|
The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA)
 (NaturalNews) Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has introduced a new bill
called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) of 2010 (S. 3002),
that, if enacted, would severely curtail free access to dietary
supplements. Cosponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the
bill would essentially give the FDA full control over the supplement
industry.
Most of the industrialized world has incredibly
restrictive laws governing supplements. People worldwide often purchase
supplements from the U.S. because they are freely available at low
costs.
All of this could change, however, if DSSA passes. DSSA
would change key sections of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
(FD&C), undoing protections in the Dietary Supplement Health and
Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, effectively eliminating free access to
supplements.
The importance of DSHEA
The
passage of DSHEA resulted from millions of Americans who worked hard to
reinforce their freedom to buy and sell supplements. At the time, the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was alleging that nutrients like
CoQ10 and selenium were dangerous and should be pulled from the market.
Though
weak in some areas, DSHEA established a foundation upon which free
access to dietary supplements would be protected from attacks by drug
companies and the FDA.
What prompted DSSA?
McCain's
DSSA bill emerged in response to illegal steroid use among Major League
Baseball players. Likely instigated by pharmaceutical interests, the
bill is being posited as necessary to prevent supplement adulteration.
The
FDA already has the power to pull supplements from the market that are
contaminated but it has not been doing its job. DSSA is not only
unnecessary, but it would actually reward the FDA for its failures.
DSSA would also strip DSHEA and give full control of the supplement
industry to the FDA.
Registration requirements
DSSA
would mandate that all supplement companies register with the Secretary
of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA. Any company
that refuses to register and comply with HHS would be subject to hefty
fines, the classification of its products as "adulterated", and their
removal from the market. The new system would burden manufacturers with
significant new costs that would cause supplement prices to increase. A
new taxpayer-funded bureaucracy would also be created to conduct
inspections and oversee compliance.
Reporting requirements
DSSA
would require all "non-serious adverse events" received by supplement
companies to be reported to the government, regardless of whether or
not the events are related to the supplements for which they are
submitted. Pharmaceutical companies would have access to these reports
which they could use to petition the FDA to have supplements removed
from the market. The FDA could also arbitrarily pull supplements from
the market if it believes it has "reasonable probability" that there may be a problem.
FDA would decide which supplements are legal
Perhaps
the most chilling aspect of DSSA is that it would allow the HHS
Secretary to establish a list of permitted supplements. Reversing
common law, which assumes all is legal unless restricted, DSSA would
allow only what is permitted to be legal.
In a nutshell, DSSA
would increase supplement costs for consumers, grant incredible new
power over the supplement industry to the FDA, and drastically limit
the availability of supplements. Drug companies could also use the bill
to remove supplements from the market, patent them, and sell them as
drugs!
|
|
STORE HOURS |
| Mon |
9AM-7PM |
| Tue |
9AM-7PM |
| Wed |
9AM-7PM |
| Thu |
9AM-7PM |
| Fri |
9AM-7PM |
| Sat |
9AM-6PM |
| Sun |
CLOSED |
| | |
|
|
 |
|
Back
