FDA Regulating Your Stem Cells As Interstate Commerce

New submitter dcbrianw writes "A non-surgical procedure that treats joint pain involves removing stem cells from a patient's blood and reinserting them into the joint. The facility conducting these procedures resides in Colorado, but because it orders equipment to perform the procedure from outside of Colorado, the FDA claims it must regulate this process and that it can classify stem cells as a drug. This issue opens the debate of what the FDA, or other regulatory bodies, may regulate within each of our own bodies." Quick: Name five activities with no possible plausible effect on interstate commerce.

DMT

[Hatta]

Dimethyltryptamine (DMT [wikipedia.org]) is a naturally occuring endogenous neurotransmitter that is also a Schedule I drug.

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[nschubach]

I was always taught that it was enacted to prevent States from restricting trade between neighboring states... not to prevent trade.

Growing your own food affects interstate commerce

[Anonymous Coward]

If you grow your own food, you won't buy it from another state. Therefore, growing your own food affects interstate commerce. At least that's what the Supreme Court decided when a farmer fed his own animals with his home grown food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Re:So?

[ClioCJS]

Uh, no. That's not how medicine OR the FDA works. They don't regulate medical procedures throughout the country. They have a specific scope. But i guess you weren't too sure of yourself if you had to post anonymously, were you?

A modicum of facts [wikipedia.org]

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[robbadler]

I think you misread the article. Biohazardous material will not be crossing state lines, medical equipment will. This is an attempt to stop the use of that equipment on the grounds that it at one point crossed a state line. So did my jeans. Can they use Interstate Commerce to keep me from going to work?

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[sconeu]

Actually, States Rights are enshrined in the 10th Amendment. The 14th establishes some federal powers over the States.

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[Goobermunch]

Please, please, please. Learn your history.

FDR did not pack the court with statists. In fact, the proposal he had advanced (of adding more justices to the supreme court), never went through. Instead, one justice on the court changed his mind about how to approach these matters and turned what had once been a 4-5 court into a 5-4 court. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_switch_in_time_that_saved_nine [wikipedia.org]

But go ahead and blame FDR, that's easier than learning about history.

--AC

Re:... Glenn Beck on Slashdot?

[truavatar]

It is not accurate. That is my point.

theblaze.com's sole source is the Alliance for Natural Health's article which grossly misrepresent the FDA's case, as you can see if you read the FDA's motion for summary judgement:

http://www.hpm.com/pdf/blog/GovernmentSupportforSummaryJudgmentMotion.pdf [hpm.com]

The article is about as useful as if it had come from the National Enquirer.

Re:this is hardly the biggest abuse

[ScentCone]

So you expect ME to pay the bill if you don't buy insurance and end up at the hospital?

No. And I especially don't expect you to be legally forced to buy your neighbor viagra, or to finance millions of cases of diabetes in morbidly obese fast food junkies, or to buy a bunch of whiny aging baby boomers $20,000 knee replacements so they can keep playing golf for a while longer. We're talking about health care, here, not got-hit-by-a-bus emergency care. Routine health care is less important than food. Should you be mandated by the federal government to buy everyone food, too? Why not? If you don't, they'll wind up in the hospital, right?

Re:... Glenn Beck on Slashdot?

[geekoid]

It isn't. It's twisted and incorrect.

For the record; when a source has a history of twisting, lying, and making things up, they loose any credibility. I don't want to see them on the front page. By changing their ways, they can earn front page.

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[atriusofbricia]

Can anyone comment on why the Supreme Court has historically allowed the Commerce clause to apply to absolutely anything that could be remotely, however ridiculously, be considered related to interstate commerce, and thus trample states' rights?

Is this simply a perennial sin of the Court, or is there a sound Constitutional basis for it?

I certainly cannot, since the states rights are enshrined in the 14th amendment and the commerce clause is in the original constitution, it has never made sense to me. The amendments are supposed to supercede the consititution. That's the whole point of having them.

Point of order... States do not have Rights. States have Powers, People have Rights. :)

Re:Commerce maximalists?

[evil_aaronm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn [wikipedia.org]