Conscious Choice: Senator Durbin, Please Don't Touch Our Supplements

December 2003 | Editor’s Note

Senator Durbin, Please Don't Touch Our Supplements

I’m one of those millions of Americans who takes dietary supplements to support my health. As a nutritionist (registered dietitian and certified clinical nutritionist) and journalist who’s followed the supplement issue for years, I’m convinced that much of my good health is due to those supplements I take. There’s no doubt in my mind that dietary supplementation is a pillar of preventive medicine, and pivotal to healing and staying disease-free.

Having said that, the right to support our health in a natural, inexpensive, and very safe way via dietary supplements is being threatened by the actions of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin. Generally speaking, Senator Durbin is a friend to the more than 100,000 readers of this magazine. He’s one of the most pro-environment senators in Congress — both the League of Conservation Voters and Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization give him a firm thumbs up on that issue. Moreover, he has been instrumental in bringing jobs and public works projects back to Illinois.

But the Senator is attempting to undermine our health freedoms by sponsoring an oppressive bill — S722 the "Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003" — that could critically limit access to safe supplements. The bill would fundamentally alter (or effectively gut) the nine-year-old Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act, known as DSHEA which American consumers of supplements hold dear.

The Senator vociferously argues that this is not the case and has written, "My bill doesn’t require safety testing for vitamins, minerals or the vast majority of dietary supplements; only stimulants must be proved safe before being sold."

I’ve read the bill and, with all due respect, Senator Durbin is mistaken. In fact, S722 gives the FDA enforcement powers that could negate the reason why DSHEA was enacted in the first place — to restrain the FDA’s historical abuse of discretionary authority over supplements.

Here’s how S722 would work: say there are several reports of adverse reactions from allegedly taking a dietary supplement, like ephedra — which has been used safely and effectively (with the research to prove it) by more than 12 million Americans for weight loss and has been a mainstay in Chinese medicine for nearly 2,000 years.

These reports of adverse reactions can be purely anecdotal without having any scientific grounding. In fact, the FDA says to date that there has been zero evidence that ephedra has killed anyone or caused strokes or heart attacks. Yet, because there have been numerous reports suggesting it might be the cause of health problems, media publicity and political pressure have fueled calls for its recall.

So, under S722 the Secretary of Health and Human Services (a political appointee who takes recommendations from the FDA) has the discretionary power to yank a product from the market based on those adverse reports. Today it might be ephedra, tomorrow it might be natural hormones or anti-aging supplements or vitamin B-6, or, or...get the picture? No scientific evidence needed. Read the bill for yourself at www.loc.gov, click on "Thomas, legislative information" and then enter S722.

The FDA doesn’t need extra controls on DSHEA as the agency has very effective powers currently, such as "Good Manufacturing Policies" that it’s never implemented. Yet DSHEA supporters say Senator Durbin is hell bent on getting S722 to the senate floor and may try to attach this legislation to another bill to slip it through; it could occur any day.

Although Senator Durbin’s motives may be pure, his actions are dangerous and pose a clear and present risk to our health freedoms. Insiders know that the FDA has had an historic bias against nutritional supplements infused with a strong desire to bring them under its regulatory control, much like drugs.

When you figure that prescription drugs kill more than 100,000 people a year, this is exactly the reason why we’re using dietary supplements in the first place.

I urge you to contact your senators, including Senator Durbin, to protest senate bill S722.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Washington, DC: 202-224-2152; Local: 312-353-4952

Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald, Washington, DC: 202-224-2854; Local: 312-886-3506

— Rebecca Ephraim

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