In its summary judgment motion ANH argues FDA has unlawfully converted a congressionally mandated notification pathway into a pre-approval system — preventing government-backed truthful nutrient–disease information from reaching the public

ALEXANDRIA, VA, September 18, 2026 — The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), together with four dietary supplement companies, filed a motion for summary judgment asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to rule that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment and the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act when it suppressed 114 nutrient-disease risk reduction claims based on statements published by federal government health agencies.

The motion, filed September 16, 2026, is the latest step in litigation brought by ANH-USA, Living Fuel International, Health Ranger Store, Sanacor International and Evolution Nutraceuticals, doing business as Cardio Miracle.

The case centers on a provision of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 (FDAMA), codified at 21 U.S.C. §343(r)(3)(C). That provision creates a pre-market notice alternative to prior FDA approval for health claims based on nutrient-disease risk reduction statements published by FDA sister government health agencies.

The 114 disputed claims were derived from statements published by federal health bodies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), its Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In December 2025, FDA rejected the petition and denied the claims, concluding among other things that the underlying government statements were not sufficiently “authoritative,” and imposing requirements including that statements represent an “official” or “consensus” federal government position.

The plaintiffs argue that these additional tests were never enacted by Congress.

Jonathan W. Emord, counsel for the plaintiffs, said:

“Congress was unambiguous. It created a notice pathway for claims based on authoritative statements of federal health agencies as an alternative to the prior restraint imposed by FDA’s health claims review process.  Against the command of Loper Bright, the FDA has crafted requirements nowhere mentioned in and expressly contrary to the statute.

“FDA is flouting the First Amendment and suppressing at the point-of-sale nutrient-disease information derived from statements the federal government itself publishes to the American people.  Ironically, a consumer with a cell phone can pull up the government web site and read the nutrient-disease risk reduction statement while shopping for the nutrient, but the maker of that nutrient is forbidden by FDA from placing the exact same statement on its product label.  That is not only illogical, it is unconstitutional speech suppression.”

The motion relies in part on the D.C. Circuit’s landmark 1999 decision in Pearson v. Shalala, which held in the context of dietary supplement health claims that disclaimers or qualifications constitute a less restrictive alternative to outright suppression.

The plaintiffs had specifically advised FDA that, if the agency considered qualification of the claims necessary, they were willing to accept reasonable, accurate and unbiased qualifying language.

For ANH-USA, the dispute goes beyond the technical interpretation of a single statutory provision. It concerns whether consumers can receive scientifically relevant information about relationships between nutrients and disease risk at the place where dietary choices are actually made, in stores and online.

Rob Verkerk, PhD, founder, executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health, said:

“There is an extraordinary scientific contradiction at the center of this case. These are not health relationships invented by supplement companies. They arise from statements published to the American public by some of the U.S. government’s own leading scientific and public health bodies.

“The notification painstakingly linked the proposed claims with the underlying government statements and the scientific references supporting them. Yet information considered sufficiently credible and useful for NIH, ODS, NCCIH or CDC to communicate publicly suddenly becomes unacceptable when consumers encounter substantially the same information at the point of sale.

“That has profound consequences for informed choice. Nutrition science is inherently concerned with the relationships between nutrients, physiological function, health and disease risk. If scientifically supported information about those relationships can be published on a government website but effectively disappears when people are choosing products that supply those same nutrients, consumers are being denied information at precisely the point where it can be most useful.

“This case is ultimately about restoring the bridge between science and informed choice. Consumers should have access to truthful, appropriately qualified information about what the evidence tells us — rather than having scientifically relevant information filtered out simply because it crosses an artificial regulatory boundary.”

The plaintiffs’ motion asks the Court to grant summary judgment on all counts. Among the relief sought is a declaration that FDA’s pre-authorization procedures under the authoritative-statements provision are ultra vires and unconstitutional; that FDA’s December 23, 2025 rejection of the 114 claims be set aside; and that FDA discontinue its suppression of the disputed claims.

The Court has not yet ruled on the motion.

ENDS.

About Alliance for Natural Health USA
www.anh-usa.org

Alliance for Natural Health USA is a nonprofit organization advocating for consumer access to natural health products and healthcare choices through legislative advocacy, public education, regulatory participation and litigation.

ENDS

Media enquiries:
Meleni Aldridge, COO, Alliance for Natural Health USA
Email: mel@anh-usa.org
Tel: 703-301-8916

Case: Alliance for Natural Health USA et al. v. United States Food and Drug Administration, Case No. 1:26-cv-01487, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The post ANH-USA asks federal court to overturn FDA suppression of 114 government-backed nutrient health claims first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

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THE TOPLINE

• Drug preclusion rules can block supplement sales because of earlier drug approvals or research, putting affordable options at risk.
• The battles over NMN, CBD, and NAC show why consumers need lasting protections.
• Urge your representative to support H.R. 10336, the Dietary Supplement Innovation Act, and your senators to advance companion legislation.

A New Bill to Protect Your Supplements

A new bill in Congress would help protect your access to supplements by making it harder for Big Pharma to create monopolies on natural ingredients—something we at ANH have called the FDA back-channel that allows drug companies to turn supplements into drugs.

The Dietary Supplement Innovation Act, H.R. 10336, would replace confusing, pro-Pharma rules with stronger protections for consumers and supplement makers. Congress needs to pass it.

At stake is a basic question: Should a company’s decision to develop a drug enable it to squeeze supplement versions out of the market? Under current law, that can happen—and it has already led to key natural products being banned.

What the Bill Would Change

H.R. 10336 would not eliminate the back-channel, but it would significantly narrow its scope. It would:

• Protect longstanding ingredients. Qualifying ingredients sold in foods or supplements before October 15, 1994, would receive explicit protection from drug preclusion.
• Stop secret filings from deciding access. Preclusion would depend on publicly disclosed Phase 2 or Phase 3 trials. A confidential filing or early-stage research alone would not be enough, and earlier food or supplement sales would be protected.
• Reopen the door after abandoned research. An exception to drug preclusion would apply when all qualifying trials have been inactive or withdrawn for at least seven continuous years, or the sponsor publicly announces that development has stopped.
• Make exclusions easier to challenge. Certain FDA letters and website statements could be challenged immediately in court, with the government responsible for proving a violation.
• Require FDA to consider meaningful differences. When evaluating prior-marketing protections, FDA would have to consider differences between drug and supplement uses—including dose, composition, how they are taken, and safety.

These changes will improve supplement access and make it harder for Big Pharma to create monopolies on natural ingredients.

Speaking to the bill, ANH General Counsel, Jonathan Emord, said, “Overall, this is a good bill, but it should be revised in several respects. I would expand the grandfather provision to make clear that the substance does not have to be labeled as a food or dietary supplement but instead must be shown to have been ingested for its taste, aroma, nutritive value, or effect on a body structure or function without reference to a disease before October 15, 1994, to be eligible for grandfathering.”

He continued: “I would also reduce the 7-year requirement to one year for inactive investigations. I would strengthen the provision on routes of administration, dosage, concentration or composition to state that there would be no drug preclusion if the dietary supplement or food did not have the same route of administration, an effective drug dose such that it would produce a treatment effect, and the same or a worse safety profile as the drug. I would specify not only that FDA has the burden of proof to establish drug preclusion—as it currently provides—but that FDA must prove its case by clear and convincing evidence.”

How Pharma’s Back Channel Works

In plain English,“drug preclusion” simply means that FDA, invariably following pressure from a drug maker, has the right to ban an ingredient as a supplement if it was approved or qualified for investigation as a drug before it was sold as a food or supplement.

We’ve been calling for this broken policy to be reformed for a long time. For starters, recall that, for any supplement that is considered “new”—that is, it came to market after 1994—the manufacturer must submit a “new dietary ingredient” notification (NDIN) to lawfully market that ingredient. But the FDA has yet to issue a final guidance describing which supplements are considered “new.” In fact, one of the major problems the FDA’s interpretation so far is that even minor “chemical alterations” that occur with modern manufacturing would be enough to make your vitamin D a “new” supplement. Supplements marketed before 1994 are grandfathered and do not require a NDIN, but the FDA has issued no definitive list of those products.

The bottom line is this: it is not always clear what counts as a NDI or what has been grandfathered, so drug companies can use this confusion to claim that supplements which have been around for decades have been sufficiently “altered” that they can be claimed as drugs.

So, here’s what Big Pharma can do: a drug company begins the process of studying an ingredient as a drug. If that process predates food or supplement sales—and clinical trials begin and become public—FDA can block the ingredient from being sold as a supplement. Because the initial drug filings are confidential, supplement makers may not know they are entering a race someone else has already started.

No Supplement and No Medicine

Worse still, drug preclusion can shut consumers out of an ingredient even when the drug being developed never reaches the market.

This is what happened to pyridoxamine, a form of vitamin B6. FDA banned the supplement version because of earlier drug investigations that ended up leading nowhere.

Consumers can then be left with neither option: no supplement and no medicine. Meanwhile, the threat of exclusion gives supplement companies less reason to invest in new products that could face the same fate.

Why should an unsuccessful drug project keep an ingredient out of consumers’ hands indefinitely? As ANH and the Natural Products Association explained in a 2023 citizen petition, supplement companies may have no way to know that a drug filing already exists. They can spend years developing a product and building a business, only to learn that an earlier, unseen filing threatens their ability to sell it.

We’ve seen access to several other natural ingredients be threatened by the drug preclusion clause, including NMN, CBD, and NAC. You can read our previous coverage of those issues for more information. Fortunately, in the cases of NAC and NMN, ANH and other stakeholders successfully pushed back against bans on those ingredients.

It is high time to close this back-channel that allows Big Pharma to ransack nature to make monopoly drugs.

Tell your representative to cosponsor and support H.R. 10336. Urge your senators to advance companion legislation. Help close the back channel.

The post Stop Letting Drug Companies Push Supplements Off the Shelf first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

New research shows that the way food is grown may influence its nutritional value—and that healthy food begins with healthy soil. Action Alert!

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THE TOPLINE

• Growing practices and soil conditions can affect crop compounds such as polyphenols, vitamins, and pigments.
• Regenerative and organic practices—cover crops, crop rotations, lower disturbance—produce healthier soil, reduced pesticide/herbicide use, and more nutrient-dense foods that support the gut microbiome and other human health factors.
• Congress must support soil health measures in the Farm Bill, including the Agriculture Resilience Act, Soil CARE Act, and SCALE Act, with pesticide oversight and safeguards for contaminated amendments.

You can fill your cart with vegetables, cook meals from scratch, and do everything you are told is healthy. But what if the food itself is not as nourishing as it could be?

Two vegetables that look identical may contain contrasting levels of the very compounds that help protect our health. Emerging research suggests that these differences may begin with how plants are grown—and with the condition of the soil within which they’re cultivated. For families trying to eat well and prevent chronic disease, that raises a fundamental question: Are we growing food simply to fill our stomachs, or to truly nourish our bodies?

Organic Rocks While Regen Ag Data Emerges

Organic agriculture can be regarded as a subset of regenerative farming. Buit because it’s been studied for a long time the data is more mature and there are some strong evidence that, compared with conventional agriculture, it produces crops with consistently higher levels of key compounds that are beneficial to health and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress—key drivers of chronic disease—such as polyphenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, carotenoids and other biologically active secondary metabolites.

Large systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that organic production can materially alter food composition, particularly by increasing concentrations of health-relevant phytochemicals: Barański et al. found markedly higher levels of several antioxidant/polyphenol classes in organic crops, while Brandt et al. reported around 12% higher secondary plant metabolites overall and about 6% more vitamin C in organic fruit and vegetables. In animal foods, meta-analyses found substantially higher omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk and meat, while emerging regenerative-agriculture research suggests that soil-building practices may also increase selected vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals in crops.

The regenerative evidence is less mature than the organic literature, so there’s less to shout about in terms of its benefits. But a 2022 paired-farm study and a 2023 scoping review both support the proposition that farming practices which improve soil health can, in some circumstances, enhance the micronutrient and phytochemical density of food

What Beets Reveal About Food Quality

An August 2026 study from Utah State University compared conventional, organic, and Regenerative Organic Certified beets from southwestern Oregon. The fresh organic and regenerative-organic samples contained approximately 53 percent more polyphenols than conventional samples. These are compounds plants manufacture that have antioxidant and other biological activity.

Regenerative beets also contained more betalains—the pigments responsible for their distinctive color—than organic beets, although their advantage over conventional beets was not statistically significant. Mineral levels showed no consistent winner.

The study was small, with only one farm or source representing each system. Differences in varieties, growing conditions, and collection years prevent firm conclusions about what caused the results. Nevertheless, it raises a crucial question: does our chronic disease crisis have its roots (no pun intended) in the very way we grow our food?

How We Feed Plants Changes What They Give Us

Another study published in January 2026 provides further support for this notion. Researchers growing Chinese broccoli found that moderately reducing nitrogen increased vitamin C, phenolic compounds, and several minerals without sacrificing yield. Excessive nitrogen produced the lowest phenolic concentrations.

This experiment used hydroponics, so it does not demonstrate the benefits of healthy soil. It does show that how we nourish plants can fundamentally alter their composition and thus change what those plants offer us. When we give plants lots of soluble nitrogen by applying fertilizers, they direct more energy toward rapid growth and less toward manufacturing certain secondary compounds. Lower or more gradually available nitrogen can sometimes stimulate phytochemical production without necessarily reducing yield.

Connecting Soil Health to Food Quality

Soil, then, does much more than hold roots in place. Its organisms help cycle nutrients, while its physical and chemical properties influence water availability and plant growth.

• A review of 60 studies found that planting cover crops—plants grown to protect and enrich the ground between harvests—increased the abundance and activity of soil microbes compared with leaving fields bare.
• In a separate 21-year farming experiment in Switzerland, organically managed plots had more stable soil structure and more earthworms.
• A 2022 study comparing regenerative and conventional farms, that we mentioned in passing above, found that fields managed with cover crops, reduced disturbance, and diverse rotations generally had more soil organic matter and better soil-health scores. Their crops also contained higher concentrations of certain vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. 

Plants respond to healthier soil by changing their chemistry in ways that protect them better against pests and diseases, while also providing more benefits to us as consumers.

ANH has previously examined declining nutrient concentrations in food that coincided with the rise of industrial agriculture. A comparison of USDA data from 1950 and 1999 found declines in six nutrients across 43 crops considered as a group.

The upshot is this: As industrial agriculture has become the dominant form of growing food, nutrient levels in fruits and vegetables have declined. This has had profound implications for human health.

Feeding the Gut Microbiome

For example, the nutritional quality of food matters to the trillions of microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome. Different microbes depend on different dietary compounds, particularly diverse fibers and polyphenols from fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, and other whole plant foods. Beneficial bacteria ferment certain fibers to produce short-chain fatty acids that help nourish the intestinal lining and regulate immune and inflammatory responses.

If farming practices influence the variety and concentration of phytonutrients in food, soil health could therefore affect more than the plant itself: it may also help determine the range of compounds available to support our internal microbial ecosystem.

The effects go beyond the microbiome. We’ve written previously about how large portions of the American public are not getting the nutrients they need and that these micronutrient inadequacies can increase the risk of chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Reduced Reliance on Pesticides and Herbicides

Greater diversity on farms can also help reduce dependence on pesticides. In a nine-year Iowa experiment, researchers added small grains and legumes to the familiar corn–soybean rotation. The more diverse systems used 88 percent less herbicide while maintaining effective weed control and comparable or better yields and profitability. Once those systems were established, their estimated potential to harm freshwater ecosystems through herbicide use was dramatically lower.

In the Swiss study mentioned above, the organically managed plots used a whopping 97 percent less pesticide input while supporting greater biodiversity.

Carefully designed crop rotations can help farmers control weeds while reducing chemical inputs that negatively effect the environment and human health.

The Push Away from Real Food

The evidence is showing the power of regenerative agriculture approaches to improve human health and planetary health, yet special interests are pushing in another direction. We’re seeing a new wave of foods created in a lab like gene-edited plants, plant-based proteins, and precision fermented foods. A massive wave of deregulation has opened the floodgates to these products based on the principle of “substantial equivalence.” In essence, the FDA has said that it doesn’t matter how a food gets created. If the finished product looks and smells like a tomato, then it gets regulated like a conventionally-grown tomato.

These technologies, while distinct, prompt the same question: how much of food’s value can we capture by assembling selected ingredients? The crop studies demonstrate why nutritional equivalence should never be assumed from a few numbers on a label.

Rebuilding Health from the Ground Up

Congress can help farmers adopt practices that rebuild soil, protect biodiversity, and reduce reliance on pesticides. The Soil CARE Act (H.R.7474) would strengthen training in regenerative farming practices. The Agriculture Resilience Act (H.R.3077/S.1507) also has positive provisions on soil health and agroforestry. The SCALE Act would provide $50 million a year for state and Tribal soil health and wildlife habitat programs. The bill would leave substantial flexibility to local programs, however, rather than requiring organic production or reductions in pesticide use.

Tell Congress that these investments must include safeguards against contaminated soil amendments, preserve meaningful pesticide oversight, and support research connecting farming practices with food quality.

Action Alert!

The post Is Human Health Rooted in the Soil? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

A pending FDA guidance on new dietary ingredients underscores why the agency’s GRAS overhaul could determine which natural products reach market—and which are eliminated. Action Alert!

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THE TOPLINE

• FDA guidance addressing the identity and safety evidence required for new dietary ingredients is undergoing White House review.
• GRAS determinations and new dietary ingredient notifications are closely connected, underscoring why GRAS reform has such a major impact on the supplement industry.
• FDA must increase transparency without creating regulatory burdens, suppressing innovation, and reducing consumer access.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is scheduled to release another set of guidance documents that will control how innovative dietary ingredients reach the market.

A guidance titled New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues; Identity and Safety Information About the NDI has been under review at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs since June 2, 2026.

The guidance is not yet public, so we don’t know the details. But its title suggests that FDA will address the evidence companies should provide to establish a new dietary ingredient’s identity and demonstrate safety. We’re concerned these standards could significantly affect consumer access to a large swath of supplements.

The NDI Bottleneck

Under federal law, a “new dietary ingredient,” or NDI, is generally an ingredient that was not marketed as a dietary supplement in the United States before October 15, 1994.

Unless an exception applies, a company must notify FDA at least 75 days before marketing a supplement containing an NDI and provide evidence that the product can reasonably be expected to be safe.

The danger we’ve been calling out all along with regard to the NDI guidance is that the FDA is trying to turn what is meant to be a pre-market notification system into a de facto pre-market approval system. When companies can’t meet what will likely be absurd safety requirements the FDA demands, consumers will lose out on products that can support health. We’ve outlined the many problems with the NDI guidance elsewhere.

Why GRAS Matters to Supplements

GRAS stands for “Generally Recognized as Safe.” Although primarily a food pathway, it can also provide a route for supplement ingredients.

The GRAS and NDI pathways are connected. An NDI generally does not require a notification if it has been used in the conventional food supply as a lawful food ingredient—including a GRAS substance—and will be used in the supplement without chemical alteration.

For example, imagine a beneficial plant extract is first used in a nutrition drink after being determined to be GRAS. If the same extract is later sold in a capsule without being chemically altered, the company generally would not need to file a separate NDI notification. This pathway helps turn promising food ingredients into convenient supplements.

We know that many companies make use of the GRAS pathway instead of the NDI pathway because in practice they get less pushback from the FDA. One analysis found the FDA deemed approximately 30 percent of NDI submissions as favorable, whereas the agency viewed 75 percent of GRAS notifications as favorable.

This is all to say that changes to the GRAS system could make that route more difficult and expensive—and that is exactly what is happening.

FDA has now proposed requiring companies to notify the agency whenever they conclude that a substance is GRAS. As we explained in our previous coverage and our white paper, ending undisclosed self-GRAS determinations would provide welcome transparency. But FDA estimates that a full GRAS notice takes approximately 180 hours to prepare. Its proposal also retains an outdated exception focused on natural ingredients consumed before 1958 and processed using methods conventional at that time. This could subject modern extracts, standardized botanicals, concentrates, and fermented ingredients to burdens designed for genuinely novel substances.

And that’s the major problem with the proposed rule: it treats safe, natural, healthy substances the same as novel ingredients. There is no nuance, just heaps of bureaucratic red tape that will take away your supplements.

If FDA simultaneously tightens NDI evidence requirements and makes the GRAS pathway more difficult, responsible innovators could be trapped between two costly regulatory routes. Consumers could face fewer products, higher prices, and a market dominated by companies able to absorb those costs.

The final GRAS rule should create a lower-burden pathway for ingredients with at least 30 years of credible safe use, recognize appropriate modern processing methods, and protect timely filers from FDA delays.

The public has until December 9, 2026, to comment on the proposed GRAS rule. We are in the process of preparing our substantive comments to the agency. If you haven’t already, leave your own message on the official GRAS docket telling the FDA to adopt risk-based GRAS reforms that protect transparency, natural-product innovation, and consumer choice.

Action Alert!

The post GRAS/NDI Double Trouble for Your Supplement Access first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Prescriptions of GLP-1 drugs to children under 12 are rising at extraordinary speed. Are we turning a childhood health crisis into a lifetime pharmaceutical market?

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THE TOPLINE

• A national study found that 20,282 US children ages 8–11 with obesity but not diabetes received a GLP-1 prescription between 2019 and June 2026—a 310-fold increase.
• Wegovy’s safety and effectiveness for weight reduction have not been established in children under 12, and its adolescent evidence rests largely on one 68-week trial.
• New pancreatitis and vision warnings, together with surging FDA adverse-event reports, reinforce the need for stronger long-term surveillance.

The GLP-1 boom is moving into the elementary-school years.

A new Pediatrics study examined more than 3.5 million children ages 8–11 with obesity but not diabetes. Researchers found that 20,282 received prescriptions for drugs such as Saxenda, Wegovy, and Zepbound between 2019 and June 2026, representing 310-fold increase.

Use remained uncommon overall—about 0.6 percent—and nearly 94 percent of recipients had severe obesity. These children are not simply seeking a cosmetic shortcut. They face a genuine health crisis and deserve a pathway to good health.

But recognizing the problem does not require accepting the pharmaceutical industry’s preferred answer: placing ever-younger children on drugs that may need to be continued indefinitely while the conditions making them sick remain largely untouched.

Prescribing Is Racing Ahead of the Evidence

GLP-1 drugs can produce substantial weight loss and improve metabolic markers. For some high-risk patients, the benefits may be significant. The concern is the widening gap between adoption and long-term safety evidence.

Wegovy’s current US label states that safety and effectiveness for weight reduction have not been established below age 12. Its approval for those over the age of 12 rests largely on a 68-week trial of just 201 patients—hardly conclusive evidence against the possibility of exposure lasting decades.

Adverse effects were also common. In the trial, 62 percent of treated adolescents reported gastrointestinal reactions, compared with 42 percent receiving placebo. Nausea affected 42 percent and vomiting 36 percent. More than half experienced a maximum heart-rate increase of at least 20 beats per minute.

New Safety Warnings

And regulators continue to identify new risks. In January 2026, the UK medicines regulator strengthened class-wide pancreatitis warnings after receiving 1,296 reports, including 24 cases of necrotizing pancreatitis and 19 fatal reports.

Vision concerns have also arisen. The European Medicines Agency concluded that non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION—a condition that can cause sudden vision loss—is a very rare side effect of semaglutide. In July 2026, Australia added class-wide warnings for this potentially blinding condition.

Preliminary research presented at the 2026 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons found that, at five years, GLP-1 users had higher recorded rates of osteoporosis and gout. This was an observational conference study, so more research is needed to confirm this concerning safety signal.

What we see in the news tells a different story of side effects. We hear about an ever-expanding list of the benefits of GLP-1 agonists. They improve heart health, protect your kidney, liver, and joints, give you better sleep, boost brain health—and maybe even slow aging.

Nearly 300,000 FDA Cases

But there is a story to be told about the harmful effects of these drugs.

At ANH-USA, we reviewed the FDA adverse-event database for semaglutide, tirzepatide, and liraglutide. The search returned 295,785 cases. Annual reports rose fifteen-fold between 2021 and 2025, from 5,451 to 82,419. Nearly 82 percent were received from 2023 onward, and gastrointestinal disorders appeared in roughly one-third.

These reports do not prove causation or reveal how frequently adverse events occur. The FDA warns that its system includes duplicate, incomplete, and unverified reports, while rising drug use also drives reporting. But the steep increase still demands stronger surveillance and better age-specific data—particularly when these drugs are moving toward younger patients.

A Lifetime-Treatment Model

GLP-1 drugs suppress appetite and slow gastric emptying while they are taken; they do not repair the food environment or build lasting metabolic resilience. A 2025 meta-analysis found significant weight regain beginning eight weeks after anti-obesity drugs were discontinued.

That creates a dependency problem: a prescription in childhood can become an implicit proposal for years or decades of treatment.

These drugs may have a role for selected high-risk patients, but they cannot substitute for prevention. America cannot inject its way out of a broken food system, sedentary living, and collapsing metabolic health. The 310-fold prescribing increase is a warning—not about the children, but about the direction of our healthcare system.

People taking a GLP-1 medicine should not stop or change treatment without consulting a qualified healthcare professional.

Please share this article widely in your networks.

The post The GLP-1 Generation: Are We Medicating Childhood Obesity Instead of Preventing It? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

ANH founder Rob Verkerk explains why outdated food-drug definitions restrict consumer access to natural health options—and how a more proportionate system could better protect both choice and safety.

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The following is a transcript of an interview with Rob Verkerk, PhD, and ANH-USA’s Editorial Director, Michael Ames-Sikora.

Today I’m speaking with ANH founder and executive director Rob Verkerk about Beyond Binary Food-Drug Definitions: A Case for US and EU Modernization. Accepted for publication on July 20, 2026, and expected to appear in spring 2027, the paper was written by Rob as lead author and principal investigator, ANH legal researcher Chimnonso Onyekwelu, and our general counsel, Jonathan W. Emord—the “FDA Dragon Slayer,” who holds the record for the most legal victories against the agency. At its heart, the paper asks whether laws that force products into either a food or drug category still make sense when modern science shows that foods and natural compounds can have meaningful effects on health. In the conversation that follows, Rob and I discuss the paper’s key ideas, what they mean for consumers, and how we can build a better regulatory system.

Mike Ames-Sikora: Rob, you’re the founder and executive director of ANH. What made you want to tackle the way foods and drugs are defined?

Rob Verkerk: Mike, it’s really been over 25 years that I have seen that definitions are the mechanisms that Big Pharma and Big Food use to control what you can buy, what you can say. Particularly in the drug area, the drug definition controls the therapeutic space. It also really impacts what someone can buy, what you can be told about a product, and also whether or not it’s going to actually be found in a practitioner’s toolkit.

Ames-Sikora: Your paper argues that the law draws on increasingly artificial lines between foods and drugs. Why should anyone outside the legal profession care? And why should the average consumer care?

Verkerk: Well, our paper goes back over 100 years, looking at 18 different jurisdictions around the world, but focuses especially on the US and the European system. And when you take that kind of bird’s-eye view of what has been going on for over a century, you see that the initial justification for having regulation around foods and drugs was extremely laudable. It was very well-meaning. It really was about protecting consumers from dangerous goods, mis-sold goods, mislabeled goods, and whether they were drugs or of foods. What you see over the passage of time is this sleight of hand in which essentially the definitions have now become mechanisms to control specific categories of products for the benefit of those corporations. So we now have a rather ridiculous situation where essentially foods and drugs, fast foods, and ultra-processed foods are amongst the most dangerous foods that we consume, yet they’re perfectly legal. They fit those definitions. They can be unsafe. And we’ve got a situation where drugs that are licensed, that can carry claims like safe and effective, are amongst the leading causes of death in industrialized societies. Peter Gøtzsche’s work suggests that the that drugs may in fact be the 3rd leading cause of death in industrialized societies like the US or Europe.

Ames-Sikora: Yeah, and my understanding of that statistic too is that these are not abused drugs. These are properly prescribed medications that are used as intended.

Verkerk: 100%. Yeah, properly prescribed medications. The 3rd or 4th leading cause of death in industrialized countries.

Ames-Sikora: So you argue that these definitions can protect the pharmaceutical industry’s hold on the therapeutic market. How does that work?

Verkerk: Essentially, if you want to make any kind of disease treatment, disease prevention claim, you have to be channeled down the drug pathway. So it doesn’t matter how much science you’ve got to show that turmeric or rosemary or black cohosh, name any botanical or nutrient out there, it doesn’t matter how much science says this might reduce your risk of disease, you are disallowed from making that claim. Yet if you’ve gone through the drug pathway, you’ve essentially paid to play in order to get your license. You can shout your claim from the rooftop. And in fact, what’s even more interesting, you can shout claims that the science that got you the license never made at all, given that you can also make off-label claims. So generally speaking, drug companies will get a specific claim, that’s their pay-to-play license, but then medical doctors will often use the products off-label. Now, if you’re selling a nutrient, even if it has similar effects, even if the science is comparable, even if the science is stronger than the drug with little or no side effects, you cannot make the claim because you cannot discuss the product in any way in relation to the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of disease.

Ames-Sikora: Yeah, we saw this with the cherry and walnut growers. I remember covering that for ANH over the years. So what does this mean for prevention and for people who already live with chronic disease?

Verkerk: Well, the biggest problem is that it means they can’t get the products that are most likely to be effective. The reality is that if we talk about prevention, primary prevention is actually trying to stop a disease happening in the first place. And we know the science around primary prevention is primarily around non-pharmaceutical interventions. So things like getting people to eat the right food at the right time in the right place in the right way, getting people to move in the right way or to respond to stress in a way that doesn’t harm them, or to spend less time sitting. These are all non-pharmaceutical interventions, and there’s very, very good science around them. Yet what’s happened is that the primary prevention space increasingly is dominated by pharmaceutical interests. So, you know, the use of vaccines to prevent disease, putting people on lifelong drug use, for the use of statins amongst those over 50, for example, which is a fantastic money spinner if you’re a statin manufacturer. The evidence is relatively weak in the sense that it doesn’t work for everyone, and for some people the side effects can be atrocious. Yet that’s viewed as a standard approach, either as primary or secondary prevention.

So if you look at the incredible science that shows how micronutrients and botanical substances and other substances taken from nature’s treasure trove can be used to bring our body into balance–let’s remember that it’s not usually the drug or even the botanical, the nutrient that itself is creating the shift. What it does is change the environment or the pathway in order to allow the body to self-heal. We sometimes forget how much work our body, our immune system, our neurological system, our endocrine system is doing to get things back into order. And that’s one of the ways in which non-pharmaceutical interventions can be really, really critical for prevention. for lifelong prevention that would have a massive impact on reducing chronic and degenerative disease. But these definitions prevent anyone from talking about it, so it doesn’t find its way into the mainstream approach or vocabulary.

Ames-Sikora: What has modern nutrition science revealed that these legal categories struggle to accommodate?

Verkerk: Well, nutrition science has moved on a great deal. That’s one of our primary arguments in the paper, that essentially there’s a whole catalogue of science that shows that nutrients can have a profound effect on disease. Governments recognize this. Mike, you’ll know in our FDA Modernization Act challenge that is running currently, where basically we presented the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services with over 100 different nutrient disease claims that government agencies themselves are making. There’s a specific clause in the FDA Modernization Act that was written by none other than Jonathan Emord in the 1990s that basically said, look, you’ve reserved any kind of disease claim to the category of drugs. But because there are nutrients out there, how about a system that if you, as the authoritative agency, determines that the science says that there is a nutrient-disease relationship, then everyone can use that. That would avoid companies having to do lots of research on nutrients and disease, and then at the end of that, possibly after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be told, sorry guys, you’re a drug, you can’t sell the product.

So this is a fantastic pathway. Now there are— we found over 400 of these claims that the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the Office of Dietary Supplements, the CDC, even the FDA are making. And we presented these to the HHS and said, look, we believe that these should be able to be used as authoritative statements under the clause in the FDA Modernization Act. And they’ve said, sorry, we have a little disclaimer that says these cannot be regarded as authoritative statements under the FDA Modernization Act. So it’s a crazy situation that says we are authorities that are making authoritative statements, but in this case, we’re not going to regard these as authoritative statements. So at the moment, they’re making none. And there’s still censorship of any nutrient disease claims. So we’ve got to push that particular roadblock over.

Ames-Sikora: You know, Rob, critics might hear this and assume that you’re calling for less regulation, which could expose them to unsafe supplements or even false hope. How would your proposed approach continue to protect consumers from unsafe products and exaggerated claims?

Verkerk: Well, basically, you’ve got to match the regulatory burden to the risk and the strength of the claim to the evidence. So there’s nothing that we’re doing in terms of modernizing definitions. That’s what we’re proposing—the definitions now are outdated and they don’t match the rapid development of nutritional science and health sciences. So essentially, what we would argue is that there is no additional risk at all. In fact, quite the reverse. It would reduce the risk because more people would be encouraged to take safer products that would essentially have a big impact on reducing their health risks, as well as ensuring that that there are adequate regulations already available that prevent companies from selling unsafe products. So yeah, unfortunately, that argument doesn’t hold a lot of water. And I think another part of our argument generally around some of the other initiatives that we have is that there’s always going to be a degree of uncertainty around any claim. And we strongly advocate this idea of communicating the amount of uncertainty clearly. And of course, Jonathan Emord was central in developing the qualified health claim regimen in the United States, and that’s what it’s all about.

So it’s about accurate communication of the science, and at the moment the definitions prevent that.

Ames-Sikora: What would a more sensible system look like? And if policymakers adopted one central recommendation from your paper, what should it be?

Verkerk: It should be: modernize the definitions. We need to see the food definition broadened. We’ve known since the time of Hippocrates that foods can have medicinal effects. There is copious amounts of evidence for that. And of course, the drug definition massively overlaps the food definition with the exception of very specific exemptions. So the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act obviously gives an exemption for dietary supplements to make structure-function claims, but they cannot in any way relate to disease. Now, we need to have a system that allows claims about effects that will also be related to disease, but the system needs to be about proportionality. So you need proportionate assessment and not just an automatic push for products that are therapeutic in action to only be forced down the drug pathway.

Ames-Sikora: Well, great. Well, I look forward to seeing this paper finally see the light of day and for it to get a reaction from the public and the scientific community.

Verkerk: Yes. In essence, Mike, what the paper is about is laying down the intellectual academic foundation for why we need to change definitions. You’re going to be very involved, as I am, as all of us will be, in the advocacy program that actually works with Congress and with senators in order to change these definitions. And the interesting thing, we’ve done a lot of work in terms of what modifications may need to be made to bring them in line with the science. And it doesn’t involve a complete rewrite of the definitions. In fact, sometimes it involves only very small changes, but they can have profound effects, and they will work for millions of Americans. And that’s the solution.

ANH-USA will launch a major advocacy program once the paper is published—and we’ll be looking for your support to push through amendments to various food and drug related definitions. Stay tuned!

The post Who Decides What Counts as Medicine? Rob Verkerk Explains How to Fix the Food-Drug Divide first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

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THE TOPLINE

• FDA missed its February 10 deadline to clarify which cannabinoids count toward the new 0.4-milligram-per-container limit and what constitutes a “container,” leaving hemp businesses unable to prepare for the December 2026 restrictions.
• The new definition threatens many non-intoxicating, full-spectrum CBD products—not just synthetic intoxicants.
• Congress should enact the Hemp Planting Predictability Act to delay implementation and the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act to establish risk-based safety standards while preserving access to responsibly made hemp products.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was supposed to publish critical cannabinoid lists and clarify key packaging rules by February 10. More than six months later, consumers, farmers, and responsible hemp businesses are still waiting.

FDA Misses a Mandatory Deadline

Congress created this confusion when it included sweeping hemp restrictions in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations law signed in November 2025.

The law gave FDA 90 days to publish three lists: cannabinoids that can occur naturally in cannabis, naturally occurring tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-class cannabinoids, and other cannabinoids known or marketed to produce effects similar to THC. FDA was also directed to clarify what counts as a product “container.”

None of that information had been published as of August 2026, according to an updated Congressional Research Service analysis.

The law’s 0.4-milligram-per-container limit depends heavily on which cannabinoids are counted and how “container” is interpreted. Yet businesses are being expected to prepare for compliance without those answers.

Full-Spectrum Hemp Is in the Crosshairs

Unless Congress intervenes, the new federal definition of hemp is scheduled to take effect November 12, 2026. Many non-intoxicating, full-spectrum CBD oils naturally contain trace quantities of THC, which means these products could disappear under the new policy. We explained this further in previous coverage. Put briefly, the risk assessment underpinning these restrictions is deeply flawed and unscientific. It would be like banning coffee because caffeine at high doses can be harmful.

ANH-USA supports targeted restrictions on dangerous synthetic intoxicants, adulterated products, deceptive marketing, and sales to minors. But Congress should not use those legitimate concerns to eliminate responsibly made, non-intoxicating hemp products that adults choose for their personal wellness.

A One-Month Bridge Is Not Enough

Congress has recently approved a funding measure that would delay most of the hemp restrictions until December 11 while allowing the ban on synthetic derivatives to proceed. The last step is for President Trump to sign the bill into law, which he is expected to do. This is positive but still a stopgap measure.

The bipartisan Hemp Planting Predictability Act, S. 3686 and H.R. 7024, offers a more meaningful pause. It would extend the implementation period from one year to three years, giving Congress time to build a workable regulatory framework instead of forcing an industry-wide crisis.

Regulation Without Erasing Access

The stronger long-term path is the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, S. 3474, introduced by Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.

The bill would establish manufacturing, testing, labeling, registration, and age requirements for cannabinoid products. It would create a federal pathway for cannabinoid dietary supplements and permit truthful, substantiated structure-function statements. It also provides mechanisms for removing dangerous synthetic and semi-synthetic cannabinoids from the market.

That is the distinction Congress must preserve: regulate products according to their actual risks, rather than treating trace amounts in natural hemp extracts like high-dose intoxicants.

FDA’s missed deadline shows why consumers cannot rely on agency promises alone. Congress must protect access explicitly in law.

Tell your members of Congress to support the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act and the Hemp Planting Predictability Act. Consumers deserve safe, tested, clearly labeled products without losing access to the full spectrum of hemp’s natural compounds.

Action Alert!

The post FDA Misses Deadline as Sweeping Federal Cannabinoid Ban Approaches first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

A new HHS report on questionable medical billing is part of a broader—yet at times inconsistent—effort to challenge pharmaceutical influence, improve nutrition, lower healthcare costs, and shift federal policy toward prevention.

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THE TOPLINE

• A new HHS report alleges that hospitals used questionable diagnostic codes to obtain insurance reimbursement for expensive medical interventions, exposing how financial incentives can distort patient care.
• Over the last two years, HHS has also advanced food-dye reform, infant-formula testing, nutrition education, drug-price negotiations, price transparency, and prior-authorization reform.
• These actions represent meaningful progress, but HHS must apply its skepticism consistently—including when FDA policies threaten individualized, natural, and non-patentable treatments.

A new report commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) examines how financial incentives, institutional ideology, and questionable billing practices may have driven children toward expensive, long-term medical interventions.

One underlying issue—pediatric gender medicine—is highly charged politically. But the systemic problem identified by HHS is much broader: hospitals and pharmaceutical companies can profit when otherwise healthy people become lifelong medical patients.

Among its findings, the report identified nearly $11 million in claims from 2015 through 2025 for puberty blockers given to patients between 13 and 17 under a diagnosis of “precocious puberty.” Yet that diagnosis traditionally applies when puberty begins before age eight in girls or nine in boys; treatment is generally discontinued around ages ten or eleven.

HHS acknowledges that its claims analysis provides “directional signals” requiring verification against medical records. But it raises a serious possibility: providers may have used a physical endocrine diagnosis to obtain insurance coverage for drugs prescribed for a different condition.

If confirmed, this is a stark example of how reimbursement can corrupt medical decision-making. But it is not the only area where HHS has begun confronting the forces that keep Americans dependent on an expensive, intervention-heavy healthcare system.

Shifting the Focus to Food and Prevention

HHS and USDA released new Dietary Guidelines for Americans in January 2026 emphasizing whole foods, protein, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables, and home-prepared meals while discouraging heavily processed foods and artificial additives.

HHS and FDA have also announced an initiative to phase out six widely used petroleum-based synthetic dyes through industry cooperation by the end of 2027. Because much of that initiative remains voluntary, its ultimate impact will depend on whether manufacturers fulfill their commitments. Nevertheless, major companies are already reformulating products, and FDA has approved several non-petroleum alternatives. The agency is also pressing manufacturers to remove Red No. 3 before its 2027 food deadline, although the decision to revoke that dye’s authorization was made before Secretary Kennedy took office.

Another meaningful step is Operation Stork Speed, FDA’s first comprehensive review of infant-formula nutrient requirements since 1998. In April 2026, FDA released results from testing more than 300 formula samples for heavy metals, pesticides, PFAS, phthalates, and other contaminants. Most showed undetectable or very low levels, but FDA says it is conducting follow-up testing and developing contaminant action levels.

HHS has also secured voluntary commitments from over 70 medical schools in 31 states to provide at least 40 hours of nutrition education—or a competency-based equivalent—beginning in fall 2026. The department developed 71 suggested nutrition competencies and dedicated $5 million to an NIH nutrition-education challenge. These are voluntary rather than mandatory, but they address a glaring weakness in conventional medical training.

Challenging Healthcare Costs and Bureaucracy

The administration has reached drug-pricing agreements with 26 manufacturers, which it says represent 89 percent of the branded-drug market. The agreements provide most-favored-nation pricing in state Medicaid programs and discounted direct-purchase options for selected medicines. This does not mean every American now pays the world’s lowest price for every drug, but it represents a real challenge to pharmaceutical pricing power.

CMS has also strengthened hospital price-transparency requirements, including disclosure of cash prices, insurer-negotiated rates, and consumer-friendly pricing for at least 300 shoppable services. During his first term, President Trump established landmark rules requiring hospitals and insurers to disclose their negotiated prices and give patients cost-estimation tools. Since then, compliance and usability problems have persisted. The current administration has now imposed additional hospital requirements based on actual payment data and proposed further reforms to make insurer information easier to locate, standardize and compare.

Meanwhile, participating insurers have eliminated approximately 11 percent of prior-authorization requirements—about 6.5 million fewer authorizations—and new federal deadlines require faster decisions for Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, CHIP, and federal Marketplace plans. Prior authorization remains widespread, but this is tangible progress.

The Test Is Consistency

Taken together, these initiatives suggest a welcome shift: toward prevention, better nutrition, greater transparency, lower drug prices, and closer scrutiny of medical institutions that profit from chronic intervention.

But HHS cannot challenge the medical-industrial complex selectively. The same department includes an FDA that continues to threaten access to compounded medicines, natural desiccated thyroid, peptides, homeopathy, and other individualized or non-patentable treatments. So far, our legal initiatives aiming to open up free speech about natural products and to protect homeopathy have, unfortunately, been stymied by HHS or the FDA, demonstrating how deep the institutional bias towards Big Pharma runs.

The new direction is encouraging. The real test will be whether HHS consistently chooses patient health, informed choice, and medical freedom over institutional power—wherever that power is found.

Please share this article widely in your networks.

The post HHS Takes Aim at the Medical-Industrial Complex first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

This article is adapted from a longer personal account first published by ANH International.

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THE TOPLINE

• I developed a suspected serious hypersensitivity reaction within days of starting allopurinol ahead of foot surgery.
• My experience raises difficult questions about informed consent, individualized risk, baseline testing, dosing and monitoring.
• We do not need a war between conventional and natural medicine. We need connected healthcare that puts the person before the protocol.

For most of my adult life, I have lived almost entirely outside the pharmaceutical model—not because of ideology, but because of experience.

In my twenties, I was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity following severe reactions to pesticides, solvents and pharmaceutical drugs. A particularly serious reaction to the antimalarial drug Lariam reinforced my caution. For more than 30 years after that, I avoided prescription medicines.

Then, earlier this year, that changed.

A Motorcycle Injury Comes Back to Haunt Me

In 1995, I badly damaged my right foot in a motorcycle accident in Malaysia. Decades later, increasingly painful inflammation was interfering with walking and cycling. Imaging showed a protective mass around the damaged bone, along with what appeared to be urate crystals.

An orthopedic surgeon agreed to remove the mass and remodel the bone, but first recommended six months of allopurinol—a standard uric-acid-lowering drug—even though I had never suffered from gout.

Busy with work and a house move, I deferred to the specialist and obtained the prescription. Six days after starting the drug, while driving, seemingly out of nowhere, extraordinary cramps spread across multiple muscle groups. The pain felt as though acid had been poured into my muscles. I stopped the drug, but the reaction did not stop.

Over the following days came worsening muscle pain, rashes, skin sensitivity, numbness and neuropathic symptoms affecting my arms, hands and one leg. At night, the pain became so intense I couldn’t sleep and the only relief I could get was by getting up and walking.

My research, subsequently supported by a medical center in France, pointed toward a serious hypersensitivity reaction. I discovered that full-blown allopurinol hypersensitivity syndrome is rare—estimated at around one in 1,000 users—but can carry a disturbingly high mortality rate of 20–25 percent.

With guidance from Nasha Winters, ND, a member of ANH-USA’s board, I pursued testing for possible effects on my kidneys, liver, muscles and nerves, while supporting recovery through rest, hydration, nutrition and targeted natural compounds. Thankfully, the symptoms are beginning to ease, with the neuropathic ones—especially numbness in the hands and left thigh—being the slowest to improve.

The Questions Every Patient Deserves to Have Answered

This experience left me asking:

• Why was my history of extreme sensitivity to drugs and chemicals not explored in detail by the orthopaedic surgeon?
• Why did I not feel properly informed about the possibility of a severe reaction?
• Why were these kinds of severe reactions nowhere to be seen on the patient information leaflet accompanying the prescription.
• Why was there so little interest in my wider biochemical, metabolic and nutritional terrain?
• Could baseline testing, lower starting doses, gradual titration or closer monitoring have reduced the risk?

These are not fringe questions. FDA-approved prescribing information warns that allopurinol can cause serious and sometimes fatal reactions. Yet allopurinol is the preferred first-line, standard-of-care medication for managing chronic gout in the United States, as recommended by the Arthritis Foundation. For gout patients, it calls for baseline assessment of uric acid, blood counts, liver chemistry and kidney function, and notes that lower initial doses with gradual titration can reduce serious adverse reactions.

Known Does Not Mean Normal

We have become far too accustomed to the phrase “side effect.” Television drug ads recite terrifying lists so routinely that they fade into background noise.

But a “side effect” can mean pain so severe you cannot sleep. It can mean being unable to walk comfortably or drive safely. It can mean wondering in the middle of the night whether something is going seriously wrong inside your body. A “side effect” may or may not include a hypersensitivity reaction—it depends who you ask.

A reaction does not become normal because it is listed in fine print. “Known” does not mean trivial—and it should never erase the obligation to consider susceptibility, alternatives and individual context.

Better Medicine Uses the Best of Both Worlds

Natural medicine cannot repair the structural damage in my foot. I still need a skilled surgeon. Modern imaging, laboratory medicine, emergency care and surgery are extraordinary achievements.

But imagine a system in which the surgeon was also deeply interested in the patient’s physiological, metabolic and nutritional terrain. Imagine conventional clinicians working routinely with professionals trained in nutritional, functional and natural medicine.

That would not be “alternative” medicine. It would simply be better medicine.

Patients must be partners, not passive recipients. Clinicians must see the individual before the protocol. And when suspected adverse reactions occur, they must enter the safety record. In the United States, patients and healthcare professionals can report them directly through FDA MedWatch. Clinicians are not required to file these reports, so patient reporting matters.

We do not need competing medical tribes. We need connected health systems that combine the safest and most appropriate tools available—from the operating room and diagnostic laboratory to the food we eat, the way we live and the natural world.

That is the future of healthcare I want to see—and the future ANH is working to create.

If you have suffered an adverse reaction to a drug or know someone who has, it is important to report the reaction. Find out how to do it via FDA’s MedWatch portal.

Please share this article widely so more patients recognize that informed consent and adverse event reporting are rights, not optional extras.

The post My Adverse Drug Reaction—and the Healthcare Lesson We Can’t Ignore first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

As animal health shifts toward pharma and biotech-driven interventions, basic determinants like nutrition, exercise and stress are being sidelined despite their immense impact on both health-span and lifespan.

Original article by Melissa Smith, Outreach & Communications Officer, ANH International

Abbreviated version below edited by Mike Ames-Sikora, Senior Editor, ANH-USA. Read the full version at ANH International

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• Animals are increasingly developing the same chronic diseases as humans, driven by factors such as ultra-processed diets, inactivity, toxin exposure, stress and intensive farming conditions.
• Animal health is becoming more pharmaceuticalized, with growing use of drugs, novel vaccine technologies and biotech platforms, while questions remain around long-term safety, transparency and food-chain exposure.
• We need a prevention-first approach, prioritizing species-appropriate nutrition, movement, lower toxin exposure, ecological health and resilient farming systems over managing disease primarily through technological and pharmaceutical intervention.

Something has gone quietly wrong in the lives of our precious pets and livestock. Dogs are developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer at rates that would have seemed extraordinary a generation ago. Cats are being prescribed thyroid medication and insulin. Dairy cows are suffering metabolic disorders with increasing frequency. And now, a San Francisco biotech startup is on the cusp of becoming the first company in history to bring a longevity drug to market— not for humans, but dogs.

This is not simply about devoted pet owners and medical progress. It’s a discussion about how the same forces driving the chronic disease epidemic in humans are now operating across the entire animal world — and how the pharmaceutical industry has identified this as one of the most lucrative growth markets of the coming decade. It also digs into the introduction of novel vaccine technologies into the animal health space that could potentially enter the human food chain, a global governance framework positioning animals, under the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ‘One Health’ initiative, as disease reservoirs requiring pharmaceutical management, along with the explicit use of companion animals as a stepping stone to human drugs. These threads are not separate. They are woven from the same cloth.

Animals Are Mirroring Human Diseases

A peer-reviewed study published in late 2025 documented a sharp global rise in non-communicable (chronic) diseases in animals — not just pets, but livestock and even wildlife under human care. The conditions were striking in their familiarity: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative joint disease and cancer, all increasing across species.

The factors identified as driving this are precisely those driving the human chronic disease crisis: ultra-processed diets, reduced physical activity, environmental pollutant exposure, chronic stress and selective breeding that prioritizes commercial traits over physiological resilience.

The same wave of precision-fermented foods that are entering the human food supply are starting to enter animal foods as well.

All chronic disease states have root causes. They are not simply the inevitable fate of an ageing animal. In nature, animals live well until they pass. They do not spend the last third of their lives limping with chronic disease. But, as with humans, well animals are of no interest to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Technology vs Nature: saRNA Vaccines and the Food Chain Question

We’re also seeing the rapid introduction of self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) vaccines into companion animals and livestock, with little public debate about long-term implications or entry into the human food chain. Here’s the kicker. These technologies are already in use!

Unlike conventional vaccines, saRNA constructs contain replication machinery derived from alphaviruses, allowing the RNA to amplify itself inside cells and prolong antigen production from very small doses. This increased biological activity is central to the technology’s commercial appeal, but also raises questions about biodistribution, persistence, reproductive transfer and long-term exposure that remain insufficiently studied in food-producing animals.

Regulators argue that withdrawal periods prevent residues entering the food chain, but these frameworks were designed for conventional pharmaceuticals rather than self-amplifying genetic constructs. Publicly available long-term toxicology and biodistribution data remain limited, particularly regarding repeated exposure across industrial farming systems.

Another problem is that veterinary approval pathways are often faster and less precautionary than those used in human medicine, creating incentives to scale novel biotech platforms first through animals before wider human application. Once deployed across livestock systems, exposure expands from millions of animals to entire populations of consumers — without labelling, informed consent or long-term post-market evidence.

This reflects a broader pattern: increasingly complex biological technologies are being introduced at industrial scale before foundational questions about necessity, transparency and long-term safety have been properly answered, and before comparative effectiveness research has been conducted on less intrusive alternatives like nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction.

The Framework: One Health and Pharmaceutical Governance

These developments are not occurring in isolation. They are unfolding within the rapidly expanding framework of “One Health” — the WHO-backed model that links human, animal and environmental health into a single global management system.

On the surface, the idea sounds reasonable: human and animal health are clearly interconnected. But One Health is not simply a scientific observation. It is also a governance model, increasingly tied to pandemic preparedness, biosecurity surveillance and coordinated pharmaceutical intervention across species.

Under the One Health framework, animals are increasingly viewed primarily through the lens of pandemic risk. This creates a powerful institutional justification for expanding vaccine platforms, genomic tracking and novel biotech interventions throughout both companion animals and livestock.

The concern is that One Health risks becoming less about improving the underlying health of ecosystems and more about building a permanent infrastructure for pharmaceutical management at population scale.

Industrial farming, environmental toxicity, biodiversity loss and habitat destruction drive chronic disease and zoonotic risk, yet receive far less attention than surveillance and pharmaceutical responses. From an ANH perspective, One Health increasingly manages the consequences through centralized monitoring and rapid vaccine deployment rather than addressing root causes through resilient food systems, metabolic health, ecological restoration and prevention.

Prioritizing Animal Health

We already know a great deal about what keeps animals healthy: species-appropriate natural, evolutionary-rational nutrition, minimal ultra-processing, physical activity, reduced toxin exposure, lower chronic stress and greater genetic resilience. For livestock, in addition to that list, farming conditions themselves — crowding, confinement and feed quality — are primary determinants of health outcomes.

The same principles apply to humans. But prevention is far less commercially attractive than lifelong treatment.

The ‘System’ at Work

The underlying cycle is consistent: industrial systems generate chronic disease, pharmaceuticals manage it, and regulation accelerates adoption.

Pet medicalization points to a broader shift—towards treating ageing, immunity and metabolism as conditions requiring continuous technological control rather than outcomes of lifestyle and environment. What is tested in animals today anticipates how human health will be defined tomorrow. The counter-position is preventive health rooted in evolutionary rational nutrition, movement, stress management and environmental integrity.

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The post Is Your Pet Being Exploited to Aid Pharma Profits? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.