Oppose New Dietary Supplement ‘Labeling' Legislation
On Friday, July 1, when most were focusing on a congressional break and
a holiday celebration, Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Richard
Blumenthal (D-Conn.) officially introduced a bill that would have an
impact on dietary supplements for both manufacturers and users. The
Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011, S. 1310, would clarify
“conventional foods” and place the FDA in the role of defining which
products are foods, and which are health aids and therefore subject to
regulation as dietary supplements for FDA policing.
According to Drug Store News the legislation would require supplement
manufacturers to register dietary supplement products with the FDA and
“provide a description of each dietary supplement, a list of
ingredients and a copy of the label. Additionally, the new law would
require product labels to include warnings associated with adverse
events of specific ingredients, weight of those ingredients per serving
and a batch number for easier recall.” The bill goes further, requiring
updated registration when making a new product not registered
previously, when a registered product is reformulated, or when it
discontinues making a registered product. These bureaucratic
regulations will greatly increase the cost of bringing supplements to
market, and easily chase many small manufacturers out of business.
Durbin says he's only concerned that some products contain “potentially
dangerous ingredients” which haven't been FDA approved. “My gripe is
with products labeled as ‘dietary supplements' whose ingredients have
not been deemed safe by the FDA but are found on store shelves right
next to conventional food and beverages. The current system favors the
manufacturers of these products to the detriment of consumers – and
that needs to change,” related Durbin on his webpage. “Detriment”
wasn't documented or defined, though. He added, “These products market
themselves as dietary supplements that are safe ways to relax or get a
boost of energy, when in reality they are foods and beverages taking
advantage of the more relaxed safety standards for dietary supplements.
My bill would help curb this unsafe practice.”
The net that Durbin casts with S. 1310 is very large and would indeed
snare not only energy drinks, but dietary supplements be they in the
form of vitamins, herbs, minerals, extracts, formula blends, etc, and
used alone or added to food products. In May Durbin objected to, and
alerted the FDA to, baked goods that contained melatonin, a naturally
occurring compound that synchronizes the circadian rhythms of certain
biological functions. (Many folks take melatonin supplements to counter
sleeplessness at night thereby avoiding FDA-approved habit-forming
narcotics.)
Durbin incorrectly presupposes that nothing is safe unless government
approves it. He conveniently ignores the fact that consumers are not
forced to purchase or ingest these products; it is their choice to do
so. Therefore it is the consumer who must regulate personal purchases
and uses, not big government, the legislative branch, or some
bureaucratic agency. Durbin's big brother interference in the
supplement market is another example of overregulation and destruction
of individual choice whether it be for baked goods, or for supplements
that treat the common cold. It's quite hypocritical of Durbin to
continue overlooking all the hundreds of unsafe and damaging drugs that
have had devastating consequences and even caused death that the FDA
has approved.
Contact your Representative and Senators urging them not to cosponsor,
support, or vote for such a power-grabbing bill. Let them know
Americans want unrestricted access to nutritional supplements produced
by manufacturers whose focus is their product -- not multiple
government registration and labeling forms. Help keep the government
out of our health aid and food choices.
All or part of this information provided from an email distributed by the John Birch Society.
