August 11, 2010

A Bit About Waxman

A longtime, vocal opponent of Supplements and Vitamin Freedom, Henry Waxman has become well known in the dietary supplement industry for promoting bills in Congress that seek to limit and/or eliminate vitamins from the market. With his power and notoriety, all advocates of Vitamin Freedom should know where this power comes from.

Congressman Waxman is chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. While it is true that he unseated longtime chairman John Dingell, who also was not friendly to our industry, Chairman Waxman has been the leading critic of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) since its passage in 1994. In his latest book, in fact, Congressman Waxman devoted an entire chapter to what he believes is wrong with DSHEA.

Further exacerbating matters, the committee that Chairman Waxman oversees has jurisdiction over the FDA, which regulates dietary supplements. In fact, several of his former staff members now occupy important jobs with the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services – people such as Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the FDA‘s principal deputy commissioner, who handles the agency‘s daily operations and enforcement activities; and Bill Corr, HHS deputy secretary.

The best thing we can do as advocates of Vitamin Freedom is to get involved – talk to your elected representatives and make sure they know how important free access to dietary supplements is to you. It‘s always a good time to make your voice heard, and you can start by finding your representatives and writing a letter by using the links on this page!