September 14, 2010
A brand new bill has just been introduced in the Senate. It’s supposed to hold accountable those who taint our food supply on purpose. But as drafted, it actually gives license to the FDA to target supplement and natural health product companies. Please take action today!
Please keep in mind the fact that there are already laws on the books to ensure the safety of our food and Nutritional Supplements (See Vitamin Supplements vs Drugs); all we need is for those laws to be properly enforced. Instead, for the past two years, lawmakers have been trying to “beef up” current rules. The main vehicle for this effort has been something called the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, or FSEA.
We need your help to educate Congress NOW! Please contact your senators and ask them to oppose Sen. Leahy’s Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010. Please click here to take action today!
Here is a copy of my letter to Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl.
Dear Senators,
I was shocked to read the provisions of S. 3767, the new Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010. It contains draconian penalties for even minor infractions–so much so that I wonder if Senators Leahy, Klobuchar, and Franken have actually read the fine print of the bill.
This bill gives the US Food and Drug Administration vastly expanded powers, and increases criminal penalties to ten years’ imprisonment for any person who knowingly introduces or delivers for introduction into interstate commerce any food that is adulterated or misbranded, or for any person to adulterate or misbrand any food in interstate commerce.
The problem, of course, is that the terms “misbranded” and “adulterated” are so broadly defined that they include even minor record-keeping violations, as well as selling a product whose manufacturer has cited peer-reviewed science about the product’s benefits.
As I’m sure you’re aware, the FDA has a long history of targeting natural health product companies under false pretenses. This is what happened to a group of cherry producers that cited Harvard research about the benefits of cherries on their website. The FDA forced them to sign a consent decree so burdensome that it almost put them out of business. With the bigger threat of increased criminal penalties, the FDA would practically have free rein.
As one of your constituents, and a Naturopathic Medical Doctor, as well as the President of a Vitamin Supplement company, I wanted you to know that I am very concerned about this bill because I take dietary supplements regularly myself, I prescribe them to my patients and I manufacture them. I know they are safe and extremely beneficial. They are already regulated under DSHEA and the FDA already has sufficient power to safeguard the public via DSHEA. This bill is a misguided attempt to create unneeded additional regulatory red tape AND it practically ensures that natural product makers will be threatened, silenced, and penalized.
This bill won’t even necessarily hold accountable a company which tainted a product, even on purpose, if the adulteration occurred before the product was sold by a distributor!
Please, Senator–this is just a bad bill. I strongly urge you to fight and defeat it.
To write your senator, click here to take action today!
Source: Alliance for Natural Health