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LY D © qe VEN? FDA SWAT TEAM SEIZES GASTON NAESSENS INFORMATION Vv e/ Wollstein, Director of the International Society for > Individual Liberty and co-author of Lethal Compassion: Why National Health Care is the Cure that Kills, explained in an inter- view published by The Financial Privacy Report (May 1994) how Clinton's health care bill affects. freedom of choice and medical privacy. First, Clinton's plan states that everyone "must enroll" jn-a gov- ermmment-run health alliance and "must pay any premium required". The health premium is actually a payroll tax of 7.6% of the pay cheque, which is about equal to the amount removed from employees’ cheques for Social Security. Imagine trying to sur- In short, the FDA raided acompany prior vive on a minimum wage with another to that company achieving its stated desire 7.6% taken out. Where is the incentive to of gaining approval for an alternative medi- _ work if the pay cheque at the end of the cine. They did not raid to seize medicine. month can't begin to pay for food and hous- They raided to stop dissemination of infor- ing? The amount of this "premium" is set mation about that medicine. by the local health alliance and a politically (Source: After Hours, July-Sept 1994, Box appointed National Health Board at their 5636, Colorado Springs, CO 80931, USA) discretion. No ceiling amount has been set. Self-employed people who refuse to pay or BIG BROTHER & CLINTON'S can't afford to pay are fined three times the HEALTH SECURITY ACT amount of the premium, or US$5,000, Clinton's health care plan ensurcs that whichever is higher. If they don't pay, the everyone has access to medical care—and government has the right to seize their ravages the Bill of Rights in the process. If assets. In other words, we have no choice one reads the 1342-page Health Security but to pay for this plan, whether we want it Act, as Jarret Wollstcin did, one wonders or not. We don't even get to vote on it. what Machiavellian mind devised it. Jarret But all of us will get the health care we want or need under this plan, right? Wrong. As Wollstein points out, approxi- mately 37 million more people will have access to clinics and doctors. To regulate the increased flow, government “gatckeep- ers"—not patients, not doctors—will decide who gets in to see a doctor or into a hospital. Anyone who tries to bypass the health plan and use his or her own money to pay for covered medical services faces 15 years imprisonment and fines up to US$50,000—that is, if you can find a doc- tor willing to risk the same penalties. Under the Health Security Act, the Department of Justice also has the right to confiscate anything you own if you are accused, not necessarily convicted, of threatening the health of anyone or having a “significant detrimental impact on the health care system". Curiously, no monies have been budgeted to fund this new polic- ing bureau. In its own self-interest, the Denial of the freedom of we thought and speech has apparent- ly become an element of the FDA's drive to regulate medicine in the USA. In July, an FDA SWAT team invaded the New York offices of a publishing com- pany to seize information con- cerning the use of an unapproved material as a cancer treatment. Materials seized from Writers and Research, Inc. of Rochester, NY, included books and booklets on a controversial camphor-based treatment for cancer called 714X, developed by Gaston Naessens. Also seized was computer equip- ment, a seizure justified by an agent because it was “used to print infor- mation on a substance that is banned in the US". The drug itself was not the target of the raid—only information about it, as well as files of people who had expressed inter- est in it. Writers and Research had contacted the FDA in the process of obtaining approval to import 714X into the United States. Towards this end, the company had consti- tuted an Institutional Review Board to examine the claims made for 714X, a step necessary to gaining FDA approval. This had been done two months prior to the FDA raid. The FDA had not disqualified this board, but had prohibited any reference to its findings before approval. Va BIG BROTHER & CLINTON'S HEALTH SECURITY ACT Clinton's health care plan ensurcs that everyone has access to medical care—and ravages the Bill of Rights in the process. If one reads the 1342-page Health Security Act, as Jarret Wollstcin did, one wonders what Machiavellian mind devised it. Jarret LIS 6 ¢ NEXUS DECEMBER 1994 - JANUARY 1995