The FDA has mounted an onerous and illegal offensive against nutritional supplements, and unless we stop it by October 1, 2011, we stand to lose resveratrol, curcumin, GABA, ubiquinol, and many other products that millions of Americans depend on to improve their health.
Here’s the background. In October 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). This law garnered tremendous public support, including letters from tens of thousands of Health & Healing subscribers. It stated that “the Federal Government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers limiting or slowing the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers.”
Now, 17 years later, the FDA is doing just that by proposing burdensome new regulations that will purge some of our most valuable nutritional supplements from the shelves. Furthermore, the agency expects comments within 90 days of the publication of their “draft guidance,” which was released on July 1! This means that anyone with any interest in nutritional supplements—not just manufacturers and retailers but everybody who takes supplements—must work together, make some noise, and stop this tyranny right now.
Ban Supplements, Undo 17 Years of Innovation
Under this proposed bureaucratic mandate, all supplement ingredients introduced or modified since October 15, 1994, when DSHEA became law, would be considered “new dietary ingredients” (NDIs). And in order to remain on the market, every NDI would have to undergo extensive safety testing and an approval process similar to that required for new drugs.
It doesn’t matter if the ingredient in question is a naturally occurring nutrient present in food that has been on the market for 17 years. It could no longer be sold without going through this expensive and cumbersome process. This has nothing to do with safety or efficacy. The intention is clear: to destroy the entire nutritional supplement industry. And guess who’s waiting in the wings? That’s right, Big Pharma.
Since DSHEA was passed in 1994, the pharmaceutical industry has been lobbying the FDA to hamper the manufacture and sale of nutritional supplements, which many of us use in place of prescription drugs. These guys have the billions of dollars required to conduct safety studies and clinical trials, and they would just love to take over nutritional supplements and sell them as if they were drugs at prices far higher than you now pay at your health food store. That, my friends, is what this is really all about.
You Can’t Make Safe Safer
Expect to hear more and more about the “dangers” of nutritional supplements in the next couple of months as Big Pharma and Big Government proponents make their case. But ask yourself this question: If supplements are so dangerous, where are the bodies? Show me the evidence that any nutritional supplement currently on the market is causing serious harm. Now, consider the hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of adverse effects definitively linked to prescription drugs every year. There’s just no comparison.
Folks, these regulations are not designed to “protect the consumer.” Protect you from what? You cannot make something that is inherently harmless any safer. As stated in DSHEA—US law—“dietary supplements are safe within a broad range of intake, and safety problems with the supplements are relatively rare.” All this ridiculous interference will do is shut down the nutritional supplement industry and deliver you and your family into the clutches of Big Pharma.
Let’s Band Together…
This is the most significant threat we’ve faced since 1976, when the FDA tried to turn high-potency vitamins and minerals into prescription drugs. The same nefarious forces are now at work to ban all supplements launched since 1994. Let’s band together again and put a stop to it, hopefully for the last time!
The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), an organization dedicated to health freedom, is spearheading lobbying efforts and filing lawsuits to challenge the FDA’s proposed guidelines as inconsistent with both the letter and spirit of DSHEA, arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act (which governs the way federal bureaucracies establish regulations), and illegal because the extensive rulemaking process required for such regulations was skipped. In short, it is despotic.
Several US senators and representatives are onboard and legislation is being drafted to prohibit the FDA from appropriating federal funds to enforce these regulations and to place the burden of safety on the industry where it belongs, rather than allowing the FDA to arbitrarily dictate without burden of proof.
…And Protect Our Supplements
You can help by mobilizing grassroots support. We need to get this message out to every American who uses nutritional supplements and/or values freedom and is concerned about the overreach of government. Donations are also needed. Lawyers, mailings, Internet campaigns: All this costs money. My Freedom of Health Foundation and I personally are each giving $10,000 to this effort, and that’s probably just the start—that’s how important it is that we beat back this tyrannical intrusion on our health and liberty.
This illegal end run will not go away without a fight, but I am convinced that because enough of us care about this very important issue, we will prevail. No government agency can be allowed to thumb its nose at the law. And make no mistake, if these needless regulations are adopted, they will have behind them the full force of a burgeoning, biased bureaucracy intent on regulating us into submission.
How You Can Help
• Mail, fax, or email your letter of protest to your US senators, members of congress, and the FDA—ASAP. Comments must be received before October 1, 2011. Visit Alliance for Natural Health’s website, anh-usa.org, for additional information, as well as phone numbers and an easy means of sending emails to your members of congress.
• Mark September 8, 2011, on your calendars and call your senators and representative. If you get a busy signal, keep trying. The goal is to tie up the phone lines and get their attention.
• Any and all financial support is appreciated. Send your donations to the Alliance for Natural Health, 1350 Connecticut Ave NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20036 or visit anh-usa.org.
• Take action today!