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.
144 comments
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PLEASE leave our supplements ALONE!!! The FDA is a joke in bed with “Big Pharma” and chemical companies. Our food is overprocessed and treated with poisons – we need access to supplements to preserve our health and insure our nutrition.
Please STAY OUT OF IT!
Patty Bender
What are they going to do? Keep trying UNTIL it passes? They have poisoned our food to where no food is safe or provides needed vitamins. Come on,,,AMerica,,,wake up!!!!!!
Find other projects to support and leave our supplements alone.. Their are real problems right in front of you, ” the oil spill for one”. Vitamins have never hurt anyone, get real you jerks and wake up to real consumer problems.
I’d just like to know why supplements are set up with this “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell” nonsense. What is wrong with sharing what something helps with? We can talk about certain foods being bad for your heart and raising your cholesterol or other foods lowering your cholesterol – as a number of breakfast cereals do but can’t say that an herb or supplement helps anything. It’s ludicrous. With that reasoning, wouldn’t Cheerios become a pharmaceutical?
Herb Kohl:
You have not listened to any information I have sent you! The Supplement industry is already regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). You have obviously been taken over by big pharma who is giving you tremendous amounts of money to continue in your wretched ways!
You will be replaced shortly! I can not wait for the day!
Sincerely,
Patti Hatton
Keep the government’s hands off of supplements and vitamins
Dear Senators:
We have fought hard to buy our supplements with ease and you need
to leave them alone.
We have the right to purchase what we want and how we use them.
You don’t need to control everything.
LEAVE supplements alone.
THANK YOU.
.
Please stop turning America into a Socialized Country. That isn’t what American fought for long ago. The Big Pharma is has crippled Americans enough beening allowed to advertise and make people think they need some miracle cure when all they need to do is stop eating all the GMO FDA approved food and contaminated water! Not to mention all the animals injected with drugs and hormones.
Enough is enough you greedy fools!!!
Keep your hands off the internet, too!! And the Media!!
What is their problem? They just don’t quit! Information is free. Nobody asks a health food store clerk a question expecting to be treated for a disease. People go to doctors for that. They go to a health food store for INFORMATION. And since the original meaning of the term “doctor” means teacher, it appears the government wants to make sure nobody outside licensed health practitioners teaches anybody anything. Only physicians can be doctors. I’m just SICK of the FDA. They need to be disbanded are barred from polite society.
Please tell Senator Herb Kohl to stay out of my nutritional health. I have been managing it since 1957 and I am now 76.
I am frightened about the drugs I am now forced to take. (The fewer the better) My nutrients are safe and I know how to investigate them without FDA interference. Let them concentrate on safe drugs. Is there such a thing?
Again, it appears the Pharmaceuticals will stop at nothing to have their way to get their slimy paws in on the vitamin cash cow and some of our bought off legislators are willing to do their bidding. With our food system and other aspects of our government in terrible conditions it seems they would have enough on their hands rather than trying to eliminate our access to vitamin supplements. A few clerks who spoke too much should not be used as a basis to make a decision about regulating supplements.
Do these two guys realize that there are millions of people out of work, our economy is crashing, life as we know it is coming to an end and all they want to do is attack vitamin supplements.
Please have them read this article and why they are not cracking down prescription drugs which are killing thousands of people each year?
Sincerely Yours
Tim
Accidental Death From Prescription Drugs
Alternative Medicine Magazine, Issue #25
Accidental death from prescription drugs, even when they are correctly given, is now the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.Before you pop another prescription pill, think carefully. Just because your doctor prescribed it is no guarantee you’ll benefit from it or even emerge unscathed from the experience. That prescription pill could be hazardous to your health – and life.
Ask Stephen Fried.He wishes he could have read his own book, “Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs,” (Bantam Books, 1998), before his wife, Diane Ayres, go “floxed” from a bad drug side effect. Diane took a single pill of an antibiotic called Floxin for a urinary tract infection and a few hours later ended up in the emergency room with acute delirium.Serious side effects happen often enough with Floxin, an FDA-approved drug, that those in the know refer to the experience, in a kind of grim flippancy, as getting “all floxed up.”
But for Diane, getting floxed up didn’t end only with a flurry of medical concern and a battery of tests by hospital staff. Floxin triggered her genetic predisposition to neurological illness which then manifested as mood disorders and manic depression. These in turn required a series of “heavy- duty drugs” to undo, says Fried.The experience was a deeply traumatic one for Fried and inspired him to find out how such an event could happen. it turns out it happens a lot.
“An investigative journalist and exasperated husband, I am trying to find out if my wife was the victim of a pharmacological foul- up or just a statistically acceptable casualty of ‘friendly fire’ in the war on disease.” By the time you finish reading Fried’s chilling expose’ of the world of prescription drugs, it’s clear Diane Ayres’ situation was not a foul-up but a friendly fire casualty, one of millions, in fact – business as usual in the world of legal drugs.
Fried learned that well over 100,000 Americans die every year from adverse reactions to prescription drugs and that drug side effects are a leading cause of death in the U.S. (See “The FDA’s Skewed Policies,” this issue, pp 104 – 105.)
The worst thing that can happen to you when you take a legal drug is not that it won’t work, but that you might drop dead, Fried Says. “The next worse is that your body is permanently damaged.”A little further down the list of drug-induced disasters is that you fall into that seemingly endless “cascade of prescribing” where you need a half dozen strong drugs to undo the side effects of the first one, and then a lot of time to recover from the effects of all of them, as Diane Ayres learned the hard way.Let’s enlarge our perspective a little and look at the scope of prescription drug sales and adverse drug reactions in the U.S.
We’re talking about an $85-billion-a-year U.S. market for pharmaceuticals, based on 1996 data. Coupled to this figure is a steady yearly rise in consumer prices for the top 500 prescription drugs at a rate that exceeds inflation.
The hidden cost of this drug “bonanza” is only beginning to emerge. New studies show that mistakes in drug prescribing and side effects from prescription drugs cost at least $76 billion a year (and could be as high as $136 billion, according to other estimates) in extra medical costs. The largest factor contributing to the additional cost is adverse drug effects requiring hospitalization. These mistakes may also double the risk of death.Remember, Fried’s data deals with correctly prescribed drugs; you have to add to this the costs and consequences of incorrectly prescribed medications.
The misuse of prescription drugs, leading to injury and death, represents a “serious medical problem” that “urgently” requires attention, according to “Archives of Internal Medicine.”To put this in perspective, in 1994, the year this data was collected, Americans spent over $73 billion on prescription drugs. This averages out to $292 per person to buy the drugs and an additional $306 to treat the adverse effects of using these drugs. The math is simple: that’s about $600 for every American man, woman, and child in the U.S.A new study of 1,580 cases tracked at a single hospital over a year shows that adverse drug events (ADEs) were involved in 2.4 per 100 admissions, producing an additional hospital stay of 1.9 days, costing $2,262, and increasing the risk of death by 1.88 – a nearly twofold increase. Out of 91,574 patients admitted to a single hospital over a three-year period, 2.43% (2,227) experienced ADEs.
According to the study, ADEs may account for 140,000 deaths per year in the U.S.A six-month study tracking 4,108 admissions at two hospitals reported similar results. There were 247 ADEs among 207 admissions (some people had several ADEs), requiring an average of 2.2 extra days of hospitalization at a cost of $3,244 per person. For ADEs that were judged to be preventable, 4.6 extra hospital days per person were required, costing $4,685. The estimated average cost attributable to both types of ADEs for a typical 700-bed hospital is $8.4 million per year.
A third study indicated the types of prescribing errors doctors typically commit, based on data collected over a year from a 631-bed hospital. Pharmacists reviewed 2,103 prescribing errors and found that the error rate was 3.99 per 1,000 drug prescriptions. Among these, 12% of the errors involved overlooking patient allergy to the type of drug, 11% were due to incorrect dosages, and another 11% to using the wrong drug name.In yet another study, researchers reported that about 30% of the prescribing errors were due to lack of knowledge regarding drug therapy, 29% to lack of knowledge regarding patient interactions with drugs, 17% to arithmetic mistakes, and 13% to using the wrong drug name.
The error rate was highest (5.89 ADEs per 1,000 prescriptions) for pediatric patients, followed by 5.05 for emergency-room patients, 4.5 for obstetrics-gynecology, and 3.5 for surgical patients. Prescribing an overdose was the most common error, accounting for 41.8% of all mistakes.The pattern of damages, even deaths, created by dangerous drug interactions is already repeating itself in the case of Viagra, the impotence drug released in April 1998 by Pfizer, Inc., of New York. In its first month on the market, 1.7 million prescriptions were filled for the pill promising relief from erectile dysfunction.Yet soon after, 16 deaths occurred in users of Viagra, presumably from fatal drug interactions.
Specifically, drugs given for heart pain (angina), such as nitroglycerin-based nitrate drugs, seemed to produce the most dangerous interaction with Viagra. In fact, there are at least 41 different nitroglycerin formulations or nitrate-based drugs that are believed to make a deadly combination with Viagra.With these facts in mind, it’s easier to understand the shock, outrage, and urge to find an alternative that inspired Fried both to help his wife heal from the bad effects of Floxin and to write his book.Fried also got a formidable political education in the course of his research. He began to see how and where the power is stacked up in the world of legal drugs and how little science and how much marketing and political influence have to do with medical care in conventional medicine.
It’s a power play on a global scale, Fried says.Drug companies are merging and in turn buying firms that decide which drugs the HMOs will get, says Fried. The drug companies are controlling the flow of information about the medicines to doctors and the public; they’re directing the allocation of funds for drug research and physician education; and they’re going after the consumers directly in a massive advertising campaign to stir up interest in their latest products.Fried’s revelations are sobering. If you thought illegal drugs was the major drug problem, you’ll look at “the other drug problem” – legal drugs – far more critically after reading “Bitter Pills.”
Passivity and lack of knowledge in the face of prescription drugs could cost you your life.”Understanding drug reactions has been a way to explore what is wrong with the entire international pharmaceutical business – a $250 billion enterprise ($700 billion if you count all the other products sold by drug companies) that has managed to repel scrutiny more effectively than almost any other major industry, while remaining the world’s most profitable industry through many changes in economic climate,” says Fried.
Presiding over this global drug cover-up is the FDA, an agency responsible for “regulating 25% of America’s entire gross national product and whose policies are the benchmark for world regulation of drugs and medical devices,” says Fried. If this information is new to you, by the time you finish his report, your eyes will be wide open and you may feel angry enough to take political action. You certainly will think very hard before you automatically take that next drug.The point is, his wife’s bad drug reaction – it took her four years to recover from it – could happen to anyone who takes a prescription drug. One doctor told Fried that antibiotics, the second most commonly used class of drugs in the world, are improperly prescribed 40% to 50% of the time, due to wrong dose, wrong duration, wrong drug. “Apparently everyone in medicine knows this except the patients,” says Fried. Now you do, thanks to Fried.
I really don’t understand why you people can’t leave supplements alone. They halp many people without the harm caused by most prescription drugs and are usually somewhat cheaper.
Since most supplements are made of natural ingredients, the FDA would do better to start protecting people from the prescription drugs that have killed so many. We seem to have our priorities mixed up in this country. We support Big Pharma at the expense of human life.
being advised to take 2000 IU more Vitamin D turns out to be much better advice than any of the prescription drugs approved by the FDA. Just not good for anyone’s share price. The FDA is way overdue for mote removal.
Somebody needs to tell the committee that supplements are different from drugs simply by the fact that they are natural substances, not chemical formulations, and that they don’t have dangerous side effects such as those chemical formulations do. Would they regulate meat because you can choke on it, or water because you can drown in it? Supplements fit into the same category as food.
Supplements are natural, not synthetic. Please allow informed individuals that desire to remain healthy through exercise and diet, in concert with supplements, the ability to do so.
The FDA and the pharmaceutical industry are acting in concert to put the clamps on supplements.
PLEASE, as elected individuals representing the best interests of all individuals, leave the FDA and big pharma out in the lobby.
Respectfully, and sincerely,
Virgil Dahl
3720 Joan Dr.
Waterloo, Ia 50702
We do not need government control over our supplements. Stay out of our business. Big brother has already done too much and we can see what Big brother has done. Everything he touches becomes a boondoggle.
Get the government out of our health care. Too many people have died by taking drugs from the big drug companies that were approved by the FDA. Leave supplements alone.
What is Senator Kohl’s scientific or medical background? I only found that he is a department store executive
the drug companies dont want competition to their addictive drugs from herbs. its all about money and drug companies
Keep your hands off my supplements!
This is not only horrendous, it is life-threatening to the many of us whose lives — and quality of life, as in ability to digest, sleep, be pain free, nurture damages nerves–depend on these supplements.
Dr. Oz daily supports supplements. Where are you now, Dr. Oz, when we need you to speak out?
These Herbs have been used by Native American for Century’s, therefore Grandfathered,…And , Untouchable by the Senate…..Except with Corruptness in Mind…..
The name of the Chair of this committee reveals the hypocrisy of the whole FDA. Just because it wants to control every bite America takes. Let them rot in compost.
Why would we give more control to people who don’t want they supplements around? They all financed by the Big Pharma and would love to wipe out supplements. Because they are much healthier than what big pharm is doing.
I only wish our endeared congressional people would spend half as much time with trying to find ways to fix the REAL problems of this country. I believe this is another act of some well to do lobyists for some drug company wanting to stifle competition. Most of us already know what poisons they peddle and as things revert in this country to organic living and real healthy supplementation of nutrition, these companies feel extremely threatened. Yet I will bet that like so many other freedoms we’ve been forced to forfeit, this too will also be another at the hands of our Politicians. The term “Commrade” is beginning to be much more distinguishable in this country every day due to Washington greed!
This will be the last straw. Nutrional supplements are our last line of defense against the onslaught of the petrochemical monolith. We will revolt. There will be blood.
This will be the last straw. Nutrional supplements are our last line of defense against the onslaught of the petrochemical monolith. We will revolt. There will be blood.
This will be the last straw. Nutrional supplements are our last line of defense against the onslaught of the petrochemical monolith.
Supplements, vitamins, herbs… are just that. Leave them alone. Don’t you idiots in government have anything better to do that to attack MY RIGHT to take whatever supplements I want?? Why don’t you pay attention to things that need to be done and quit trying to inflict your beliefs on everyone else.
I cannot believe that in the land of the free, my representatives in Congress want to take away my freedom of choice whether to take supplements or not and which ones I want to choose. Keep my choice free and my homeland free and direct your time where it really is needed – protecting the rights of our children, providing affordable health care, providing affordable education, protecting the animals of our world and putting a clamp on the greedy people that ilnvade our lives every day.
Note that I am a Type 1, insulin dependant diabetic for over 30 years. I am very dependant upon a list of supplements for my excellent health dependability despite the problems of the diabetes. Losing supplement availability to a increased cost similar to prescriptions would be devistating to my health and ability to pay for them. Please stop the nonsense of the Senate Special Committee and their direct attack on my health. I can testify to this effect, supported by my endocrinologist.
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
Keep your hands off our supplements!! The drug comnpanies can’t have them as they are natural substances. They are already regulated and have oversite!! Instead,, use oversite on the FDA for some of the really dangerous killer drugs they are okaying because of kickbacks or favors!!!
If supplements are drugs then so is food. This is so ludricous and out of control… Yes supplements heal and help us to be healthy….because they are the ingredients in our food….and drugs are not!
I think that it would be much more of an advantage if the government and FDA would pay more attention to how harmful prestription drugs are to the general public, and get BIG PHARMS rear instead of the suppliment companyies. But then again just follow the money. We all know that these people are in bed with the BIG BOYS. Now don’t we.
No rest for the weary
Please do whatever you can do to help maintain freedom for us in the area of nutritional supplements. Our foods have already been “tainted,” and we’re getting fatter and sicker (diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.). If they mess with supplements, we won’t be able to take them in amounts that will help our health – and they can finish the job of killing us off. Thank you for all your help.
Like so many other regulations, DSHEA would work if enforced. DSHEA is sufficient as it is. The EPA regulations would work, if enforced. The SEC would work if its regulations were enforced. But when you remove all money for enforcement, what do you expect?
Big Pharma and Big Agriculture just want a piece of what is now a very lucrative industry. I say, keep their grubby hands off my herbs.
If we take a world view, we’ll find that supplements (natural) have done more good than drugs (chemical) – when is the USA going to look at the situation and realize that chemicals solutions are not doing any good (the only people who really benefit are the makers and makers and distributors of this drugs.
The poiticians are on the take from the FDA and big pharma. Only educated people research natural supplements and know what they are doing, Sen Mikulski wants us to be protected from ourselves. Her letter says people are too stupid to know what to do for their own health. Politicians only show their own ignorance in addition to being unscrupulous. They only represent their own interests and not the people’s. Alexander Gerry Glen Burnie MD
Is there some epidemic I’m not aware of that is driving their desire to expand FDA control (and subsequently tax payer cost)? It seems to me that the mere fact that the GAO had to go all “investigatory journalism” is proof that people treating “diseases” (as defined by the FDA) with natural supplements is not causing any problems, except for big pharma. If supplements were causing a problem wouldn’t we be seeing class action lawsuits and citizens coming forward complaining about what happened to them from taking supplements? Instead, all ive heard is people praising natural herbal cures that have existed since long before the fda.
Thanks. Hang in there….
During the Senate Special Committee on Aging meeting of May 26th, I urge you to be circumspect with the delivery of untested, uninformed and slanted information about the use and regulation of dietary supplements.
The supplement industry is already regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The US Food and Drug Administration has the power to protect consumers from those few supplement manufacturers not following the rules. If the FDA will do the job for which it has been designed in this capacity, it will assist the largest cross-section of Americans,who benefit from using supplements and are taking self-responsibility for health maintenance. Thank you!
Our megapharm corps already make an obscene amount of profits.
Why do they need more??
People in government need to understand the difference between a supplement and a drug.
Senator HERB Kohl shoudl no better with a name like that to mess with Herbs or supp’s. It is all of birth rites to use God given herbs and supplements. Quit trying to be a good daddy. I already have a father.
I am thankful for your organization. We must unite and fight the next government takeover of our health.
Supplements help me feel great. I am almost 60 years of age and feel great. Most of the reason is my daily regimen of supplements.
Please continue to fight more governement control and rediculous invasion into our lifestyle!
Leave our damn supplements alone! Let doctors prescribe pharm drugs and let health food stores talk about supplements. What’s the problem??
Please leave our supplements alone. The one good thing we have are supplements without government interference. Take care of business, and bring our country back from the brink, and do your jobs giving us back the country we used to have. Republicans and Democrats making wise decisions in unison for the betterment of America, not the government we see today with nothing but opposition to each other. It’s a crime the way the senate and congress do business today, and to think we pay you for this poor service for our tax dollars. Americans are discontent with government as usual. Don’t give us another reason by messing with supplements to be dissalusioned with you.
To whom it may concern,
Thankyou so much for emailing pertaining to this information that pertains to supplements. I’ll email other people pertaining to this information. Again, thankyou so much! Ron Tamm
Please do not support the “Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010”.
Please do not support the Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010! This would take our freedom away!!!
Leave our supplements alone!
Sirs;
I am writing in response to your proposed legislation/guidelines. My sons and I choose to use natural/organic supplements and food. No one is forcing us to use these products. My son has taken nutrient classes and he is well versed on products. He is not an expert by any means, but he does know a lot about the natural/organic supplements and food. I believe there are guidelines in place for these products just maybe not as strict as you believe they should be. If there are guidelines in place for the FDA to protect consumers, then they should be doing their job. Don’t put more restrictions on those of us that choose to eat natural/organic products.
By all means, I am not opposed to physicians/prescriptions meds, etc. I am an eight year breast cancer survivor, and I have done surgery, chemo, and radiation treatments. I do choose now to watch more closely what I eat and take as supplements. I do belive that the chemicals, preservatives, and other man made or modified products do affect your health and body. This is what I believe is right for me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is right for everyone or anyone else.
I don’t think you should creater more guidelines/laws/rules or whatever to supposedly protect consumers. I just think it is a way for congress to step on the small businessmen and further advance the pharmaceutical companies.
Please allow me the freedom to choose which supplements I am going to take.
Please do not take away our freedom/privilege to purchase our own supplements. I personally cannot take pharmaceutical drugs without serious side effects. I cannot be alone in this. The doctors’ expertise is in pharmaceuticals and not really educated in good nutrition, nor are the dieticians. Not all supplements are the same quality, and the tests being conducted that I have seen on tv appear to be the ones of inferior quality. Let our naturopaths and trained herbalists continue to guide us to good health naturally.
Kathleen, I totally agree. I myself, can’t take drugs, especially the generic kind, and even the phamacist, criticize me for it. I think it’s time for the jerks in Congress, and whomever it is, to get out of peoples lives. For me and my husband live on, after paying mortgage payment, and basic bills, we live on $80.00 a week, this is money for food, and gas to try to find a job. and then they say we make too much to get food stamps, just to survive the last 2 weeks of the month, and I have an eating disorder. Sorry to bother anyone. Need some help need some imput. JP
Supplements simply are NOT drugs. Hell, people eat right, exercise, meditate, and try to get enough sleep in order to improve their health, yet these things are not drugs. Drugs are drugs, and the FDA doesn’t regulate them properly. No one is complaining about supplements being dangerous or badly manufactured. These trumped up complaints are coming strictly from the pharmaceutical and medical profession, because they want complete control over what people get to do for their health. Did you know that the FDA says we don’t have the right to eat specific foods that we find healthful? Yes, they actually stated that in a recent court case. This is all about control, for the sake of making yet more money for the few extremely wealthy and powerful pharmaceutical corporations that control the medical industry. The system is incredibly sick. Somebody call a doctor!
Kudos to you, Karen! The only thing I can add to what you said, and is just as important, is to emphasize that not only does “Big Pharma” want control for the profits of the supplements, but also to regulate our supplements to the point that our health is compromised due to lack of nutritional benefits. Hence, we would be ill enough to “need” their pharmaceuticals. Point made by that court case.
Dear Senators and Congress,
Please, let us make our own choices; the American public is smart enough to do this. We do not need more regulating.
We need to stop the Senate… thanks for the info!
Please, leave my supplements alone. Vitamins and food supplements are my Health Plan. That is how I plan to stay health, enjoy longevity, and never have to visit a doctor. Wait, that is why you want to control my access to supplements. Because it cuts into your profits. You b@st@rds!
Enough already!! Leave the supplements alone. Period!! No changes to regulations. Just leave it alone. Enough is enough. The consensus of the majority of consumers is clearly evident. We want to be able to purchase and use supplements without any more regulations added!! PLEASE——Just leave it alone!!
Affordable supplements are the only way that US citizens can stay healthy. The Senate and Congress has made by passing laws such as those allowing GMO foods and chemically driven agriculture food which is nearly completely void of nutritional value. Furthermore food contains toxins from pesticides and hormones that can only be partially compensated for by taking of nutritional supplements.
Leave supplements out of the control of the completly corrupt and harmful FDA. If anything, the Senate and Congress need to remove drug companies from influencing the FDA by fully funding the FSA without the influence of big pharma.
Moderation is censorship of my message….
Thank you once again for keeping us informed. I’ll be listening in.
Jim Illick
Any person with common sense knows a vitamin will CURE a disease caused by that vitamin deficiency. Drug companies pay off polititions, they pay universities to teach only drugs to doctors, they only promote patented drugs on TV, they pay doctors to prescribe drugs.
I’M successfully treating my systemic cancer I’ve had since 2002 with a supplement. I CURED my severe allergies about 20 years ago. There are so many, many autoimmune diseases. Multitudes are suffering and dieing needlessly because of the, I believe, unconstitutional FDA law that prevents supplements to be sold as a treatment for a disease.
“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.”
Oh yes…the FDA does have the power to protect consumers, however, do they? NO. they are “bribed” by the drug companies and have the drug companies put “warnings labels” on all their products to protect themselves, protect the FDA and the doctors who prescribe these killer drugs.
Geeee could it just be that the drug companies are behind this…Nahhhhh.that could never happen….just like they’re not behind every corrupt scheme in our nation with the FDA tops on their “favorite” list, along with the doctors and government officials being bought off.
Nahhhhh…could never be!!!!!!!!!!!! Yea…right!!!!!! Leave our supplements alone. Why can’t they put “warning labels” just like all the drugs that are killing millions of people…I guess that’s OK since the FDA approves all these killer drugs…But Oh…wait….you have to read the warning labels…Please, this has a strong odor of corruption….. Leave our supplements alone!!!!!!!
I feel it is just a way for the pharmaceuticals to make all the money. Greed. Supplements are the only way many have any access to products that will help them. If one cannot afford to go to the doctor, pay for the check up to get a prescription that they might not be able to afford to fill, what are they to do? Who cares about that??? They would have no health care without supplements, and if the concern is for the “people’s well being”, where is “REAL SINGLE PAYER NATIONAL HEALTH CARE?? And as I just read above, there are already safe guards in effect. This pretend caring as a guise, just to get more control to make more money is ruining our country!
The FDA has only one client – Pharma.
Congress has been paid-off, both sides of the aisle, both houses of Congress.
Pharma is making sure that one out of four children in this country is on some kind of adult “medication,” including the mind-altering variety… Phara makes money drugging troops, including those in the war theater… Pharma makes money drugging seniors with antidepressants and other psychotropics… And the FDA and Congress have done nothing to stop this!
And we’re supposed to all be stupid enough to believe they are operating with our ibest nterests at heart? They want to protect us from those nasty vitamins (again)…. Is that what we’re supposed to believe?
Give me a break!
Duane Sherry, M.S.
When the people that are making decisions for me concerning my health take chemicals like MSG, Splenda, and aspartame (to name a few) off the market, then I will have respect for them as concerned human beings. Chemicals like these are making more chronic diseases in the general public than God’s herbs
I try to watch what I eat and do use some siupplements. I do not take any drugs. I carry health insurance but use it seldom as I keep myself fairly healthy.
I feel that big pharma is against supplements as they can be helpful in keeping healthy and therefore cut into their profits!
What has happened to our freedom? We elect people to run the government but it seems they do not listen to the people that elect them.
Greed – follow the money.
I also feel that congreemen and senators since they passed the health reform bill should also be big enough to be on the same plan they say is so great!
Sure is strange that they can give themselves a raise in pay when the economy is it trouble now and not because we put it that way but big business and big government votes in all the ‘pork’.
Unfortunate that this goes on and on. the attempt to limit our access to natural supplements. After all it’s drugs that do many people in, while natural supplements keep them going. We must not accept compromises regarding our health choices.
I really urge the senate, especially senator Boxer and Feinstein to vote for suppliments and against the house bill.
Gratefully yours,
Meir Schneider, Ph.D LMT
Please re-consider this bill in terms of allowing the supplement companies to continue to provide consumers with natural, healthy supplements that have not contributed to any deaths or disabilities in this country. Almonds are not a drug and should continue to be considered a food source as vitamins are.
I believe that individuals should be allowed to decide what types of supplements are needed for them.
Leave supplements out of the hands of the government and pharmaceuticals! Many of us are doing well learning about what works and what doesn’t, and what’s a sham and what isn’t. We don’t need or want more regulation, which will limit access and up the cost. Spend your time on something much more important, like putting people to work or cleaning up the Gulf mess!
leave our supplements alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a real shame that our elected officials are playing god and trying to control what we can and can not eat.
It is just another way of taking our rights away from us, and it is because they have sold out to the Big Corporations for the sake of Campaign funds they need so desperately, and which I call bribery.
I think our lawmakers are going to far, when they allow the FDA to approve junk chemicals that kill people and never do anything for years to take it off the market, but try to control a natural substance that has been used by our ancestors for centuries and never killed anyone. It is just them giving in to Big Pharma for the money they spend to buy our Government and keep people sick, so they can force more poison down our throats.
They believe in big pharma and their fraudulent medicine, and never believe that your body was never intended to have chemicals ingested, and that they never work anyway.
Those Lawmakers will be regulated the same way they are trying to regulate us in what we can take as a way to get ourselves healthy.
They are very stupid and greedy in their actions.
I for one, am now growing my own food and what I need to keep myself healthy.
Why do they keep doing this? The people do not want it so who is doing it we need to unelect the idiots.
The FDA needs to stick with prescription drugs. Supplements/herbs are generally food based and less toxic even if taken in large doses. How many prescription drug related deaths were there last year?
The way you’re spinning this sounds like you’re speaking for the supplements industry. I’m not interested in taking contaminated supplements. I want clean, uncontaminated supplements that I don’t have to worry about.I’d rather pay more and know that there are some standards for evaluating supplements. I don’t want to be ingesting lead!
you ingest lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium just by drinking tap water. You ingest aluminum if you use baking soda and baking powder, you also get a dose of aluminum if you use tooth paste and deodorant, if you have silver fillings in your mouth you are ingesting mercury DAILY, if you’ve ever had a vaccine you’ve had aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde injected into your body. If you’ve eaten food from a can or drank bottled water you’ve ingested BPA. If you’ve eaten corn, canola oil, soy or beat sugar or anything from KELLOGGS, you’ve ingested genetically modified foods. Do you think the FDA cares about your safety?
The US government does NOT do a good job at regulations… As much as possible… keep relations to a minimum for supplements…
This is a load! It’s all being driven and funded by the pharmaceutical companies, as everyone probably already knows. Do you think they really want us to have alternatives to their drugs? No, they’d rather we be sick, on drugs and making them richer.
I’m so tired of our congress and senate, and too many other government departments pandering to big business! When are they going to realize they actually are there to support their constituents, not the lobbyists who are allowed to fund their campaigns and even write our laws (i.e., healthcare reform specifically)? I guess they’ll wake up when we vote them out of office.
Supplements are safer than the deadly psychotropic meds given to wards of the state on the order of their guardians, approved by uncaring judges.
NASGA – National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse – is a 501(c)(3) organization founded by families of victims of unlawful and abusive guardianship and conservatorship proceedings.
Share the warnings from our websites – the Baby Boomers are the next group of victims!
Home: http://www.StopGuardianAbuse.org
Blog: http://nasga-stopguardianabuse.blogspot.com/
NASGA’s “indictment” of “The Protection Racket” sent to the very same SSCA chaired by Sen. Kohl: www,AnOpenLetterToCongress.info
Please help remove Congressman Waxman’s anti-supplement measure that would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) power to impose new regulations without prior Congressional approval from the final version of the Wall Street Reform Act.
Congress stripped the FTC of this authority decades ago after the FTC repeatedly abused it.
Giving the FTC power to promulgate new regulations would mean that five unelected commissioners would be able to issue binding rules in a wide range of areas, including the regulation of dietary supplements, an area of special concern to me that is currently governed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
At the present time, the FTC takes the position that supplement companies should produce results from at least two random controlled human trials to show substantial support for any advertised health claim, even claims permitted by the FDA under DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act.
The FTC’s position demonstrates its complete lack of knowledge about the supplement industry. A requirement for human trials on natural and therefore unpatentable substances would mean that such substances would either not be produced and sold, the likely outcome, or their prices would skyrocket.
Supplements are already sufficiently regulated by the FDA under DSHEA. We should not give the FTC power to circumvent DSHEA by adding new, onerous, and unneeded requirements.
Please urge the Conference Committee to remove the Waxman anti-supplement measure.
Please remove the supplimental part of the bill
The reason these bastards keep hacking away at the supplement industry is money. if we don’t get sick often and fast enough, then it cuts into their income. these scum and their political hacks, get filthy rich when we, the public, get sick, and stay sick. Their drugs are engineered to destroy our natural defenses so we become dependant on other drugs to keep us alive. If these blatant attacks on the American People continue, do not be surprised if in the very near future we wake up to find the public declaring open season on politicians, and the medical industry. If you think it can’t happen just look at the French revolution, the American revolution, The Bolshevik revolution, and what will be the medical revolution. People WORLDWIDE, are getting fed up, The American people are being murdered disabled and bankrupted by these bastards, and it has to stop.
It is a crime to think the Government thinks that Americans need to be told what they can and cannot. take for their health. Herbs are far safer than medicine.God made the herbs for the healing of the nations and for our medicine. Most drugs are made from herbs. I am a 24 year cancer survivor with reoccurring breast cancer and was told by Doctors in January 1988 that for the rest of my life I would have cancer. I had to go out of the country to Tijuana Mexico to a clinic that was in the US up until 1962 to get herbs that healed me and God provided them. The FDA and AMA put this wonderful clinic out of business because they were using herbs for healing cancer and many other diseases. Where is our freedom going. God help this nation. We have a right to take anything that we wish as long as it is not hurting anyone else. It is all about control and money. If the Senators want to know about herbs I would be glad to talk to any of them. Why kill the Goose who laid the Golden Egg. With this Obama care we will need all the herb we can buy for our healing. All of this control has to stop.
I have said it before and I will say it again. You mean to tell me that when I go to a health store, the things I buy there could be dangerous, but I could go across the street and buy a pack of cigarettes, because there sure isn’t anything harmful in them??????? Are these people completely out of their minds!! If they want to regulate something harmful, you might want to check into cigarettes. Only a complete MORON would think otherwise. Must only be Big Pharma behind this!!
Comittee members,
Senator Ted Kennedy promised me equal access under the law for all natural food supplements.
It is my wish that you vote, today to honor him.
Dr.’s and Pharmacists do not have any training in the use of all natural food supplments in Collge.
Every person or owner of a health food store and network marketing have more hours and more experience then anyone in medical college and I question the aurthority for information by the FDA.
I’ve been helping people get well and to stay well for 40 -plus years and when medical Dr.s had given up on them.
I have the ability to choose my own food supplements.
Sandi Wellness Answers.org (google)
DO WE LIVE IN RUSSIA…..STOP THE TYRANNY BY THE FDA AND THE FTC TO CONTROL MY FOOD SUPPLEMENTS.
I AM ALIVE TODAY BECAUSE OF NATURAL FOOD SUPPLEMENTS AND CAME VERY CLOSE TO LOOSING MY LIFE FROM PHARMACUTICAL DRUGS AND DELIVER TIMES FOR MEDICATION. I HAVE SPENT MANY HOURS RESEARCHING MY CHOICES AND FOUND MY OWN PATH TO GOOD HEALTH AND THE HELP OF A HOLISTIC HEALTH PRACTITIONER.
HANDS OFF MY NUTRITIENTS.
Maybe the vitamin manufacturers should start offering the FDA and Lawmakers big fat positions in their companies like Big Pharma does! It’s all about the love of money anyway! You know, the root of all EVIL? These people are mostly legal prostitutes anyway! 😉
I am well read and buy only quality food supplments, I have checked out the raw products and how they are processed and the lab research before I buy. I know the difference between poor guality and a scam and the scams are usually with the food supplements at the drug store and online deals….it is pharmacuteical companies masking products as all natural or organic.
Every health food store person I have every talked to is busy educating themselves and are well researche truy helping peop[le.
I do not need to be regulated at all. It is a waste of tax payer’s dollars.
I HAVE TO SAVE MY OWN LIFE AND GET MYSELF OUT OF THE GRASP OF DR.’S AND DRUG COMPANIES….WHO MADE HORRIFIC MISTAKES PERSCRIBING MEDICATION AND TIMELY DELIVERY.
I AM ALIVE TODAY BECAUSE OF GOOD INFORMATION FROM A HEALTH FOOD STORE OWNERS AND AN HONEST DR, WHO ADMITTED HE DID NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ALL NATURAL FOOD SUPPLEMENTS AND CUT ME FREE TO FIND MY OWN WAY.
I CHOOSE ONLY THE MOST QUALITY FOOD SUPPLEMENTS FROM RAW MATERIALS AND A PROCESSOR I CAN TRUST.
IN JUST A FEW HOURS OF RESEARCH AND STUDY I BECAME TO KNOW MORE THEN THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS TREATING ME.
NO AGENCY NEEDS TO GOVERNMENT……DO WE LIVE IN RUSSIA?
My son recovered from Cancer and I am a Senior….my daughter is well read and chooses our food supplements. I am in far better health, today because of her knowlege and a steady diet of natural products….my medical bills have been cut in half because of my regiment of nutrition. I do not need to see a Dr. and I do not take any more synthetic drugs.
Please allow myself and those I love to make our own decisions.
You are remind me my country where I was born – USSR. I came here for freedom! Let me have my own choice how to be healthy. You should do anyrhing with pollution, chemicals in food and water, immunizations. Don’t take natural things away from us. Stop killing Americans!
If we could honestly say that we are healthier now with all these new Pharma drugs then so be it but exactly the opposite is true. If the American people were informed of the HUGE number of deaths associted with these man made chemical “cures” they would be horrified and maybe propelled into real action, but that information my friends never reaches the media.
The reality, is that greed and corruption and censorship now rule this once great country and I urge all citizens to investigate for them selves the true atrocities that big pharma has released upon this nation. Let’s not forget that the 2/3 of the FDA is financially supported by big pharma….am I the only one who sees a huge conflict of interest?
THINK outside the box, and in most cases do the exact opposite of what the FDA, FTC and pharmacutical companies tell you, you will live longer and be much healthier.
Peace!
Again we have our so called representatives in Washington trying to steal our freedom to choose how we keep ourselves healthy. You have tried to hide this legislation in several different bills and we the people have told you to stop,yet you continue. You wonder why the American people have zero trust in government. I’ll say this again. I do not trust the FDA to do what is right. In fact it has been just the opposite. The FDA has allowed drugs on the market that have literally killed thousands of people. We, the people who use supplements know what we are doing. There is a network that we use to help one another and as far as I know people are not dropping dead by the thousands as compared to those who are taking drugs that have been approved by the FDA. Maybe its time for a tax revolution where we rufuse to pay taxes and then those in government will realize that the money that they are spending is our hard earned money and not theirs to do with as they please.
I am truly amazed at the countless ways that our government tries to take away the freedoms of the many. Common sense has likewise been disregarded. Vitamins have never been proven to kill anyone yet many drugs sold today list “fatal” as a side effect. Since I know people who have a literal basket full of prescription bottles or a window sill full of them and are unable to accept that vitamins might help bring the body to rejuvenation and health, I do not find it hard to understand that over-intellectualized individuals cannot see benefit in supplements. This does not excuse the right to steal our freedom to chose how to maintain health.
Thanks for keeping us informed. I hope everyone notifies their legislators that they will be the first on the “not available to: ” list. Let them find their own lackeys to slog through the swamp for the scarce herbs they need if they can even identify them or figure out how to prepare them.
I urge you to PROTECT “WE THE PEOPLE” and correct by REMOVING the FTC powers expansion language currently in the House version of the Bill from the Wall Street Reform and Consumers Protection Act.
PLEASE LEAVE are Supplements alone!! I was not expected to live BUT THANKS be to God & the SUPPLEMENTS, I enjoy every day! Please don’t rob us of life!! GREED is such a ugly Price!!
This is another blatant attack on the freedom of Americans. People are choosing safer natural alternatives to prescription drugs and the big pharmaceutical companies don’t like this so they bribe Congress. Noone cares about the People anymore. Congress must be ousted, starting with Kohl. Enough is enough. We are angry!
I work in the pharmaceutical industry, and it is a big sham! The Senate and Congress are in bed with Big Pharma. And not they are trying to take us back to the old days of the witch hunts. I grow what herbs I can in my limited space and climate, but now we will have to grow and trade our own herbs rather than being able to purchase them from reputable companies! Next they will make gardening illegal?
Who do you think you are?! I am a GROWN adult able to discern what I put into my body. If I want to eat dirt, that’s MY business!! When will the insanity stop? Would you like to choose my underwear for me as well? Your liberal, condescending attitudes repulse me. When November comes to pass, we’ll put all of you in your place. I CAN SEE NOVEMBER FROM MY HOUSE!!
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.
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.