PRESS RELEASE
May 12, 2008
As planned and right on schedule, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) - the agency within the State of California charged with enforcing its Proposition 65 law - held a public meeting on Friday morning, April 18, 2008, at its headquarters in Sacramento, California. The meeting, styled as a workshop, discussed a proposed regulatory concept being floated by OEHHA that would essentially exclude any listed "beneficial nutrients" from the definition of carcinogen and reproductive toxin if the person causing the exposure can show that it is indeed a beneficial nutrient and if the levels of such a nutrient in the food do not exceed the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for the nutrient (or if no such level had been set, then no more than 20% of the nutrient's Tolerable Upper Intake Level)./1 Anything above such levels for listed nutrients would have to be labeled as cancer causing and/or a reproductive toxin. There were more than two dozen individuals in attendance at the meeting and the National Health Federation's president Scott Tips was one of them.
Proposition 65 was approved by California voters in 1986 in the belief that its passage would help protect them from toxic chemicals in the environment. Prop 65 requires the State to publish a list of those chemicals "known" to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. This list is updated at least annually and has ballooned to include some 775 chemicals. Although Prop 65 uses the term "known," in the real world substances on the list are not necessarily known to cause cancer but are only those that could, under certain circumstances, pose a risk of cancer. OEHHA administers this program.
The April 18th Meeting
As Scott Tips said, "We were there in response to OEHHA's March 21st notice of this regulatory "concept" and its request for public participation at the meeting. Our members were understandably alarmed by what was seen as an attempt to tie dietary supplements into a dumbed-down, RDA-level potency for supplements, something NHF has opposed for decades. Curiously enough, using RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) levels for dietary supplements dovetails with national and international attempts to restrict consumer choice by doing the same."
As the April 18th meeting began that morning, OEHHA attorney Fran Kammerer explained to the attendees what Sam Delson, OEHHA's deputy director for external and legislative affairs, had also written the NHF in an earlier e-mail, that is, that the concept would apply only to chemicals already listed under Proposition 65, such as chromium and vitamin A (retinol) and does not propose any new listing or warning requirements. Interestingly enough, the ferocious response sent to OEHHA from NHF members in answer to NHF's first press release on the subject (March 24, 2008) had taken OEHHA aback. A warm thank you to everyone who supported our efforts by signing the on-line petition.
For one thing, in its March 21st request for public participation, OEHHA stated, "Certain chemicals or compounds such as vitamins and minerals are necessary to promote human health or to ensure the healthy growth of food crops. Excessive exposure to these same chemicals or compounds can cause cancer or adverse reproductive effects."
Scott Tips' response on behalf of NHF's members was that, "With only one or two well-known exceptions (such as iron), this is incorrect, misleading and does a great disservice to those dewy-eyed consumers who will trust the government and thus forgo taking beneficial nutrients in sufficient cancer-preventing quantities. In fact, numerous studies show that only large doses of natural vitamin E, vitamin D, selenium, fish oils, resveratrol, and other such beneficial nutrients will prevent or ameliorate cancer. Synthetic nutrients and those either at or below Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) levels rarely show any such benefit. In fact, a major review of studies on the relationship between vitamin intake and various diseases published between 1966 and 2002 revealed that suboptimal intake of vitamins is correlated with increased risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis."
"To be assured of obtaining these benefits, however," Mr. Tips continued, "one must take more than simply RDI levels of beneficial nutrients. Indeed, what may seem "excessive" to some individuals are actually the minimal amounts needed by others. Therefore, OEHHA does an enormous disservice mischaracterizing the cancer-preventative effects of large-dose vitamin-and-mineral dietary supplements. How many people will die or suffer harm because this myth is put forth yet again by institutions that should know better?"
Moreover, "RDAs" are the wrong standard here. The proposed regulatory concept states, in part, that "[t]his section [1250X] applies only to exposures that do not exceed the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) established in the Dietary Reference Tables of the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, National Academies, current edition, if one is established." At the meeting, and in its written submission of May 2nd to OEHHA, NHF's Scott Tips pointed out that, "Leaving aside the fact that the term of art has been revised to RDI, this standard - whether RDA or RDI - is not and never has been a safety standard. Rather, it is a nutrition standard that constitutes more of a floor than a ceiling for appropriate nutrient intake levels. Setting an exemption from the definition of 'exposure' at or below the RDI levels would dramatically exclude nutrient levels that would actually help prevent cancer and reproductive harm"
"Besides," Mr. Tips said, "Upper Levels are established for a whole number of reasons not necessarily related to cancer or reproductive toxicity. The application of RDIs here would be of zero value as to cancer and reproductive toxicity since they were not established with these problems in mind." The general consensus expressed by most attendees was that at the very least RDIs were the wrong standard of measure for creating an exemption.
The NHF Petitions and its May 2nd Written Comments
Although there are only two beneficial nutrients (retinol and chromium) on the Prop 65 list as of today, the list grows regularly. It grows through OEHHA's Science Advisory Board, which has two committees to review and add carcinogens and reproductive toxicants to the list. But authoritative bodies such as the FDA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer can also identify a cancer-causing agent or reproductive toxicant. Once so identified that substance will be added to the Prop 65 list. So, too, with any other chemical required by an agency of a State or the Federal government, which means that even the well-intentioned agents of OEHHA do not have full control over what goes onto the list and what they must then enforce.
Therefore, the question occurred to NHF and many others at the April 18th public meeting, does OEHHA anticipate listing other beneficial nutrients later, after this "concept" becomes a regulation? Or, do others? Some are suspicious that this might be the case.
Looking at this issue on a national and even global basis, the NHF has seen concerted efforts by anti-supplement elements to hog-tie dietary supplements with a false safety standard based upon RDIs. As Mr. Tips has said, "These attempts can be seen at the global level with Codex Alimentarius and at the U.S. national level with, among others, Rep. Henry Waxman's and Senator Dick Durbin's legislative proposals to restrict consumer access to nothing more than RDI-level dietary supplements. So, when OEHHA proposes to marry its safety standard to RDIs as well, alarm bells will start ringing in the minds of even the most naive and trusting individuals - or at least they should."
For a period of many weeks, the NHF gathered thousands of signatures on its Petition for this matter and all of the numerous signed Petitions were submitted to OEHHA along with NHF's written comments by the May 2nd deadline. By now, OEHHA has absorbed the many comments expressed at the public meeting and it has received written comments submitted by a number of parties including NHF. The next step will be up to the Agency and it will be interesting to see how it responds to all of these comments. The next words out of the Agency's mouth may well reveal the intent of this regulatory concept.
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1 OEHHA's actual proposed regulatory concept, as first publicly proposed on March 21, 2008, reads as follows:
"Section 1250X. Exposure to Beneficial Nutrients in a Food
To review the original press release on this topic, please click the following link-
http://www.thenhf.com/press_releases/pr_23_mar_2008.html
Click here for the permanent link to this press release, use this link to inform others.
National Health Federation: Established in 1955, the National Health Federation is a consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals' rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements and use alternative therapies without unnecessary government restrictions. The NHF is the only such organization with recognized observer-delegate status at Codex meetings. www.thenhf.com
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