Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) the Majority Whip has introduced a bill to place dietary supplements on the same footing as drugs. This will require amending the federal supplement law exempting vitamins and supplements not marketed for therapeutic administration from FDA oversight with the the legal obligation to demonstrate both efficacy and safety. It is estimated that the supplements industry sells products with the retail value exceeding $50 billion annually. There is adequate evidence to show that some supplements contain harmful ingredients. The Durbin Bill will require a listing of ingredients and other label instructions.
Predictably the proposed legislation is strongly opposed by the Alliance for Natural Health USA representing the multitude of manufacturers and compounders of dietary supplements, some of which indirectly claim health benefits.
It is noted that Senator Durbin is a cosponsor of a bill to establish a separate food safety and nutrition agency that would presumably have direct jurisdiction over nutritional supplements, a prospect that concerns manufacturers. The two bills should be considered separately as one is not necessarily contingent on passage of the other.
Contentions by the Alliance for Natural Health include the sentiment that that the bill would “strip consumers of their freedom to make informed choices about their health and for those who cherish their freedom to choose natural and alternative health solutions, the proposal should be seen as a threat to choice.”
In many respects the freedom to select untested and some cases potentially harmful supplements that interfere with conventional scientifically proven therapy, or to receive a vaccine, appears congruent with the desire to drink raw milk. The same principle is expressed, reinforcing the inalienable right to engage in personally destructive behavior in the name of freedom.
A reputable manufacturer of vitamins and nutritional supplements has nothing to fear from reasonable regulations and restraints as proposed in the Durbin bill. The federal government has the right and obligation to establish standards based on scientific knowledge and to protect the public from charlatans and those who would wish to profit from ignorance, misery, superstition and contrarianism. But then there are lobbyists-- which is how this industry gained exemption from oversight.