According to our sources, the rogue agency is digging in its heels on the NDI draft guidance that threatens so many supplements, refusing to listen to Congress or follow the intent of the law.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin met with Dr. Daniel Fabricant of the FDA on January 26 to request that the FDA withdraw its NDI draft guidance altogether—a meeting that ANH-USA, together with some trade groups, helped set up. They were following up on their recent letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking the FDA to stop the process altogether, withdraw the guidance, and start again after meeting with interested parties to address the list of significant concerns expressed by consumers and industry.
You may recall that the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) required that guidelines be established for supplement manufacturers to notify FDA when a new dietary ingredient was introduced into the marketplace. The FDA’s Draft Guidance for New Dietary Ingredients was supposed to fulfill that requirement.
Unfortunately, the FDA’s proposed regulations are in fact completely contrary to the intent of Congress when DSHEA was passed, and Sens. Harkin and Hatch wanted to make that clear to FDA. They should know—they were the two principal authors of the legislation!
According to our sources, FDA has turned down the senators’ request. FDA in effect said that it is refusing to reconsider its interpretation of what the NDI section of DSHEA means, regardless of what Sens. Hatch and Harkin say they meant when they wrote the law.
Does this mean FDA intends to use the NDI process as a de facto pre-market approval system—something which regulatory observers believe was specifically excluded by DSHEA? In a word, yes. We have been told that FDA claims the NDI process is the only “preventive control” for dietary supplements in federal law. Whatever “preventive control” means, it is completely untrue that supplements are uncontrolled under federal law or that the FDA lacks the power presently to regulate them.
In refusing to follow the intent of the law as clearly stated by the law’s authors, the FDA is acting as a rogue agency. If you haven’t done so already, please ask your legislators to make a one-minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s guidance document. FDA’s plan would sweep many supplements off the shelf and make the ones that survive much more expensive.
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consumer best interest or corporate profit agenda…which one will this once a democracy embrace??!!
Please!
Dear Senator Blunt:
Please support Senators Hatch and Harkin in this dispute with the FDA. Evidently, the FDA wants to regulate all supplements, and this will inevitably lead to higher consumer prices or the absence of
supplements from the market.
Sincerely,
Dr. Thomas M. Murray
Chiropractor
Raytown, Missouri
As usual, the FDA is being ridiculous. Their power needs to be taken from them or toned down immensely.
Please do not let the FDA take away my right to alternitve health cae. It would greatly help the little citizens of the country to try to take back our dicisions on our health. A one minute speach from you could make a huge difference.
Bob Fogli
Please OPPOSE the FDA’s guidance document. They want to act as dictators controlling our supplement use to protect the pharmaceutical profits!!!
Amazing, isn’t it…. the People have spoken loud and clear on these topics. Some elected officials have listened and are attempting to enact accordingly.
Somehow, vested rogue agencies have outgrown their intent and make their own rules, with impunity.
Time for some BIG CHANGES.
Is the FDA more powerful than Congress?
Please let them know that is NOT the case.
Thank you
The people should shut the FDA down. Remember the FDA is regulated by the UN and has been for sometime now! Dr. Daniel Fabricunt works for them as well.
To All Senators:
Please make a 1 minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s Guidance Document on supplements and
continue the DSHEA.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Lang
The FDA is nothing less than a lap dog for Big Pharma. Alternative Medicine has become a billion dollar industry, primarily stimulated by the fear created in the elderly by Obamacare. Big Pharma anticipates this growing business will cut into their trillion dollar profits; therefore, they must get the lap dog (FDA) to intercede on their behalf. How long will the American public put up with this BS?
Who are these unnamed ghosts of the FDA. If they were personally made accountable as individuals, would they be as likely to dig their heels in than if they can just hide behind the curtain of the ever powerful FDA?
What motivates them? Are they completely ruled by pharmac. companies and big business?
Which ones are behind the motivation?
So is there another way to come at making them change…ie by revealing and highly publicizing what’s behind what they are doing. I mean making it HIGHLY publicized–by every news media that will pick it up, or maybe some celebrities (I think it’s weird that people will listen to celebrities just because they are famous, but it that’s what people listen to, then why not capatilize on that and recruit some of them to speak out and take up the cause… it just seems to be fruitless to talk to the govt. because of, well, we all know because of what…
I think they are all a bunch of fools who are greedy to the point they want more. It is about time they get banish from this earth. Greed and more power is what they want. NO THANKS!
They can’t what they got.
Please consider the original intent of Senators O Hatch and Tom Harkin. Our supplements have a better track record that MANY of the meds that people currently take.
Please look at the statistics at the CDC. Many people CANNOT afford going to a doctor because they have NO insurance and they rely on vitamins and minerals.
Thank you !
This is completely and entirely unacceptable and ridiculous that you intrude one more second in our choices to stay healthy. The entire Senate and Congress should be ashamed to allow the FDA (a rogue agency) to once again control what we do. You should all be on your feet and standing up for us. NO MORE STUPID LAWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You pass these laws without any regard for us and not knowing the consequences of your actions.
We need the FDA held accountable to the laws they must not be allowed to interprets law in their own manner. Congress makes the law not the FDA. Sens. Harkin and Hatch wanted to make that clear to FDA. They should know—they were the two principal authors of the legislation
This is wrong, fire any member of the FDA that disagrees with the intent of the law as written by these Senators.
I am shocked that FDA refuses to discuss the meaning of a law with the writers of that law. If the FDA was not clear about the bill, I would have thought they would have asked for clalification at the time.
I enclose an important speech I want you to review because I agree with Rep. Hultgren. I urge you to follow the same example of encouraging less government interference in health choices.
Thank you……..
*** *** ***
Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) recently made a one-minute speech entitled “Overregulating Dietary Supplements Endangers Americans’ Jobs and Health” on the floor of the House of Representatives. This was his speech:
Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my concern over another example of rampant government regulation.
For seventeen years, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to ignore congressional intent and create a vast new regulatory regime for dietary supplements. Millions of Americans, including many of my constituents and my family, rely on dietary supplements as part of their everyday health maintenance routine. Moreover, they play an important role in ensuring that people take individual responsibility for preventative health care. We all can agree that the FDA should not limit Americans’ access to dietary supplements….
Last week, the comment period on the FDA’s draft guidance closed. Now that they’ve heard from the public, and now that I’m sure they’ve heard from countless Americans who share my concern, I urge them to go back to the drawing board and ensure that they do not limit Americans’ access to dietary supplements.
Please, legislators, make a one-minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s guidance document. FDA’s plan would sweep many supplements off the shelf and make the ones that survive much more expensive. Our family is in extraordinary good health because of the availability of and use of nutritional supplements and vitamins and antioxidants.
This is wrong, listen to the senators that wrote this law.
The FDA was set up to protect American citizens. After reading what they want to do with DSHEA, it is obvious that they are not protecting the citizens of this great country, but the lobbyists. I can only assume then they are getting kickbacks.
This is another proof that we no longer have a government. Elected officials have sold their souls to the corporations and they have no interest in the people any longer.
We MUST show them at the poles that we shall not be treated in this manner. We must keep the pressure on by exposing their dasterdly deeds and speaking the truth as often as we can every day. If we do not stop it now, there will be little hope for the future. They have already damaged the food, water, air, drugs and poisioned the people. How long can we live like this? Our lives are at stake.
Pray and vote.
Thank you Alliance for Natural Health for all that you do for us and America.
I don’t understand why the FDA has the power to approve drugs that time and again have proven to be harmful and life-threatening and yet is unwilling to accept that many people want to take responsibility for their health by using vitamin and mineral supplements. Where is our freedom of choice here?
The FDA is not a “Rogue” agency, it is an arm of big Pharma. Most of the regulators previously worked for pharmaceutical manufacturers. What do you expect? After denying the benefits of natural supplements, they now intend to supercede our industry and make it their own. Look at the laughable Omega-3 product they advewrtised so heavily last year? How can you make salmon oil dangerous? somehow, they managed to do that. I believe it flopped. But they will not stop until the wrest the last bottle of supplements out of the hands of Americans. Europe is no less Draconian. They have crafted a Nation of hypochondriacs, who rush to the doctor to get permission to breathe. Pathetic, and scary. Harkin and Hatch let the Genie out of the bottle.
this agency is running amouk. They are harrassing medical companies at an unprecidented level.
I am a cancer survivor, quad by-pass, diabetic, and numerous health problems that doctors cannot prescribe medication for because I am HYPERALLERGIC to MEDICATIONS. I have a 2 page list of medications that I cannot take. I LIVE ON VITAMINS AND ALTERNATIVE NATURAL MEDICATIONS. If you stop allowing NATURAL ALTERNATIVES, I PLUS THOUSANDS UPON THOUSAND OF PEOPLE WILL DIE. But maybe that’s what you want….genocide.
ALL MEDICATIONS ARE MADE WITH CHEMICALS. CHEMICALS do not react well with the human body. HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF CHEMICAL REACTION AND SIDE EFFECTS THAT CAUSE DEATH, OR SLOWLY KILLING YOU BY HAVING YOUR ORGANS SLOWLY DYING.
Maybe you should consider the HEALTH ISSUES of the CITIZENS OF THE USA. Or is that what you are aiming for….MORE AMA, PHARMACEUDICALS, MORE HOSPITALS, DOCTORS, NURSES….IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?
Agree with what you say.
This type of behavior by the FDA or any other government agency makes my blood boil. They are clearly acting as a rogue agency beholden only to the pharma companies that they apparenlty represent, not We The People. What we really need to do is demand President Obama disband this group of corporate schills and appoint people beholden to American citizens, not multi-national corporations. This is an outrage.
I have a much better idea, perhaps Senators Hatch and Harkin should get a law passed that states the FDA is a suggestion panel only and their rules, or regulations can be adhered to, or ignored by Companies as this Rogue agency appears to only work for the Pharmaceutical Industry and are in favor of putting just about every pill the drug makers request to be approved onto the marketplace no matter what harm these drugs do to the American people.
It is my sincere desire to see the federal government take the next flight to the moon, and never come back.
The FDA is run and owned by the pharmaceutical companies! They sold us, the US citizens, out years ago. Our government needs to rein them in and make them answer to the people it is supposed to be supporting. Want to know more? http://www.lef.org has lots of good information on how corrupt the FDA really is.
The fda should be defunded and restarded with people who can”t be paid off. They need to stay away
from supplemets, vitanins completely I’ve used them for years and not had any problems. I have had problems with supposed medicines tat are supposed to be safe to take and don’t use them anymore.
Iam healthy.
It continues to amaze me that we have to continue the fight for something that was passed unanimously in 1994 so that we could have scientific information about our suppliments.
The supplementary industry has had so few deaths in that time as compared to the 400,000 we kill with pharmaceuticals each year. And this is not with incorrectly dispensed or prescribed medication. This does not seem to bother the FDA. That is like over a 1000 airliners going down.
I am retired pharmacist and glad to be as I see so many problems with medications now.
Please give us our supplements like it was meant to be by the DSHEA law.
Thank you Judy Miller Rph
will supplement manufacturers sue over this egregious interpretation or do we know yet ??
This is ridicculas… what can we do about it?
Senators Harkin and Hatch should immediately file suit against the FDA, and get an injunction to stop the FDA’s action regarding supplements until the suit has been heard in a court of law. The Senators certainly know what their intent was in the law, since they are the ones who drafted and introduced it in the first place. HOW DARE the FDA defy these two gentlemen! The “interpreters of the law” at the FDA should be tarred and feathered and run out of town.
If the FDA does not wish to follow the laws passed by Congress, then perhaps Congress could get their attention by defunding them. Of course, if they are getting considerably more money from pharmaceutical industries than from Congress, this might only amount to a gesture of disapproval, but they might notice and it could hint at being just the first step.
The job of the FDA is to prevent harmful substances from becoming available to the public. It is not to suppress competition on favor of drug companies and their products which have many known negative effects on the health of the public.
gENTLEMEN:
drugs are expensive boh for not to rich people and for our government, and they are extremely toxic causing many powerful poisonour side effects; people are constantly dying taking pescription drugs. Why in God’s name is the FDA supported by the drug companies willing to destroy the one thing that the ordinary citizen can afford to take, supplements, and allow the drug companies to charge exorbitant prices for drugs that have proven to be highly dangerous?
Does tht make sense,? of course not, as it is people havent got enough money to live on today, nevermind allowing the bought/sold FDA to destroy the one thing that “they can afford, low priced supplements.
There may be companies that sell supplements that are below par, so what, supplelments do not endanger people’s lives despite the lies of the drug companies, drugs do, they got it all backwards of course.
Leave the supplement industyry alone, get rid of the drug industry instead, usse all of the safe alternative systems other than supplements alone that have proven their worth and again “get rid of the drugs, w dont need them and their dangerous side effects. Ask any honest doctor and he will say the same thing.
Dont allow ### to destroy an industry that helps people, as said, get rid of the drug industry, again, we dont need the drug industry, we need supplements without side effects and they do exist of course.
Dr.Maurice Rothman, PHd
PS. the first amednment protects my right of self expression, perhaps the FDA wants to get rid of that too; most likely yes since next to the Almighty, the FDA feels it belongs, or perhaps teh Almighty is also a bad “thing” like supplements, egos are insationable as we all know, and what administration is mor egotistical than the FDA, I know of none do you?
Why not start a nationwide call for the dissolution of the FDA. They no longer serve a purpose and are traitors to there nation.
Uphold DSHEA & Down with the FDA.
Someone needs to do a total house-cleaning in several agencies, notably the FDA and EPA.
the probable solution to the problem on the DSHEA is to simply De-Fund the FDA, they needed to be entirely replaced, they are not the congresses boss they are the employees of the Congress.
De-Fund they FDA ! NOW !
Dear Senator Klobuchar,
Please join Senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin in opposing the FDA’s misreading and misapplying of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) in regard to dietary supplements. Dietary supplements are keeping me healthy, active, and out of the hospital. They should not be penalized for doing a good job.
by not honoring the dshea, the FDA is lookiong to grab more political power at the expense of americans who take supplements. if the FDA gets their way, the drug companies will be selling supplements by prescription only and the cost of thes supplements will skyrocket. in my opinion, the FDA is a corrupt agency has has to be stopped from doing what they want.
I believe the FDA is acting under the control of the drug company influence to lower the nutritional value and raise the price out of reach of the citizen. The purpose is that people who believe in supplementation are not as sick as the person who doesn’t believe. Therefore this is the drug companies agenda to make sure we are all sick so they can make another billion dollars off our sickness.Just another strange way of creating GENOCIDE.
When I was 11 years old 60 years ago, one of my doctors told me that I’d “be lucky to see 55.” Both my grandfathers, also doctors, told me later to stay away from doctors — “all they’re looking for is money.” Both had no use for Big Pharma even though one of them was a pharmacologist. Insofar as possible I have done this via natural medications and foods. And, so far, they have worked very well! The males on both sides of my ancestry have never been long-lived. The oldest any reached was 64 except for one, the pharmacologist grandfather who reached my age despite chain-smoking unfiltered Luckies and Camels. When he passed due to iatrogenic pneumonia after a kidney biopsy, I asked my grandmother if bad lungs contributed to his demise. She said that she had seen his x-rays and that his lungs were clear. I think it’s most important that the FDA commence using discrete, empirical science when coming to its conclusions. Statistics are NOT science! Professional opinions are NOT science! Those things may lead to viable hypotheses which then require full study and independent duplications for viable verifications.
I have committed no sin. However, the FDA wishes to condemn me to death. I am 86 years of age, in very good health due to years of taking vitamin/mineral/herbal supplements. If FDA, in an unholy alliance with the pharmaceutical industry, chooses to condemn all supplements to be watered down and made synthetically, then I am doomed.
Only my elected representative can force this rogue agency to listen to good sense and take only those steps necessary to assuring that a newly created product is safe for public use. I urge them to help me live a few years longer so I can continue in good health and lucidly enjoy my great-grandchildren.
Please stop this over-regulating. We all have an inalienable right to choose the best supplements
to take. If you want regulate bad fillers and molds, cleanliness, but not the supplements themselves.
Big Pharma has all to gain by your actions in supporting this regulation. Not the economy or its People.
Get a petition going. Give us something to sign!
Of course the FDA is against anything that would cut into the Blood Satined 30 Pieces of Sillver. Just why has the FDA (Murder for Profit Inc.) beed stopped? It is a fact that they have approved poison drugs that kill thousands and allow thousands of toxins to be place in foods, yet your corrupt elected Official goes along with it. For their hands have the blood of people on then and all for profits. It is there just looked up. In the mean time I hope that you enjoy your next slice of Bread filled with poison foam Plastics.
What is it about our government, specifically the FDA, the USDA, and our beloved Congress that fight so hard against things that keep us well, whether it be organic foods, nutritional supplements, or even labeling what goes into our foods? Clearly we have representatives bent on creating a world of consequence due to arrogance, ignorance, and deep pockets. A huge overhalul is needed and the leaders to do so
Keep our supplements free.
i guess that the fda is now the obamafda
It’s time to disestablish the FDA.
Time to disband the FDA. It is obvious from years of approving unsafe drugs and medical devices that the FDA isn’t concerned with protecting anything other than the manufacturers. Those who approve dangerous drugs and devices should be criminally prosecuted, as should those who submit the often edited studies that are used to “prove” their safety.
It only shows that these Agencies like the FDA, EPA and others have no controls as your own elected Official has given up all controls. We have what I refer to is controlling Shadow Communist commitees that now rule you and I, for we no longer have any rights under the Consitution of Bill of rights. So Comrades shut up and do as your are told or the Gestapo Swat Teams will pay you a visit and imtimanate you in to obedience with they guns drawn and you and your family lined against the wall.
Please do all you can to stop the madness. Be light warriors.
I think the FDA should be made to comply with the intent of the law. Vitamins and herbs are very helpful in keeping us healthy and we should be able to have access to all of them at a reasonable cost. My wife and I are 89 yeaars old and would not be enjoying pretty good health if we had not had access to alternative medicine.
It appears that the FDA wants to make the law. PLEASE STOP THEM!!!!!!!
Teh FDA is truly a rogue agency controlled by big Pharm.
this bully federal government has got to be stopt
How dare the FDA tell congress to bug off and arrogantly say we aren’t. changing nothing! I,m more angry at congress then I am the FDA. Is that all congress can do is give speeches? Some heads need to be rolling out the doors of the FDA over this.
More proof how corrupt the FDA really is.
The FDA seems to be a Rogue Agency…period. It conducts paramilitary raids on alternative treatment centers, on Health Food Stores, licensed Cannabis Dispensaries, and in general on anyone doing anything it doesn’t like. Often these raids are without due process and end without charges filed, even when people are detained, but nearly always with terror, destruction, and with goods being seized to never be seen again. It’s time to not only rein in this agency, but consider disbanding it and replacing it with something that represents sanity. At the end of the day, the modern consumer is a good deal more savvy than the folks it was invented to protect. It uses OUR money and taxes to suppress our choices. There should be nothing that inefficient or contradictory to the people’s wishes allowed to continue to function in our Government. Enough.
So why ask our legislators to make a one minute floor speach etc. etc, and instead why not use a little psychology and write letters to Hatch and Harkin pointing out that they wrote the DSHEA with the NDI process included and now the FDA is kicking sand in their face. Ask them who is in charge?
The congress or a lessor federal agency? Why don’t they show their statemanship and just introduce legislation to abolish the FDA? Even if it didn’t pass you can bet they would get the FDAs attentiion. The senators would be surprised how much support they would receive to either eliminate the FDA or greatly reduce it’s budget and power. Seems to me as if it would make more sense to just let the free enterprise system deal with the problem. Since when is it the government’s right to tell me what I can put in my body? Actually, there are several ways to deal with the problem of a company bringing a product to market that is dangerous or ??? for the consumer, the solution to which does not require a gov. agency to be involved. When will the People wake up to the fact that government is the problem not the solution!!
Again we beg for the freedom to choose our health, in this case dietary supplements. Please help us keep that choice.
Please, do not allow the FDA to get away with it’s total disregard for the wishes of the people of this country. Do not allow the FDA to refuse to listen to congress. Please make a one minute speech on this issue of the FDA refusing to answer to the people or the government.
Just verifies what most of us already knew – the FDA is out of control and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Follow the money….
I don’t trust the FDA as it serves the interest of big Pharmaceutical Companies;
by trying to make healtful alternatives unavailable to common citizens;;
to force citizens to use prescription drugs that the FDA does not adecuately monitor.
The FDA has been trying to turn the vitamin industry over to big pharmaceuticals for decades. Just more greed being shown by the big wheels that are supposed to be looking out for the people. Maybe Occupy ought to occupy the FDA for a few months.
Dear Congeressman;
The FDA must be subject to congrssional over sight. It must not be allowed to make interpretations of DSHEA that are contrary to congressional intent.
I submit that the FDA should be 100 % tax payer funded so that it represents us and not the industry that it regulates.
I submit that the FDA could be a leader in getting main stream medicine to embrace all science based therapies, medicines, diagnostics, etc.
I submit that all natural substances that have been found to be generally safe over the past 40 years be automatically approved for medical use. Clinical trials should not be required of such subsrtances since clinical trials at best can only determine short term safety.
If it is necessary to completly deconstruct and then reconstruct the FDA to make it obediant to congressional intent and to serve the tax paying public, so be it.
It is difficult to be civil about a criminal and renegade agency like the FDA. They are guilty of systematically falsifying and fabricating results to suit their own un-Consitutional and illegal grab for absolute power over everything we Americans eat and consume. This agency is particularly vicious in its prosecution of anyone or anything that offers effective alternatives to Big Pharma’s tyrannical monopoly over our own bodies. They are less concerned about alternative approaches that are no effective. It is the threat of any competition to their pharmaceutical masters that they fear. The FDA is bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical agencies. It routinely lies about the supposed efficacy and adverse effects of the drugs its masters promote.
This evil agency must be abolished for the monstrosity it has become! It has specifically stated that “there is no generalized right to bodily and physical health,” not do we have the right to eat those food or consume those supplements we wish. These people are nothing but traitors and Nazis!
Maybe the FDA thinks they’re in charge? With so many members of congress and representatives DOING WHATEVER THEY PLEASE instead of taking the requests of THEIR constituents… It’s easy to see that the FDA could get this TERRIBLY MISTAKEN IDEA! Who’s in charge here? FDA? Congress? The people?
Why can’t we have our vitamins the way they are now?? It make no sense to interfere the way the FDA is . Unless, of course, there is some hidden agenda on their part. For heavens sake, leave our vitamins and supplements alone, and chase down some of these toxic meds that you permit on the market. All we want is control over our own health.
why no print button?
Well after all, the government can’t have healthy people running around. Healthy people fight back against government corruption . . . and we can’t have that, now can we????
I apoligize for my spelling and grammer.
I meant to say I wonder if these two Senators ( Orin and Harken) are going to let the FDA get away with what they just did and let them do what they want like Facist. and let them alone or will they have the balls to to lay down the law and start prosecuting the law breakers
We don’t need this, we really don’t.. What’s a ‘free market’ that’s crippling regulated called? Profit for them, higher prices for us. The process has worked up till now with those who CHOOSE supplements can afford them and those with little faith can go to big pharma.. But someone wants it all.. More profit by squeezing out the competition. And even if it’s rejected now, there’s always tomorrow while everybody is sleeping or those obscure fliers placed onto helpful programs for what (balance?). We need to keep our eyes on these gangsters and make sure thy don’t go through the back door once we demand they cease and the law backs us up.. What a sorry situation we’ve gotten ourselves in by electing thugs and gangsters to oversee our lives.
For all the harm they cause and money they waste, the FDA should be abolished. They are nothing but a bunch of stooges for Corporations that see the general public as a bunch of suckers to be ripped off and poisoned.
An agency like the FDA should only be run by people that are benevolent.
That has not been the case.
The FDA unfortunately is no longer a proponent of the people and their well being. It has been populated with pro pharmaceutical lackeys who mindlessly follow the orders of their masters. We must be continually vigilant as they’ll do anything they can to help the bottom line of big pharma and their stockholders returns. What a morally repugnant group they are.
Fire thye whole group for disobeying supervisors , ie Congree, President of USA and Citizens. iT MIGHT TEch all of government that they are employes not dictators.ie. Writers of our nationslaws!!!
To undercut business and refuse them their right to sell, is unconstitutional.
To cut jobs and businesses at a time when our economy is already dangerously low, is treason.
It is time for us to replace this rogue Congress and FDA with better people who give a care.
Will YOU run for public office, dear reader? Thank you.
FDA says no because their major cash contributor (Big Pharma) says no. Pharma wants supplements out of their equation due to market share. They have been brainwashing the American public (and the world) that ‘only a drug can treat, prevent, or cure a disease.’ All they want is the money to pay their shareholders, and for themselves. And the more money and power they can give to the FDA, (to pass and enforce their laws), the less competition they can have. This is my opinion, and I’m sure many others will agree.
We the people do not want NDI or any other restrictive laws against supplements. My doctor prescribes many nutritional supplements for me as they are necessary for my health. Do not cave in to these lobbyists and misguided shills for the drug business.
What irks me is that these doctors refuse to study herbs and food as medicine. Now they think they can make such determinations for the public?
Vote like you’re life depends on it.
I rely heavily on natural supplements to keep healthy and prevent costly medical problems. Without the ability to use these supplements my medical costs would soar. We don’t need any new rules by the FDA to regulate what is already regulated. Please do all you can to alleviate FDA’s greivous actions to control us. We are not a bunch of bad children who need their adult supervision!! Please stop the NDI draft guidance they are proposing that threatens our access to valuable supplements. Thank you for your kind consideration of this request.
Yes, well, preventative control for the FDA means, controlling what the supplement companies make so that it does not interfere with drug sales. In other words, don’t let people keep themselves well so we and our partnership with Big Phama, can make millions of bucks off of people’s ill health. I hope this comment is not censored.
with neither dietary supplements many Americans health will suffer. I won’t go into the reasons why on a broad base, but will you PLEASE ask the FDA to pay attention to the bill drafted by Orrin Hatch and withdraw its NDI condemnation of supplements. I’m not going to buy prescriptions to replace my supplements – I’ll die first.
PLEASE make a one-minute floor speech opposing the FDA’s guidance document!
Unfortunately, I think that Senators making a floor speech, one minute or otherwise, is of no concern to the FDA. As I understand it, that agency is now pretty much under corporate control, especially by Monsanto transplants. Nothing short of a bit of spine from whoever is supposed to be overseeing the agency (Obama? A Congressional Committee?) , or a lawsuit against them for failing to do their job, is likely to have any effect. Note that the “spine” element could consist of firing the renegade(s).
I am sorry to have such a downbeat view, but I think you can well understand it. The “land of the free” has become the land of the Corporate, and Big Pharma has replaced the friendly family doctor.
One of my 2xgr grandfathers was a Methodist circuit rider in Dakota Territory, founded 3 churches and served as Chaplain in the 3rd Territorial Legislature at Yankton. He carried herbal remedies in his saddlebags to help those he ministered to. I have used my Readers Digest “Magic and Medicine of Plants” since It was published in 1986. That makes 5 generations of one family and I know there are thousands more that have maintained good health the same way. The current mindset to cut, burn and/or poison in mainstream medicine does not have such a success rate so let’s not bow to the greed of the pharmaceutical corporations, especially in light of the fact that prescription med deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities.
The FDA needs be reminded that they are not a law making body, as that is the job of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It’s rather obvious, in a common sense way, that the FDA has chosen to pervert the law with their Guidance Document for food suppliments!!
This is ridiculous . Natural heal and big pharma trying to stop real healing. WHY Mhy must this be so??
Some foods and nutritional substances have natural medicinal value since the FDA is so biased against against the nutritional industry another agency should have oversite over nutrition.There are millions of people like myself that do not want to take harmful pharmaceuticals.The FDA is a rogue agency that is just trying to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
Is the following: science! FDA approves of mercury in dental fillings, Mercury and aluminum in vaccines. Floride toxic waste in the water supply, mercury is a toxic waste, how economical to the business’s to get rid of it at the health of the people. No wonder our heath care costs are sky rocoting. another so clalled scitence, agent orange Round Up ready seeds, which gets absorbed by the plants and we eate it,,(that is science? It destroys the nutrition of the plant, a self defeating venture to say the least. Eliminate the use of natural vitamans and minerals made by God to sustain life. Of course the FDA us in the pocket of the drug , agriculture , medical , dental etc. Currupt trach science, is not science. Check it out. L. Watson
My freedom of health is being threatened in the world’s supposedly most free land. I should have the right to buy supplements without a prescription, therefore further lining the pockets of big pharma. It is very sad that in the brightest democracy in history, the FDA is representing the will of the few and privileged under the disguise of representing the protection of the people. Therefore this is just another brick added to FDA contribution to make our lives more expensive. This is what happens when a bunch of bureaucrats are abusing the powers we the people entrust them with. This is how so called in service of we the people becomes an enemy of us the people.
It should be enough to remind the FDA that they are required to follow the letter of the law. If they want to reinterpret their mandate, it should be a matter for considerable public comment and review.
You may recall that the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) required that guidelines be established for supplement manufacturers to notify FDA when a new dietary ingredient was introduced into the marketplace. The FDA’s Draft Guidance for New Dietary Ingredients was supposed to fulfill that requirement.
Unfortunately, the FDA’s proposed regulations are in fact completely contrary to the intent of Congress when DSHEA was passed, and Sens. Harkin and Hatch wanted to make that clear to FDA. They should know—they were the two principal authors of the legislation!
Leave our supplements alone. I take numerous supplements on a daily basis. They help keep me healthy. I would consider it a criminal act to make it impossible or even (simply) more difficult to obtain supplements that I have relied on for years and YES I eat a very healthy diet and exercise regularly.
Please, we love our supplements and believe the FDA is out of control, We need to pull the rug our from under FDA!!!!!!
NDI Draft Guidance is a Big, Fat Gift to Big Pharmaceutical companies! This action will clearly drive the price of suplements up that many of us use. These companies are legalized crooks of modern day and part of the collapsing econony.
Do not take away our rights. You won’t get away with it. We have the right to choose what we want and we want to have supplements.
Why aren’t all the vitamin & supplement companies contacting their customers to take action! I buy vitamins etc from at least 5 different online companies that have thousands and thousands of customers and NOT ONE has sent me an e-mail to take action.
What about all the fitness & bodybuilding magazines with thousands of subscribers – why are they NOT taking action, supplements are their biggest advertisers.
The NDI will destroy these companies & magazines, why are they NOT fighting for their LIVES!!
I will fight for them & with them but we can only do so much!
They need to get involved IMMEDIATELY!!
Did you know that most vitamin are derivatives of a general stock of raw material that is produced in labs, many outside the USA? And what’s even more confounding or astonishing is that most of the companies that make the raw materials are contriolled by the drug compnaies. So it is not the threat of lost profits but of bigger profits that they’re looking at. That happens if you get so ill that you resort to drugs, that’s where the BIG profit is.
Since many (90% +) of the supplements out there are synthetic they do little to improve your health and may even harm it. Added that much of the supplements are of poor quality those too do little for health.
Did you know that since a vitamin is synthetic then it acts on your nervous system just like a drug, which it actually is, (hey it’s not food! Research hard to find supplements that are totally derived from plants and animals and are of the highest quality, then you’ll be doing yourself good. Otherwise you are doing yourself little or no good.
And those of you that eat well and take supplements and are healthy, the likely reason you are is because you eat well.
Good, I wish other federal agencies would stand up to the big business thugs in congress. Congress under funds the FDA so they can’t do their job so I’m glad to see them going “rogue”!
To Whom it May Concern:
The FDA is subordinate to the will of the congress. So there is really nothing to debate here. It should simply be given an order and forced to comply with same.
But the fact is, and we all know it, the FDA, as far too many of our congressmen, have prostituted the powers of their positions to the uncaring,greedy executive higherarchy of the corporate world.
The FDA has deteriorated into a snake pit that needs to be totllly cleaned out, and repopulated with people who will feel a responsibility to those from whom they receive their legitimate pay.
There is more than enough evidence to back up what I have, both, said and inferred here.
The FDA is turning out to be a bad joke on the American people. It is a farce. It’s also in the pocket of the wealthy businesses and cannot be trusted. They are just showing their true nature again with this new supplements incident.
google CODEX ALIMENTARIOUS in effect in Europe for a few years. Clinton, in 1996 signed us into the World Bank and Codex A was part of the attachments — it’s insidious.
Keep your laws off of my body and what I choose to put into it or do with it. It’s mine, and I’ll do as I think best for me. And quit trying to regulate nature and the wonderful pharmacopoeia of healing herbs that have been provided for us by her. Peace, Virgil Fritz. [email protected]
Because of supplements that I can purchase from Iherb and eVitamins I am able to take anti-yeast products that have improved my life in amazing ways. We need to be able to purchase supplements that will help us like those sold at Wal-Mart and other drug stores. This is our right to stay as healthy as possible.
by shopping at Walmart you are feeding the monster — destroying the solution of our problems –
Walmart initiated the NO UNIONS POLICY in their stores – sent employees to game the system @ local community health centers to fatten their bottom lines…. Walmart has been taken to court for stealing their employees (poor) over time by cheating them out of overtime pay. Walmart exploits people who manufacture for them by shaving costs to the suppliers only making a mere subsistance, while W gleans the lions share of profit on any item. Walmart exploits their customers by supplying shoddy merchandise guaranteed to last an average of 6 months on most items — so robbing it’s customers (lower income & ignorant of their exploitation world wide) of their hard earned money.
There are other places to purchase vitimens and diatary supplies — stop feeding the beast who’s IN BED WITH THE OTHER MONSTERS DESTROYING DEMOCRACY & QUALITY OF LIFE IN OUR COUNTRY.
WAKE UP PLEASE. You are intelligent enough to be reading this ANH newsletter – so you should be cognizant of the big picture — walmart’s in bed with banks and big pharma. Stop shooting yourself in the foot.
Would backing H.R.3380 be an alternative? Called the “Dietary Supplement Protection Act” (H.R.3380), the DSPA moves the defining date of October 15, 1994, to a more realistic and recent date of January 1, 2007.
your statement is confusing and seemes out of date. What is H.R. 3380? WHAT IS DSPA? What is the significance of defining date of 10/15/94 to l/l/07 …….it doesn’t make sense> please elucidate your thoughts so we can all understand your points> Thanks.
Congress is the supreme last word and I suggest they ignore the FDA and act as DSHEA was intended, and the people want.
Jean Baugh
Repeal the law and rewrite it clearly. We have too many bad laws with loop holes that cause more troubles than they help. Why should an alternative medicine specialist MD be held at gunpoint by either the FDA agent or the USDA agent while the “gang” gathers up all his supplements, and practically puts him out of business when he was doing good? This did happen.
FOR PROFIT MEDICAL / PHARMACUTICAL INDUSTRIES ARE FOR PROFIT & TO KEEP YOU SICK AND FILLING THEIR PROFIT MARGINS.
LISTEN TO http://www.wbai.org Gary Null, PhD. He teaches how to restore health after ‘western diseases’ and how to maintain a healthy body & life. I have learned a vast amount of real information from this man. Also the site, has been warning us about the coming and implimentation, madates of forcing us into illnesses via the rules of CODEX ALIMENTARIOUS — google that and learn that indidious genocide plot.
There are foods that are eaten by young children and will make them sterile – FOOD THE NEW WEAPON OF MASS DISTRUCTION. Brought to you by Cargill, ADM, AND the trailblazer & master Death Perveyor, MON=SATAN-O. FDA JUST GREEN LIGHTED GMO CORN FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION LACED WITH DNA OF PLAGUE, SMALL POX, LYSTERIA AND 2 OTHER LETHAL DISEASES. W H Y??????
FDA IS TO FOOD AND DRUG SAFETY AS THE SEC (Security & Exchange Commission) WAS TO THE 2008 GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRASH. FORETHOUGHT OF DESTRUCTION. It’s a web of deceit behind a smoke screen of ‘in your best interests.’ so: beaware, and be ware!
Do not force this issue. We don’t want big pharma.
Big Pharma has enough products to make billions of dollars in profit. Keep our vitamin and supplement access inexpensive, and stop pandering to the wealthy.
My supplements are essential to my health, I do not take prescription medications. I eat a healthy and GMO free diet, esercise, have a healthy spiritual life and do not want to have a government agency telling me how to live. Especially since these agencies are driven by greed and no concept of health.
It is so obvious this is about Big Pharma’s pocketbook! What the FDA fails to realize is We, The People are the government. We, pay their salaries and foot their bills. They are public servants, not demigogs. It is not acceptable to us, that we be dictated to, by The Pusherman (Big Pharma) and/or the Dealers (A.M.A.) through you (FDA), in you (FDA), or with you (FDA).
You are trying to infringe on our Freedom of Religious Rights. God gave us the herbs, plants, and animals to do what we want with! Get real; look at the crap pharma peddles with all the debilitating and deadly side effects. I’ve never heard of anyone OD on weed. Undo the corporate coup!
You work for us, now get back to the work we pay you to do or leave!
When I was a child there were only four other countries IN THE WORLD where people lived longer than they did in the USA. Today there are more than FORTY where people live longer than here. Back then the CDC was concerned with health and most doctors wanted to cure disease and heal patients. The FDA was somewhat concerned with keeping Americans healthy but even then they were mainly interested in supporting those industries that were making profit. A profitable drug in Europe in the late 50’s was scheduled to hit American shores and I seem to recall it was a friend of President Kennedy at the FDA who fought all the pressure to approve the drug for “morning sickness”. Thalidomide around the world caused some 12 to 17,000 deformities and caused many deaths of children but properly prescribed and administered drugs today kill far more, some 100,000 a year. The drug has since been discovered to have value for other things but it was kept out of the USA although some women got it overseas. Sadly today the FDA today is almost totally about securing profit for the companies who virtually control it.
Each year things seem to get worse. In our Bi-centennial year so many died from drugs given for flu Congress passed a law that drug companies could not be sued. More recently dozens of young girls have died and more have been paralyzed or worse from Gardasil which is barely effective at what it is supposed to do, but it is quite profitable (so much so they want to give it to boys who can’t even get the disease). In Japan where only half the vaccines are given to young children that our children receive the death rate is also only half. I got only three shots between before starting elementary school and joining the USAF twelve years later. Today children get 36 to 39 vaccines before they start school and all these drugs (vaccines) are – to put it simply – shortening their life and killing them, although it often takes decades.
Almost as bad as the drugs the FDA tells us are necessary and safe are the foods they allow to be sold to unknowing Americans. Before GMO food (genetically manipulated or modified) Autism was quite rare, maybe one in 10,000, today with GMO food flooding our supermarkets, 93% of soy, 86% of corn, over 80% of cottonseed oil, sugar beets, etc. Autism today is around one in 110. Some will say this is only a coincidence. Maybe, but isn’t it interesting that the Amish who use no GMO seeds or even chemical fertilizer have about the…
same one out of 10,000 that all had 30 years ago before massive vaccination and GMO foods that Americans don’t even know they are eating, became so prevalent.
I don’t know the answer to all this. Perhaps after the tripling of prices and/or the collapse of the dollar and the inevitable shortages there will be some kind of renewed morality and we will return to the beliefs, care, and concern of our Founding Fathers. Sadly, today’s FDA seems totally in the pockets of Monsanto and a few others. If you only know what everyone knows you do not know enough to survive the next two decades, WWIII or any of the other possibilities or even probabilities that are likely to beset us all. There is time to learn and to prepare but not enough to waste. May God bless all who read this.
I have maintained my family’s health through the use of supplements and many other health food products. Because we have no health insurance it has been my efforts in preventative alternative solutions that have kept me and my family free of any perscription drugs. We eat fresh foods and exercise a well. Thank you for standing up to those who would attack this industry. The FDA should regulate the Pharmeceutical companies much more rigorously. The friends I know who take some of the drugs they are prescribed are not being healed; only their symptoms are controlled.
The whole problem is, the pharmaceutical companies regulate the FDA. The pharmaceutical companies don’t want any competition, and natural supplements compete with and (in their minds) take away profits from their drugs, so they influence the FDA into trying to outlaw supplements in devious ways, to protect their profits. Never mind they already make $billions every year, greed is a mon$ter that is never satisfied.
A totally out of control agency which congress should stop them from making law. Not their job
They are under the control of the drug companies who fund them.
Disgusting 4 sure. Not right at all.
If this legislation passes, I truly foresee riots.
We need to stop the abuse and denying of choice in buying supplements! This is America not the Soviet Union!
you are very wrong dear comparing soviet union with america. Before saying so you should check what do you know. Post soviet era? people crying out for those days because it was controlled by the government who knew healthy nation is county’s asset. Government didnt allow any chemical in the food, The laboratory for food analysis present on each city market where stuff can walk around pick up any food go and analyse, if anything find confiscated and destroyed. Since socialism by help of the western destroyed all the chemicals flow into the country-freedom to manufacturers but not freedom for public, democracy? this applies to everything-you have much freedom now? perhaps 1% otu of 100%. But in poor countries people have much more freedom to do what they want and particularly anything related to health. In russia still half of the pharmaceutacal shops piled with herbs and tinctures and docotors not yeat corrupted to stick to the drugs only but they have freedom to treat people well and say what they think is good-herbal well known even by child medicine always goes first. FDA cannot get into the russia yet because Putin stands on their way that is why media bought by corporations try all their best to rubbish him. Buy ticket to russia and see what is going on there-you will love it. Before that fight for freedom where you are. The problem is you just think FDA controls americans, but not only as soon as their criminal paper approved by signature of couple of animals they spread their legislations all over the Europ. THAT HAPPEN WITH HERBAL MEDICINE LAST APRIL.
First let me state that as a physician, I feel that the pharmaceutical industry is a vital pillar in the health care system of this country. And there has been a huge amount of rhetoric by the president and our political institutions about increasing health care access to more people. Letting The FDA limit access to supplements, which over 100 million people in this country use to keep heathy by the devious and hard to comprehend actions underway now is going to harm the health of tens of millions of people. When Americans realize what has hit them, and have to suffer the illness that follows, millions of people are going to be very unhappy about the system which talked health and produced illness. There is plenty of need for pharmaceuticals without crowding out supplements as this action appears to be doing. We need access to the best of both worlds to have the best health in the world. There is no place for this FDA directive against supplements in a “Free Country”. Nor is there room for the former VP of Montsanto, who brought us unlabeled GMO foods, to be the president’s advisor on FDA matters.
Allan Dattner, MD has it right, IMHO. There is more than enough room for both drugs and supplements in the healthcare marketplace. There will always be those who prefer to practice educated self-care and prevention and those who will only rely on our broken medical paradigm. However, vilifying supplements by the FDA shows a certain amount of fear on the part of those running the place, (from big pharma/industrial farming interests) that their business is threatened by dietary supplements and untampered-with, whole foods. With no cooperation, then everyone loses in the end. Everyone.
I want the FDA out of the federal government all together. They are being funded by companies and Corp’s , not the American tax payers.
Doesn’t the FDA have to listen to congress and the senate? I didn’t vote for the FDA. I did vote for legislators who support the use of supplements. Right now, in Columbia Presb. in NYC, there is cutting edge alternative medical practice being used avoiding the use of CHEMICALS AND PHARMA altogether…with strong herbs that have been used for 4000 years. Who is the FDA to deny CHOICE TO THE AMERICAN people. We don’t vote for them. But lobbyists and corporations, i.e. the medical industrial complex is running scared because their love of money wants them to keep the monopoly going. The more the FDA resists, the more Big Pharma and their lackeys resist what is trending throughout the world, the more they will be the dinosaurs with their feet on banana peels. Hello! There are doctors and hospitals who are forward thinking toward success. They are going to beat out Big pharma and the medical industrial complex and put them out of business. Why don’t these folks just get in on the action and join the alternative therapies movement. Better late than never. They have grown fat and lazy and to stuck in their traditions to budge. Well, too long they’ve had a monopoly; too long they have kept a tight reign on Med schools, not wanting to flood the market with doctors so they could keep prices high and the health industry crippled. IS ANYONE THINKING???? The medical profession and its attendants who (well maybe not big pharma) have sworn to do no harm are the liars of the century. That is all they do with their lack of innovation in bringing forth proper medical care that combines many different treatment protocols: holistic, homeopathy, etc. Too much testing and not enough time to interact with the patient. Egregious, egregious, egregious. And now, they want the American public to bow to their lies once more overthrowing herbal remedies that have been in existence since the dawn of man. Despicable. Corrupt. Wicked. The FDA is especially so when it greenlights a drug whose side effects are: stroke, heart attack, death. (as read on the TV when the litany of side effects were being read off. This drug is passed by the FDA and some supplements that have NEVER KILLED ANYONE aren’t? Any senator/congressperson who doesn’t take a stand against the FDA’s action will be voted out. The health community of alternative medicine and supplements and holistic medicine and naturopaths will get the word out online. And we will make sure to take a stand!
The FDA is a 3000 pound canary that needs to be taken out back and terminated, Killed dead and replaced. (The agency, not the people mind you.) That’s the only way it’s going to be fixed. Congress needs to toss the entire agency and everyone in it out and start over. And laws need to be passed that no company shills, no company lobbyists, no company officers current or previously, of any company or corporation regulated by that agency will be allowed to chair any seat in that agency. And no one in that agency shall accept any money or gifts whatsoever from any company or corporation they regulate, from or any person now or formerly employed by said entity, and that anyone found accepting bribes or found occupying or formerly occupying any position of influence in any company regulated by the agency or influenced by said company or corporation shall be IMMEDIATELY terminated.
That is the only way it is going to be fixed. Sadly, I fear that so many of our congressmen are so under the influence of these same corporations that now control the FDA that they won’t allow it to happen.
You took the words out of my mouth. I am in agreement 100%.
The FDA is out of control and clearly there is collusion going on with big business against the natural foods industry. This needs to be stopped now. It is un-American . The FDA should be exposed and the heads of this unethical group held accountable. NOW.
I really thought that when President Obama was elected, that the US would finally have an ethical government and put the FDA in its place. I am very disappointed with President Obama. He also has a family and should only want the very best if something should happen to the health of his wife or children. The FDA is on the side of Big Pharma and BIG BUSINESS who only care about making BIG money at the expense of US citizens. When is government going to wake up and realize that we have the health problems today because of all the drugs, pesticides, herbicides etc. that is being allowed in this country.
I always take healthy supplements and don’t want to be denied of these. Drugs only mask diseases, causing side effects to create more disease. BIG PHARMA will never find a CURE for any disease. They only want to sell these life threatening drugs to make all the billions that they make.
I no longer give to causes like the Cancer Society, Multiple Sclerosis, etc. because I have learned that the money goes to BIG PHARMA. Before contributing to a cause, please investigate and make certain that the money is going to ethical researchers who have no involvement with this demon – BIG PHARMA! The ONLYway that a future president should be elected is if he promises to stop BIG PHARMA and any BIG BUSINESS from exploiting the American people’s health.
I folllow this site because I value my supplements, and it’s my business what I take. I think that some people who follow this site believe that Government can be an agent of good. So here is the the absolute truth about any Government. The larger the Govrnment, the more coercive it is, and the the larger the Government; the smaller the individual.
My proof is this: Rather than trying to reduce the size of Government, we are trying to use our power to coerce our opposition to submit.
I agree it is time for the FDA to go away. The people must make choices. This next election, vote out those that are against the people.
Bill Kornell CRT,spoa
When are PEOPLE going to rise up and let their Congressmen and President know that the FDA is not above the law!! When is the FDA going to listen to the voice of the AMERICAN PEOPLE? Some one should shut the FDA down since they are not listening to the PEOPLE or Congress!!
Excellent information on the laws already on the books to control supplements. They certainly don’t need more. The FDA’s present attempt to control supplements through their NDI proposal is an attempt to turn supplements,, etc. into drugs and market them like they do prescription medications now.
http://cms.herbalgram.org/herbalgram/issue93/FEAT_myth.html
Issue: 93 Page: 42-57
The Regulated Dietary Supplement Industry: Myths of an Unregulated Industry Dispelled
by R. William Soller, Holly J. Bayne, Christopher Shaheen
HerbalGram. 2012; American Botanical Council
Summary
In 1994, the 103rd US Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). This legislation, along with previous laws and the 2006 Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act, has provided the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with statutory authority to regulate dietary supplements and those who manufacture, distribute, and sell them. It also enabled FDA to take enforcement action against unsafe or mislabeled products and those who sell them—fulfilling the agency’s mandate to protect and promote public health and safety. A comprehensive framework of regulations also has evolved through the public notice and comment rulemaking process. These regulations address essential aspects of the safety, labeling, health-related claims, and quality of dietary supplements. Consistent with its legal mandate, FDA has taken a primary role—using interagency collaborations as needed, particularly with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—to pursue enforcement actions against non-compliant products and companies. And yet, critics still charge that the dietary supplement industry remains “unregulated” and many members of the media use this word to characterize it. This is a myth. Today, dietary supplements represent a major industry in the national marketplace, the products of which are used widely and safely by millions of Americans under a comprehensive set of statutes of regulations.
Introduction
President Bill Clinton signed DSHEA into law on October 25, 1994.1 DSHEA amended the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) in several important ways, thus creating the legal framework for FDA to develop a comprehensive, predictable, and transparent regulatory system for dietary supplements. Importantly, DSHEA confirms that dietary supplements are legally classified as “food,” defines a “dietary…
the only problem here is that both the “president” and FDA believe they are above the law. thomas jefferson noted when this situation occurs it is called tyranny. the FDA consistanly oversteps its mandate. when you have the WH doing the same things why would the FDA obey the law?
i take supplements to keep my bones denisty good calicum and vit d. fish oil for my cholestrol which works and glucosamine for my arthritis .i would be lost without these. prevents me from having problems and helps my wellness 10 fold. need these very much
If you want to reel-in government power grabs – VOTE FOR PRESIDENT RON PAUL 2012!!! Then see how quickly FREEDOM is RESTORED. President Ron Paul will kick that CRIMINAL FDA to the curb once and for all.
You can thank McCain and the other sycophants of the prescription drug companies that oppose natural ingredients that are relatively inexpensive as opposed to prescription drugs that are artificial and dangerous. I noticed an editorial in the NEJM supporting the FDA’s attempt to even make drugs like aspirin a prescription drug. McCain’s wife is the owner of a large generic drug company. The hidden investment vehicle of the senaters and representatives includes huge numbers of drug companies and other healthcare companies. I notice that the FDA article really did not document harm but talks about potential harm because a natural produce contains substances similar to prescription drugs. This is the whole point of natural drugs. They are blends of a variety of natural substances that are safer and less costly, many that have been used for centuries. It is amazing how a few self serving senators and representatives are attempting to make themselves wealthy at the loss of freedom and choice of Americans. W need to vote out the butt heads who voted for this stupidity and flood the NEJM with comment for supporting such a monstrosity. The editor who wrote the editorial needs to be investigated for ties to drug companies such as McCain’s family.
I Contacted my Congressional Rep Charlie Bass here in NH and Told him to Stand up for the People he Represents against this Injustice, Everyone else should do the Same When our voices are herd in Large Numbers They get the Message.
The poison is in our food on one side and in medication on the other approved by FDA. The FDA takes our right to see legitimate scientific research in connection with foods and dietary supplements that help us while they support drugs that dumb our children down. They took away our right ot know what foods have GMO’s in them and they don’t want us to know the truth about the healing power of real food. Plus they have a handy revolving door policy so you can barely see the difference between the employees at the FDA and Big Food (Monsanto employees are a prime example).
Here is the perfect illustration, President Obama who said, “he would stop the revolving door policy in government” and then picked the poster boy of “revolving doors” at the FDA, Michael Taylor as Food Czar of America.
Michael Taylor’s revolving door history at the FDA:
1976 staff attorney FDA, assistant to the Commissioner.
1981 law firm representing Monsanto
1991 returned to FDA as Deputy Commissioner for Policy
“Taylor did not simply fill a vacant position at the agency”, says Jeffrey M. Smith in his book Seeds of Deception, “In 1991 the FDA created a new position for him: Deputy Commissioner for Policy. He instantly became the FDA official with the greatest influence on GM food approvial.
1994 USDA, as Administrator of Food Safety & Inspection Service.
1996 returned to Monsanto Vice President for Public Policy
2009, Senior Advisor to FDA Commissioner
2010 appointed to FDA, Deputy Commissioner for Foods
Doc Blake
Lots of words in these comments, many of them truthful and well spoken.
Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to make the FDA or Congress care enough even to read them and pay attention?
I am so sick and tired of the government thinking they know what is best for us. NO THEY DON’T! They could give a hoot about any of us. They only care about lining their own pockets. That is only human nature with most people…unless they have a heart of gold! Most people are selfish and even in this, have selfish reasons.
Many have stood up and wrote their congress about this but they could care less what we think let alone about what we say.
I need supplements. I do not eat well at all. Very little an mostly just once a day which does not give my body what it needs.
Quit ignoring the Constitution all you political figures out there. We are responsible for ourselves. Many in the USA and all over the world are just getting plain sick of you all!
I guess I will just have to use my social security check every month just to stock up on all of my whole food and organic supplements before they are no longer available!!!
I have been homeopathic for the last year and haven’t felt this good in about 15 years. I’ve been treated for as long as I can remember for migraines & 3 herniated disks until we lost our medical coverage when we moved from one state to another. I take about 15 different supplements that were recommended to me when I went into the most recommended vitamin store within 50 miles of where I live.
My back has stopped hurting, my migraines have dropped from once a week to about once every 3 months, my digestive system has regulated & the “allergies” I was told for 18 years by doctors that I had, turned out to be massive sinus infection have cleared. I have been able to breathe through BOTH nostrils at the same time for almost 2 decades!
If the FDA can’t abide by the laws & want to disregard the desires of the people, they can be disbanded.
correction…HAVEN’T been able to breathe…
The bottom line is Hamburg (and all bureaucrats, including the NGO worker bees) are eugenicists at heart (whether they’ll ever admit to it or not) and they are true believers, in that they truly believe the masses are asses and deserve to have EVERY aspect of their lives scrutinized and run by their “betters”. The FDA is not a “rogue” agency. None of the alphabet agencies are “rogue”. They are accomplishing exactly what they were meant to accomplish –supranational government (mind you) at the direction of the many United Nations commissions, committees and under the many U.N. treaties signed behind closed doors which the media barely passes-over with a one line entry at the back of the newspaper (if at all). We are mushrooms kept in the dark.
The alphabet agencies are answerable only to those who are very much higher up the ladder than any of us. That’s why the bureaucrats only barely pretend to listen to your emails, letters and phone calls anymore. They never really answered to us–it’s only in the last couple of decades that it’s really been in our faces and we have found it increasingly difficult to fool ourselves about it.
EVERYTHING that has happened over the last 200 odd years in the USA, and around the world is about 2 things, and 2 things ONLY: LAND & EUGENICS (and ultimately Transhumanism–which explains the reasons for the push in media discussions of transgender, transsexual, etc.) Do you really believe the powers-that-be give ANY importance to those who feel “trapped” in their bodies? No. It’s really all about predictive programming and getting you ready for things yet to come. Do you really believe all of the new techno gadgets (all tax payer funded and having military applications) are really to help quadriplegics and disabled people? The disabled and “unfit” (to live) will be among the first to be eliminated.
Nothing else matters to the New World Order (“coming into view”). They will get what they want regardless of how many people are harmed, maimed, or die. Death and control is THE POINT of all of this chaos. (Kaos and Control,… remember?)
So step OUTSIDE the system and take a look at it from the outside where you’ll be able to begin to see it more clearly. (A little aside: remember the word “congress” also means coitus, sexual relations—from the Latin–coitio or coire. I suppose it isn’t altogether strange that this was the word chosen as the word to also mean our federal legislative body.)
The FDA is in the vest pocket of the big rich, same as other Federal regulatory agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which allows the prices of gold and silver to be “naked shorted” (lowered by paper sales of nonexistent metal) so as to make the synthetic US dollar seem like it has some “value.” The SEC has allowed these interests to pillage equity investors also with all manner of fraud besides naked short selling, driving many companies into bankruptcy and denying investors of their true net worth. The pharmaceutical industry traces in part to the old British opium “trade” in China. Nothing is any filthier than the patent drug business. At the center of these exploitations of the public stands a single organization linked to the British Crown—The Pilgrims Society, set up in 1902 to “gradually absorb the wealth of the world,” see documentary at site linked. The organization has about 700 US members, a waiting list of about 70, and pharmaceutical execs and directors are involved. The President is always an “honorary” member (documented twice) and makes all manner of Federal appointments!
At 63 yrs. old I only take natural supplements, I do not take any presciptions. I believe that when something is wrong with the human body you are not lacking a prescription!! This assault on our supplements has to stop. Vitamins are made from food, so are they going to pull food off the market because it could be harmful? They think we are so stupid and don’t know any better, but we have their number don’t we!!
The FDA has become the gestapo for the drug companies in the USA. Instead of herding us into their death camps with guns, they do it by adding poisons to our food and denying alternatives that work better than what the drug companies have to offer. And if you don’t think these are not death camps, just listen to the side affects from a few drug adds on TV. And those are only the ones they want you to hear about, many are hidden and or never reported.
It is ridiculous that any more regulations need to put on supplements making many supplements obsolete or very expensive. The FDA needs to be regulated. I say No to the new FDA legislation.
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they need to get Michael Taylor (Monsanto) and all the other corporate thugs out of FDA and other like agencies. Period.
i want to shout. but you would not post my caps— so here i go again in lower case.
i have an idea, defund the fda and give the money to planned parenthood. planned parenthood saves lives and evidently fda is trying to kill us by witholding beneficial supplements and urging us to take toxic pharmaceuticals instead.
read archie and mehitabel by don marqus. all written in lowercase by a cockroach and a cat on a typewriter after hours in the office. of couse a cockroach cannot capitalize jumping from key to key. nugh said
I find it strange also, that the supplement companies seem to be complacent about a possible demise of their businesses. This is not just a sounding board, but an expression of real concern for the continuation of our right to choose supplements over prescription poison. We desperately need the support and backing of the companies that sell and produce our supplements, as they are under just as much, if not more, fire than we are. Just as there is safety in numbers, there is also power in numbers. I just can’t fathom that they haven’t been aware of the dangers ahead. It’s their livelihood at stake as much as our health may be severely compromised. Wanna hear the latest about what Big Pharma does? When the patents expire and their wonder drugs go generic, they take the same drug, make it look different, give it a different name, and sell it as a new drug with a similarly high-priced tag. No wonder they are all billionaires at the expense of people like us. The FDA is the scourge of our health industry. They should be run out of business.
I’ve often wondered myself-where’s the outcry from the health food stores, and supplement manufacturer’s who seem to be largely silent? I’ve recently asked employees at one of my local health food stores if they had heard about the NDI draft proposal, and nobody was aware of it? I even printed out the article by ANH and provided the owner of this store their website – anh-usa.org so they could research this issue, I never back from them? I also asked a co-worker of mine, whose mom is the manager of a large vitamin supplement chain if she had ever heard of CODEX, she said she’d never heard of it? The only explanation I can come up with, is that if and when these are implemented, that they’ll continue to sell their products, only they’ll cost more and be in dosages that are largely ineffective.
Fine, let them try to ‘dig in their heels’. The FDA has no power to rewrite the law of the land, and any petty bureaucrats who think otherwise should be fired, arrested, and imprisioned. That’s the only treatment that will curb these corrupt scum and their clients.
Amen to that. Everyone expects the government to follow the law but they don’t, they have ignored our immigragion laws for the last 20 years and look at the mess now.
i have been taking suppliments from age forty i take about twenty a day,, and on other days, i take maybe twenty different ones….of course im retired,,,who would hire a ninety year old man but let me tell you something to the (f.d.a. ) ill take on any sixty fiveyear old jerk that works for you any time…im in better health and stamina than any one of you jerks… the ( f.d.a. ) dose not work for the american people,, even though we pay their salary.. they are our judas,,,they have sold their souls to the devils ,jnamely,,the pharmacutical industry and latley the devils helper ( monsantoi ) its true they are out to kill as many people as posisible…you see,,,monsanto is feeding the world poisond foods,,,the ( f.d.a. )is giving you bad medicine,but they will not let you take suppliments much longer…either way,,,you get sick…and you die…oh well,,,the operation was a success,but the patiient died…but there is a reason for alll this too happen,,,congress is in on this too,,,the united nations came out with it about twelve years ago ,,,( we must reduce the worlds population fifty to sixty percent,,,that would be about three billion people…the last report i received the enchanted ones only need one billion slave population to care for them…thats why we have wars,,bad medicine,,bad food..the hand writting is on the wall ….wake up we are purposley being killed….and so are your children with vaccines ,,chloride in your teeth in the vaccines flouride iand a lot more in your drinking water and i will not get into ( haarp ) ill be here all night wriitting about it. do some research and learn……..well,,ill say good night and pleasant dreams your friend joe
Preventative control means exactly what is says. The FDA wants to prevent us from having access to our supplements. Period.
The Federal Death Administration needs to go through their own closet before trying to label supplements as “dangerous”. There simply annoyed that supplements can be every bit as affective if not more so than their toxic drugs.
Michael Taylor who was Monsanto’s attorney now works for OUR corrupt United States Government, compliments of No-Bama, who appointed him. This is not all about the FDA (Food & Death Administration), but about collusion within the government, the FDA and Big Pharma. They are ALL in bed together trying to make this happen. Our government does not give a hoot about the American people, but rather their own self-interests. PLEASE…keep this in mind when you vote in November, 2012. There is absolutely NO ONE worthy of running this bankrupt country as ALL are corrupt and are liars. America is already doomed.
I would like to add that DOC BLAKE said it in a nutshell. Go back and read what this very savvy man said. It is right on target and THE TRUTH.
We are not only slaves….but we are being depopulated by THEIR agenda. Their’s meaning…. the United States Government, the Elitists, and all corrupt entities OF the United States Government. Do your own research IF you don’t believe this is happening right now, and while your at it, rent the movie: *1984* by George Orwell and see a glimpse of what is happening now…and in the very….VERY near future.
America is doomed.
Mormon Tea Drinkers
Senator, His Son Get Boosts From Makers of Ephedra; Orrin Hatch has kept regulators at bay and benefited via campaign donations. Lobbyists linked to his son have received $2 million.
Indeed, the Hatch-Harkin act defined dietary supplements as a special category outside drugs and other food additives, and did so in a way that has helped supplements mushroom into what the Nutrition Business Journal says is an industry with $17.7 billion in annual U.S. sales. Many of the companies are based in Utah, which describes itself as “the Silicon Valley of the supplements industry.” Los Angeles Times Mar 5, 2003