Posted on 04/11/2007 8:50:18 AM PDT by Halgr
At the link provided you will see that the FDA is trying to sneak past the public in an attempt to control certain vitamins and minerals.
Please, if you feel as concerned as I do, make comments at this site to the FDA on your thoughts regarding this continued "Nanny State" invasion of America.
I have Lupus and modern medical science doesn't offer many solutions to my condition, whereas, I find a great deal of relief in certain B-complex vitamins and certain minerals.
I am frightened of the possibilies people like me could face if the FDA enacts this "Guidance for Industry"
I have contacted all my congress critters and others.
Additionally, the general public can make comments at the URL above.
Thanks FReepers
Halgri
The FDA is barely capable of doing what it is supposed to be doing as it is, and they want more control? I say NO, and that also goes for Kennedy and Waxman’s cockamammy idea of putting tobacco under FDA control.
Here we go again. I think Senator Hatch led the charge to stop them last time. I suspect that Congressman Waxman from California somehow has a hand in this.
Are you aware that many of the so-called “food supplements” that are out there, which are supposed to contain certain minerals or chemicals, such as glucosamine or plant extracts like St. John’s Wort, really have nothing or near nothing that they advertise, in them? Some facets of this industry must be regulated in order to protect the public from shysters and snake oil salesmen........
The Announcements sidebar is reserved for FR business.
Not this.
Thanks,
AM
If so, then I think it’s great. Far and away the biggest problem with the health supplements industry is that there’s no regulatory oversight and, quite frequently, what is claimed to be in a supplement is not actually there or is contaminated.
What I’d support is manufacturing quality standards and a standardized ‘seal of approval’ for those who meet them. If one still wants to produce or to consume unsanctioned whatever then they will be free to do so.
Exactly! Even from pill to pill, the composition and volume may vary.
Big drug and pharmaceutical companies are the ones pushing this. They want to be able to control those radical products. They are trying to convince Congress to give them that authority. They don’t make enough from $4-$30 per pill drugs.
The key here is this
>>As with botanicals and probiotics, the classification of a “functional food” under the Act is based primarily on the product’s intended use and may also involve other factors, depending on the elements of the statutory definition of a particular product category.<<
They don’t plan to restrict vitamins - they plan (and already do) regulate and forbid supplements that make unproven or false claims.
You can sell vitamins and herbs - you can’t claim they cure cancer or impotence or anything else without proof and going through the regulatory process.
This dates back to 1921 when congress required that products that are sold to treat illness or disease be effective. The FDA is making rules to comply with the law by addressing the recent surge in false labeling.
This does add cost for companies that want to claim their product cures an ailment. The alternative is to allow false claims. There isn’t a good answer but the FDA and congress seem to be doing a decent job on this issue.
Individuals, however, can simply buy the vitamins and herbs without the claims and pay less in the process.
The marketplace is more than capable of putting unscrupulous vendors out of business.
That was always my problem when trying (years ago) to sell some of the MLM products.
Fer shure! The way the “Food Supplements” industry is right now, they have pretty much free reign to sell sawdust as a food supplement. I welcome a set of standards that they should all adhere to for quality and quantity and purity..................
Believe me, I understand that.
How do you know that they are unscrupulous if no one is testing their products? Right now, the way it is, anybody can set up a vitamin or mineral food supplement company and sell whatever they want with hardly any oversight. There’s one down the street from here where I work, that’s not much more than a warehouse.............
“and that also goes for Kennedy and Waxman’s cockamammy idea of putting tobacco under FDA control.”
Big tobacco wouldn’t have any interest in FDA regulations being that they have already implemented warehouse to smoker Lot Tracking systems that cost millions which would run off the little guy and foreign competition, would they?
>>The marketplace is more than capable of putting unscrupulous vendors out of business.<<
Did you see the recent stories about vitamins without the advertised vitamins in them, vitamins that did not dissolve before they passed through the body and vitamins with excessive lead? There are big names in that story and the marketplace doesn’t seem to be taking care of it.
Truth in advertising is important and is properly regulated because selling something with false claims is a form of fraud which is correctly criminal.
Bingo!
I don’t understand how it’s constitutional that the FDA is an unelected body that can basically pass laws about medicine.
But isn’t false advertising the perview of the FTC?
So something simple like Omega-3 fish oils will have to go through the approval process now? Or is that only if the seller claims they help boost HDL?
I can see a quality control issue being important, but how much speech will this inhibit if the FDA must approve any claim? Most supplements already say the claims are not endorsed by the FDA. Will that statement be insufficient?
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