ANH-US continues protest over McCains supplements reform bill

McCain defends supplements reform bill

Source: Shane Starling, NutraIngredients-USA.com, 25th February 2010

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona has issued a statement criticizing “lobbyists” of falsely attacking the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 he intoduced at the beginning of the month, which seeks to amend DSHEA in several fundamental ways.

In the statement, McCain said: “Opponents have stated that the legislation would seek to limit consumers’ ability to purchase dietary supplements, vitamins, or prescription drugs. That is completely false…. If you take a vitamin now, this bill will in no way restrict your ability to take that vitamin.”

Senator McCain’s Bill requires companies to report non-serious adverse events to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); gives immediate recall rights over products suspected of contamination; creates an Accepted Dietary Ingredients list in place of New Dietary Ingredients provisions and demands all facilities to register on a list annually.

It has drawn heavy criticism from industry which criticized it for being unnecessary, reactionary, regressive and potentially destructive of a healthy industry and the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) that governs it.

Senator McCain however said his Bill had been miscast and stated: “Opponents also claim the bill establishes a new regulatory structure for dietary supplements. That is completely false.”

Responding, the Alliance for Natural Health-US (ANH-US) said: “The broad regulatory framework for supplements at the moment is provided by DSHEA. McCain’s bill guts the protections provided by DSHEA and gives the FDA complete and arbitrary authority. If that isn’t a new regulatory structure, what is?”

The ANH-US pointed to Association of Poison Control Centers statistics that showed there were no dietary supplements-related deaths in 2008, the last year on record, despite claims from McCain that, “people have died from taking dietary supplements… and thousands have had to be hospitalized…”.

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