Supplements Still in Peril July 13, 2010

[Guest guest]

Over the past year, we fought four different Congressional bills that would have

affected your access to supplements. In our Action Alert, we need your help to

educate our lawmakers, most of whom know little or nothing about existing

supplement regulation or why supplements are not drugs.

As successful as you have been in defending supplements on Capitol Hill this

year, anti-supplement members of Congress are still playing on the offense. As

Congressman Henry Waxman, one of the leaders of the group trying to turn

supplements into drugs, once said that nothing is ever " settled for good " in

Washington.

Of the four pieces of legislation below, only the Food Safety Bill is still an

immediate threat and so far it keeps being delayed. But even the bad ideas you

have defeated could easily come back.

•Senator McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act (S. 3002) is no longer supported

by McCain himself, but cannot be formally withdrawn and so remains for this

session.

•The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), which

passed the House in late 2009, included a buried provision written in

impossible-to-follow legalese that would have drastically expanded the powers of

the Federal Trade Commission, powers that would have been used against

supplements. Although you stopped it in the Senate and in conference committee,

it could still be added to another bill.

•The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). You succeeded in getting

language added that would protect us from sliding down a slippery slope toward

harmonizing US standards for supplements with the irrationally restrictive

European standards—under rules set by the global Codex Alimentarius. Other

provisions of the bill we still oppose, but it has been sitting on the Senate

calendar for ten months with no activity. One possibility is that it will emerge

and be reconciled with the House bill in the very dangerous lame duck session

after the fall elections, when defeated or retired legislators can take

positions without worry about voter reaction.

•The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749). This is a terrible bill. It has

passed the House, so the last chance to stop its toxic provisions is in the

House–Senate Conference when it eventually comes. Among the worst provisions, it

includes jail time—up to 10 years—for " misbranding " or " adulterating "

supplements. And the definitions are very broad: " adulteration " includes

recordkeeping violations, while " misbranding " includes citing peer-reviewed

science about the benefits of a dietary supplement. This new threat of sanctions

(only in the House bill, not the Senate's) would give the FDA a hammer with

which to threaten and coerce companies engaging in completely legal activities.

In the case of all the bills above, we have been successful so far. But we have

been fighting in a defensive mode. If we stay only on the defense, we will

eventually lose. It is clear that we need to take action—to be proactive—and

educate Congress on the supplement regulation issue. In order to prevent new

legislative efforts to implement duplicative, unnecessary, and expensive

regulations that could drastically reduce your access to health-giving

supplements, we need your help to tell Congress that dietary supplements are

already regulated!

That's right: contrary to what the media has been saying (and many members of

Congress believe), dietary supplements are indeed fully regulated. The FDA has

complete authority to regulate supplements in three important ways:

•It can take any supplement off the the market that is unsafe, mislabeled,

misbranded, adulterated, or makes false or misleading claims. (The FTC also has

the power to stop any fraudulent advertising.)

•It is charged with enforcing the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education

Act (DSHEA), which holds supplement manufacturers to " good manufacturing

practices " (industry standards for product quality) as defined by the FDA

itself.

•It collects and takes any necessary action based on " adverse event reports, "

that is, any reported negative reactions to dietary supplements.

Please let your senators and your representative know that supplements are not

drugs. It is nonsensical to treat them as drugs.

Importantly, supplements are natural substances; therefore they cannot be

patented; therefore to subject them to the vast cost of FDA approval would

simply drive supplement producers out of business, leaving drug companies with a

complete monopoly. Moreover, although they are not drugs, supplements are

already fully regulated. More legislation is not needed. Please help deliver

this message where it is needed. Please TAKE ACTION now.

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