Supplements In The Senate—Again!
May 25, 2010
The Senate Special Committee on Aging is chaired by Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI). The Committee may be about to take some potshots at supplements during a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, May 26. Everyone involved is being very hush-hush on what they’ll be discussing. We have, however, learned of a couple of items on their agenda.
Supplements used as drugs
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent undercover shoppers into health food stores with tape recorders to see whether they could get store employees to give them information on the treatment of their ailments, and many did so.
This information may be used to support the notion that supplements should go through the same lengthy and exorbitantly expensive approval process that patented drugs do. The argument will be that supplements are being used like drugs to treat medical conditions, so they should be treated like drugs. The truth is, it’s simply a case of some store employees sincerely wanting to share their knowledge and help people and not following the rules closely enough.
Product purity
The GAO also took samples of the forty top-selling herbs and tested them to see whether they were contaminated with heavy metals or other toxins. ConsumerLab found contaminants in a number of the samples, and is on the witness list for the hearing. However, the GAO and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both found the supplements to be within acceptable levels.
The point which needs to be made at the hearing is that the supplement industry is already regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the power to protect consumers from those few supplement manufacturers not following the rules, something which it has refused to do.
In an earlier administration, we know that the FDA intentionally chose not to monitor supplements, hoping that this would lead to a crisis and thence to an expansion of FDA control. Perhaps partly in response to this history, Senators Tom Harkin (D–IA) and Orrin Hatch (R–UT) plan to introduce the “Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010” before the hearing (and may have already done so by the time you receive this newsletter). This act will fully fund DSHEA and give the FDA more resources to ensure proper enforcement.
You will be able to view the live webcast at the Senate Special Committee on Aging website on May 26 at 2:00pm.
We’ll provide a complete summary of the hearing in next week’s newsletter.
Please leave our supplements alone!!! Without them I would NOT be as healthy as I am today. My family, my dogs and I all use alternative medicine and I don’t ever want to have to be forced to take conventional medication again due to certain choices have been taken away!!!!! Please leave our right to chose what we want to put in our bodies alone!!!!
Leaave the supplements alone. They are bertter than what phmacal says. LEAVE THEM ALONE. LET THE PEOPLE HAVE THEM INSTEAD OF PHAMACEUTICAL ITEMS.
I agree leave our supplements alone. If the brilliant people in Washington are so starved for something to do and solve please focus your attentions on the following: Creating JOBS in the private sector through incentives, National Security, Fair and Balanced Trade, Salvaging Social Security, and a LAW requiring a Balanced Budget for the Federal Government
Its absolutely amazing that with all the challenges our country is facing that this is what the Senate chooses to address!
Take care of our people like the post above states and leave the supplements alone and allow us to choose what we put in our bodies!
We deserve the right to choose how we approach our own health. Ninety percent of doctors have no idea about nutrition. Why on earth would I see a doctor about getting a vitamin! If consumers are not receiving accurate information from a store clerk, they need to require better labeling, not ban a vitamin. Require an information sheet be given out (like a prescription) that gives the consumer information.
Please leave our supplements alone. I can not take the drugs that big pharma is pushing on us. If you listen to the side affects the drugs cause I think it would be better to have the disease than to take the poison that is being pushed at us and suffer the side affects.
Our bodies do not know what to do with fake drugs. However supplements made from the plants that grow on the earth are in tune with our bodies and will know how to handle and break them down so they are useful. Please stop messing with God’s creations and let us heal ourselves naturally!
For once do the courageous, unselfish and morally right thing and do NOT meddle
into our right to take supplements / we have the right to protect our health any way
we see fit….
What they fail again and again to admit is the supplements ARE cures for diseases WITHOUT the deadly side effects of prescription drugs that are FULL of poison and do NOTHING to actually cure disease because it’s big money to never actually CURE a disease. Our reps are bought and paid for by Big Pharma, Off shore Banks and anybody else out there who want to DESTROY anything good we have…This is another scam to take away our health FREEDOMS..McCain failed, and everyone else will fail…it is all over but the shouting for the crooks running our so-called government….
I am perfectly happy with my choice of supplements. I know the company (one that was chosen to be tested) Nature’s Sunshine Products is North America’s oldest and largest herb manufacturer. They set the bar for quality control many, many years ago and holds to the highest quality-control standards. Our products undergo more than 600 individual tests prior to production.
The two of us have been using supplements for over 30 years…here’s my husband’s story.
My husband currently has several major health problems including COPD , RA, and CF and fibro; he is 73 and is holding his own, and has not taken ANY prescription medicines. The RA specialist says he is still in remission after two years of getting the diagnosis…and ALL his doctors APPROVE of his regiment of herbs/vitamins and other supplements.
People like us can get free medication as he is a vet; but we prefer to make our own choices for health care.
Please listen to people like us–ALLOW us to have freedom of choice !!
Leave things as they are!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Respectfully,
Sami & Bob Lamb
The FDA allows the pharmaceutical companies to kill us and destroy our health. I call them the “MEDICAL MAFIA.” They need to first start protecting us against the drugs that are killing us and our loved ones. This angers me that those greedy ?????? are allowed to continue killing us. Back off FDA. People are wising up to the pharmaceutical companies, because you can only have so many loved ones die at the hands of the pharmaceutical company before the lights go on and realize you cause. I do not care about the denials on the vaccines and drugs that are continually killing us. Under no circumstances will I ever trust the FDA or the pharmaceutical or chemical industry.
The problem is that the politicians are just as big a crooks as “big pharma”, the FDA, and the mob. It is time to clean house but start with the democrats. In primarys, check the records carefully before voting for an incumbant.
Dietary supplements give me the vitamins, minerals, and so forth that foods lack and ensure I am healthy. I have had no need to take any drugs.
Please google and research Agenda 21 or Codex Alimentarias (sp?) Population reduction by GMO and irridation of food to remove neutrients then outlawing supplements causing you to die prematurely of natural causes. Wake up folks–it’s worse than you think.
I am so glad you posted that, most people think this stuff is a conspiracy theory, but when it’s TRUE it’s a CONSPIACY.
CONSPIRACY….spelling
Please DO NOT start messing with our vitamins & herb supplements. We are getting along real well taking them as we wish and find them to help keep us healthy with very little or no prescription medication. That is not only cheaper, but much better for your body.
PLEASE, PLEASE—-LEAVE OUR SUPPLEMENTS ALONE. THEY ARE OK NOW AND DON’T NEED REGULATED.
Those of us who need to use alternative methods to get well and stay well should have the right to choose that route. There is no doubt in my mind that had I stayed with the Allopathic method of treatment I would have had a slow agonizing death before me. No thank you. Where are our rights to choose natural food/supplements and herbal methods to healing and health? People need to stop letting the almighty dollar speak for what laws and such are put into place. Next they will be telling us we don’t have a right to eat. It is bad enough that there are so many unhealthy products out there, but at least we can choose which we want to consume at this point. Let’s keep it that way.
My wife and I canceled our health insurance 35 years ago and raised 6 children using herbal supplements as prevention as well as assisting the body in healing itself.
If America is a “free” country we should be able to decide what types of treatment we would like if we do have a health issue. All synthetics stress the immune system and many cause liver/kidney problems.Many times the treatment causes far worse issues then whats being treated! I feel better now then when I was 20——–NO aches or pains. NO arthritis.
Feel free to look at our website: herbs777.com
We need our subliments and we can’t afford to go through a medical doctor to get them.
Please leave them alone.
We deserve to have free right to choose what is best for ourself, it is bad enough the govt. does not look out for our well being they allow the words “All Natural ” put on package which clearly are Not natural, how about GMOs we are not even given the choice to have a real God created tomato, or a tomato which someone now owns & they are no longer just a tomato. Please leave our supplements alone!!! I have lived a Holistic life for 30 years & my supplements are a big part of my health I am a nurse & work in alternative medicine and I don’t ever want to have to be forced to take conventional medication due to certain choices have been taken away!!!!! Please leave our right to chose what we want to put in our bodies alone!!!!
Reply
Leave our supplements alone!
They are natural and have been used to heal human s for thousands of years.
Unlike pharmaceuticals which have barely been tested, their positive effects overblown, their negative effect suppressed and in many cases they don’t even work, let alone do much good.
My supplements keep me healthy. i like it that way. I choose what goes in my body, not some Senator on the take from Big Pharma.
Your constituents would be far better served if you spend your time and effort on getting rid of GMO: seeds from Monsanto and regulating that company and Cargill and Bayer and Pfizer and all these drug companies manufacturing chemicals and saying they will help us when they are really killing us. Natural supplements come from nature and nature belongs to us all. You have no right to get between me and my supplements that will keep me healthy and keep me away from too many doctors and that will keep down my Medicare costs and that should be a good thing. Get the big pharmaceutical companies that want to make us sick so they can give us other medicines to “make us well” not counting the side effects, of course. These companies giving you campaign monies and other goodies to encourage you to look the other way? Tsk, tsk. They take unfair advantage. The natural supplemsnts have no bank accounts or hidden agendas. They just keep us healthy,.
Ya crooked bastards.What the hells wrong with ya?Cut out this communistic crap and be an American for Gods sakes.We know share holder value is more important to you than peoples lives,else you wouldnt even be promoting the drugs in the first place.Its always the money.
These pharmaceutical companies are not properly testing these new drugs they are fast tracking and what testing they do complete they are fraudulently reporting to the FDA in order to make money quicker. Since time began, man has mislead men. I trust in God and his creation of natural herbs and supplements to care for my family’s health. If you take away our rights to use natural supplements then you are encouraging organized genocide by the US government. How quickly you forget about “We the people…”
Please leave our supplements alone.
Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 25 years, I know first-hand the procedures, time and money needed to get approval from FDA. Increasing regulation will result in increased costs and limiting access to many currently available supplements. We will also see special interests getting their products out and black market alternatives. I think enforcement of the current regulations which have been in place since 1994 without any additional regulations is the best answer. The government has actually published a lot of sound un-biased scientific information on the benefits and potential risks of taking supplements. These are published by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and available on the internet. In a free democratic society, it is up to each of us to educate ourselves and make sound choices on the supplements we choose to use. Government does have some responsibility to keep supplement manufacturers honest – to make sure the products contain what they say they contain and that they are not contaminated, and to make sure the labeling and advertising is accurate. This is covered in the current regulations.
Get OUT of my vitamins and herbs. The poison big pharma puts out there, their so-called “anti-depressants” are directly responsible in my opinion for the deaths of two of my relatives and one friend. Anyone who is using vitamins, herbs, natural supplements is likely to be doing at least SOME of their own research and be far more informed than someone just trusting a cockail of crap that their doctor hands them based on some sales pitch some big pharma rep gives them. I’m healthy and free of all MS symptoms today (6 years and counting) doing a gluten free diet that initially consisted of lots of enzymes and detoxifying herbs and healthy immune system support supplements. If Congress wants something to do – I agree with what someone else said earlier – let them get out and research the disasters of High Fructose Corn Syrup and GMO foods – and hold criminal the companies that produce those disgusting, ecologically disasterous products for the gargantuan profits of companies that don’t actually give a DAMN about anyone’s health! And when they are done with that, let them go research all the crap that goes into PET food which is what makes our beloved companion animals old and sick well before their time.
LEAVE OUR SUPPLEMENTS ALONE!!!!!!!!
These attacks are so underhanded and petty!
Touch my supplements, and you will lose your seats!
We are sick and tired of this nonsense!
GET A LIFE!
Leave my supplements alone. My doctor wanted me to take crestor to lower my LDL. But I took a natural supplement for a month and when he retook my cholesterol test again, he was astonished.
He said that it improved20% in one month. I told him that I did not take crestor but a natural supplement. He told me to keep taking it. You should go after the pharmaceutical industries. There are all kinds of adverse reactions to prescription medications.
[...] some disturbing news reports about supplements over the last few days, you may have some idea of what is going on in the Senate, and why you should care, if you believe that Americans should have access to uncensored scientific [...]
Hatch has gone to the dark side.
Hatch and Harkin are in neck deep with the pharmeceutical companies.
Hatch’s son is the chief lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
Hatch’s charity Utah Families Foundation received $170,000 from drugmakers.
In Dec. 2009 The Dems voted against the importation of cheaper drugs. The avg. donation
Harkin got was $81,000 after the vote.
http://maplight.org/dems_senate_pharma_prescription_drugs
This is an attempt by Pharma to control all remedies for health and put the pricing ball entirely in their park. If you need to insure that people know what they are taking, then require research fact sheets and let people make their own choices about their health. There are so many adverse reactions in pharmaceutical drugs that injure and kill people. I’m sure the majority of them are not even tested adequately. Why would you then demand that herbs that have centuries of track record for not harming people be scrutinized more closely than pharmaceuticals. This is such a clear case of corporate control. And maybe there’s a little money in this for Congressmen?
Great post, Information about these Issues Always seem to make my day better!
It seems so obvious what is going on here. The drug compaines wants some one to say that supplements are drugs so they can continue to rob us of our hard earned money and not give a hoot about the health of people. We all know, and so do they…supplements are NOT medicine, they are a food source. And when health foods stores are talking to customers about certain herbs, vitamins, etc, it’s not to harm anyone, but to educate them toward a healthier way to help their bodies. Now, we all know there are crooks in every field, and yes, they need to be stopped, but not all are crooked. I am so sick and tired of greedy, selfish people trying to use reverse psychology to convice others to stop things that God hade created for mankind. I hope these people realize that God is watching them and one day they are going to have to explain to God why they did what they did and cared nothing for their fellowman.