Oppose Senate Bill S.3546 F.D.A. Attack on Health, Freedom, Herbs and Supplements

[Dan Burdick]

Or support it. This Bill is for Adverse Event Reporting for dietary supplement.

The Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Consumer Protection Act, (S.3546 & H.R.6168)

The Natural Products Association
http://www.naturalproductsassoc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ic_AERbill
(June 21, 2006) - The Natural Products Association supports the introduction today of S.3546 the Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (the “AER bill”). The Natural Products Association believes this bill represents a fair and meaningful collaboration among the supplement industry, our bi-partisan champions in the Senate, and legislators who would like to see more stringent oversight of dietary supplements.

If S. 3546 becomes law, it will amend the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to require the reporting of “serious” adverse events for both over the counter (OTC) drugs and dietary supplements to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.


Orrin G. Hatch – Sponsored bills http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=SponsoredBills.Detail&SponsoredBillID=153
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.View&PressRelease_id=1598

Senate Report http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&sid=cp109iKSsr&refer=&r_n=sr324.109&db_id=109&item=&sel=TOC_0&

Senate Bill S.3546 http://www.thenhf.com/government_affairs_federal.html

National Health Federation:

Urls: http://www.thenhf.com/oppose_S3546_nhf_press_release_september_2006.htm

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1740517/posts

The Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Consumer Protection Act.
http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=546

__________________________________________________ ____________

The American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF) was unable to support the Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (S.3546)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=46882
“This is one step closer towards treating dietary supplements more like pharmaceuticals.”

To Supplement Manufacturers Re: Contact Congress Immediately http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:HLYOCJ58-I4J:www.nutraceutical.com/new/Letter_to_Retailers.pdf+S.3546+Dietary+Supplement+ and+Non-Prescription+Drug+Consumer+Protection+Act.&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=20


Banned Ephedra as the justification.
http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com/newsletter/1july06/DSbill.html

John Hammell of International Advocates for Health Freedom discusses health freedom Part 1
http://www.newstarget.com/020764.html

Life Extension Foundation: http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/consumer_alert_130906.htm

[Dan Burdick]

To the Honorable Senator _________
11/24/06

Dear Senator_______:

I am writing to express my strong opposition to SB 3546, the Dietary
Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act. Under a
guise of beneficence this legislation would be very harmful, it:

· Treats supplements like drugs. Supplements are primarily
purified food extracts having a history of being vastly safer than
prescription drugs and being safer than food.

· Intentionally puts an unneeded and insupportable burden on
smaller companies. For instance: small producers of dried herbs,
i.e., gardeners and herbalists. Should the freedoms of these people
be taken with the justification being a need for increased supplement
safety?

· Will repeal DSHEA, which was put in place to protect
supplements from unneeded control.

The F.D.A. already has the power to control unsafe foods and drugs.
There is no need for legislation that will remove this safeguard and
open supplements to attack by the international drug industry and
the F.D.A. which primarily serves its interests not ours.

In Europe the `approved' herbs are standardized and expensive. Do we
need standardized turmeric and sassafras? Available only from large
corporation? And this supposedly to protect us from ourselves and
unscrupulous herbalists? No!

In Europe CoQ10 is a drug. CoQ10 is a valuable supplement; it will
not benefit our people to make it a "drug" here. It doesn't benefit
our free citizens to take our rights to produce and access things
from we the people and place the control of our affairs instead in
the hands of large corporations using international treaties to bind
people in member countries to a system to which they can have no
democratic input.

It seems likely to me that the ephedra issue was orchestrated for use
as propaganda leverage for the purpose of advancing this agenda of
repealing DSHEA and moving control of people's families health from
the people themselves and towards transnational regulatory bodies
controlled by elite rich.

The F.D.A. could have banned as unsafe ephedrine sulphate containing
diet pills (which came from a different class of companies than most
other vitamin supplement sources) without banning the Chinese herb,
and without seeing this made into an issue repeatedly linked to DSHEA
and a bogus need to protect people from supposedly dangerous herbs
and supplements.

VIOXX was kept on the market for extra months to garner some more
profit before it was banned due to its causing tens of thousands of
deaths. S.S.R.I. antidepressants were brought to market after
suppression of German reports of suicidal and homicidal affect, and
they are being protected from bad publicity. Prescription drugs,
taken as prescribed, are a large yearly cause of injury and death.

Please do what you can to oppose Bill 3546. The intent of this bill
is not to promote health, instead it is to further an agenda of
restriction of health freedom for the power and economic benefit of a
few.

Sincerely,

name,
address



See as well:

The National Health Federation
http://www.thenhf
http://www.thenhf.com/government_affairs_federal.html


Pending Bills in Congress Could Take Away Your Health Care Rights to
Buy Vitamins and Herbs
NUTRITIONAL HEALTH ALLIANCE ACTIVATED AGAIN TO PROTECT DSHEA
http://www.nha2004.com/index_res.asp?w=1024&h=768

Barking Up The Wrong Tree – Dietary Supplements are targeted while
foods sicken millions.
Author: VitaNet ® Staff
November 09, 2006 11:54 AM
http://vitanetonline.com/forums/1/Thread/1006

After careful review, the American Association for Health Freedom
(AAHF) was unable to support the Dietary Supplement and Non-
Prescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (S.3546), despite enduring
gratitude to the bill's originators and long-time dietary supplement
advocates, Senators Hatch and Harkin:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=46882

Codex Alimentarius – Health Risks and Environmental
Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April, 2000 by Rose Marie
Williams
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_2002_April/ai_84211148

[Dan Burdick]

(Delete Repeated Post) Bonus text:

VitaNet Health Foods
http://vitanetonline.com/forums/1/Thread/985

Health Freedom Foundation Version of Advocate Letter:
AER Dietary Supplement Legislation
http://ga4.org/healthfreedom/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=3750024

Trojan Horse?
Sepp Hasslberger
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/09/17/s_3546_adverse_event_reporting_bill_a_trojan_horse .htm

Codex Alimentarius - Health Risks and Environmental Issues
by Rose Marie Williams 2002
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_2002_April

CODEX ALIMENTARIUS

CODEX ALIMENTARIUS refers to a code or rules for dietary and food supplements. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsor the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission. It is part of an international movement to set up guidelines for food additives, pesticides, veterinary drug residues in food, and to standardize natural products such as herbs, vitamins, etc. Unquestionably, these are all good points.

A major fear, however, is the pharmaceutical industry's power to restrict public access to vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements by escalating the removal of many products from the market, and making the rest available by prescription only.

The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS' basic position is that most people who eat a balanced diet usually obtain all the nutrients they require from their "normal" diet. Readers of the TLfDP recognize the fallacy here. The average American diet consists of coffee, soda, cheeseburgers, french fries, over-processed, canned, micro-waved, refined, sugared foods, nitrate-filled meat products, cell-damaging hydrogenated oils, and produce grown in depleted soils, sprayed with pesticides, dyed, waxed, and harvested weeks before maturity.

Elizabeth Yetley, PhD, representing the US Food and Drug Administration claims the CODEX guidelines have advanced very rapidly in Europe the past few years, but are not binding on American laws. However, freedom of choice proponents in the US point to growing inaccessibility and escalated prices in countries like Norway, which has already aligned with international "harmonization" efforts. Many Canadian consumers are upset with their government's removal of easy access to some 40 useful herbal and dietary products that have been banned or placed under pharmaceutical control by the Health Protection Branch (equiv. to the US FDA).