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]

Liberties [...] can be legitimate for a government to restrict

Only far enough to prevent screwing up other people's rights and liberties or causing a clear and present danger of screwing up other people's rights and liberties. Taking non-fraudulently marketed and labelled nutritional supplements 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; so taking non-fraudulently marketed and labelled nutritional supplements is not legitimate for a government to restrict.

[Know your rights]

would it not be a legitimate function of government to ban suppliments that have no data supporting their claims about what the product does? Is that not punishing fraud?

The proper course would be to first give them a chance to retract those claims; if they don't, ban them.

[Dead Corpse]

Regulation is simply a matter of applying minimum standards to things.

You are still missing the point. If the POWER to regulate is not explicitly given to the government in the Constitution, then they cannot arbitrarily grab that power. As no such power exists at the federal level, ie; the US Constitution, then that power cannot exercised by the FedGov. Period. Just setting up a Food and Drug Administration, absent the requisite Constitutional amendment, is not strictly LEGAL, no matter what the precieved benefits may be.

Judging from the FDA's performance so far, even derrived benefit is in question.

[discostu]

Problem is if taking vitamins is a RIGHT (which cannot be restricted) instead of a LIBERTY (which can) then the government cannot legimately enforce any level of quality standard on the vitamin industry. By restricting the manufacturing and sale they would be interfering with the consumption which would be a violation of people's rights. Only if consuming vitamins is downgraded to a liberty is the government free to weed fraud out of the industry.

And that's why it's important to not call liberties rights, when you do so you either raise something to a height it doesn't deserve, or you weaken the concept of rights to the point that they CAN be limited by the government. Neither is a good thing.

[discostu]

There you go. You just downgraded vitamins from a right to a liberty.

[Know your rights]

You just downgraded vitamins from a right to a liberty.

Fine by me.

Say, can you name any of these rights that government can't restrict or limit in any degree? I can't think of any.

[Know your rights]

Do we agree that liberties can legitmately be limited only far enough to prevent screwing up other people's rights and liberties or causing a clear and present danger of screwing up other people's rights and liberties?

[discostu]

No I'm not missing the point. I've said over and over and over and over that this is NOT a legitimate thing for the FED. But just because it's not legitimate for he fed doesn't mean it's not legitimate for some other level of government. The only one missing a point here is YOU who keep insisting people are saying something they're not. Regulation of the industry WILL happen, it should happen at the state level, that's EXACTLY what I said. Then you went off on some absolutist rant about all regulatio being banning, now you're trying to defend that by running back to it being outside the limitations of the fed. But I didn't saythe fed should be the one doing, in fact I said the federal agency that would wind up in charge of it was illegitimate.

Read the WHOLE POST and DON'T INSERT your own garbage. Every single time in this discussion you've inserted something into what I've said what you've inserted is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I said all the way back in post 49 that this wasn't legitimate for the fed and her eyou are in 243 still insisting that I'm supporting the fed in this! STOP INSERTING THINGS INTO MY ARGUMENT!

[discostu]

Of course.

[discostu]

1 2 3 4 and 5... at least when things are behaving properly. 1 gets some issues because opposing sides occasionally require some refereeing, but that's why 1 doesn't include time, location and audience.

[tpaine]

I amend my 'congrats'. You still haven't 'gotten it'.

And you might try to temper your 'buzz off insult' routine. NO one here is "insulting" you.
We just can't understand all the flip-flops you post. One minute you're agreeing with constitutional principles, the next you're off on a tangent, trying to say governments can 'ban' vitamins.

[hope]

"Dr. Whitaker has a vested interest in selling unregulated supplements".

So, I have a vested interest in purchasing them...If you want to criticize a racket go after the AMA.

[Dead Corpse]

Make a cogent argument then. Why should industry be regulated this way? Make damage done by faulty of fraudulent products a crime and the penalty harsh. Easy and requires no bureacracy whatsoever. No 15 year waits for a drug like Claritin to go over the counter.

When it comes to our Rights, liberties, and freedoms... why are you NOT an absolutist?

[discostu]

I've made plenty of cogent arguments. You just keep moving my position to being pro-Fed which renders them all invalid. If you read what I actually wrote and see that the only regulation I'm calling for would be at the state level or even below that it all makes sense.

Problem with going after them on the basis of fraud is they use the disclaimer. Since they technically don't promise anything they aren't making any fraudulent promises. You can get them on faulty so at least they can't put anything harmful to everybody in there. But since most of those pills are made from various bean extracts people with food allergies need to watch out.

I'm not an absolutist about anything because absolutism removes the opportunity to think. We are thinking creatures for a reason, so that we can understand there are exceptions to every rule, so we can comprehend how some regulations are actually helpful and within the legitimate powers of government at certain level. There simply are no absolutes in this world, and attempts to make things absolute result in the creation of mental constructs that cannot survive in the wild.

[Dead Corpse]

You just keep moving my position to being pro-Fed which renders them all invalid.

Hhhmmm... could it be because the legislation in question at the top of thread is a FEDERAL effort? Be that as it may, how many States have Constitutional provisions for dietary supplement regulation?

So, you are a moral relativist. How liberal of you. Not suprising though I guess. Yes, we are reasoning beings. Sentience is our one true gift that rises us above animals. Also note, that while there are exceptions to every rule, you are the one advocating more rules. Not me. I advocate a harsh penalty for actual damage, not some arbitrary "regulation" that prevents no real harm and only creates more bureacracy.

You are alive. Or Dead. I either I hit you in the head with a rock, or I do not. There are all KINDS of absolutes in the world. Not having absolutes allows for intellectually dishonest people to argue the definition of a word like "is" and if oral sex is indeed sex.

[discostu]

Hmm could it be that I've said over a dozen times in this thread, sometime in posts directed to YOU, that the legislation in question at the top of the thread is invalid and should be blocked and grounds of being outside the limitations put on the fed by the Constitution?! As matter of fact yes that IS THE CASE, all the way back in post 49 and many times since then.

I think thanks to the FDA most states have given up on making any of their own regulation involving medication at any level.

I'm not a moral relativist, and stop with the insults. I just understand that absolute positions lead to absolute stupidity. If you absolutely positively will not kill then you cannot defend yourself or your family. These things are called ethical quandries, they require thinking and consideration and the disgarding of absolute ideas that restrict both. That's not moral relativism and it's not liberal, it's moral understanding and very conservative.

Yes more rules can be called for. New things get invented that pose new challenges to our society and we must think of how we're going to handle it. Though I haven't actually called for anything, I've simply pointed out that the suppliment industry will be regulated eventually, and it will. Now the question is do we want to respect the Constitution and regulate it at levels below the federal government or not respect it and give it to the pathetic FDA? And do we want to consider how we'll regulate keeping in mind that we aren't trying to kill the industry only the snake oil salemen that use it as a cover, or will we go off in some craze of mass restriction? You see these are questions an absolutist cannot contemplate, his absolute thought process rebels at realizing that some rules can be necessary and it is possible to write good rules.

Ah but you can be dieing, almost dead but not yet. Then there's the question of soul and if any part of you survives bodily death. Did you hit me with the rock with a full on blow or was it merely grazing, or perhaps you caught my hair and though you hit me with a rock but actually didn't. Absolutes are incredibly rare, not making them where they don't exist allows you to actually use the mind that God gave you. And the sick sad truth is "is" isn't as concrete a word as we'd like ( http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=is&x=0&y=0 ).

[exodus]

To: Coleus
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.
**********

Supplements are food.

Yes, "eating" is a Right.

[discostu]

Supplements aren't food, they're "supplements" stuff that by their very name says you don't have to have them to live. A significant percentage of them are placebos and complete junk. The ones that aren't complete junk still can be lived without. And even if they were food, you don't have a right to a specific type of food. Eating is a right, eating filet mignon is not.

[tpaine]

When it comes to our Rights, liberties, and freedoms... why are you NOT an absolutist? 253 Dead Corpse

I'm not an absolutist about anything because absolutism removes the opportunity to think.
We are thinking creatures for a reason, so that we can understand there are exceptions to every rule, -- so we can comprehend how some regulations are actually helpful and within the legitimate powers of government at certain level. There simply are no absolutes in this world, and attempts to make things absolute result in the creation of mental constructs that cannot survive in the wild.
254 dicostu

_____________________________________

It's hopeless DC..
We've got a person here arguing an absolutist position that 'everything is relative' when it comes to government violating our individual rights.

Discostu, in 1776 'We the People' declared that governments could no longer infringe upon our rights to life, or to liberty, or to property.

In 1868, after a bloody civil war, -- we reiterated that same principle in ratifying the 14th Amendment.

Now we again find ourselves in another 'war', a war against ALL levels of our own government, who ~insist~ that they be allowed to over-regulate, even ban, certain aspects of our rights to life, liberty, & property.

You have taken the position that governments can ban vitamins.. - This is a fact that anyone can verify by reading your posts.

-- Deal with that fact.

[dcwusmc]

Almost but not quite. Whatever you want to do to and by yourself is your RIGHT, as you own your own body and may do with it as you please, asking the permission of NO ONE. When you start to deal with others is where things can get sticky. You do, for example, have the RIGHT to offer your time and skills in return for the means to sustain your life (food, shelter, etc...) but no one else can be COMPELLED to accept your offer or provide the necessities of life to you against their will. This is where the problem lies, for the left has, indeed, perverted the word "RIGHT" to mean that if you want to demand something, ANOTHER PERSON must be compelled at the point of the government's guns, to provide the means of filling your wants and wishes. RIGHTS comprise anything you want to do that does NOT require someone else's efforts to fulfill. You are at liberty to ASK someone for a handout. That person is well within his RIGHTS to tell you to go pound salt.

Therein is the difference, which you are slow to grasp. Do it by yourself, to yourself, with no INVOLUNTARY input from another... it's a RIGHT. Try to initiate any sort of force whatsoever to get something from another person: you should be boiled in oil. Attempt to use the force of government as your proxy, you should suffer the fate of Nick Berg, only slower. You own YOUR body, do as you will. However, I own MY body so if you want something from me, best you ask real nice. Initiate any sort of force (including fraud, trickery, etc.) to get what is MY justly acquired property and prepare to die horribly (in a JUST society, anyway).