How safe are your nutritional supplements? And who really has the money, resources, and staff to control and inspect all of them? The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). It would give the FDA full discretion and power to compile a discreet list of supplements allowed to remain on the market while banning all others, according to the DSSA information on the vitamin firm's website which has this information for consumers.
Do you know how to find out how much lead or mercury or other toxins are in your minerals or where to check for information? You might look at various government sites such as the CDC or FDA or private consumer testing labs, but if you write to your local supplement companies, you might find they are distributors not manufacturers. You could subscribe to or check out sites such as the News releases from ConsumerLab.com. You need to find out what the government tests and what private labs test regarding safety in supplements.
Currently, in Sacramento, you can buy supplements from most any local health food store or natural food market such as Sunrise Natural Foods, Elliot's Natural Foods, Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, and Whole Foods Market as well as the vitamin aisles of the natural foods sections of numerous Sacramento supermarkets. Some legislators don't want the act passed at all. According to the site, "Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act," the message there is to tell your senator not to co-sponsor this bill. Why? Doesn't anyone in Sacramento want safer supplements?
McCain’s bill is called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). It would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). See the site, Chapter I - Dietary Supplement Health And Education Act of 1994.
DSHEA protects supplements if 1) they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug, according to the site, McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act | Ron Paul 2012 | Sound.
According to that site, "These protections are far from perfect. They discourage companies from developing new forms of supplements. New supplements may be arbitrarily banned by the FDA or adopted by drug companies in a way that precludes their further sale as supplements.
"McCain’s bill would wipe out even the minimal protections contained in DSHEA. It would give the FDA full discretion and power to compile a discreet list of supplements allowed to remain on the market while banning all others. Everyone knows that the FDA is friendly to drug companies (which pay its bills and provide good revolving door jobs) and hostile to supplement companies. Under this bill, this same Agency could quite arbitrarily ban any supplement it wished or turn it over to drug companies."
The site notes, "If passed, this bill will likely result in the disappearance from store shelves of many supplements currently on the market. In addition to fewer supplements, there would likely be much lower doses available. Unbridled authority would be handed to the FDA, an agency that needs a top to bottom overhaul, not ever more power over our lives.
If McCain’s 2012 bill passes, we can look to Europe for a snapshot of what we may be in for: EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has sharply reduced the list of available supplements and is in process of reducing potencies to ridiculous levels, such as less beta carotene than can be found in half of a large carrot. Europeans already look to the US to obtain their dietary supplements. If this bill passes, where will we obtain ours?"
What do you think in Sacramento about the safety of supplements? Of course they should be safe and controlled as to you knowing that what's on the label is in the container. But supplements should not be taken away. See the Alliance for Natural Health site, "Senator McCain Files New Bill That Attacks Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act." Is this Act in 2012 going to repeat what happened in 2010?
Everyone knows that the FDA is friendly to drug companies (which pay its bills and provide good revolving door jobs) and hostile to supplement companies. according to the DNG Vitamins.com website. Under this bill, this same Agency could quite arbitrarily ban any supplement it wished or turn it over to drug companies to be developed as a drug and sold for multiples of its price as a supplement.
How safe are your supplements? If McCain’s Bill Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2012 eventually passes, can we look to Europe for a snapshot of what we may be in for? EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has sharply reduced the list of available supplements and is in process of reducing potencies to ridiculous levels, such as less beta carotene than can be found in half of a large carrot. Europeans already look to the US to obtain their dietary supplements. If this bill passes, where will we obtain ours here in the USA? See, McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act | Ron Paul 2012 |.
Please take action immediately. Tell your senators NOT to co- sponsor the detrimental legislation and to do everything in their power to defeat it. Then forward this to your friends and family and ask them to do the same.
Should Sacramento shoppers worry about not being able to buy vitamins from a health food store or online? Sacramento has numerous health food stores such as Sunrise Natural Foods, Elliot's Natural Foods, General Nutrition Centers, and others. See, Sacramento Organic & Natural Health Food Stores | Ecovian, and Health Food Stores in Sacramento, CA | 2findLocal.com.
See the website regarding the 2012 Bill, that repeats pretty much the same as the 2010 Bill did, "McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act | Ron Paul 2012 | Sound." Should Sacramento shoppers worry about not being able to buy vitamins from a health food store or online? Sacramento has numerous health food stores such as Sunrise Natural Foods, Elliot's Natural Foods, General Nutrition Centers, and others. See, Sacramento Organic & Natural Health Food Stores | Ecovian, and Health Food Stores in Sacramento, CA | 2findLocal.com.
Also, vitamins are sold on the shelf at Whole Foods Market and Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op as well as in most Sacramento supermarkets. Some local supermarkets also have natural food sections or aisles with numerous shelves of vitamins and other supplements.
The problem is that there is a new Bill filed by Sen. McCain that vitamin companies are claiming to attack your access to supplements. See the article on an online vitamin distributor's website, "Sen. McCain Files New Bill Attacking Your Access to Supplements: This Bill Would Repeal Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act." If you try to buy vitamins online, you may see this information about the new Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA).
The issue here is whether the new Bill filed is simply trying to protect you by making sure what's in the vitamin container is really what's on the label or whether it's safe, standardized, and controlled for true reporting of ingredients or whether the Act would give the FDA the power to only allow a few specially selected vitamins on the market and ban all others that it didn't want on the market for a variety of reasons other than the most important, safety, cleanliness, and standardized ingredients.
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.” According to this information on the DNG Vitamins.com website, 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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