By David Blyweiss, Advanced Natural Wellness

What do you have in common with Barry Bonds, Andre Aggasi and Roger Clemens? If you ask Senator John McCain, a lot. All of these athletes have been accused of doping and, if certain members of Congress get their way, simply taking the same supplements you have used for years could be considered doping, too.

In light of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s “Supplement Safety Now” campaign, Senator McCain has introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010. Proponents say that it will improve the safety of supplements. But the truth is that this bill could severely restrict which supplements you are allowed to buy and would drive up the cost of those still on the market.
The bill supposedly originates from the controversy swirling around the use of steroids by professional athletes. While it’s true that some unethical companies illegally sold steroid drugs and called them “dietary supplements,” lawmakers like McCain now say that the FDA needs to be given additional power to ban dietary supplements across the board.

What this bill would really do is give the FDA absolute control over supplements. They could pull any of them off the market without rhyme or reason—even if a supplement is perfectly safe and effective. It would also require all supplement manufacturers to register not only every supplement they make but every reformulation or improvement they make to an existing supplement. This would add a mountain of unnecessary paperwork and a huge amount of overhead cost which would ultimately wind up being passed on to consumers.

The funny thing is that the FDA already has all the legal authority it needs to make sure the supplements you take are safe. The problem is that the FDA hasn’t done its job. In spite of that sad fact, a report in the American Association of Poison Control Centers underscores just how safe supplement are. In fact, in 2008 alone, there were no deaths from supplement use—a claim that can’t be made about pharmaceutical drugs. The vast majority of supplement manufacturers make incredibly safe products that can augment consumer’s health needs. But, despite this remarkable safety track record, the McCain bill would give the FDA authority to draw up a list of allowed and disallowed supplements and severely limit their potencies. This action alone would destroy your free access to many popular supplements.

If McCain’s bill does pass, it will also open the door for pharmaceutical companies to file patents on what are now inexpensive dietary supplements and convert them into outrageously priced “drugs.” This has already happened to the B vitamin, niacin. Used to boost HDL (good) cholesterol levels, niacin is a dietary supplement that you can buy over-the-counter for well under $20 for a 30 day supply. But if your doctor prescribes this common vitamin, under the trade name Niaspan, it will easily set you back whopping $2.00 to $4.00 per pill!

So who is going to benefit from this proposed legislation? It certainly isn’t you!

Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a medical pioneer, unsuccessfully tried to have a medical freedom clause including in our country’s constitution. This medical “bill of rights” would have guaranteed medical care to all Americans regardless of their class or economic status.  It would also preserve the right of all citizens to choose and use whichever type of medical care we wanted. Unfortunately, no one else in the Continental Congress had the foresight to see how necessary this would become. They couldn’t have imagined that powerful transnational drug companies would try (and sometimes succeed) to impact U.S. lawmakers for their own gain—regardless of the rights of the people.

This isn’t the first time the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry have made a power grab or tried to limit consumer access to beneficial supplements. In the early 1990s, the FDA tried to restrict many supplements, including CoQ10, selenium and chromium, because they claimed they were dangerous. Thanks to public outrage, congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. This law protects the consumers’ right to buy and use low-cost dietary supplements. Senator McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (DSSA) could take away those rights and do irreparable damage to the health of both citizens and supplement companies.

If passed, Americans could find themselves in the same boat as the Europeans did after the European Union took away their freedom to use safe and effective nutritional supplements.

What can you do to stop this madness? Call, e-mail or write to your senator and congressperson as soon as you can. You can find out who your representatives are at www.congress.org. It’s a very simple web site to use and I found that my representatives were very open to hearing what I had to say. It seems that they want to continue to have the right to their vitamins too . . . without needing a prescription.

This is an issue that cuts across party lines. Act today to help save our supplements! Then pass this bulletin along to family and friends and urge them to get involved, too.

References:

Bronstein AC. 2008 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System (NPDS): 26th Annual Report. Clinical Toxicology. 2009. 47; 911-1084.

“John McCain Introduces Dietary Supplement Safety Act.” Nutritional Outlook. February 5, 2010. www.nutritionaloutlook.com/news.php?newsID=358