Your Right to Use Vitamins Is in Jeopardy, Senators Push Regulatory Assault on Vitamins

HUMAN EVENTS ^ | 09.03.03 | Dr. Julian Whitaker

[Coleus]

Your Right to Use Nutritional Supplements Is in Jeopardy

Senators Push Regulatory Assault on Vitamins

by Dr. Julian Whitaker

Posted Sep 3, 2003

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We need to take action, and we need to take action now. There is a movement in Congress to push through legislation that would restrict your freedom to use nutritional supplements, and could destroy the nutritional supplement industry?and, in the process, endanger your health.

Here is the problem. Reacting to the hysteria over ephedra, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D.-Ill.) has introduced S. 722, cosponsored by colleagues Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), and Charles Schumer (D.-N.Y.). The bill gives unprecedented power to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to remove nutritional supplements from the market. Here’s how:

• It calls for a reporting system for adverse reactions to nutritional supplements.
  
  
• It empowers the FDA to act on a single adverse reaction report and immediately take the product off the market while it is being investigated.
  
  
• In addition, the FDA could force the manufacturer to undergo prohibitively costly safety analyses of the product, similar to what is required for new drugs.
  
  Here’s a possible scenario. Mrs. Jones in Somewhere, USA, is taking a supplement containing vitamin C. One afternoon she has some diarrhea. She faints, falls in her bathroom, hits her head, and is hospitalized with a head injury.
  
  Believe it or not, an adverse reaction could be pinned on vitamin C. Based upon this single event, the FDA could at its discretion move to restrict sales of vitamin C throughout the entire country until an investigation proves that vitamin C did not cause Mrs. Jones’s problems.
  
  Smokescreen of ‘Safety’
  
  The bill also gives the FDA license to require supplement manufacturers to submit safety information that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, patterned on regulations required for new drugs.
  
  This is absurd. New drugs need rigorous safety testing because they are compounds that have never been ingested by human beings. The ubiquitous use and long history of safety of nutritional supplements are apparently irrelevant to the sponsors of this bill.
  
  The nutritional supplement industry arguably has the best product safety record of any industry in the country. According to Rep. Dan Burton (R.-Ind.), a maximum of 16 deaths were attributed to a nutritional supplement last year. (Excessive doses of ephedra were the suspect in the majority of these cases, and the supplement link was definitively proven in only a few of them.)
  
  Meanwhile, the FDA turns a blind eye to the 106,000 deaths from adverse effects of prescription drugs and the tens of thousands of deaths from aspirin and other over-the-counter drugs that occur every year.
  
  This isn’t about safety. It’s about control.
  
  Harmful Bill
  
  This bill is a good example of government irrationality.
  
  According to a 2002 report by Washington, D.C.,-based Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the use of antioxidants, folic acid, calcium, zinc, and other nutritional supplements could reduce the incidence of neural tube birth defects by 70%, hip fractures by at least 20%, and sick days caused by infectious diseases by 50%?Heart disease, stroke, cataracts, macular degeneration, some types of cancer?nutritional supplements have been shown to prevent or delay all these conditions and others.
  
  Furthermore, CRN reports that by delaying the onset of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and hip fracture alone, nutritional therapies could potentially save $89 billion a year in healthcare costs!
  
  Yet S. 722 would empower the FDA to dismantle the supplement industry and prevent you from receiving the astonishing benefits that only nutritional supplements can deliver.
  
  Immediate Action Needed
  
  The only way to stop this bill is for us to flood our elected representatives and senators with so many e-mails, faxes, and phone calls that they will be forced to say no to this bill.
  
  Grassroots Effectiveness
  
  Don’t underestimate the power of such a grassroots movement. Ten years ago, Health & Healing readers were instrumental in rallying the passing of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). Millions of letters were written to our congressmen and senators in support of this legislation?it generated more letters than any other issue in U.S. history. Because of DSHEA, which reduced the FDA’s power to block the production, sale, and use of natural substances, we have free access to herbs, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and other nutritional supplements.
  
  An FDA Power Grab
  
  You may have read in the press that we need new laws because there is no regulation of nutritional supplements. This is simply not true. DSHEA gives the FDA tremendous regulatory power, and in fact, it already has the power to pull any supplement it feels is unsafe off the market.
  
  Yet because DSHEA also gives supplement manufacturers some autonomy, the FDA has attempted to circumvent it from day one. This agency fought hard against the passage of DSHEA ten years ago and, in a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of or amend it, has refused to act responsibly within its confines ever since.
  
  Time is of the essence. S. 722 has recently been referred to committee and may be tagged onto the Agriculture Appropriations Bill. We can and must act quickly to stop this legislation.
  
  Send a message to your senators today asking them to vote against S. 722. (See box for information.) If you’ve already done so, do it again. Tell your friends about this threat and encourage them to take action as well.
  
  If each one of you could commit to generating just a handful of e-mails, faxes, or phone calls, over a million messages would descend upon Washington. You may not realize how powerful a grassroots campaign like this can be, but our elected officials cannot ignore something of this magnitude.

  Dr. Whitaker is editor of Health and Healing, one of the country's leading health newsletters.

  Herbal Supplements and alternatives are under attack!! Take Action

  Click here to send your message now!

[discostu]

I have a right to use vitamins?! The fact that this group is adding yet another imaginary right is good enough reason not to sign.

[Wolfie]

Unless the Constitution expressly gives the government overisight, then yes, you do have the right to use vitamins.

[discostu]

No, that kind of thinking is how the whole "penumbra concept" BS got started. While I agree that this is unconstitutional interference in interstate trade that oesn't mean I have a right to use vitamins, what it means is the government doesn't have a right to try to crush this industry. Important difference.

[Wolfie]

I must have missed that clause.

Most people believe the Constitution works the opposite way. That is, if the right is not expressly listed in the Consitution, then the people don't have it. Understandable, since in reality that is how it has come to work over the years.

[Wolfie]

So there are no such things as "inalienable" rights?

[discostu]

There such things as inalienable rights, using vitamins ain't on that list.

[Coleus]

Not ALL rights are listed in the Constitution that is why they put in the vague 9th amendment (unnamed rights not listed) which became the bellwether for the Roe vs.. Wade decision with the "right to privacy".

And those rights NOT enumerated in the Bill of Rights are then left up to the STATES and NOT for Hillary and the US Congress, 10th amendment states' rights.

There are 70 million of us who have done just very well taking supplements without Hillary and the Congress watching over us. I think we can survive without them.

[discostu]

I don't have a problem with the suppliment industry, I don't have a problem with trying to stop this bill. What I have a problem with is people adding "rights" willie-nillie. As we both pointed out, that's how we got this "right to privacy" concept that somehow includes abortion. It's bad logic and a bad argument that leads to future troubles.

[Wolfie]

So what is "on the list"?

Pragmatically speaking, of course, it doesn't matter. The Feds will do whatever they want, whenever they want.

[Dead Corpse]

Buying, owning, and wearing white boxers isn't on the list either. What is your point?

[freeeee]

What I have a problem with is people adding "rights" willie-nillie.

They were never added, they always existed as non-enumerated.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[Know your rights]

So what is "on the list"?

I'm eager to find out what my inalienable rights are, and why they don't include taking vitamins. (I hope they include eating food.)

[robertpaulsen]

"you do have the right to use vitamins."

Wow! Cool.

Hey, Wolfie, is that an unalienable right like the unalienable right to do drugs and the unalienable right to own a machine gun?

[NorthGA]

Our local favorite vitamin store is also concerned about this bill. While S722 appears to still be in process, I understand that another similar bill has passed and is in committee with the house.

Dr. Whitaker (and others) have an interest in selling vitamins. I have an interest in having them available to take. The vitamin industry pales in comparison to the pharmaceutical companies for the amount of money they want to control.

One man's ephedra may be viewed either positively or negatively by others. I think he should have the freedom to make the choice himself - w/o government control except for the purity of whatever supplement it claims to be.

[freeeee]

The Origins of the Ninth Amendment

"The origins of the ninth amendment can be traced to the debate surrounding the ratification of the Constitution. The Antifederalists, who opposed ratification, concentrated much of their attack on the absence of a bill of rights. Although many Antifederalists were probably more concerned with defeating the Constitution than with obtaining a bill of rights, they repeatedly pressed this charge because it struck a responsive cord with the people. The Federalists who supported ratification, such as Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, gave two answers to this complaint."

"First, they said that a bill of rights was unnecessary. Because the federal government was one of enumerated and limited powers, it would have no power to violate the rights of the people. "Why, for instance," asked Hamilton, "should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?" Second, they argued that a bill of rights would be dangerous. Enumerating any rights might suggest to later interpreters of the Constitution that the rights not specified had been surrendered. An enumeration of rights could thereby lead to an unwarranted expansion of federal power and a corresponding erosion of individual rights."

The Rights Retained by The People [and the presumption of liberty]

[discostu]

Life liberty persuit of happiness speech assembly religion bear arms freedom from unwarranted search and seizure... come on guys these are no brainers, you have read the Declaration of Independance and the Bill or Rights.

[discostu]

My point is that making up sillie rights is how we've gotten stuck with right to abortion and right to homosexual marriage. If you want to stop a stupid bill (which I'm all for) don't do it with a falcious argument that makes up some previously never before seen "right" which could have some pretty annoying consequences down the road.

[Dead Corpse]

Actually dumba$$, the machine gun part is in fact listed. Ever hear of the Second Amendment? What is a machine gun if not in the classification of a militia armament?

I know the whole "shall not be infringed" thing confuses you...

[discostu]

Well great, then by that logic there are penumbra concepts and Roe v Wade was right. Of course since we all know there aren't any penumbra concepts and Roe v Wade was garbage then obviously you're interpreting the 9th and 10th too broadly.

[Dead Corpse]

So keeping extra Constitutional powers out of the hands of the Feds is now "silly".

Thanks for playing...