Entry #22: Supplementation

Sen. McCain and the Dietary Supplement Safety Act, S. 3002

My girlfriend recently showed me this link, and apparently tons of people are getting super defensive against this proposed legislation regarding supplements. Basically what the bill entails is that key components of DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act) be revised, namely supplements being considered food, rather than drugs, and evading the costs of pre-market research.

Honestly, I will give McCain the benefit of the doubt, and I believe he's sincere and well-intentioned with the proposed legislation - although I do contend that the bill has potential to become anything but beneficial to the consumer. McCain may have pharmaceutical lobbyists pulling his strings as plenty of people suggest, but honestly, he may just be thinking that the lack of regulation has led to a few lower quality products and mislabeling; however, it seems a bit contradictory for a Republican to push any bill that places potentially high fines or added restrictions on industry.

My predictions: the producers of herbal supplements would be hit the hardest, and the alternative medicine sector would be hard pressed to stay financially viable. The reason why, I assume, the producers of herbal and dietary supplements opted to be considered food products under DSHEA was so that they could cut their expenditures and therefor maximize their profits. This isn't a new concept, and the supplement industry isn't any worse than any other major industry; if they weren't required to foot the bill for pre-market research they could save tons of money, not to mention the research (at least for herbal supplements) would be slightly more difficult to pass off as legitimate in plain sight of AMA opposition. I don't think them opting out of pre-market research was a result of them "knowing" their products were faulty (as plenty of practitioners of conventional medicine would suggest), but it was them engaging in very common greed-driven practices: this is the #1 reason I believe capitalism works against public health, not only through lobbyists buying heavily biased research, but via industry curtailing its responsibilites to maximize its profits.

The article states:
"The McCain bill would change existing mandatory serious adverse reporting regulations, requiring minor adverse effects to be reported as well so that the FDA could arbitrarily pull supplements off the shelves or reclassify them as drugs. This immediate recall authority would be granted to the “Secretary upon determination,” that there is a “reasonable probability” that the product is “adulterated” or “misbranded.” Adulterated in this bill takes on a whole new expanded definition: “A dietary supplement which contains a new dietary ingredient shall be deemed adulterated under section 402(f) unless there is a history of use or other evidence of safety.” The development of new products that contain newly discovered nutritional components may be entirely quashed."

If the FDA could arbitrarily pull any supplement off the shelves, then nearly everything could eventually be pulled and be required extensive testing. Herbal supplements could be hit especially hard from this, and they'd slowly have to test each product before it could get its place back on a shelf. Funding would probably be difficult to come by, because the only herb that people give a fuck about testing is marijuana (I swear - the one herbal exception for practitioners of conventional medicine. I fucking wonder why, douchebags?). I'm probably sounding a bit like a fearmongerer at this moment, and it may not be that rough for the herbal supplement industry (which is growing at a steady rate annually) - but what about the dietary supplement industry? If the supplement industry overall is showing to be profitable, then the pharmaceutical industry may see their share of profits to be made in supplements and front the research bills where the less wealthy supplement industry falters and may be more hesitant to cover. If the pharmaceutical industry used its money to profit off of marketing dietary supplements and somehow overtook most small or medium sized producers of dietary supplements, then shit could get dire and lower quality products could get churned out at a quicker pace. I guess I see the pharmaceutical industry as a vulture, and it would more than likely swipe other industry's profits while they're vulnerable - since right now the supplement industry has steady grounding, and even then doesn't pose an enormous threat.

ps. I'm not a strong supporter of supplementation. I already said in a previous post that I'm more a supporter of getting all your nutrients through whole food sources, and healing through diet rather than Naturopathy. If supplements were as effective as whole food sources we wouldn't have to eat any shit at all, and I'd rather learn how to forage for herbs than take something in a pill form (especially when larger retailers try and sell mislabeld products or those in cellulose capsules). I still, however, see the supplement industry as more worthy of my support than the pharmaceutical industry - and any sort of legislation that in any way favors big business, notably the pharmaceutical industry, I will more than likely oppose.