Since its inception, the Alliance for Natural Health USA has waged many successful battles to protect alternative health options. Throughout our history we have played an important role in filing precedent-setting lawsuits and passing significant legislation that directly benefit the natural health community.
Health Transparency
- We helped pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), the law under which supplements are regulated.
- ANH filed nine precedent-setting lawsuits against the FDA establishing qualified health claims for dietary supplements. Then we successfully sued FDA to allow certain qualified health claims relating to cancer for selenium, vitamin C, and vitamin E.
- We won a lawsuit allowing for the communication of importance of consuming folate during pregnancy.
- We sent 1.3 million messages to policymakers in support of our legislation calling for Congress to allow free speech about the benefits of supplements.
- POM Wonderful was sued by FTC. We supported their defense to defend free speech about their product’s benefits.
- ANH submitted a Citizens Petition to the FDA calling for the addition of a pneumonia warning on all proton pump inhibitor (PPI) medications.
- We helped win greater price transparency at hospitals, culminating in an administrative rule requiring hospitals to post an online list of their standard charges.
Health Autonomy
- ANH has defeated a wide range of efforts to limit and restrict consumer access to supplements, including:
- Defeating Sen. Durbin’s Dietary Supplement Labeling Act in 2011 (by sending over 100,000 messages in 24 hours) and again in 2013.
- Blocking Senator Durbin’s amendment which would have required FDA registration for all supplements.
- Defeated Sen. McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act, a bill that would have limited access to supplements. ANH sent more than 200,000 messages opposing the bill, leading Sen. McCain to withdraw support from his own bill.
- Stopping Rep. Henry Waxman’s sneak amendment against supplements in a Wall Street reform bill that would have expanded the FTC’s power to target supplements.
- Blocking efforts by Sen. Durbin to sneak a mandatory listing requirement into a must-pass appropriations bill in 2021.
- Filed multiple Citizens Petitions and regulatory comments laying out the problems with the FDA’s “new supplement” guidance in 2011, including its regulatory and economic impact, eventually leading the FDA to retract it. When the guidance was reissued in 2016, ANH filed additional comments about the persistent problems with the guidance.
- Supported the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp at the federal level, an important step toward ensuring consumer access to affordable CBD supplements—though the fight is not yet over.
- Since our founding, ANH has defeated hundreds of bills across the country that would restrict or eliminate vaccine exemptions or mandate vaccines (for students, healthcare workers, etc.). We continue to fight for vaccine choice at the state level in the COVID era to prevent mandates and discrimination based on vaccination status.
- We created a full-length documentary on the HPV vaccine that has been viewed over 3 million times worldwide.
- A 2018 guidance from the FDA declared that all homeopathic medicines are, in effect, illegal. Thanks to advocacy from ANH and other stakeholders, consumer access to many of these medicines persists as we advocate for the FDA to revise its policy.
- In 2008, when the FDA targeted estriol, a critical hormone for women’s health, ANH stepped up and got the FDA to back down. We’re still fighting to protect access to this critical medicine as the FDA works to restrict the compounding industry.
- ANH won battles in Delaware, Michigan, and New Jersey for Certified Nutrition Specialists, giving consumers a wider menu of options to best fit their healthcare needs.
- With 19 state wins and counting, we are winning the fight against monopolies around the country.
- ANH helped support successful licensure efforts in New Mexico, Idaho, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
- Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ANH has supported access to health plans that are not required to adhere to restrictive ACA rules and regulations, allowing consumers greater flexibility in choosing health options that best fit their needs, including:
- Association Health Plans. ANH’s support culminated in the Department of Labor issuing a final rule expanding the ability of workers in unrelated professions in the same geographic region to form insurance plans exempt from Obamacare rules.
- Short-Term Health Plans. ANH advocacy culminated in the Trump Administration’s final rule on short-term health plans allowing insurers to renew an individual’s plan for up to 3 years (2 years plus the first year).
- After years of ANH advocacy and support, a federal Right to Try bill was finally passed in 2020 allowing terminal patients access to experimental drugs without going through FDA red tape.
Regenerative Health
- ANH filed a petition to Ban BPA, a dangerous neurotoxin.
- ANH filed a petition to the FDA to ban phthalates, a known endocrine disruptor.
- After years of advocating for dangerous chlorpyrifos pesticides to be banned, the EPA finally announced in 2021 that they would end their use in the US.
- ANH released a report testing common breakfast foods for the presence of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, which launched a national wave of testing various foods for the pesticide ingredient.
- ANH pushed the FDA to revise rules released as part of the Food Safety Modernization Act to help small, organic farmers relating to the application of raw manure and ending burdensome and unnecessary restrictions on the use of spent grain.
- ANH was a loud voice calling for the USDA to crack down on the wave of fake organics undermining the integrity of the organic label. This is now a major initiative at the agency.