Help stop attempt to give FTC authority over nutritional supplements

[Guest guest]

Per the Alliance for Natural Health USA:

April 27, 2010

The American public is becoming fed up with " sneak " provisions tacked onto

largely unrelated bills that are likely to pass. A glaring recent example was

tacking onto the Healthcare bill a complete change to student loans. Often the

" sneak " provision is so buried that hardly anyone is aware of it.

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

passed in the House of Representatives, includes language going far beyond

finance inserted by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA). This language could be used

for an end run around the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA),

the legislation that governs dietary supplement regulation by the FDA.

The Senate is expected to vote on its finance " reform " bill as early as this

weekend. We need your help to ensure that it is not amended to include a similar

provision going far beyond finance that could be used against supplements.

Please take action now. TAKE ACTION

Congressman Waxman is well known as an opponent of the dietary supplement

industry. This is somewhat ironic: his district includes Hollywood and

presumably many of his closest supporters are health store shoppers and

supplement users. Most of these people simply don't know what Waxman is doing in

this area.

This powerful Congressman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

(which includes health as a subcommittee), would appear to want supplements

regulated like drugs, a step that would effectively eliminate them. He is

determined and has stated: " One enduring truth about Washington is that no issue

is ever settled for good. "

ANH-USA has been on alert to see how Waxman would use his committee chairmanship

to strike at DSHEA. He is very clever and we knew a covert attack was a

possibility.

A direct attack on supplements would take the form of an amendment to DSHEA,

since that legislation governs FDA regulation of supplements. In this case,

Waxman has left DSHEA alone, and has instead inserted language in the Wall St.

" reform " bill that gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) important new powers

that could be used to circumvent key supplement protections in DSHEA. TAKE

ACTION

To see how this would work, let's see how the FTC operates today. Its chief

mission is to combat commercial fraud. It has full authority to pursue companies

making fraudulent claims. But the FTC can't go beyond that, can't set other

regulatory requirements, without advance approval of Congress. The FTC once had

this regulatory " rule-making " authority. It lost it in the 1980's because

Congress thought the Agency was abusing it.

At the present time, if the FTC moves against a dietary supplement company for

false or misleading advertising, the FTC typically requires the company, as part

of a consent decree agreed to by both parties, to back up its claims by

undertaking at least two random controlled human trials. This is done on a

case-by-case basis and is legal because the targeted company has agreed to it.

If the FTC had general rulemaking authority, which Waxman's language reinstates,

the Agency would be expected to create a new legal requirement for all

supplement companies. Such companies would have to perform at least two of these

human studies before making any claims for their products.

Why should we care whether supplement companies are required to perform two

random controlled human trials for each product? Because such trials take a long

time and would be beyond the financial means of most supplement companies. Even

if the companies could find the money, the FTC could require more and more

costly versions of these studies, or more of these studies. At each stage, fewer

supplements would be available, and those available would cost more and more,

until they became as costly as drugs.

TAKE ACTION -

https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display & page=UserAction & id=543

Supplements are not drugs. In most cases, drugs are non-natural and therefore

patentable substances. Why patentable? Because no company will spend a billion

dollars on studies and FDA approval trials without the monopoly provided by the

patent.

To insist that supplements be treated like drugs is really to sound the death

knell for the supplement industry, something that drug companies would be

delighted to see, because they know that supplements are their chief potential

competition, are often more effective than drugs, are often less toxic, and are

always much less expensive.

Supplements are already regulated by the FDA under DSHEA. If the Waxman

provision is included in the final Wall St " reform " bill, the FTC will gain the

power to override the limited protections for supplements that already exist

under DSHEA. The FDA would still have to respect DSHEA, but the FTC would not be

so constrained.

Five unelected FTC commissioners would issue binding regulations in a wide range

of areas, including the regulation of dietary supplements. And companies that

did not comply with the new FTC rules could effectively be put out of business.

According to renowned constitutional attorney Emord, " The provision

removing the ban on FTC rulemaking without Congressional preapproval contained

in H.R. 4173 invites the very same irresponsible over-regulation of the

commercial marketplace that led Congress to enact the ban in the 1980s. FTC has

no shortage of power to regulate deceptive advertising; this bill gives it far

more discretionary power than it needs, inviting greater abuse and mischief from

an agency that suffers virtually no check on its discretion. "

The bottom line is that FTC would be given power to regulate areas they don't

understand, and their first order of business would likely be to regulate

supplements, an area far outside their area of expertise.

The Senate Wall St " reform " bill, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act

of 2010 (S. 3217), doesn't contain the Waxman provision yet. But we know that

Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) may offer an amendment including Waxman's language.

Please help us stop this. Please take action now to help us maintain access to

low cost, high quality supplements. Tell your senators not to support any

amendments that give FTC unchecked power to over-regulate areas they don't

understand, including dietary supplements.

Thanks to the Alliance for Natural Health USA for this vital information:

http://www.anh-usa.org/congressman-waxman-slips-obscure-anti-supplement-measure-\

into-wall-st-%e2%80%9creform%e2%80%9d-bill-passed-by-the-house-please-take-actio\

n-to-prevent-same-thing-happening-in-the-senate