Today, the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) advanced legislation that removes protections for dietary supplement manufacturers under the Bioterrorism Act and would allow for FDA to administratively, without checks and balances, reject ingredients like CBD (cannabidiol) and NAC (N-acetyl-L-cysteine) from being marketed as dietary supplements, regardless of the science or history involved.

“We are disappointed that the significant economic, consumer, and security-related concerns that have been raised by NPA, other experts and thousands of American constituents, have to this point, appear to have fallen on deaf ears.  We will redouble our efforts to continue educating members and staff about the deep negative impact of these provisions in hopes that we can get a fair hearing as the legislative process unfolds.” said Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D. president and CEO of the Natural Products Association (NPA).

“We’re pleased the House in its wisdom did not include any of these unwise and dangerous provisions in its version of this legislation, and we are asking the Senate to reject these provisions on the floor when it comes for a full vote and the House to reject these Senate provisions in any final agreement between the chambers.”

NPA encourages all health and wellness advocates to continue writing their members of Congress through the NPA Action Center here. Grassroots involvement has been critical and continued pressure is needed to defeat this proposal.

Don’t forget, Senator Durbin has also introduced a bill, S. 4090, that contains the same wording and similarly threatens our supplement availability. Even though almost 100,000 of us have contacted D.C., our concerns have seemingly fallen on deaf ears. But we can’t give up. We must re-double our efforts if we hope to get rid of these threats.

Betsy and I have previously discussed the potential negative impact this legislation threatens. You can read that blog post and access our podcast here. You can also use the NPA script to call Senator Cornyn’s offices directly to discuss your concerns about these threats to our supplements here.

Thank you in advance for your efforts. Together, we can keep our supplements safe from those who want to take them away from us.

In health,
Ramona B.

Cover photo by fauxels: