Ming Is Collared By The FDA

Enforcement Officers, Stan Still and Ben Dover dragged a screaming Ming away today, for distributing a drug without having first obtained FDA approval. Ming was found to be attempting to induce laughter while claiming that levity was a necessary component of good health and might even help prevent disease. FDA regulations state that only a drug can cure, prevent or treat a disease. As soon as you claim that anything can have an impact on disease, it's by definition a drug which needs FDA approval to be marketed. Without that approval, you are purveying a drug without a license which is a criminal offense. This subjects you to seize of the product and/or injunction against its manufacture or distribution under 21USC332 and 334, The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Lest you're inclined to accuse Ming of exaggeration, remember just one such example when back in 1976 ITT Continental Baking Company marketed it's high fiber Fresh Horizons Bread with the claim that fiber may prevent several serious diseases. They went so far as to initiate an advertising campaign directed at doctors claiming that high fiber could be useful in prevention of obesity, diverticular disease, heart disease, etc. The FDA sent them a certified Regulatory Letter giving them ten days to state the action they will take to discontinue marketing "this drug product. If such corrective action is not promptly undertaken, the Food and Drug Administration is prepared to initiate legal action to enforce the law". Needless to say Ming swears he's not trying to make any bread by posting on his blog and plans to immediately enter Phase I trials to determine that laughter is safe. $800 million dollars and ten years later, he may even get FDA approval to tell jokes.