Recently a press release issued by the National Health Federation alerts us of yet another attempt by Congress to take away your right to purchase affordable nutritional supplements. The National Health Federation is a well-respected organization that has been on the side of health freedom for more than five decades. Established in 1955, it is an international consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals’ rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements, and use alternative therapies without government restrictions. With consumer members all over the world, and a Board of Governors and Advisory Board containing representatives from 7 different countries, the Federation is unique as being the only consumer health-freedom organization in the world to enjoy official observer status (able to speak out for health freedom) at meetings of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the highest international body on food standards.

The NHF press release outlined the latest threat to our health freedom: the “FDA Globalization Act,” sponsored by anti-supplement Congressmen Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and supported by his colleague Rep. Henry Waxman. An identical bill will be sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Durbin in the Senate.

The bills, which have not been officially introduced yet and therefore do not have a number, are disturbing due to the fact they will give the FDA an unprecedented level of command and control. Because the FDA Globalization Act does not exempt supplements from inclusion and classification as food products or ingredients, it would allow the FDA, with no justification, to take away consumers’ rights to obtain nutritional supplements. Alarmingly, the proposed legislation will establish an army of inspectors to monitor companies that manufacture nutritional foods and supplements, and would institute new yearly FDA “user fees” assessed against these companies to pay for this expansion of FDA command and control. For example, foreign-based companies that import supplements for distribution in the US would be required to register products and production facilities every year, and to pay the user fee.

The NHF warns that the draft bill’s provisions also give the FDA one-sided legal authority to recall supplements. The result? The FDA, on an unjustified whim, could decide to ban any number of nutritional supplements classified as “foods.” If passed and enacted into law in its current version, the legislation would no doubt lead to more FDA regulation of supplements, higher costs for supplement manufacturers both foreign and domestic (which obtain many of their raw ingredients abroad), and these higher costs would in turn be passed on to consumers of dietary supplements.

The nutritional supplement industry is already governed by a number of laws. The FDA Globalization Act conflicts with the consumer-safety requirements already mandated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The FDA Globalization Act would make it even easier for the FDA to continue its past history of subverting DSHEA. The proposed bill also is at odds with the Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (DSNDCPA), better known as the Adverse Events Reporting bill, which Congress passed into law in 2006. With these two laws already in place and with the recently enacted Good Manufacturing Practices, there is little need to include nutritional supplements in a bill that is essentially irrelevant to our industry. The anti-supplement congressmen and senators are simply using incidents unrelated to nutritional supplements to exert control over an industry that has an enviable safety record.

Please contact your congressional representative—especially Energy and Commerce Committee members—and ask them to amend this proposed bill to specifically exempt its application to dietary supplements. Together, we can stop the FDA from exerting even more control over your health choices and keep dietary supplements affordable and accessible to everyone. For more information, please visit the National Health Federation website, www.thenhf.com.

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Hearings » Legislative Hearing on H.R. 2721, H.R. 3786, H.R. 6070, H.R. 4255, H.R. 6221, H.R. 6224, H.R. 6225, and H.R. 6272

Today we have eight bills before us that seek to: authorize the VA to make a grant to the United States Olympic Committee to provide and develop activities for service members and veterans with physical disabilities; allow military service members to terminate certain contracts when called to active duty service or ordered to change permanent duty assignment; require the VA to develop and DoD to distribute a compact disk of benefits information to service members preparing to depart from the military; amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to allow a military spouse to claim the same state as the service member in regards to state and property taxes, and voter registration; and reauthorize the Service Members Occupational Conversion and Training Act of 1992.

Some of you might recall that on February 13, of this year, we conducted a hearing on expiring programs. In this hearing, we received recommendations on ways to improve on the programs and expand on veterans rights. One such recommendation came from Mr. Matthew Tully of Tully and Rinckey LLC who specializes in law under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, also known as USERRA.

Mr. Tully brought up an example of how a service member who had sought injunctive relief from his employer but the court denied his request. Mr. Tully recommended that the Subcommittee consider amending USERRA to allow service members, such as the one that was cited, to ensure equitable relief is available to USERRA victims when the courts decide it’s appropriate.

I share the concerns expressed by Mr. Tully and recently introduced H.R. 6225, Injunctive Relief for Veterans Act of 2008. This bill will amend Title 38 by changing “may” to “shall” and it is our expectation that more courts will use this remedy when deemed appropriate that equitable relief is warranted. This legislation is a step in the right direction to providing greater protections and safeguards to those that have answered the call to duty.

A second bill that I recently introduced is H.R. 6224, the Pilot College Work Study Programs for Veterans Act of 2008. This bill contains similar language that I proposed in H.R. 5684, the Veterans Education Improvement Act of 2008, which would improve on existing educational entitlements for our veterans.

H.R. 6224 would direct the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a five-year pilot project to expand on existing work-study activities for veterans. Currently, veterans that qualify for work-study would be limited to working on VA related work. My bill would allow those veterans the option of working in academic departments and student services. This change would put them at par with students that qualify for a work-study position under programs not administered by the VA.

Furthermore, this bill would conform to existing paygo rules by funding this pilot program from discretionary appropriations.

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Boozman and other Members of the Committee to discussing my two legislative proposals and those being considered in today’s legislative hearing.

It is very important that Congress continue to reevaluate existing laws and review legislative proposals so that we may provide our men and women in uniform, our veterans and their dependents the benefits and safeguards they need to reintegrate back to civilian life. This hearing has provided us with good feedback and I look forward to continuing this important dialogue.

 

The winner of the dove award for 2007 and 2008, teacher of the year enjoying a long deserved vacation, good luck in 2009!