At the time, I had no knowledge of the dietary desiccated thyroid industry. I knew only what RLC officials told me about the industry from acquiring raw thyroid tissues to production of the final product. Any knowledge I had at the time of dietary desiccated thyroid was limited to (1) some clinical experience with patients who had used such products, (2) information given to me by RLC Labs officials (limited by their "trade secrete" concerns), and (3) data I was accumulating through my ongoing clinical experiments with HSF. Because of this, I accepted as true what the RLC Labs official told me: that T4, and T4 only, was removed from HSF, leaving all the other natural contents of the raw thyroid tissue.

Subsequently, however, through communications with FDA officials, I learned that the agency does not have the policy claimed by the RLC official. I eventually learned though government people the actual source of this incorrect information, which involves another government regulatory agency, not the FDA.

After publishing my two reports of the original HSF that contained the blond powder, I have acquired extensive experience in all aspects of the dietary desiccated thyroid industry. As part of that experience, I received information—although too often truncated information due to the issue of trade secretes—from suppliers of raw thyroid powder. That information has left me with the distinct impression that suppliers do not use a technology that selectively removes T4 and leaves in the tissue powder the other iodinated molecules (T3. T2, and T1). It appears to me that all iodinated molecules are removed.

In addition, after publishing the two reports on HSF, I have tested products labeled "thyroxine-free." My testing of this product and others leads me to believe that the term "thyroxine-free" is synonymous with removal of all iodinated compounds (thyroid hormones) from raw thyroid powder. The products I have tested have been metabolically inert.