Articles:

Mr. Henry Waxman thinks he is the Elliot Ness of Congress. For some obscure and probably "shady" reason, he has been the enemy of the dietary supplement industry for many, many years. Currently, he has done something quite insidious. While no one was looking, he attached amendment language into the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173) that would expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (not the FDA because of DHSEA) to terrorize nutritional supplement companies. The language greatly expands the power of the FTC to make its own laws that target dietary supplement companies. H.R. 4173 has been passed the House and is on its way to the Senate (S.3217).

So, what is wrong here? The FTC routinely targets nutritional supplement companies for telling the truth about their products. Companies are often threatened for simply linking to published scientific studies about their products. For example, before DSHEA, a company could not say that Vitamin C was good for a cold. The FTC has been criminally extorting money from supplement companies for years.

If a company tries to fight the FTC, it hauls them into their own "kangaroo court" where the judges are actually FTC employees and no one has any rights. One is "guilty until proven innocent" and rarely is anyone found innocent by the FTC. So, if a supplement company says something as benign as "cherries are good for inflammation" (where there are many supporting medical studies), that company can be hauled into an FTC Court and fined. The fines can be millions of dollars. Now Mr. Waxman wants the FTC to have even more power and to write laws without Congressional approval. The FTC will be able to invent any new law it wants to limit your access to quality dietary supplements. The FTC will be able to completely circumvent DSHEA and crush this industry. Just what we need in a recession.

I am sure the pharmaceutical industry, which hates the natural health movement, has a very large hand in this. Please remember their appalling track record on product safety.

Don't let Mr. Waxman get away with this. Vote him out, California, and call your Senators to delete Waxman's amendments in S.3217.

To your health,
Dr. Karen Purcell