> At 09:41 AM 6/3/98 -0700, James Rogers wrote:
>
> >>"Mevacor.") (In addition to the substance which is similar to lovastatin,
> >>the red rice yeast also contains nine other active ingredients which
> >>undoubtedly make it synergistically much SAFER than Mevacor.)
> >
> >
> >This is an irritatingly common misperception. How does something being
> >"natural" make it chemically any safer than synthetically manufactured
> >drugs? Also how does having 10 active ingredients make something safer (as
> >opposed to one), when the opposite should generally be true? Not to
> >mention that "synergistically much safer" is a lot of meaningless
> hand-waving.
>
> IAN: I was also puzzled by the logic implied in the
> statement that because it has more chemical agents
> and because they act together, it is safer. Not
> logical. But I suspect that rice yeast is safer
> than Mavcor, albeit not for the reasons cited.
>
> But the big issue here revolves around the
> defining of X as a "drug" and the subsequent
> and automatic ideation that if X = drug then
> X must be controlled by the federal Govt.
This is the real issue. I wonder when red rice yeast will become a controlled
substance. Of course, they haven't made tree bark illegal to chew on, even
though it contains aspirin....
>
>
> To concede that to be true is to loose the
> case for individual liberty automatically,
> for the road to serfdom is then a semantics
> game of saying "If Y is a drug and is Z has
> effects like Y, then Z is also a drug, and
> thus the Government gets to control Z/you."
>
Especially when Z has been in use by people around the world for thousands of
years with no need for regulation. That company X extracts the active ingredient
of Z, figures out how to make a similar chemical that is much more potent, and
patents that new compound, but tries some sort of recursive patenting of the
natural substance through regulation is the most crass mercantilism..
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?