The Supplement Industry Won't Police Itself

 

The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) is a masterpiece of deception and irresponsibility. It neither protects your health nor educates anyone. Thanks to the limitations imposed on the FDA by DSHEA, it often does just the opposite. In many cases the FDA does not even know what is being sold to you or if it is safe, let alone effective. It is allowed to inspect supplement manufacturing facilities but the majority of them are now in places like China and India and well beyond the FDA's reach. Even those facilities here in the US go largely uninspected in any given year, and half of those that are inspected fail. Over and over again with warnings but no consequences.

DSHEA permits companies to make "structure-function claims" (Supports Brain Health!) without any data to support the claim. So the marketplace is overwhelmed with misleading claims that have little or no evidence to support them. Most supplements are never tested at all, and the ingredient lists have been shown to be incorrect in test after test. The FDA has detected hundreds of supplements that are tainted with prescription drugs or other prohibited ingredients. But as fast as they are removed from the market, the re-appear under another name.

In February 2019 alone the FDA sent 17 warning letters to supplement companies telling them to cease claiming that their product prevented Altzheimers. The claims stopped, the products are still for sale. Hundreds of warning letters have been sent regarding claims of efficacy against Covid-19. But the claims continue.

Its time to give the FDA and FTC the authority and resources to regulate dietary supplements. I say this as someone who sells supplements. The FDA needs the authority and resources to effectively police a marketplace that is rotten with ineffective and sometimes even dangerous products, intentionally misleading claims, poor quality standards and no accountability. Reputable companies are hurt by the current environment and should get behind efforts to impose meaningful oversight and regulation.