When the Senate started its consideration of S1082, the FDA Prescription Drug User Fee/Revitalization legislation, Senator Dick Durbin wanted to amend this bill and add his Food Safety Bill, S 645, to the bill.

Acting on Durbin's intentions, the NHF's lobbyist contacted Senators and their staff members on the Senate HELP committee to register our objections to allowing this to occur. The subsequent pressure on Durbin by both Democratic and Republican Committee Members led to Durbin having to withdraw this attempt. In its place, Senator Durbin had to settle for a substantially reduced scope of change for his amendment, as added to the bill.

Under S.645, all of the FDA food regulatory functions would be transferred to a new separate federal bureaucracy, the Food Safety Administration, except that dietary supplements would remain at the FDA. Under this scenario, without statutory authority to regulate supplements, under the separate but related DSHEA provisions of the FD&C law, Congress would have no choice but to change the law and include supplements under a more drug like regulatory structure under the auspicious of a recreated FDA. In other words, the underlying food relationship with supplements would be eliminated from the jurisdiction of the FDA.

Instead, the Durbin amendment to S.1082, which passed the Senate by a vote of 94 for and 0 against, only makes changes to the non-dietary supplement provisions related to foods – more specifically, raw and processed domestically and imported regular foods and food ingredients. The amendment creates pet-food standards, creates an adulterated food database, requires the registration of domestic and foreign food processors, and addresses other matters relating to the monitoring and importation of foods and food ingredients.

The Senate is expected to pass S. 1082, with the Durbin amendment. Another amendment that the NHF supports, offered by Senator Dorgan, allowing the reimportation of drugs from Canada, is scheduled for a vote before final passage before the end of this week. Senate passage of S 1082 is not the end of the Congressional road, it is only the beginning.

While health-freedom advocates were unsuccessful on S.1082's creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation, included in the bill, the community does have something positive that came out the NHF's attention and lobbying against Durbin's more significant attack, and back-door attempt, to alter the status-quo FDA regulatory structure now applying to dietary supplements and nutritional foods.

The health-freedom community lobbying effort against S.1082 now moves to the House of Representatives. As such, both of the aforementioned matters are still in play. NHF members and other health-freedom advocates will continue to have the opportunity to alter this legislation, which is moving forward.

As the oldest and best-respected health-freedom group on Capitol Hill, the NHF continues to be the credible source of objective assessment, and proactive actions on Congressional legislation and FDA matters that have meaningful impacts upon our freedom-of-health choices and access to dietary supplements and nutritional foods.