John McCain Bill Threatens Vitamins and Supplements!

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has introduced a new bill called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) of 2010 (S. 3002), that, if enacted, would severely curtail free access to dietary supplements. Cosponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the bill would essentially give the FDA full control over the supplement industry

New Bill Would Make Vitamins Too Costly for Your Health
Beware of McCain’s Freedom-Destroying Dietary Supplement Regulatory Bill
Most are familiar with those commercials on television promoting prescription drugs that supposedly offer relief from a variety of ailments, if one would only pressure one’s doctor to obtain them. They have become a source of great entertainment and amusement to some, the kicker coming at the end of each commercial when the FDA-approved medication’s obligatory litany of warnings and dangerous side effects is recited: “Tell your doctor if….” and “Side effects may include…..” Some of the warnings are mild like diarrhea and constipation, some list serious effects like cancer or tuberculosis, and others admit that sometimes even death can result.
The point here is that these are all FDA-approved drugs being advertised and used extensively. Drugs that can cause serious diseases like lymphoma. Drugs that can kill. The FDA’s dismal safety record is well documented; even PBS ran a Frontline special that investigated and exposed the FDA’s unsafe drug record, the influence of Big Pharma inside the FDA, and lack of long-term testing and medical review of many, many dangerous drugs. The FDA seldom removes a drug from the market even after it proves to be harmful or deadly, however they do post quarterly reports with details of the latest potentially dangerous side effects of drugs currently under investigation.
Nonetheless, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants this same FDA, with its dismal safety record, to regulate dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA), S. 3002 (text of this bill posted on Senator McCain’s website), that McCain has introduced with one cosponsor, would repeal key provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to “more effectively regulate dietary supplements that may pose safety risks unknown to consumers.”
Under attack by the DSSA is the once-protected field of supplements, as they have always been considered food. Potencies would have to be reduced to comply with what appears to be a plan modeled after the European Food Safety Authority. A new list of “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” would be “prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary,” in the future. That’s a bit like being handed a blank check and told to fill it out later as one wishes. It could certainly be used to severely limit access to, and even production of, hundreds of life-sustaining and essential mineral, herb, and vitamin products.
All ingredients contained in each supplement would have to be disclosed at the time the company registers all of its “manufactured, packaged, held, distributed, labeled or licensed,” products with the FDA. An onerous burden would be placed on the shoulders of suppliers and retailers of dietary supplements, as they would have to “obtain written evidence” from the seller that the product is registered as required by law, and keep that documentation on file. Monetary penalties for non-compliance “may, in addition to other penalties imposed in this section, be fined not more than twice the gross profits or other proceeds derived from the manufacture, packaging, holding, distribution, labeling, or license of such dietary supplement.” Those are very broad dictates and most likely subject to even broader interpretation.
The McCain bill would change existing mandatory serious adverse reporting regulations, requiring minor adverse effects to be reported as well so that the FDA could arbitrarily pull supplements off the shelves or reclassify them as drugs.
This immediate recall authority would be granted to the “Secretary upon determination,” that there is a “reasonable probability” that the product is “adulterated” or “misbranded.” Adulterated in this bill takes on a whole new expanded definition: “A dietary supplement which contains a new dietary ingredient shall be deemed adulterated under section 402(f) unless there is a history of use or other evidence of safety.” The development of new products that contain newly discovered nutritional components may be entirely quashed.
The hypocritical contrast between the regulation of drugs that can kill and the proposed hyper-regulation for food products — vitamins, minerals, herbs — is as plain as the nose on everyone’s face.
A Pandora’s box of intended and unintended legal complications and government harassment of nutritional supplement manufacturers and sellers could very well be unleashed if this bill is passed. There are already existing laws on the books that protect consumers from misbranded, fraudulent, or contaminated products. Granting the FDA additional regulatory authority over nutritional supplements seems a bit suspicious, especially considering the influence the enormous pharmaceutical industry has wielded over the research, development, and approval process inside the FDA. Let’s face it, the FDA has been no friend and often has been positively antagonistic toward the nutritional supplement industry. Therefore one wouldn’t set the wolf to guarding the sheep without dire consequences.
In this perverted overly-regulated country, food is now toxic, and drugs and chemicals are safe for ingestion, no matter the harm that results.
This inversion should remind us that those who best have the consumers health and safety interests at heart are the consumers themselves. It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public.
And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment. (Where is the pro-choice crowd on this one; the ones that claim, “my body, my choice?”)
Contact your federal legislators and urge them not to cosponsor, support, or vote for such a power-grabbing, bill. Let them know Americans want unrestricted access to nutritional supplements, and the government out of their health choices.
Sen. McCain described his bill as a “no brainer.” For constitutionalists it’s a “no brainer” that it should be rejected for the dictatorial, power-grabbing, choice-limiting attack on the nutritional marketplace and individual freedoms that it is.

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Fair and Equal Media Reporting?
How often do you see negative stories concerning nutritional supplements? It seems to be that, from time to time, the media takes a negative view of nutritional supplements, so, let’s take a look at some cold hard facts.
According to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System (OMNS, January 19, 2010), there was not one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2008.
The new 174-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin. Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or herbal product.
This means no deaths at all from black cohosh, echinacea, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, kava kava, St. John’s wort, valerian, yohimbe, Asian medicines, ayurvedic medicines, or any other botanical. There were zero deaths from creatine, blue-green algae, glucosamine, chondroitin, melatonin, or any homeopathic remedies.
Furthermore, there were zero deaths in 2008 from any dietary mineral supplement. This means there were no fatalities from calcium, magnesium, chromium, zinc, colloidal silver, selenium, iron, or multi-mineral supplements. Two children died as a result of medical use of the antacid sodium bicarbonate. The other “Electrolyte and Mineral” category death was due to a man accidentally drinking sodium hydroxide, a highly toxic degreaser and drain-opener. No man, woman or child died from nutritional supplements. Period. 61 poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the U.S. National Poison Data System (NPDS), which is then reviewed by 29 medical and clinical toxicologists. NPDS, the authors write, is “one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking.”
Over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. If each person took only one tablet a day, that would total 154,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 56 billion doses annually. Since many people take more than just one vitamin or mineral tablet on a daily basis, actual consumption is considerably higher and the safety of nutritional supplements is all that more remarkable. If nutritional supplements are allegedly so “dangerous,” as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies? Those who wonder if the media are biased against vitamins may consider this: how many television stations, newspapers, magazines, and medical journals have reported that no one dies from nutritional supplements?

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
McCain bill threatens access to vitamins and supplements.
Herbal supplements are not classified as drugs but as dietary supplements. The main difference is that they do not have approved therapeutic claims unlike in the case of drugs. Moreover, dietary supplements could either contain vitamins, minerals, herbals, or amino acids, all aimed to add to or supplement the diet of an individual. They are not intended to be taken alone as a substitute to any food or medicine.
Damn you McCain!
This really ticks me off! John McCain in doing this, attempting to do this has now become even more of an enemy then he was before I saw this news.
I have been taking vitamins all, my life and even more as an adult. Adding in supplements and additional vitamins for the years. I get them from three main places and Richard who sent me this article has one of the places I get them from.
I can testify that taking vitamins and supplements DO make a difference, In energy, skin, strength, alertness, memory, and a persons immune system, plus just their general health is improved.
One time a doctor I was going to when I lived in Malibu, Calif. joked that he did not take vitamins and got a kick out of how I believe in vitamins and supplements. LOL I just smiled and said no problem you don’t have to , but for myself I will always take them. One year later on my next physical when he was done, he said to come in his office and have a seat. I did and the first thing he did was he reached across his desk and put a package of daily vitamins in front of me. hahaha I asked him what was this? He said, ” they are mine and as you know I had a heart attack and now I take vitamins every day. ” I again smiled and said I am sorry you had a heart attack, but I am very glad to see you taking vitamins. They won’t be 100 % why a person does not have a heart attack but they sure can help keep you healthier so that maybe you will have a chance and your heart will be healthier too.
McCain should know better then to do this idiotic BILL of his. He is not a well man and needs all the help he can get. To do this would make it very costly for people to buy necessary vitamins and supplements to keep healthy and stay fit and well. People that have surgery are often told to take certain vitamins to aid in healing and fight off side effects. I could go on for hours about how good they are but I won’t. haha It is up to the individual imo and McCain the POS wants to mess with something that messes with anyone wanting to be as healthy as possible.

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….Thank you Richard for sending this to me.
If anyone would like to contact Richard about his vitamins and supplements his email is.
Richard email