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...dispute that has been brewing between the Food and Drug Administration and the vitamin industry for two years -- and which reached Capitol Hill last week -- is more than Hollywood's latest cause celebre. Reports that the FDA was planning to crack down on supplements touched a nerve among the 75 million Americans who take vitamins, minerals and other dietary aids every day -- including large numbers of new-age leftists and right-wing libertarians who may disagree about almost everything else but who share a basic distrust of the government-medical complex. Over the past few months, thousands of letters, postcards...
What's the ruckus about? The real issues are as difficult to sort out as the label on a bottle of complex multivitamins. Much of the uproar has been stirred by the Nutritional Health Alliance, a pressure group that accuses the FDA of trying to empty the shelves of the health-food stores and require a doctor's prescription for herbs and amino acids. "They intend to destroy the ; industry," says Gerald Kessler, executive director of NHA and founder of Nature's Plus vitamins. "They want to take 9 out of 10 supplements and call them unsafe food additives...
...says David Kessler (no relation), the reform-minded FDA Commissioner who has, by and large, earned high marks for his aggressive stewardship of the much maligned agency. The FDA has no problem with 8 out of 10 supplements now on the market, he says. Its chief concern is that any health claim -- that a substance cures impotence, say, or protects against cancer -- be backed up by "significant scientific agreement." Under food-labeling laws passed by Congress three years ago and scheduled to go into effect Dec. 5, products that fail to meet this test will have to be relabeled...
Though congressional support for the legislation is broad, it may not be deep. Senate minority leader Robert Dole, a cosignatory, has let it be known that he would vote against the bill in its present sweeping form. Even FDA critics concede that Hatch's proposal gives the industry too much freedom to make whatever health claims it likes. Moreover, it puts the entire burden of proof on the FDA, instead of on the manufacturer, where it belongs...
...language is not drawn tightly enough to prevent false and misleading claims." ^ Insiders say congressional leaders are working on revised bills that would ensure easy access to vitamins but support strict policing of labels for fraudulent claims, giving protesters and the Hollywood crowd what they want while providing the FDA and consumers with what they need...