Oppose the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 bill

Senator John McCain has introduced a bill that if passed, will drive up the cost of dietary supplements and restrict your access to them. The bill being spearheaded by Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan 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,” certain members of Senate appear to have been deceived into believing that the FDA needs to be given additional power to ban dietary supplements across the board.

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). Despite nutritional supplements’ safety record, McCain’s bill would give the FDA authority to draw up a list of allowed and disallowed supplements (and supplement potencies). This bill would cause any dietary supplement to be classified as “adulterated” if it is “manufactured, packaged, held, distributed, labeled or licensed by a dietary supplement company not registered with the Secretary.” The “Secretary” in this case is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the department of the federal government that oversees the FDA.

The FDA already requires manufacturers to maintain records of serious adverse reaction reports. This bill would require that all “non-serious adverse events” be submitted to the federal government. The problem is that when a large group of people take any product, there are always coincidental “adverse reactions”. This means that for any given product, the FDA can arbitrarily take the list of adverse reports submitted to it and use it as a basis to remove the product, even if there was not a single valid adverse reaction! Pharmaceutical companies would be able, under the Freedom of Information Act, to gain access to these reports, and petition the FDA to remove the supplement from the market. 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 “drugs.”

Please alert your two Senators and Representatives about this oppressive legislation that should not be co-sponsored and should instead be vigorously opposed.

Take action now on FDA failure, deception and abuse!

Hunter Lewis and Gretchen Dubeau run an organization called the Alliance for Natural Health-USA (ANH-USA). (The name reflects a merger of the American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF) and the Alliance for Natural Health in the UK.) The merged organization will redouble its efforts to radically reform the FDA.

Hunter and others compiled a collection of articles written by William Faloon over the years concerning the United States Food and Drug Administration. The book, entitled FDA: Failure, Deception, Abuse represents a compilation of FDA atrocities that have never appeared together in one publication. The objective is to disseminate this book, published by Praktikos Books (Praktikosbooks.com), far and wide in order to enlighten this country about the urgent need for radical FDA reform. Until April 14, 2010, order this book from Life Extension for only $10!

Life Extension encourages its members to obtain a copy of FDA: Failure, Deception, Abuse for themselves and to loan it out to others. The publisher will also provide a PDF highlights version of the book on a special website www.fdafailuredeceptionabuse.com that may be downloaded and either emailed or mailed to everyone you know, including your Representative and two Senators.

There may be no more efficient way to initiate a revolution against FDA tyranny while unshackling legitimate scientists whose discoveries could save countless numbers of human lives.

The Generic Drug Rip Off

The cost of prescription drugs is a significant factor in today's health care cost crisis, a problem that threatens to bankrupt consumers and this nation's medical system. Passage of common-sense legislation would quickly slash the cost of generic drugs so low that consumers could obtain them for less than what their co-pays currently are. Enormous amounts of money would be saved by public and private insurance programs, and ultimately consumers.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), all federal revenue will be eaten up by government outlays for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and public debt interest by 2025 -- just 16 years from now!

We as a nation can no longer afford to be bound by today's inefficient regulatory system that artificially inflates the cost of our prescription medications. The money is no longer there to support this bureaucratic morass.