concern for our health -- and certainly, no-one wants Salmonella or any other contaminant in their kratom, but it does make one wonder why none of the kratom consumers I've met have ever complained of becoming infected from the raw kratom many of us eat daily.
A good question to ponder, put to me by an astute kratom vendor, is: "With some of these very large kratom vendors selling hundreds or thousands of units of reportedly contaminated product per day, how come only a few people have been found with the Salmonella infection?" It does make one wonder!
Leaving the Salmonella issue aside, something of greater concern is the FDA's lack of any sense of balance between the many benefits enjoyed by kratom consumers in contrast to the few who abuse the plant intentionally or through misinformation (much of it published by the FDA).
In any consideration of whether a product should be allowed on the market or not there should be a recognition of the good it is doing -- and not just a recitation of the harm. While we're on that subject, perhaps the FDA can explain why their approved drug for treating opioid addiction, Methadone, kills an average of 5400 Americans each year. Is this their idea of "safe and effective"?