Dietary Supplements & DSHEA
The Dietary Supplement
Health and Education Act of 1994
Are you one of those Americans who believes
that you are terribly over regulated by your government? Well,
if so, I agree with you, in some areas anyway. But do you know
that there are products sold for human consumption in the U.S.
that are practically unregulated by any government agency whatsoever?
If you don't know that, you are like the vast majority
of Americans who has never heard about DSHEA (pronounced
duh' shay), the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act
of 1994, passed by Congress and signed into law by Clinton
after the most intense lobbying effort since the Vietnam
War. DSHEA was sponsored by Orrin Hatch, the senator from
Utah, the state that is home to a great many of the supplement
companies.
The lobbying was, of course, conducted by the dietary supplement
industry. Speak to people who frequent health food stores.
They will remember the campaign. They were told that if DSHEA
wasn't passed they would need a prescription from an M.D.
to get vitamin C. It wasn't true, but many believed the hype
and contacted their elected representatives who passed DSHEA.
What the general public and quite possibly even most of
the people who contacted their representatives never realized
was that the law gave the supplement industry license to
legally sell almost anything that they want as long as they
don't put drug claims on the label. They can and do put those
claims in books, magazines and pamphlets displayed, sold
or given away someplace else in the same store as well as
all over the Internet and in ads on TV and in the mainstream
print media.
Even under DSHEA all supplement claims have to be true.
There would probably be rioting in the streets if Congress
tried to revoke our fraud in advertising laws. However, neither
federal nor state agencies have the resources to enforce
these laws. When I attempted to file a complaint with FTC,
the federal agency responsible for enforcing fraud in advertising
laws nationally, they sent me a brochure telling me how to
get other brochures.
It took screaming at the aides to a senator to get the
number of a real person at FTC. She apologized but said that
they only have 30 people at the agency to handle fraud in
advertising in the entire U.S. The supplement companies as
well as all the politicians who sponsored and voted for DSHEA
all know this. It is the guy in the street who doesn't.
Before DSHEA went into effect, anyone who wanted to sell
a product for human consumption had to first prove to FDA
that it was safe. After DSHEA, it became up to the agency
to discover and prove that a particular product sold as
a "dietary
supplement" had injured or killed a particular person,
possibly you, before they could stop its sale.
Do you realize how difficult that is to do? Remember cigarettes?
Haven't you noticed the executives from the tobacco industry
on T.V. who still claim that there is no proof that smoking
causes lung cancer?
My goal is to either have DSHEA repealed or else to make
sure that everyone living in or visiting the U.S. knows
that it exists. I want them to realize that when they buy
something that says "dietary supplement" on the
label, they have no guarantee of the safety or efficacy of
the product. Neither can they be sure of the purity or potency
of the ingredients that it is purported to contain.
In fact the substance listed on the label may not even
be in the bottle. (URL to be posted) When you buy a dietary
supplement you are putting all your faith in the manufacturer
who may or may not know what he is doing and who may or may
not be honest and reputable. You are buying an unregulated
product.
FDA
Guide to Dietary Supplements
FDA
Consumer Advice
Quackwatch
Dietary Supplements