MARINA DEL REY, CA--The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's all out assault on the producer of the life saving herbal supplement PC-Spes has succeeded. BotanicLab, the only maker of the supplement that thousands of prostate cancer victims depend on for their survival, has been forced out of business. The FDA's assault on PC-Spes and BotanicLab, because some bottles of PC-Spes also contained traces of a regulated drug, the blood-thinner "warfarin," is an outrageous abuse of individual rights, said Dr. Edwin A. Locke, senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.
      "The inability of prostate cancer patients to get PC-Spes will doom many of them to death," said Dr. Locke. As one patient put it in the Wall Street Journal, "I am dying, and apparently bureaucracy couldn't care less."
      "The FDA's destruction of this company," Dr. Locke said, "threatens the lives of thousands of human beings. If the FDA really wanted to protect lives while respecting individual rights--as it should--it would let individuals make their own decision about using the herbal supplement. But the FDA is indifferent to the many deaths its ruling may cause; it is more concerned with asserting its own power--and individual lives be damned."
      As many as 10,000 Americans take PC-Spes, and it is recommended by many oncologists as the only or best treatment for advanced prostate cancers that have not responded to other treatments. Ironically, many doctors prescribe "warfarin" along with PC-Spes to prevent the herbal supplement from forming blood clots.
      "It is a tragic turn of events," said Dr. Locke, "when the government abandons its proper role as a protector of individual rights and becomes a killer instead."

ARI senior writer Dr. Edwin A. Locke is available for interviews on this topic.