Censoring Speech, Ruining Health

As the government continues down the path of censorship, it’s up to us to fight for freedom of speech. Action Alert!

THE TOPLINE

• Free speech is under assault in this country, but there are those who are fighting back. A case before the Supreme Court is challenging government collusion with social media companies to engage in censorship.
• Free speech is particularly constrained in the natural products sector, but brave companies like Xlear are fighting back against blatant FTC censorship that cost lives during the pandemic.
• We need to fight for the free flow of information about the benefits of natural products.

Free speech on the line

We’re at a tipping point in the fight for free speech. The COVID pandemic ignited a powder keg that has led many to embrace the idea that certain ideas are too dangerous to be allowed the light of day. As we’ve been reporting, the tools available to the censors are sophisticated and insidious, giving them an unprecedented ability to throttle unwanted speech, which has been labeled as mis- or dis-information. The World Health Organization (WHO) has even declared an ‘infodemic.’ But longtime natural health advocates will know that the US and other governments have been censoring speech, particularly about natural products, for a long time. The COVID pandemic merely provided a useful pretext for doing so more swiftly and aggressively, while justifying the roping in, among others, of Big Media, Big Social, and Big Tech to facilitate the burgeoning censorship-industrial complex.

The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments in a case that addresses the role that government officials can play in communicating with social media companies in the development and implementation of content moderation policies. The Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouri have alleged that the Biden administration pressured social media companies to remove “misinformation” about COVID and other issues. Last summer we reported on a favorable lower court ruling in this case.

This is one of the most important issues facing natural health advocates today. Simply put, during COVID it became “OK” in many people’s eyes to censor information that was outside of what was recommended by public health authorities. Censoring alternative approaches to treating or managing COVID was a central component of the drive to vaccinate the vast majority of the population with experimental mRNA vaccines. Would so many millions of Americans have signed up for these vaccines if 1) they were aware of a variety of highly effective alternatives and 2) vaccination status wasn’t a prerequisite for many forms of employment, but also for travel or entry to social spaces and events?

Of course, we don’t want bad actors to make illegal claims that swindle people. But is that what the government’s censorship campaign was really about? Was protecting public health really the goal when they went after people simply for talking about the link between vitamin D status and COVID outcomes—especially when that link was supported by dozens of other studies?

It’s as XClear as mud

In our view, COVID simply provided a useful catalyst for the FTC and the FDA to intensify their longstanding campaign to eliminate and restrict free speech about natural products.

No one knows more about this fight than Nathan Jones, the CEO of Xlear, a company that makes a xylitol-based basal spray. Xlear was sued by the FTC simply for discussing the results of more than a dozen studies demonstrating the plausibility of using its nasal spray to help with COVID. Mr. Jones recently penned an open letter to the natural products industry based on Xlear’s experiences with the FTC. The letter is meant to prepare companies for what’s coming as the FTC gets ready to enforce its new Health Products Compliance Guidance.

We asked Mr. Jones why he chose to stand up to the FTC. He told us,

“I knew something nefarious was going on when we got warning letters telling us not to share data that the National Institutes of Health paid for showing that saltwater irrigation had a “substantial” effect on symptom resolution in COVID patients, with symptoms resolving 7 to 9 days earlier. You’d think the government would want to share that information during a pandemic—but it was the opposite. So I did what I believed was right and continued to share this information. To do otherwise would be to concede our rights, our freedom of speech.”

Mr. Jones continued, “It’s not a stretch to show that, because of the FTC’s actions, a lot of people died. If they hadn’t gone after Xlear and other nasal spray companies, we would have been out in the world talking about these benefits, which would have saved many, many lives. It would have also saved our country trillions of dollars if the government had allowed people to learn about nasal hygiene and its effectiveness in early 2020 when we had a very solid idea that it would work.”

Mr. Jones explained that Xlear had data by May 2020 showing that prophylactic use of nasal sprays was effective at preventing transmission of the virus, an attribute which was confirmed in a 2021 RCT showing nearly 75 percent reduction in transmission of COVID. Ironically, this is something the propaganda machine behind mRNA vaccines was never able to show.

We at ANH-USA applaud Mr. Jones and Xlear’s fight for the constitutional right for the free flow of information, including about natural products, and also during times of emergency. We can help further this fight by alerting Congress to this issue and urging them to pass legislation permitting scientifically-substantiated claims about supplement benefits.

Action Alert! Send a message to Congress supporting our bill to allow the free flow of information about supplements. Please send your message immediately.