“And that includes those risky oranges,” explain anonymous doctors.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In another two-vote landslide victory Thursday, the House voted that Vitamin C can no longer be purchased without a prescription.

“With our new CAFTA allegiance to the U.N.’s CODEX health police, we can finally nail all this quackery of ‘herbs’ and ‘vitamins,’” exulted Senator Jeff Jefferson (R-NZ). “And vitamin C is a perfect place to start. I can’t tell you how many Americans I’ve known whose lives were ruined by Old Man C. I just hope we’re in time to help others.”

Groceries have been ordered to temporarily empty their shelves of all sources of the controlled substance, such as Vitamin C pills, oranges, broccoli, tomatoes, and strawberries. Trade will be resumed after the establishment of appropriate regulatory bodies and salaries.

Unsurprisingly, there have been fringe protests, including a representative getting pelted with lemons by scurvy victims. Fortunately, smart people agree with Jefferson, who said, “Vitamin C is a drug, and if you need a drug, you’d better just go ask your doctor, young man. You can kill yourself if you get sick and worthless, but you are not going to ingest unapproved substances. Not on my watch.”

The ban is seen as a harbinger of good things to come.

“If the FDA hasn’t studied it, you shouldn’t be eating it,” said Dr. Hubert Hubris as he sipped an Aspirin Shake. “When that basic law of physics is embraced as the law of the land, we as a people will finally stop getting sick.”

Dr. Hubris, an FDA researcher and board member of three major pharmaceutical companies, has authored several popular, unbiased books on the subject such as Herbal Armaggeddon: Global Suicide Through Herbal Supplements and Herbal Armaggeddon: Global Suicide Through Herbal Supplements: A Novel.

“I couldn’t think of another title,” Hubris commented.

Whiny critics point out that fatalities from herbs and vitamins are practically nil, while according to the Journal of the American Medicine Association, over 106,000 Americans die from prescription drugs in an average year, making them the fourth or so leading cause of American death. However, according to Amber Cruncher, industry analyst and board member of three major pharmaceutical companies, such critics are “blockheads.”

“Anyone can take potshots at emerging technology. If it were up to these ‘blockheads,’Columbus would never have discovered America. Einstein would never have invented the atom bomb. We wouldn’t even have automated phone menus. Listen, buttheads: you can’t stop progress. We must keep finding new medicines as quickly as possible, and when heroes give their lives in this struggle, they aren’t fatalities, they’re research.”

When nitpickers wonder whether adults choosing to use herbal remedies could count as research, too, Cruncher justifiably loses patience. “Idiots! It’s not research if no one gives you permission. And on a more disturbing level, if some aging hippie waltzes into a co-op and buys Snooty Vermont-Grown Echinacea instead of antibiotics, who’s making money? A transnational pharmaceutical? No. That alone should set off major alarm bells.

While in the short term, America can only hope to emulate Europe’s CODEX-led revolution in restrictive trade laws and astronomical price hikes, the ban opens new vistas for the future.

In the past, the FDA concerned itself largely with prescription drugs because their FDA tests are hugely expensive. The only corporations that could afford them could also look forward to a patent.

“Who’s going to pay to study ginger?” Hubris chuckled.

Now, with the power to forbid unfair competition from natural substances that any cottage company can make—or, worse, normal people can actually grow—a new vision emerges: total safety.

“I don’t want to say anything premature, but I will say, for instance, that I’m very concerned by some of the recent literature on ‘carrots.’ In one study, a woman bit off too large a piece—and coughed. Unacceptable. She could have choked. Choked. Can you imagine a better world, a world where all legal ‘carrots’ would be in safe pellets that were truly bite-size? I can. I do.”