Today, strong mainstream research continues to validate the positive impact dietary supplements are having on Americans’ overall health, while lowering healthcare costs and maintaining the strongest safety record of any regulated category. But legislators out to “protect” consumers are threatening to remove safe products from market shelves and fundamentally alter the regulatory structure, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), responsible for increasing information and access to dietary supplements.
S722 is presented as a “safety” bill-promising to safeguard consumers from unsafe dietary supplements-but it does not. Instead, the detail spell out plans to:
- Increases health care costs and decreases consumer choices
- Restricts access to supplements used by millions for better health
- Subjects supplements to an unnecessary higher standard of scrutiny than most over-the-counter medicines and food additives
- Questions the safety and potentially restricts access to any dietary supplement that receives even one complaint, legitimate or not.
- Provides no more protection for consumers than the current law-DSHEA-already provides. The FDA has simply failed to fully implement the existing law.
Many legislators are also trying to leverage the media’s misrepresentation of ephedra to attack and overturn DSHEA. Millions of consumers contacted Congress is 1993/94 demanding support for DSHEA, a law that has provided the necessary regulation to ensure safe products for consumers for almost 10 years. This two-fronted assault on health choice, masked as concern about the health effects of ephedra, is part of a larger plan to move all supplements under the umbrella of drug regulations.
Congress needs to hear both sides of this issue, not just the skewed media coverage. If you rely on vitamin and mineral supplements for better health and want to protect your right to personal health choice, SPEAK UP!
TAKE ACTION TODAY! Send a letter to your Senators and tell them to write the RIGHT prescription for health! Tell Congress to uphold DSHEA and preserve access to natural, safe and affordable products!