McCain's Freedom Destroying Bill

[Mango]

:angry: Big oil wanting to drill in our waters, government trying to take away supplements for big pharma. What is this Country coming to?

"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). 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.

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 to be developed as a drug and sold for multiples of its price as a supplement.

There are a lot of vested interests which are threatened by supplements. Drug companies do not like them because they represent a low cost, safer, and often more effective alternative to drugs. The FDA does not like them because supplements do not come through the FDA approval process and therefore do not support the FDA budget.

Why not simply require that supplements be brought through the FDA?s drug approval process? Wouldn?t that create a level playing field? That is probably the argument that Senator McCain has been sold. But it is a completely false argument. The FDA drug approval process costs as much as a billion dollars. It is not economically feasible to spend such vast sums on substances that are not protected by patent, and natural substances cannot legally be patented. This is the great ?Catch 22? of American medicine. The FDA, which is supposed to guard and promote our health, is hostile to the kind of natural medicine?based on diet, supplements, and exercise?that represents the real future of healthcare. The Agency has either been captured by drug interests or is trapped in a catastrophically expensive, toxic, and ineffective patented-drug model."


FULL ARTICLE HERE
THE BILL HERE

 

[30ashopper]

I feel a little sorry for the folks at the FDA. On the one hand, people want their bleeding edge treatments and supplements before they are approved or without any kind of approval. On the flip side, if a few people get sick or die from the use of these drugs, the FDA is thrown upon the cross. I wouldn't want their job.

 

[Mango]

I feel a little sorry for the folks at the FDA. On the one hand, people want their bleeding edge treatments and supplements before they are approved or without any kind of approval. On the flip side, if a few people get sick or die from the use of these drugs, the FDA is thrown upon the cross. I wouldn't want their job.

The FDA is a corrupt, dysfunctional agency.

Since the start of the new year, evidence of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) inability to fulfill its mission of protecting public health has escalated, placing pressure on the Congress and the Obama administration to take immediate steps toward substantial reform of the Agency and the appointment of new leadership.
In early January, nine scientists at the FDA wrote to then President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team making a bold appeal for immediate intervention at the Agency to correct what they alleged to be widespread managerial misconduct, intimidation and corruption.

LINK

So, is this agency you want telling you you can't take your fish oil now and need a prescription for it?

 

[Linda]

My favorite website is Independent news on natural health, nutrition and more. Here is a link showing more articles of FDA corruption. I am not in favor of the FDA regulating my supplements!! I do my own research on what I take or don't take.

FDA corruption news and articles

 

[30ashopper]

The FDA is a corrupt, dysfunctional agency.

The whole federal government is a corrupt, dysfunctional system. Tell me something I don't already know.

LINK

So, is this agency you want telling you you can't take your fish oil now and need a prescription for it?

No I don't actually, I lean toward less regulation, and would expect people to do their own due diligence. But alas I think a lot of folks aren't willing to take on that kind of responsibility.

 

[scooterbug44]

I think the FDA should regulate supplements - especially considering the claims many make and how many people take them.

Am all for increased efficiency and competence in any organization.

 

[Lynnie]

My dr. and I discuss supplements in almost every physical appointment. He wants me taking a really good calcium supplement with vitamin D. That is understandable.

Other than that, I believe we should get our nutrients from our diets, which for many means making adjustments. I am not for this bill and would take it one step further to examine what if any earmarks are buried in it.

 

[beachmouse]

We tried not regulating the dietary supplement industry. People died because of it. There were something like 150+ deaths reportedly linked to the dietary supplement ephedra, including pro baseball player Steve Belcher, before the FDA moved to ban the substance, and even after that, the supplement makers fought the ban every step of the way.

There have also been many issues of quality control including cross contamination of supplements (which has actually caused problems for athletes subject to drug testing) and supplements containing far more or far less of a substance than it's marked on the label.

 

[Susan Horn]

I'll take my chances with unregulated supplements any day compared to the risk of drugs made by big pharma and "regulated" by FDA. There have been scads of problems with regulated drugs as well, including serious disease and death, and I have little or no faith in the ability of the FDA to do what it is supposed to do. Having FDA regulate supplements will just mean there's a bunch of them we won't be able to get at all, and the rest will cost twice as much as they do now or more.

Such regulation would cause all kinds of trouble for our dear mom and pop health food stores too.

Some people cannot get all the nutrients they need from diet, even all-organic, for all kinds of reasons, and need supplements to maintain or restore balance and wellness. Sometimes for life, sometimes just during a rebalancing of some illness or imbalance.

 

[Miss Critter]

Yet another example of how corporations run this country, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It's all about the money. Guess I'll be buying black market vitamins. And no, you cannot get all the vitamins and minerals you need from a "good" diet, due to poor soils and many other factors. And that's for people with no known health problems. Many health issues can be effctively mediated or even cured through proper supplementation.

Far more people die or are harmed by prescription drugs taken as intended and prescribed in this country than by supplements. If you need proof, I can find numbers online. This is not a bill to "protect" the American public; it's a bill to give even more power to the pharmaceutical companies. This is the same government that allows patenting of human body parts, stifling research by limiting it only to the company with the patent. I grow more disgusted by my government - on every level - every day.