Congress Seeks to put Dietary Supplement Makers in Jail for Ten Years!

Pharmaceutical companies are once again interfering with your ability to access information about dietary supplements.

The Senate is debating a bill that will enable the FDA to put vitamin supplement makers in jail for ten years if they cite findings from peer-reviewed published scientific studies on the label of their dietary supplements or their Web site.

The pretext for these draconian proposals is a bill titled the Food Safety Accountability Act (S. 3767). The ostensible purpose of the bill is to punish anyone who knowingly contaminates food for sale. Since there are already strong laws to punish anyone who commits this crime, this bill serves little purpose other than enriching pharmaceutical interests.

The sinister scheme behind this bill is to exploit the public’s concern about food safety. Drug companies want to convince your Senators that an overreaching law needs to be enacted to grant the FDA powers to define “food contamination” any way it chooses.

Even today, the FDA can proclaim a dietary supplement as “misbranded” even if the best science in the world is used to describe its biological effects in the body. The concern is that the FDA will use the term “misbranded” in the same way it defines “adulterated” in order to jail dietary supplement makers as if they were selling contaminated food.

The new bill being debated in the Senate increases the penalties the FDA can use to threaten supplement makers to ten years in prison. The big issue here is that the FDA will use this as a hammer to threaten and coerce small companies into signing crippling consent decrees that will deny consumers access to truthful non-misleading information about natural approaches to protect against age-related disease.

Please tell your two Senators to OPPOSE the Food Safety Accountability Act (S. 3767). You can do this in a few minutes on our convenient Legislative Action Center on our Web site.

If you’d like to read the legal details about this bill, log on to the Alliance for Natural Health Web site.

Health-conscious consumers have succeeded in preventing Congress from capitulating to the pharmaceutical industry this year. Please continue this string of victories by telling your Senators to OPPOSE this underhanded attempt (S. 3767) to grant the FDA dictatorial new powers.

Due to the short session before Congress adjourns for the election, please alert your two Senators today!