As of this writing, there are an incredible 305 bills pending in Congress dealing with the FDA – everything from domestic pet turtles to tanning machines, prescription drugs, and other issues. The latest health-freedom legislative threat of any importance, however, is the “FDA Globalization Act,” sponsored by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and supported by his colleague Rep. Henry Waxman, in the House, and an identical and yet to be numbered draft bill sponsored by Senator Kennedy in the Senate.

          These bills would require domestic and foreign food companies to register each year with the FDA, establish an army of inspectors to monitor companies that manufacture nutritional foods, supplements, drugs, and medical devices abroad, and would institute new yearly FDA “user fees” assessed against these companies to pay for this expansion of FDA command and control. For example, foreign-based companies that import supplements for distribution in the US would be required to register products and production facilities every year, and to pay a user fee. As a bonus, this legislation also gives the FDA one-sided legal authority to recall contaminated "foods" as "unsafe medications."

          The bill as introduced does not specifically exempt dietary-supplement and nutritional-food producers and manufacturers from registration and user-fee requirements. This is not surprising given the two anti-supplement Congressmen who are primarily behind the bill.

Conflicting FDA Authority over Supplements

          Not surprisingly, the FDA Globalization legislation would create conflicting FDA regulatory authority, which is never good. As introduced, the legislation is at odds not only with the consumer-safety requirements already mandated by DSHEA but the Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (DSNDCPA) as well, the latter of which Congress passed into law (PL 109-462) in 2006. The DSNDCPA was known more commonly at the time as the AER bill and was strongly opposed by the NHF (although supported by some industry members intent on “proving” that supplements are safe, a fact already well-documented). Regardless, the FDA has a sleazy history of subverting, or trying to subvert, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA); this new proposed law would just make it even easier.