Do you take your daily multi, or at least make it an intention? That option might become a lot more complicated in the near future.
The FDA, which regulates foods and drugs in the US, has turned its focus on nutritional supplements - and its proposed criteria will leave very few supplements standing.
Here's what could go down:
- Under these new guidelines, Vitamin A, B complex, C, and D, as well as CoQ 10, would be outlawed.
- The FDA will require that supplement manufacturers fund prohibitively expensive studies using doses multiplied by a "safety factor" of as high as 2,000 times the recommended dose. For instance, the FDA is proposing that two species of animals, rodents and young dogs, will be forced to ingest 2.4 million milligrams of fish oil per day, for 90 days. Humans take 2,400 milligrams daily - and we weigh 10 times as much as small dogs. In addition to these inhumane practices, this requirement will destroy most supplement companies (except those secretly owned by pharmaceutical manufacturers).
- Supplements can only include ingredients found in the "typical food supply." And what exactly does that mean to the FDA? Does echinacea qualify as being in the typical food supply? (I doubt it, since deep fried echinacea blossoms are not on your local Applebee's menu.)
- The FDA will only approve supplement ingredients that are at the same levels that it uses for synthetic food additives and preservatives, which is in violation of the 1994 law, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which categorizes supplements as foods, not additives.
- The FDA is treating supplement ingredients under the same exacting scrutiny as it does with known cancer-causing chemicals like aspartame, MSG, and sodium nitrate - demanding that the supplements be reduced to "inert" levels of concentration that will render them ineffective to consumers.
- Each ingredient, as well as the supplement itself, will be required to undergo a New Dietary Ingredient Notification (NDIN) process - even if the same ingredient is used by other companies. This process takes 75 days at a bare minimum. And as of yet, 83% of NDINs have been rejected by the FDA. And by the way, "new" refers to products that have been in use for up to 17 years.
Are you worried yet?
After this law passes - and it will if we don't act soon top stop it - your only options will be pharmaceutical drugs (and we know how well they work, don't we?).
In case you don't: Every year, 100,000 people per year die from prescription drugs - and this number only includes people who die from known side effects, not from prescription errors made by doctors and pharmacists.
Guess how many people died in 2006, 2007 and 2008, combined, from supplements? Six.
And yet who is the FDA going after? Not the pharmaceutical industry. They're going after our supplements.
Here's how to stop them:
Time for action is short.
The FDA has extended the period for you to protest this law until September 30. So it's time to raise your voice while there's still a chance. Once the law passes, it will be too late. Then, you'll wish you had, I promise.
The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) has set up an easy, quick way to protest the FDA's action. Click here to tell Congress and the FDA to keep their hands OFF our supplements. It will only take a few short minutes.
Click here to vote for your continued safe access to vitamins.
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