From: Terri [terrillb@ameritech.net]
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 12:06 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Federal Register

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a concerned citizen with an opinion for you.  I do agree that your warning labels are a restriction on free speech.  In addition, I feel that you should turn over a new leaf and actually do what you are supposed to do.  We are not stupid, we know that we ingest supplements at our own risk!!  You need to concern yourself with the garbage, full of chemicals that the doctors are being given promotional incentives to push on us.  You also need to do a much better job of making the side effects of those drugs public and expose the drug companies for covering up, or sugar-coating these.  If it weren't for the investigative news shows, we would be left in the dark!!  Just tonight, they had a story on the news about Celebrex.  Why do you let the drug companies get away with this?  Why do you let them market one drug under several names?  I have been given a prescription for a drug marketed as an anti-anxiety drug, which I found out was an antihistamine being used for anxiety because a side effect was drowsiness!!  This is absolutely ridiculous! It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know the difference between drowsy and having something help reduce anxiety.  Lets get with it and actually do something to protect the public from the drug companies and doctors!!!  The public doesn't care what you think about supplements ... We do care about the prescription drugs YOU approve, which have so many warnings, and even state that they can actually cause the problem you are trying to correct. Seems like it's just a game of CYA.  I would also like to see the drug companies banned from advertising drugs on television .... it's totally ridiculous and just another way for them to make money.  They are a bunch of greedy people that are putting the rest of us in the poor house and driving up insurance costs.  

In short ... leave the supplements alone and regulate the drugs!

Sincerely,

Terri Brooks