Bill to Ban Over the Counter Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Sales

by Jean Henry Mead

A senate bill has been proposed to permanently take away our rights to buy vitamin and natural supplements without a prescription.

If Bill s3002 passes, the FDA will have the right to prevent consumers from purchasing anything from One-a-Day vitamins to enzymes over the counter. And with Big Pharma producing the products, the costs will rise astronomically.

We have the right to choose what we take into our bodies and that includes natural and nutritional supplements. Or as the philosopher John Stuart Mill once said, “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

Imagine vitamin A becoming illegal? Or if you could only take CoQ10 with a doctor’s prescription at ten times the price you're now paying. The bill intends to take away our rights to have control over our own bodies.

The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 would empower the FDA to permanently ban any nutritional supplement it considers “adulterated” or “misbranded.” That may sound reasonable, but in practice, it means the FDA can make a list of accepted vitamins and ban all the rest, according to Dr. AL Sears, a well known alternative medicine practitioner. "[Some] Europeans already live under a similar law. It’s so restrictive that they buy their vitamins in the U.S."

If the bill passes, traffic to Canada and Mexico will undoubtedly increase and the border patrol will be looking for contraband herbal remedies as well as drugs. And what will happen to health food stores?

Sears says, “Part of the problem is the way the bill is written. The language is open-ended and subject to broad interpretation. Even if a vitamin company makes a mistake with their paperwork, or the FDA claims they made a mistake, they can take that product off the market forever. Even if that product has a clean track record.”

Also at risk is the dosage of a vitamin or nutrient. That means the FDA can determine that “Vitamin C is only safe at a dose of 10mg. . .If your vitamin C only has 10mg per tablet, you’d have to take an entire bottle to get a one-day supply. That’s another strategy the FDA could use to kill off a vitamin or nutrient."

The bill is dangerous both to your health and to your rights as a citizen. Please contact your senators and tell them to vote NO on the McCain bill. It's another right we can't afford to lose.

There are a number of independent health organizations online warning about the McCain bill as well as the FDA. Among them the Alliance for Natural Health and American Association of Health Freedom.

If you're unable to access the sites, please try again later. Every time I list the sites online, within minutes the sites go down. You can also try: https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=283 and http://www.anh-usa.org/new_site/?p=2438 (My apologies to the sites mentioned because I know they will be blasted offline before many of you read this.)