Update: Commissioner Hamburg's Secret Amalgam Meeting

Hamburg’s Secret Amalgam Meeting;

FDA’s Plan to “End Game” Our Movement

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg organized and held a staff meeting to work on the mercury amalgam rule on July 1 . . . so we have learned from our freedom-of-information-act request. Indeed, the Commissioner was insistent about it -- she had the meeting rescheduled several times to ensure that she could make it. Her executive assistant wrote the Center for Devices, “This meeting really needs to happen next week.” http://www.toxicteeth.org/scheduling%20briefing.pdf

That same month, Dr. Hamburg was cashing Henry Schein stock options and contacted Schein directly at least once, and the next month Schein’s CEO was issuing a hale & hearty “thank you” to Margaret Hamburg.

So much for that FDA form letter to thousands of you with those bogus claims that Commissioner Hamburg was “not involved.” Dr. Hamburg enlisted her staff to spread information she knows (and they too almost certainly know) is not true. Dr. Hamburg already conceded she had an ethical problem that required her not to participate in the rule-making -- hence the motive to conceal the July 1 meeting from us.

FDA leaders realize that they set off an international uproar with their mercury amalgam policy. Their rule conceals the mercury from American consumers, especially the most vulnerable -- pregnant women and young children. FDA’s rule hands corporate giants like Henry Schein Inc. the ability to sell mercury-based dental products without disclosures or warnings, denying consumers the fundamental right to make their own informed decisions about their health. All along, FDA’s top brass has been hoping against hope that we would never find out about Margaret Hamburg’s staff meeting on the amalgam rule.

So is FDA concerned about consumers? No, FDA is working on a plan to silence us.

The “problem,” said George Strait, FDA Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs, in an August 14 memo to Commissioner Hamburg, Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, and media aide Mary Pepper Long, “is that there will be no end to Brown,” http://www.toxicteeth.org/endgame-email-from-Strait.doc

Strait proposes a solution, and it’s this:

“A communications end game re: Brown.”

So FDA wants to silence this movement. FDA wants to stop us from exercising our First Amendment rights to speak out against its heartless action against America’s children.

Today I wrote my letter to Congress, which will be posted soon on our newly revised website, www.toxicteeth.org; now it’s your turn. Here’s how you call and write your Congresswoman or Congressman in Washington: go to https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml; choose your state, enter your zip, then click “Contact My Representative.”

Talking Points to your Representative (that is, your Congressman/Congresswoman)

* FDA’s rule conceals the mercury in amalgam from consumers.

* FDA’s rule benefits Commissioner Hamburg’s corporate benefactor, Henry Schein.

* Commissioner Hamburg participated despite claiming that she was recused for ethical reasons.

* Dr. Hamburg and her staff are covering up her role in the rule-making.

* FDA proposes to silence critics of the rule via an “end game.”

Tell the Democratic Congresswomen and Congressmen that FDA under Hamburg is a rogue agency defying President Obama’s deep concerns about mercury, even though the President appointed her.

Tell the Republican Congresswomen and Congressmen that FDA under Hamburg is a rogue agency that concealed the website advisories about neurological harm to children and unborn babies put there last year by former Commissioner Von Eschenbach.

FDA hopes you say nothing. FDA hopes you do nothing. Then FDA can accomplish its “end game” -- against us.

---Charlie

16 September 2009

Charles G. Brown, National Counsel
Consumers for Dental Choice
316 F St., N.E., Suite 210, Washington, DC 20002
Ph. 202.544-6333; fax 202.544-6331
charlie@toxicteeth.org,
www.toxicteeth.org
Working for Mercury-Free Dentistry