Theory: The FDA exists to increase profits for drug companies.

Facts: The FDA was caught conspiring with the chemical industry to conclude that Bisphenol-A, the plastics chemical, is harmless to human health. The FDA based its evaluation of BPA on a report authored by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group that represents chemical companies and plastics manufacturers. The FDA also recently approved 18 new drugs from Ranbaxy Laboratories even though the company is under investigation for making substandard medications and fraudulently trying to cover their tracks. Ranbaxy is accused of making medications with active ingredients that are both too low and too high, and adding other ingredients to compensate for lesser quantities of the active ingredient in an HIV medication used to treat patients in Africa. Congress is also investigating why the FDA failed to take action against Ranbaxy even though they knew of the fraudulent medications.

Unanswered Questions: It’s unclear why the FDA is often so quick to approve questionable medications. Many conspiracy theorists don’t understand why the chemical aspartame is FDA approved when it’s been shown to cause cancer in rats; yet natural substances like stevia are considered unsafe by the FDA.

Ideas: Believers usually hold that the FDA is a corrupt organization and serves the aims of the large pharmaceutical companies instead of the population, as they are supposed to. Often, believers of this theory also believe that the FDA and pharmaceutical companies are actively suppressing known cures for serious diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and many others.

Theorists believe that the FDA has approved many steroids and chemicals to be injected into our food supply (in the form of antiobiotics and so on) because they are receiving money under the table from pharmaceutical companies. When the chemicals in our food make us sick, we go to the doctor who in turn prescribes four different medications to treat our illness. The conclusion conspiracy theorists come to makes sense; after all, it’s bad business for a pharmaceutical company to have our best interests at heart; if we aren’t sick we don’t buy their product.

Since the FDA covers food as well as medicine, it has been claimed that the food industry is including ingredients intended to make people fat and/or addicted to the food. Many conspiracy theorists find it odd that Europeans eat full-fat diets of bread, dairy, meat and desserts and yet they are thin and healthy. Additionally, when we gain weight from corn-fed beef and high fructose corn syrup, we pay for expensive gym memberships and diet programs which in turn, stimulates the economy.

Theorists also point to the willingness of the FDA to approve medications with serious and sometimes even fatal side effects as proof that the FDAs primary interest is not the health of US citizens. Some people even think that it may be an attempt at population control by the government.

Conspire.com Judgment: While there isn’t much proof to support the claims of an FDA conspiracy, there have certainly been poor decisions made throughout the years. We at Conspire.com are chalking this up to the all-too-common failure of a bureaucratic system. Medications get approved in haste because there are literally thousands of medications submitted for approval each year. Are their pharmaceutical lobbyists shoving bills in the back pockets of the FDA? Probably. Is the government approving fatal drugs as a means of population control? Probably not.

Original Post from: http://www.conspire.com/the-fda-big-pharma-conspiracy/