March 15, 2010
Controversial Anti-Supplement Bill (S. 3002) May Soon be Found in Unrelated Legislation S. 510 – Ready to Pass!
Urgent action is needed now! Please use the link to the right to contact your Senator and urge him / her to oppose the incorporation of S. 3002 into S. 510 Immediately! S. 510 is already out of committee and poised for a Senate vote soon! Act now!
With all the attention surrounding Senator McCain’s controversial bill (S. 3002), supporters of The Dietary Supplement and Safety Act of 2010, S. 3002, have begun devising ways to slip this devastating legislation into law under an other, unrelated bill (S. 510).
As reported first here on Vitamin-Freedom.org, Senator Orrin Hatch’s letter to Sen. McCain (March 4, 2010) was not indicating a simple withdrawal of support for S. 3002, as many websites had originally reported. Instead, it was the beginning of an all too familiar shell game politicians play when a bill they are sponsoring gets too controversial and has a low chance to succeed on its own.
This is when a shell game starts: the original bill becomes officially abandoned. However, it is not completely lost. It becomes attached to some other legislation that has a good chance of passing congress and becoming law to “piggy back” their unpopular legislation on. This is the case with S. 3002 and some Senator’s plans to amend S. 510 to incorporate parts of the abandoned bill.
In a letter from Sens. McCain and Dorgan (the original sponsors of S. 3002) to Sens. Harkin, Enzi, and Hatch, it is made clear that some backroom deals are being made to slip parts of S. 3002 into S. 510. McCain and Dorgan say “We understand you had concerns with S. 3002, the Dietary Supplement Safety Act. However, we are pleased to find common ground on some of the provisions included in the bill and that you are committed to working with us to incorporate those areas of agreement into S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization bill.”
The letter goes on to document four areas of apparent agreement between the senators. These include:
- mandatory registration of dietary supplement manufacturing, processing, and holding facilities;
- expanding FDA authority to issue a recall of any supplement with a “reasonable probability” of being “adulterated or misbranded” or could cause adverse health consequences;
- requiring the Commissioner of the FDA to publish guidelines on new dietary ingredients “as soon as possible;” and
- mandating the FDA to notify the DEA if a new dietary ingredient pre-market notification is rejected because it contains a synthetic anabolic steroid.
Because of the brevity of S. 3002, the inclusion of these four elements of the original bill almost equate to incorporating it in its entirety. The only part really missing is the extensive reporting requirement that Sen. Hatch balked at in his March 4, 2010 letter to Sen. McCain, which is not surprising considering the fact that he is trying to garner support for the inclusion of these elements into S. 510.
Why are all these provisions dangerous in undermining the Dietary Supplement Health and Education act of 1994 and our free access to nutritional supplements of our choice?
Most alarming is that the new definition of “adulterated” as proposed in S. 3002. which appears to be included in S. 510. Currently, the U.S. Code Title 21, Chapter 9, Subchapter IV, § 342 (f) defines a dietary supplement as adulterated only if it poses an unreasonable risk to public health or safety. This new provision is a specific re-write of DSHEA which considered all dietary ingredients marketed before October 15, 1994 to be safe. The new bill would change dietary supplements to “guilty until proven innocent.” Specifically, the “new dietary ingredients” section of S. 3002 so loosely referred to in the letter of March 4 re-defines “adulterated” unless there is an established scientific history of safe use, and is included in the new “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” list to be prepared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
As you can see, this isn’t the end of S. 3002, but rather, it is the beginning of the fight against including these provisions into S. 510. As of the writing of this article, S. 510 only makes two mentions of Dietary Supplements – and each is to ensure that the provisions laid out in S. 510 do not apply to Dietary Supplements. This is sure to change, soon.
Of course, Vitamin-Freedom.org will stay on top of this development and any other curve balls that come as these politicians attempt to dismantle DSHEA and inhibit your access to safe and effective Dietary Supplements. So take the time to follow the links to the right, find your senators, and write to them demanding they oppose the inclusion of S. 3002 into S. 510!