FTC Action to Shut Us Down

Statement of Daniel Chapter One Regarding Recent FTC Action to Shut It Down
Portsmouth, Rhode Island (January 5, 2010). On Christmas Eve 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered Daniel Chapter One — a Christian ministry — to bring to a halt its outreach program offering an array of dietary supplements and herbal remedies that numerous people had tried and found helpful in their bouts with cancer and other illnesses.

The FTC holiday order brought to an end the first chapter of a year-long battle that Daniel Chapter One has been fighting to ensure freedom of choice for cancer victims who found that chemotherapy, radiation, and other traditional medical treatments had not made them better.

For an entire year the FTC has pressured Daniel Chapter One to cease its healing ministry, even though the FTC had received no consumer complaints against it. And even though the FTC has the unlimited resources of the United States government, it made no effort to prove that anyone had been harmed by a Daniel Chapter One product. Rather, the FTC refused to hear the many voices of those who wanted to testify how well the products worked for them.

In short, the FTC attack on Daniel Chapter One — and others like it — all offering an alternative way back to health — amounted to nothing more than a bureaucratic blow on behalf of cookie-cutter, big Pharma-based medicine — one size fits all — the government deciding what is right for you.

While others buckled under the weight and power of the federal behemoth, Daniel Chapter One — constrained by religious principle — went into battle for the precious liberties of itself and of those it helps.

Throughout this lengthy fight, Daniel Chapter One has had one hand tied behind its back with no opportunity to defend itself and its ministry before any court of law. Instead, Daniel Chapter One has been subjected to a financially and emotionally draining administrative process where the FTC — a powerful government agency — has been both its prosecutor and its judge, in an unprecedented effort to silence a nonprofit ministry.

Now — for the first time — Daniel Chapter One has the opportunity to take its fight for religious liberty and health freedom for all Americans to a federal court. And it will do just that, seeking to overturn the FTC’s draconian order and to restore the individual right of Americans to make their own health care choices.