Fwd: NHF Launches New Bill to Protect Supplements

[Guest guest]

From Joan Schultze, DC

Lake Oswego

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NHF Launches New Bill to Protect Supplements

Date:

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:04:02 +0100

From:

National Health Federation <thenhf@...>

Reply-To:

National Health Federation <thenhf@...>

joanschultze@...

NEWS RELEASE

DSPA: NHF’s

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE ON THE FDA DRAFT GUIDANCE

The FDA’s Attack on Supplements Can be

Stopped

November 4, 2011

In an end-run worthy of

an NFL halfback, the National Health Federation is

spearheading the introduction of legislation to counter

the FDA’s infamous new Draft Guidance on New Dietary

Ingredients (NDIs). The Guidance, if finalized and acted

upon, would result in the loss of access to countless

safe natural health products Americans consume daily.

The Guidance would require perfectly safe

dietary-supplement ingredients to undergo very

expensive, burdensome, and unnecessary testing and FDA

approval or else be removed from the market.

Since the passage of the

Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the

United States has enjoyed excellent access to essential

nutrients, but more recently we have watched as the FDA

increasingly squeezes the life out of that law with new

and onerous rules and regulations. Now, the FDA wants

to enforce even more rigorous “safety” standards on

products that have never caused harm, but which entered

the marketplace after the year DSHEA became law, 1994.

The Dietary Supplement

Protection Act (DSPA), which has not yet been issued a

bill number, is the brainchild of the Federation and is

being introduced by health-freedom advocate Rep. Dan

Burton (R-IN). (For more information on Rep. Burton,

visit the website http://indianadan.com.)

Simply but powerfully, DSPA amends DSHEA by moving

forward the grandfathering date to 2007, from 1994,

thereby putting many thousands of safe, time-tested

products immediately out of range of the NDI Draft

Guidance.

The logic of the DSPA is

clear, given that the safety standards of the entire

industry have undergone an overhaul since DSHEA, with

much more stringent manufacturing practice standards in

place; the current regulatory environment is vastly

different from what it was 17 years ago. As a

consequence, the innovative formulators and

manufacturers of some 26,000 products added since 1994

have jumped through increasingly smaller flaming hoops

to bring their products to market, meeting tougher and

tougher standards.

To provide a perspective

of just how many of our products the NDI guidance could

ultimately affect, consider that prior to DSHEA, there

were only 4,000 products on the market, and now there

are 30,000: that’s a staggering 87% of our supplements

that might be considered “novel” under the existing

grandfathering date, and hence potentially “unsafe.”

The FDA calls this “Subject to evaluation,” the NHF

calls it a strip search.

Tips, president of

the National Health Federation, asks, “Where are the

dead bodies from these new dietary ingredients? There

are none, and the FDA knows this simple fact yet wants

to push these safe supplements off the market or price

them beyond the reach of most consumers through

expensive and useless regulations camouflaged as

‘protecting the public.’ We must preempt the FDA, to

push the goal posts far enough forward as is

politically feasible so as to ensure that no matter

the outcome of the Draft Guidance, the natural health

industry, and the millions upon millions of consumers

who use its products, are saved from the FDA’s

immediate stranglehold on health freedom. We are very

appreciative of Representative Dan Burton for

introducing this bill.“

The NHF takes very

seriously its role as a watchdog over the machinations

of the FDA, and has pressed Congress to take a more

aggressive stance on the FDA’s misinterpretation of the

spirit and intent of DSHEA. In fact, the Draft Guidance

on NDIs is contemptuous of the intent of Congress when

it passed DSHEA, because instead of ensuring access to a

full range of products, it obstructs their path to the

marketplace.

With the Dietary

Supplement Protection Act, the NHF is attempting to

establish a bulkhead against further restrictions of the

healthy choices of Americans, and in the coming weeks

will be pushing hard for its passage. DSPA can score a

touchdown for consumers and the industry alike, and NHF

will continue to seek support for its earliest possible

enactment into law.

********************

Click

here for the permanent link to this news release,

use this link to inform others.

********************

National Health

Federation: Established in 1955, the National

Health Federation is a consumer-education,

health-freedom organization working to protect

individuals' rights to choose to consume healthy food,

take supplements and use alternative therapies without

unnecessary government restrictions. The NHF is the only

such organization with recognized observer-delegate

status at Codex

meetings.

********************

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