Fw: Yet Another Threat to Supplements on Capitol Hill

[Guest guest]

This is really important. I hope you all will email your senators...

Yet Another Threat to Supplements on Capitol Hill

The threat of a regulatory stranglehold over dietary supplements has

intensified.

Earlier this year, Sen. McCain introduced a bill that would

have given the FDA draconian new powers. A citizen's revolt ensued that caused

that bill to be sidelined. We are being watchful that Sen. McCain does not try

to slip some of his oppressive original proposals into another Senate bill.

The urgent issue we face today is language Rep. Henry Waxman snuck

into the already passed Wall Street Reform Bill (H.R. 4173) that he hopes to get

into the Senate bill. This language would give unelected FTC bureaucrats

arbitrary authority to impose crippling requirements that will drive up the

costs of supplements or remove them from the market entirely.

It is imperative that consumers e-mail their Senators to keep this

language out of the Senate version of the Wall Street Reform Bill and out of any

later version voted on by the House and Senate. ( Click here to e-mail your

Senator right now.)

What Is Really Going On Here

Pharmaceutical companies recognize that their greatest competitive

threat comes from low-cost dietary supplements that are virtually free of side

effects. The most efficient way to destroy this competition is to have Congress

enact legislation that will enable federal agencies to eradicate consumer access

to dietary supplements.

To give you an idea of how much money is involved, just look at the

cost of prescription drug fish oil sold under the trade name Lovaza®. A 30-day

supply of Lovaza® sells for around $195.00. Consumers can obtain the same

quantity of EPA/DHA fish oil for under $32.00 as a dietary supplement.

With the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and Health

Care Reform Act, the federal government (that means you) pays outrageously

inflated prices for fish oil prescriptions and other drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry heavily lobbied Congress to obligate

Medicare to shell out full retail price for prescription drugs. In the case of

prescription fish oil, taxpayers pay 500% more than what consumers pay for the

same amount of fish oil as a dietary supplement.

Pharmaceutical companies now want to erect so many new restrictions

over dietary supplements that consumers (and taxpayers) will be forced to pay

outlandish prescription drug prices for fish oil and other low-cost nutrients.

As most of you know, taxes will soon be raised and new government

debt created to fund these lavish subsidies to drug companies. It is this kind

of institutional corruption that bankrupts governments around the world. We fear

that citizen apathy may enable this corrupt legislation to be enacted into law,

which will hasten Medicare's date with insolvency, while saddling consumers with

higher dietary supplement prices, if the supplements are available at all.

If this legislation is passed, our fear is that many supplements

will disappear or that Americans will be unable to afford their supplements and

will succumb to a host of deficiency-related diseases.

Please click here to e-mail your Senator to demand that Rep.

Waxman's drug company favoring language not be added to the Senate version of

the so-called Wall Street Reform Act and not be included in any later

House/Senate version of the bill.