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!

[Know your rights]

The same group of leftists that support everything being a right

There are no such people; leftists want to restrict many rights, such as the right to get rich, the right to bear arms, etc.

(And even if you had correctly identified the views of leftists, guilt by association isn't a valid argument.)

[Dead Corpse]

Because genius, the Webb-Kenyon Act had to do with TRANSPORTING fuel and liquor across State lines. A legitamate Federal concern. The REED Amendment to that act was what criminalized transportation of liqour to Dry Counties. The Prohibition Amendment made possession and usage of liquor ANYWHERE a crime.

If you had read them instead of justing spouting to support your lies, you would have known that.

Same as this "vitamin" crap is trying to do. Same as the Drug War in general. It is hitting tobacco and will soon spread to fast food and anything else deemed "unhealthy".

Little tin-pot dictators like yourself always do this kind of crap.

[discostu]

How is it the left have pushed through abortion? How did they push through getting rid of parental notification for abortion? How did they hammer through gay marriage? Heck it's even the left that added the right not to be offended to the 1st Ammendment. They're all about imaginary rights, that's how they cover getting rid of the real rights, oldest concept in stage magic is to hide the small motion behind the large motion. They make big fusses about your right or this and that to distract people away from their burning of the Bill of Rights.

[Know your rights]

Ah but given that the nutritional suppliment industry has no oversight and you don't know what's in them, they even go so far as to tell the consumer they're not garaunteeing any of the results they promise, there CAN be harm to others in the production or sale of nutritional suppliments.

I don't see any harm to others there.

And if it gets you all woozy and you crash your car into a school bus there's potential for harm to others too.

Good point. I agree that government may legitimately require accurate labelling with regard to such effects.

And in the case of fireworks any level of misuse that results in harm to others is already a crime, so if that's a legitimate reason for the state to ban something say goodbye to your guns and car.

I don't agree that government may legitimately ban the possession of fireworks (or guns and cars); I do agree that it may legitimately limit the use of fireworks, guns, and cars.

[discostu]

Well some state governments ARE banning fireworks outright. And with the same powers they can ban vitamins. It would be just as dumb, but depending on how the state constitution is written it would be just as legitimate.

[Salvation]

The vitamins I take could set the standard for all the other vitamin companies.

If you want more information -- give me a FR mail.

[Know your rights]

leftists want to restrict many rights, such as the right to get rich, the right to bear arms, etc.

They're all about imaginary rights

They're also about restricting real ones.

[Know your rights]

Well some state governments ARE banning fireworks outright. [...] depending on how the state constitution is written it would be just as legitimate.

I'm talking about natural rights, not legal rights.

[tpaine]

bumpkin

[discostu]

How can you not see the harm to others. I'm a "vitamin" manufacturer. My vitamins are actually Altoids, I advertise that they do all kinds of stuff like help you lose weight, fight off colds, and serve women... they're just Altoids. Somebody buys them thinking they'll be healthier, they don't get healthier, they stay obese, get a nasty cold, and their heart gives out because it can't take the added pressure of the lard and the clogged lungs. That's harm to others.

Now in the current world I put a little label on the bottom of the box that says my vitamins have never actually been proven to do the things I claimed and I'm free and clear (really, check out a GNC sometime, look at the bottom of the boxes, almost everything in there is not garaunteed to do anything it said it will). Banning products that have never actually been proven to accomplish anything they're advertising is a legitimate action for the state or local government, but outside the limitation for the Fed as outlined in the Constitution (unless they make an ammendment of course).

[discostu]

And i'm talking about legitimacy of laws which isn't always realted to rights, because not everything is a right and laws limiting things that aren't rights (like vitamin or firework use) have no impact on rights.

[discostu]

Which is what I said. They're making imaginary rights to cover their elimination of real rights. And you can see them moving towards ending age restrictions on rights with their arguments against parental notification, by making abortion none of the parents' business they're taking the first steps to making everything none of the parents' business and thus eliminating age restrictions.

[tpaine]

bumpkin II

[Know your rights]

they stay obese, get a nasty cold, and their heart gives out because it can't take the added pressure of the lard and the clogged lungs. That's harm to others.

Up until now, "others" has meant someone other than the vitamin buyer. I agree that the buyer himself is harmed by producer fraud, and that government is within its legitimate authority to punish fraud.

[Know your rights]

not everything is a right

Every act that doesn't screw up other people's rights and liberties is a right or at least a liberty, and it is morally illegitimate for any government to restrict such acts.

[Know your rights]

Which is what I said. They're making imaginary rights to cover their elimination of real rights.

You referred to "leftists that support everything being a right". There are no such persons.

[discostu]

I'd said there was the potential for harming others by the manufacturer or seller, being as there's a minimum of three parties in every purchase limiting the discussion to just the buyer is artificial. But it's not fraud because they have the disclaimer. This is why there's a potential for legitimate government action by somebody other than the federal government. And eventually there's going to be action at some level because way too many suppliment companies are selling placebos. Unfortunately it's probably going to happen at the federal level because we've so overpowered the fed and depowered the states.

[Know your rights]

Make that: Every act that doesn't screw up other people's rights and liberties (or cause a clear and present danger of screwing up other people's rights and liberties) is a right or at least a liberty, and it is morally illegitimate for any government to restrict such acts by sane adults.

[Know your rights]

there's a minimum of three parties in every purchase limiting the discussion to just the buyer is artificial.

Who's the third party?

But it's not fraud because they have the disclaimer.

The quiet disclaimer doesn't eliminate the loud fraud elsewhere. Governments may not call it fraud, but I do.

[tpaine]

discostu,
---By golly I think you finally got it...

Exceptions to the rule are enumerated restrictions on government power. If it isn't in their mandate, the Constitution, then they cannot pass a law regarding it. Period.
If a Bill of Rights was added to the State's Constitution, or is already forbidden in the Federal Bill of Rights that are to be regarded as Common to ALL US citizens, then those actions are further restricted to all governing entities in that State.

IE; your city council could not ban something that is explicitly spelled out in either the Federal or State Constitutions as being off limits.
Conflicts between enumerated powers, like the commerce clause and the Second Amendment, were to be handled by the USSC on a case by case basis.
At least, that was how the Founders tried to set things up. There has been a lot of "ignoring" going around in regards to governmental actions. If they want to do it, they will find a way to screw the public and still get elected.
183 Dead Corpse

_____________________________________


I had it yesterday, you just finally read what I wrote instead of what you wanted to read.
189 dicostu

______________________________________


Nope, you finally read what DC was ~really~ writing about, and had to admit he was right.
-- Congrats on your belated honesty.