A few weeks back I wrote about a new bill proposed by Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. The major threat this bill represented was limited access to dietary supplements in the name of consumer protection.
Fortunately, it seems the sponsors of the bill have decided to back-off this new legislation and instead focus on enforcing and enhancing the current DSHEA regulations. From a recent NPA press release:
“The NPA is pleased that industry champions Hatch and Harkin have reached an agreement with McCain and Dorgan on reasonable measures to strengthen the regulation of dietary supplements without opening up DSHEA,” said John Gay, NPA’s CEO and executive director. “The original McCain-Dorgan bill would have radically altered the existing regulatory framework [in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act], and threatened an entire industry in an ineffective attempt to combat a relatively few bad actors.”
This move is welcomed by many of us in the natural products industry (see my prior blog To regulate or not to regulate). After all, we need to know the supplements we take are safe and provide the nutrients they claim to provide on the package. However, I believe laws like DHSEA and the upcoming GMP regulations can deliver these without limiting my access.
With all this said, it’s important to continue to let your representatives know your opposition to S. 3002 in order to dissuade other senators or representatives from picking up where the bill’s sponsors left off.
[...] it’s interesting to me that these provisions are introduced just weeks after an attempt to expand FDA’s power over natural products was defeated. The NPA is recommending that concerned industry advocates can visit the Advocacy area on the NPA [...]