Ham-Strung 

Margaret Hamburg, former Commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration – resigned – last year. Seems the e-cigarette battle at the FDA wasn’t all she was fighting or hiding from. One has to ask, What else was she protecting besides her husband’s business interests?

It’s not often we hear of R.I.C.O. charges being brought in the U.S.A., and when they are, it’s usually in the form of hardened criminals. In the news- in the United States – Margaret Hamburg, the former Commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration, has been charged with “conspiracy, racketeering & colluding to conceal deadly drug dangers – under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law (RICO) law.” This is not a local bust from your local news about an official just taking a bribe, this is a full blown, out of control and over the top set or sets of charges. These are criminal – and federal charges.Criminal acts. I’ll get back to that in a minute. Initially signed into law by President Nixon, the R.I.C.O. Act was designed to “prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime.” For the world outside the United States to hear the term “R.I.C.O. Act”, it may not make any sense. Here is the condensed version of R.I.C.O. Act for you who don’t know. FDA chief exits as e-cig fight smolders

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For the past couple years – back and forth on Twitter, mentions of the blatant misinformation lies spewed from official sounding people here, here & here (plenty more where those come from) in the United States has been referred to by myself and others as “criminal intent.” R.I.C.O. status, in fact. Just my opinion, but when there are ulterior motives to protect funding or income from being disrupted, lies are imminent, lives are at stake. What is it they are protecting? Certainly it isn’t the public. In this instance with Hamburg, she was protecting her own investments – and imagine who she was helping, among others, Johnson & Johnson, also being charged. Seems she may have coined the phrase “wild, wild west.”

“With FDA having no authority to regulate these products, it is a little bit of the wild, wild west,” FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said in a press call.

According to the Alliance For Research Protection article:

“Defendant Brown’s annual income, not coincidentally, increased from a reported $10 million in 2008 to an estimated $125 million in 2011 and an estimated $90 million in 2012, due in whole or in part to Defendants’ racketeering conspiracy to withhold information about the devastating, life threatening, and deadly effects of Levaquin.

At a MINIMUM, organizations and “experts” are breaking the law with “may, could, might” and so on in the United States. What’s this got to do with vaping, Kevin? (I heard you ask a minute ago). With that, I point you directly to more misinformation misconduct to the pubic. In the graphic above –  underlined is the word “omitting”. That’s “misconduct” and probably gets someone a slap on the wrist. Below – this “trend” is so severe, there is an article about just that. “Omitting such health-relevant information for consumers of such products effectively blindfolds them and impairs their making informed personal choices.”

Withholding differential risk information on legal consumer nicotine/tobacco products: The public health ethics of health information quarantines