Wellness Billionaire's Blog

A bill has been introduced to the Senate that would drive up the cost of dietary supplements and restrict your access to them. This bill seeks to give the FDA arbitrary control over what supplements you are allowed to have.

The bill is being spearheaded by Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan. If you value your health and access to natural supplements, then you simply must be opposed to this bill.

The bill supposedly originates from the controversy surrounding the use of steroids by Major League Baseball players. Since some unethical companies illegally sold steroid drugs as “dietary supplements,” McCain and others believe giving the FDA additional power to ban dietary supplements across the board is the answer. That information alone may sound great, but hold on!

The fact is that the FDA has all the legal authority it needs right now to remove supplements that contain illegal drugs from the market. It’s just failing to do so.

The outrage over this bill expressed by so many nutritional supplement consumers is that it gives the FDA broad and arbitrary new powers to remove “natural” products from the marketplace. If McCain’s bill is passed, it will make it far easier for pharmaceutical companies to file use patents on what are now inexpensive dietary supplements and convert them into outrageously priced toxic “drugs” marketed as supplements. Huh?

In order to mislead the public about the true nature of this bill, it has been named the Dietary Supplement “Safety” Act of 2010 (DSSA). It purports to protect consumers, but what exactly are we being protected from?

According to a published report by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, no one died in the U.S. in the entire last year as a result of taking a dietary supplement or herb. That’s “zero” folks. None. Nada. The facts are that legitimate reports of deaths caused by dietary supplements this century are virtually “non-existent”.

This bill will most certainly squander your tax dollars while burdening the private sector with oppressive laws that will hinder scientific advances and increase costs. The net effect will be to take away your free access to dietary supplements. By the way, in our opinion this same preventative healthcare approach is the only one that is working. Ironic, isn’t it?

Pharmaceutical interests are obviously behind this latest effort to legislatively force more Americans towards expensive prescription drugs and away from natural ways of approaching health and wellness.

Please use our convenient legislative action center to e-mail your Senators and Representatives to protest against this dangerous piece of legislation.

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*This article is not a personal attack on Senator McCain or any other public official. It represents personal opinion and should be taken as such.