Industrious Family Food Business fined for $100,000 and more for HyperLinking to FDA Health Research

Five years ago, at the web site of a health food store near Silver Bay, in pristine Northern Minnesota, with on-line product sales, the local honey and the coconut oil was "too close" to the health benefits brochure of the FDA. "Too close" meant that the honey offered for sale was set up at the web site such that the honey health claim information was only one click away for the reader. Unbeknownst to the proprietors, they had made a health claim by doing so. That's a no-no. One must not make a health claim - even about honey! So, they thought they had complied with the FDA one-click policy (to health research info on their honey and coconut oils) but violated a new unwritten, two-click policy (no health info can be directly tied to a website). Another violation was that they provided guidance on how to use their herbs offered for sale - and that amounted to selling foods as drugs from the FDA's point of view. If we think that what happend to Elden Dahl in Alberta (compliments of Health Canada), was draconian, then now we know the US has a mirror version of repressive tactics.

To avoid criminal prosecution in a federal court, they consented to a decree for them to pay all FDA legal expenses as well as their own and the cost of the FDA entering their home and business, to remove a truckload of business and customer records and invoices. This could have been the end of their family business: Wilderness Family Naturals.

That was then and this is now: Annette and Ken Fischer and large family are doing just fine and the business keeps growing. They keep on advocating that we all need to come together and take a stand to allow us to eat healthy, wholesome food—and it should not be so illegal and convoluted. 

The Fischers also had agreed to a legal consent decree requiring them to pay the FDA around $100 per hour plus travel expenses to have their place of business inspected twice a year. The FDA also required them to hire an outside consultant-attorney to monitor their website for compliance with the FDA guidelines so that they would not link to health research related information in connection to their products. This decree also required them to drop many of their products such as “chickweed Salve, St. John’s Wort Salve, Chest Rub Salve, Goldenseal-Comfrey Salve, Flux hull lignan, Green Food Feast, any coconut oil products and any other product that is a "new drug" within the meaning of the Act…(until) the "defendants" had removed all health claims...

I recommend you peruse their website. Great recipes there, too. Web site traffic supports them, too, even if you do not purchase.

Read this superbly written article by David Gumpert, an award-winning journalist who writes for Business Week at his story (one click away - heaven forbid!) “We’re Still in Business,” Says Determined Wilderness Family Naturals, Despite FDA’s Determination to Bleed Firm at a wonderful blog called The Complete Patient - http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2009/7/28/were-still-in-busine... by David E. Gumpert

Obvious questions:

With a new administration and now more "good people" inside the FDA, why is it they allow this FDA crime unit to continue with such mean-spiritedness. Why do they not go after the real frauds who promise water with an induced reverse-electron orbit to bring the water back to Garden of Eden quality and special chocolate blended with manna falling from heaven? Or in Canada, in BC, there is a company adding a touch of salt to water and charging a tonne because it's now "mineralised". Why is it that so many manufactured/processed grocery store products carry a myriad of what we all know are fraudulent health claims (such as a lot of cereals) and get away with it?

http://www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com

and

http://www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com/Recipes/recipe_index_by_category...