ACSH’s Jeff Stier reports from the road: “I’m in Washington D.C., meeting with potential members of our Congressional Sound Science Caucus, among other things. In USA Today there is a point-counterpoint that really illustrates the need for a sound science caucus, and it’s a bit strange. The issue is: ‘Do you really know what’s in that dietary supplement?’ They’re talking about how Congress is considering revising the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA) as part of the food safety legislation that the Senate is taking up later this month.
“The USA Today editors’ position is that DSHEA should be revised, a position with which we agree. DSHEA is not a good law, since it allows supplements with no medical or scientific legitimacy to be marketed as beneficial without any oversight or regulation. But the reason the editors say DSHEA should be revised is that some labs have found very low levels of lead and pesticide residues in the supplements. That’s not the problem. The actual problem is that the ingredients in most of these products don’t work — with rare exceptions, such as folate supplementation to prevent birth defects — and none are held to the same regulatory standards as FDA-approved medicines. In some cases, they can even interfere with the function of actually effective medical therapies.
“Claims that there are trace levels of contaminants is a straw-man issue, but it’s why the anti-industry editorial board at USA Today is in favor of a new bill. By setting up a false problem, it gives the dietary supplement trade association the opportunity to respond and say that it is all the result of a few bad apples that can be weeded out if DSHEA is enforced properly. The editors’ article says, ‘The test for lawmakers will be whether they are more concerned with protecting the health of these constituents, or the profits of the politically potent supplement industry.’ It’s not about profits at all; it’s about whether these products work.”
ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross adds, “In fact, we agree with the major part of the anti-DSHEA position of the editors. But the issue of trace levels of pesticides is a phony one. The supplement industry is now facetiously — but correctly — being referred to as ‘Big Placebo,’ as opposed to the FDA-approved drug industry’s Big Pharma.”