Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) bill that threatens tens of thousands of products has officially been introduced. We need all hands on deck to oppose it. Action Alert!
Sen. Dick Durbin has launched his supplement attack by introducing his “Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022” with Senator Mike Braun (R-IN). This bill threatens your ability to access the supplements you rely on to stay healthy. We need to send a strong message to Congress that this is bad for consumers, bad for health, and bad for the economy.
The bill threatens fines and jailtime for companies that do not comply. If a company does not submit the proper information, in the correct form, by the proper date, the supplement is considered misbranded. For the first offense, violators can be imprisoned for one year and fined $1,000 dollars; for the second offense, violators can be imprisoned for three years and fined $10,000. Given the safety record of supplements that will be detailed below, the punishments here hardly seem to fit the crime.
This bill creates a lose-lose situation for consumers and supplement companies: if companies don’t comply, they face fines and jail time; if they do comply, companies are orchestrating their own demise by giving the FDA the list it needs to sweep the market of as many as 41,000 supplements that do not comply with the agency’s overreaching (and incomplete) “new supplement” guidance. Supplement companies lose, the economy suffers, and consumers lose access to critical health products.
It’s bad, but it may not even be the biggest threat to your supplements right now. Separately, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is independently moving forward with plans to attach a similar mandatory product registration provision for supplements to the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act that must pass by the end of September. Durbin’s policy, then, has twice the chance of success because it is moving forward on two distinct paths.
Why are more supplement regulations such a priority for these federal authorities? Supplements are overwhelmingly safe. According to the FDA, in 2021, the agency received 2,400 adverse event reports related to dietary supplements. To put this in context, according to the FDA’s adverse event database, in 2021 the FDA received a total of 2,333,453 adverse event reports. That means that dietary supplements make up 0.1% of the adverse event reports to the FDA. National reports consistently show zero deaths from dietary supplements; according to the FDA’s database, in 2021 alone drugs killed 187,750 Americans.
That supplements are the products getting federal attention speaks to the power of the drug industry lobby and the willingness of elected officials and FDA officials to do their bidding. We cannot let these forces succeed in undermining our ability to stay healthy, naturally.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and tell them to oppose mandatory product listing for supplements. Please send your message immediately
Nonsense. Hold drug companies accountable for vaccines!!!
Leave natural things alone
Why would the companies not be able to fulfill the requirements? I use various supplements, I am a retired pharmacist, to give you some background. Is the time frame unreasonable?
I’m all for transparency!
Why shouldn’t the supplement companies reveal what the supplement consist of and it’s use? What is it that they have to disclose? I don’t get the opposition.
Stop govt. laws regulating our private/personal lives!!!!
I am 75 years old and dealing with diabetes. Taking supplements for years is what has kept me healthy and my immune system strong. A strong immune system has helped me avoid COVID. I can’t imagine what my health would be without them and do not want to find out!!
Apparently we need to replace all of the lobbyist owned politicians and start over.
Please do not let this legislation to ban our herbs and supplement go through.
This is a life-line to many of us. These helps saved my life, extended my father’s life
and save the life of my little girl. I would look at this as an act of considerable personal damage
to my family and community. Why do these people insist on threatening our lives?
Jon Paul
Many laws are used for purposes that defy the intents of the laws.
Example: In Florida’s guardianship law, there is a requirement for examiners to examine a person to confirm he is incapacitated. Three examiners are sent from the county: a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a nurse of some sort. They charge the person $875, and if they are indigent, they make the county pay. Our daughter has a car, so she has to pay. This despite the many witnesses names and addresses, including physicians, on the court papers; we’re afraid the lawyer removed them, as he apparently is in on this too. The lawyer told us not to put the names, but we could not sign without perjuring ourselves. He also said to leave off the names of other kin; (so if we die, the court thinks she is without kin?) Well, this is just one way the courts are putting laws on their head to defy the intent and purpose of the law. In this case the law is to protect the assets of the person who is found to be incapacitated. This is in Pinellas County, FL. Maybe all county courts are not so corrupt.
They found out how half the population stayed healthy during COVID by using supplements and eating right. That must have been the opposite of their desired result. So do away with healthy herbals & food compounds options.
This bill is outrageous. They poison our food supply and then want to take out freedom to chose health supplements. They are trying to kill us!!! I use supplements daily for over 35 years. I’m 76 and I have fought cancer and I’m now cancer free for 9 years. I do not take prescription medications, only supplements and I am healthier than I was before cancer. Please stop this bill in it’s track. Not having freedom to choose supplements is more of a death sentence and any side effect from supplements which no one has ever died from.
I am a senior in the grip of two chronic conditions: Type 2 Diabetes and Muscular Dystrophy. Access to nutritional supplements has been a god-send for what remains of my health and energy. Considering the origins and history of our current medical industrial complex I have come to the personal conclusion that given a choice between synthetic chemicals and naturally occurring alternatives I default to the latter. My diabetes prevents me from participating in the three meals a day with snacks in between paradigm (the very thing that stressed my insulin management system to fail in the first place). I can eat 2 meals a day with no snacking in between. Taking natural supplements with my meals keeps my energy levels more level and boosts my immune system to such a degree that I can count on one hand the number of times I have succumbed to an upper respiratory infection in the past ten years (No Covid Vaccine for me by the way). Surely none of us live forever but I am a firm believer that our Heavenly Father provides us with all medicinal goodness through nature and not through some factory in China or USA
I guess they don’t want us staying healthy nor any alternatives to the death vax.
I added this to my comments: “Examine the vaccines and the damage they have caused, then get back to me on this concern. You are either part of the solution or YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!
To all parties concerned, I’m personally outraged that this bill is being put before Congress. I demand that this bill be pulled immediately. Where does government have the right to decide what I can and cannot purchase? This matter falls on the consumer to make these decisions. I personally use these supplements and have for a very long time with excellent results. My overall health has improved with using these supplements. Perhaps that’s the problem, they work a little to good.
We the People are the ultimate authority in this Constitutional Republic. According to the state and federal constitutions, we have all power to alter, reform or abolish government at will. You’d best listen to us. You swore an oath to those constitutions.
Let us take a look at the real problem, they want to control our use of Supplements, yet they totally overlook the fact of why we need these Supplements. These modern corporate farms have so destroyed the nutritional value in our foods that it has opened the doors wide for someone to replace these drained nutrients. Tell this Senator “Dick” if he really cared about our health he would be going after the real source of the problem, corporate farms. And another thing…LOL…do you remember a thing in War I and World War II called Victory Gardens? Several Governments, including the US, encouraged everyone to plant gardens, not only to supplement the rationing at the time but also as a morale booster. These gardens and canning were used to help relieve short supplies of food. They learned at the time that growing your own food boosted morale greatly in that growing their own food they felt empowered and rewarded for the effort. Now compare what the Governments did back then when food was short to what they do now, now they tell us that there is nothing we can do, nothing but suffer from less food and pay higher prices for what may be available. Why isn’t the Governments of the world telling their servants to plant victory gardens? You guessed right! It’s obvious that they want to use the shortages as a weapon to force compliance to their agendas.
Stop taking away our freedoms our forefathers fought for you scoundrel you should be ashamed of yourself!!!
J F C
These DUMB F’S cannot-WILL NOT leave well enough ALONE!!!
ONLY BIG BROTHER/SISTER will DECIDE what’s good for you and what’s NOT.
Apparently TOO many of us are committing SUICIDE with vitamin B and D!! Or turning ourselves into CITRUS TREES or start buying COPIOUS bales of HAY for NO APPARENT REASON!!! OHHhhh DONT WORRY! “THEY” will come out with “those” stats next week!!!!
I’ll have more later, right now I have to hydrate myself and check out a farm for sale…..I’ll be BACK.
I take handfuls of supplements every day. Those that might conflict with my prescriptions I do not take, but I also do my research. For instance, I was taking Curcumin for some time when my Cardiologist told me that curcumin was what was causing my heart palpitations. When I stopped, those palpitations never came back. How would I have known it was the curcumin if he hadn’t told me, so in the telling it was obvious that he had heard of this before, so why isn’t that on the label on those bottles.
Before I would go off Half-Cocked, I would like to read exactly what his proposal says, because the supplement market has been known to play fast and lose with their labeling requirements.
Durbin needs gone, period, as the loser he is. This is all you have to worry about, Dickie???
Stop this ridiculous and dangerous overreach by the government and big pharma. We the people are not stupid and recognize the scheme and monies behind this bill. Trust me the voters will NOT forget!
We rely on supplemental to every day to stay healthy rather than get sick and have to be treated after the fact with drugs that do kill thousands of people every day. Thank you for considering my stand on this very important matter.
Where we these Monsters outlawing a poisonous shot they feel we should have had??? Monsters your names are remembered in promoting this against THE PEOPLE!
What next? Once supplements are regulated, shall we next regulate food at the grocery store? Who is to decide what and how much we eat or how we choose to supplement our diet. Are we now prohibited to have an opinion about what we need or act on it? Are we not free to choose or must we have some bureaucrat’s permission who decides what is or is not good for us?
Enough is Enough of corrupt government overreach!
Do what your supposed to do!
Help protect and defend The People!
Or get voted out!
???
We see the Book of Revelation fulfilled before our eyes. Next…Soylent green?
Joetta Smith
[email protected]