CODEX Archives

More on vitamin legislation (Archive in CODEX.)

Does anyone know more about this bill?
Be Well,
Misty L. Trepke
http://www.searching-alternatives.com

A 'Yea' Vote for DSHEA '03 Would Guarantee a Clean Bill of
Health for Nutritional Supplement Industry

http://healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=7720

WASHINGTON, Oct 7, 2003 (U.S. Newswire via COMTEX) -- Nutritional
supplement and vitamin users are up in arms over new legislation
proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)
and they have good reason to be upset. "The last thing Americans
need right now is legislation that would create an overbearing,
unnecessary law that would rob them of their consumer rights,
restrict their access to dietary supplements and raise their taxes
and the price of supplements," said Beth Clay, director of Project:
FANS (Freedom of Access to Nutritional Supplements). "And that's
exactly what S.722 would do."

But there is light at the end of the legislative tunnel. "If Durbin
and Clinton really want to see the industry properly regulated and
`protect the consumer,' then they will withdraw their current bill
and support the Hatch-Harkin bill (S.1538) that would do the job
right," continued Clay. S.1538, The DSHEA Full Funding and
Implementation Act of 2003, is designed to eliminate the need for
any new regulatory bills for the industry. Instead, the Hatch-Harkin
bill would fully fund the current law of the land that provides the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with all the tools it needs. "To
achieve the goal of properly and more effectively regulating the
supplement industry, we must pass the Hatch-Harkin bill (S.1538),
which would finally fully fund DSHEA."

Despite overtures to the contrary, a lack of regulatory control is
not a problem in the nutritional supplement and vitamin industry. In
fact, the current FDA commissioner, Mark McClellan, has taken
aggressive steps toward fully implementing DSHEA. Passage of the
Hatch-Harkin funding bill would give McClellan the key component he
needs to finish the process. "The problem is not DSHEA and its not
McClellan," Clay said. "The problem lies with lifetime bureaucrats
who seek to undermine their own commissioner for selfish purposes.
Hatch and Harkin's funding bill would rectify this problem by
providing for the full enforcement of existing law and compel an
annual reporting requirement so Congress can fulfill its oversight
responsibilities."

http://www.usnewswire.com
CONTACT: Joe Giganti, 703-928-9695 or
Joe@VeritasMediaGroup.info, for Project: FAN