Reverse The FDA's Vitamin B6 Drug Classification

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am writing this letter on behalf of millions of Americans who currently use dietary supplements instead of Big Pharma drugs. I urge you to put a stop to the insanity the FDA is currently engaged in.

The FDA has effectively banned a naturally-occurring form of vitamin B6 called pyridoxamine by declaring it to be a drug, reports the American Association for Health Freedom. Responding to a petition filed by a drug company, the FDA declared pyridoxamine to be "a new drug."

Pyridoxamine occurs naturally in fish, chicken and other foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6), putting the FDA in the strange position of banning a substance from dietary supplements even though it is already present in the food supply.

It's not the first time the FDA has declared a natural molecule to be a "drug" while attacking nutritional supplements that contain the same molecule. A similar story unfolded with red yeast rice and the lovastatin molecules it contains that lower high cholesterol. The drug companies engaged in biopiracy, ripping off the molecule from red yeast rice to make their now-famous "statin drugs." Once the statin drugs were patented, Big Pharma and the FDA went after red yeast rice, claiming the supplement was "adulterated with pharmaceuticals."

It wasn't really adulterated, of course. It just contained a natural statin-drug-like molecule that the drug companies copied and patented.

It would be like Big Pharma patenting vitamin C, then the FDA claiming that all oranges and lemons were adulterated with drugs because they naturally contain their own vitamin C.

Is this the unfettered insanity in which the FDA is allowed to operate in today? Exactly who paid who for this brilliant action? Sounds to me like Big Pharma is looking to close down all makers of natural supplements by having the FDA act as their lynch mob, effectively going after anything that they (Big Pharma) can not control or patent. Next thing you know Big Pharma will have the FDA classify orange juice a drug because it contains vitamin C and would be therefore considered "adulterated with pharmaceuticals."

Sir, I urge you to elicit help from your colleagues in Congress to reverse this latest action by the FDA thereby stopping Big Pharma from using the FDA to squash companies that manufacture natural supplements that represent a perceived threat to Big Pharma because they know sanity will not allow them to patent naturally existing vitamins which by the way, they just did by this latest action. Is there no one to oversee this insanity?

I urge all interested parties to sign this petition because if you don't, Big Pharma may convince the FDA to one day classify vitamin C as a drug. Orange juice contains vitamin C. Can you imagine needing a prescription to purchase orange juice? I can't!