# They are coming after your Vitamins..



## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

I wonder how much Big Pharm gives to Durbin?

Senator Durbin To Reintroduce Supplement Bill
By Joseph Mercola

June 20, 2013

Make no mistake, there is a well orchestrated campaign underway to take away your rights and access to vitamins and supplements.You have likely witnessed the recent flurry of articles from doctors with scary headlines like "Don't Take Your Vitamins" written by Paul Offit. Senator Dick Durbin has taken a leading role as well.

Senator Durbin was also a sponsor for the SOPA / PIPA act, which would give the government even more power to censor and control the internet. You would think it would be impossible at this point to have MORE control, considering the recent leaks regarding the NSA.

There is no satiating the hunger for more power in our federal government. Politicians will scare you about sugary beverages loaded with caffeine as examples of the dangerous and 'unregulated' supplement industry.

Meanwhile, consumers load up at Starbucks and other coffee shops - where they can easily down cups and cups of this 'dangerous' substance. You don't see Durbin beating down the door of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, even though coffee is the primary source where most people get their caffeine fix.

When you notice this type of hypocrisy, you can usually bet there is a serious industry influence behind the scenes. There is a campaign push assaulting the supplement industry by those hoping to gain control of it. Essentially, if supplements become regulated like drugs - only the drug companies will be manufacturing them.

By setting new regulations and gaining control of the industry, big pharma can charge higher prices and make higher profits.

Surprisingly, a newly released GAO Dietary Supplements report has recently shown just how safe dietary supplements really are. There are always bad products in every industry, but overall, supplements appear to be one of the safest of all consumable products.

Senator Durbin has been on a mission that appears, at least superficially, to stem from concern over "your health." However, when scrutinized more closely, Durbin's proposed legislation would have precisely the opposite effect.

If Senator Durbin is genuinely concerned about "your health," then his focus should be on making drugs and vaccines safer, which are the real danger - not dietary supplements.

Why Should Supplement Regulation Be More Stringent Than That for Drugs?
Durbin first introduced the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act (S 1310) in 2011, a bill that threatens the supplement industry by granting FDA more power to regulate supplements as if they were drugs, potentially putting supplement companies out of business.

In fact, under this bill, supplement regulation would be even more stringent than for pharmaceutical drugs! The bill specifies the following:1

•Requires regulators to compile a list of dietary supplement ingredients and proprietary blends of ingredients that are judged capable of causing serious adverse reactions
•Mandates manufacturers to submit a list of all the products they make at a given facility and their ingredients; new products or reformulations would require new registrations
Despite resorting to sneaky tactics and dispersing blatant misinformation to his legislative colleagues in attempts to garner support, Senator Durbin has had a difficult time obtaining any support for his bill.

Therefore, in May 2012, Durbin tried to slide his amendment (No. 2127) through by piggybacking it onto a senate bill that was slated for a vote the very next day (S 3187, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act).

Because the natural health community so quickly and effectively sprung into action, Durbin's amendment failed. Although his efforts to pass this ridiculous legislation have been unsuccessful thus far, his determination has not waned, misguided though it is. We must continue our efforts to thwart this bill, which if passed into law, could spell disastrous consequences for your health.

The Danger of Food Supplements Is VASTLY Overstated

Durbin and others would have you believe supplements are dangerous and need further regulation. But the truth is that supplements are already FDA-regulated and produce far fewer adverse reactions than either drugs or vaccines. The March 2013 GAO Dietary Supplements report,2 which Durbin hoped would paint supplements as dangerous, actually showed how incredibly safe they really are - particularly when compared to drugs and vaccines.

Since 2008, the supplement industry has been required to report adverse events to the FDA's AER system, pursuant to the 2006 Act. Consider the following statistics comparing dietary supplement AERs with drug AERs (from the 2013 GAO report):

•From 2008 to 2011, FDA received 6,307 AERs for dietary supplements, not including 1,000 AERs that were submitted to poison control centers, rather than the FDA3
•In 2008, 1,080 dietary supplement AERs were reported to FDA
•In 2008, 526,527 prescription drug AERs were reported
•In 2008, 26,517 vaccine AERs were reported
When you do the math, there were 488 times as many adverse events reported from prescription drugs as from dietary supplements!

Supplement AERs increased from 400 in 2007 to 1,080 in 2008, but as the Alliance for Natural Health points out, that stems from an increase in the number of supplements on the market and more careful reporting of AERs to the FDA, especially since the implementation of required good manufacturing protocols. The number of AERs is miniscule compared to the hundreds of millions of supplement servings consumed.4According to a 2007 National Health Interview Survey,5 more than half of Americans (157 million individuals) take nutritional supplements.

Senator Durbin and company are trying to claim AERs are underreported. However, according to the 2013 GAO report, there were only 20 AER compliance problems identified during supplement company inspections, suggesting most of these companies are compliant with mandatory AER guidelines. Adverse reactions aren't being underreported - there just aren't that many reactions to report. Even the GAO report itself states:

"The greatest challenge for identifying potential safety concerns from AERs is the small number of AERs that FDA receives related to dietary supplements."

Poison Control Data Supports the Safety of Nutritional Supplements
Data from the U.S. National Poison Data System's annual report, which tracked data from 57 U.S. poison centers, showed vitamin and mineral supplements caused zero deaths in 2010, whereas pharmaceuticals caused more than 1,100 of the total 1,366 reported fatalities. FDA-approved drugs cause 80 percent of poison control fatalities each year.6 Poison control centers report 100,000 calls, 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths each year from acetaminophen (Tylenol) alone.

Data from the European Union indicate that pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times as likely to kill you as dietary supplements. You're actually more likely to be struck dead by lightning or drown in your bathtub than have a lethal reaction to a dietary supplement. These figures make it quite clear where the danger lies. If Senator Durbin really cared about your health, his efforts would be centered on doing something to make drugs safer, as they obviously pose a FAR greater risk to your health.

Laws Regulating Supplements Are Already in Place
According to the GAO report:

"FDA officials told us that the current regulatory framework is sufficient to identify and act on safety concerns regarding foods with added dietary ingredients."

They are referring to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).7 The only deficiency, to the extent it exists, lies in the enforcement of the current law, in terms of ensuring good manufacturing practices and mandatory reporting of adverse events by supplement companies. If the FDA is already well-equipped with legislative authority to do its job, then what is Senator Durbin really trying to accomplish?

The only answer that makes sense is that the ultimate goal of Durbin's bill is to make sure every supplement is approved by the FDA before it is sold.

The hidden problem with this is that the FDA is heavily biased in favor of drugs, as the agency is primarily funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA sees supplements as competition for drugs, so not many will be approved. Durbin's bill attempts to get supplements into the clutches of our completely dysfunctional drug approval regime, where they can be subjected to every possible legal obstacle that will keep them off store shelves. Less competition from supplements would also soften the impact of decreased revenues from expiring drug patents.

Forcing Supplement Companies Out of Business Will Not Improve Your Health
If Durbin's bill were to pass, the FDA would demand very expensive (on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars) supplement trials just like drug trials which would eliminate the vast majority of recent supplements as most manufacturers have revenues that are only a tiny fraction of drug companies and can't afford these expenses. More importantly, they are simply unnecessary as they provide virtually no benefit to the consumer. The current reported adverse effects are simply too low to justify this unnecessary safety requirement from a nonexistent danger. Remember, supplements don't kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people every year; drugs do. Supplements don't kill anyone.

Unlike drugs, supplements generally cannot be patented, so manufacturers will never see the return on investment that pharmaceutical companies see. The cost of complying with the pre-approval process will likely put many supplement companies out of business, and those who survive may do so only by drastically increasing the price of their products, making them cost prohibitive for many&#8230; particularly low-income families who need them the most. Durbin's bill would also impose a significant burden on federal regulators, diverting these resources away from where they should be focused - i.e., on the drug industry.8

Crafty Reclassification of Products Allows Manufacturers to Dodge Regulations

There is an additional problem that appears to be completely ignored by Senator Durbin. Dietary supplements are already more rigorously regulated than food products. Taking full advantage of this, some manufacturers are migrating products previously listed as "supplements" over to the "food products" category in order to sidestep regulation. Energy drinks are a prime example. Loren Israelson, executive director of the United Natural Products Alliance, is quoted as saying:

"I think he [Senator Durbin] misunderstands the dynamics of the energy drinks market. There has been a significant shift of brands going from dietary supplement labeling to food labeling. His bill would not capture some of the products he's concerned about."

Caffeine - A Ridiculous Case of Selective Regulation
In related news, the FDA is now going after caffeine to protect your and your children's health, in response to Senator Durbin's fervent outcries. Back in November 2012, Senators Durbin and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a series of letters to the FDA9 asking for energy drinks to be reviewed and potentially regulated.

While caffeine can indeed have detrimental health effects, the irony of the situation is that no attention is going toward actual coffee, which clearly would impact major multinational corporations like Starbucks. No, they're only concerned with supplement, food and beverage makers using caffeine in their products, while the primary source of caffeine is not even part of the discussion. Supplements are just a tiny portion of caffeine consumption, so why not go after coffee?

As reported by Forbes:10, 11

"FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods Michael Taylor spoke out against what he called the 'unfortunate' trend [of adding caffeine to processed foods]&#8230; Taylor specifically called out gum maker Wrigley on a new product, and stated that while formal regulation might be forthcoming, 'we hope this can be a turning point for all to prevent the irresponsible addition of caffeine to food and beverages. Together, we should be immediately looking at what voluntary restraint can be used by industry.'

..Mr. Taylor expressed concern over the 'cumulative amount' of caffeine available, particularly for children.

&#8230;[A]s long as FDA's actions aren't tethered to standards or science, they threaten to sweep in products that don't merit any concern or scrutiny. During FDA's successful effort to drive some caffeine-infused alcoholic beverages, like Four Loko, off the market, it also sent warning letters to brewers whose product line featured beers brewed with coffee. The amount of caffeine in and serving sizes of the beer paled in comparison to Four Loko, which led the head of a craft-brewing association to feel such letters were 'inadvertent.' He did add, however, 'brewers should be concerned. This could lead the FDA to question beverages that get their caffeine from natural products like coffee, chocolate or tea. Who's to say where this will end?'"

Call to Action
Dick Durbin will be up for re-election in 2014. You can bet we will be focusing very specifically on this career politician. Durbin and others would have you believe supplements are dangerous and need further regulation. However, supplements have far fewer reported adverse reactions than either drugs or vaccines and are already FDA regulated.

Durbin is reintroducing his supplement bill in hopes of forcing dietary supplement manufacturers to pass regulations that are even stricter than those governing pharmaceutical drugs. Legislative tactics such as this represent part of a master plan by the drug industry, in partnership with its best friend FDA, to eliminate the competition by taking control of the supplement industry.

Durbin's bill has failed miserably in the past due to lack of support and strong opposition by health-conscious consumers. We can do that again, but your help is needed. Please contact your representatives and urge them to vote NO on S 1310, Dietary Supplement Labeling Act. You can do this by signing the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) petition


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## musketjim (Dec 7, 2011)

Thanx for the heads up. As an athlete supplements are crucial for me. I've helped fight this before and will continue.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

I do wish the industry would do more to self regulate. If they could fix the problems with quality control, accuracy in dosages & put warning labels on their products, it would help their products be used safely & effectively. The supplement industry is a BIG, billion dollar a year industry where there's no rules, that type of environment attracts unscrupulous people. I suspect it's only a matter of time before supplements will be regulated by the FDA & probably require a prescription. People are stupid & gullible. They will believe anything. Natural does not mean it's safe, some of the deadliest poisons known to man are natural. If it's in the shape of a pill, it ain't natural folks. Need vitamins? Eat fruits & vegetables, lots of them.


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## drfacefixer (Mar 8, 2013)

tsrwivey said:


> I do wish the industry would do more to self regulate. If they could fix the problems with quality control, accuracy in dosages & put warning labels on their products, it would help their products be used safely & effectively. The supplement industry is a BIG, billion dollar a year industry where there's no rules, that type of environment attracts unscrupulous people. I suspect it's only a matter of time before supplements will be regulated by the FDA & probably require a prescription. People are stupid & gullible. They will believe anything. Natural does not mean it's safe, some of the deadliest poisons known to man are natural. If it's in the shape of a pill, it ain't natural folks. Need vitamins? Eat fruits & vegetables, lots of them.


Not to mention you have big names making false claims. Dr. Mercola has been put in check a number of times and Dr. Oz has started making some claims that have gone off the deep end. As soon as they mention possible benefits of a supplement it gets plastered on a box and marketed like gold.

Unfortunately, supplements are an arena where anything goes and it does attract the unscrupulous. caffeine content in soda were regulated because of cardiac damage with some deaths. all these power drinks just cleared as supplements and skirted much of the content laws. Habitual use is demonstrating bleeding dyscrasias, sleep disorders, mood changes, capillary damage. Vitamin e used to be considered a top antioxidant. Now it's been shown that it's also an oxidizer at certain levels. I think we will soon see that vitamin b levels at 2000% RDA also have some ill effects.


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

FDA approved..I'll stick to Vitamins..

"Every year, more than 2 million Americans suffer from serious adverse drug reactions. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these reactions cause about 100,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the country.

Compare this to the death toll from illegal drugs -- which is about 10,000 per year -- and you begin to see the magnitude of the problem.

The Terrifying Side Effects of Prescription Drugs 
April 12, 2008

Here 26 side effects that come with many prescription drugs currently on the market.

1.Drainage, crusting, or oozing of your eyes or eyelids 
2.Swollen, black, or "hairy" tongue 
3.Changes in the shape or location of body fat 
4.Decrease in testicle size 
5.Sores or swelling in your rectal or genital area 
6.Blue lips or fingernails 
7.Purple spots on your skin 
8.White patches or sores inside your mouth or on your lips 
9.Irregular back-and- forth movements of your eyes 
10.Enlarged breasts in males. 
11.Unusual risk-taking behavior, no fear of danger 
12.Extreme fear 
13.Hallucinations, fainting, coma 
14.Fussiness, irritability, crying for an hour or longer 
15.Paralysis 
16.Thoracic Hematoma (bleeding into your chest) 
17.A blood clot in your lung 
18.Liver damage 
19.Kidney damage 
20.A lump in your breast 
21.Decreased bone marrow function 
22.Congestive heart failure 
23.Shingles 
24.Nerve pain lasting for several weeks or months 
25.Bleeding that will not stop 
26.Coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds

One drug on the market, EvaMist -- a treatment for menopause symptoms such as hot flashes -- has possible side effects that include cancer, stroke, heart attack, blood clots, and dementia! 

But this is only a partial list of the potential side effects of prescription drugs. There are, unfortunately, many more out there.

Every year, more than 2 million Americans suffer from serious adverse drug reactions. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these reactions cause about 100,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the country.

Compare this to the death toll from illegal drugs -- which is about 10,000 per year -- and you begin to see the magnitude of the problem.

However, if you dig a little deeper you find that these reported reactions only skim the surface of what’s really going on. You see, drug side effects are not always recognized as such. Doctors often attribute them to other causes, people downplay them or do not report them altogether. And when you add in other medical errors, unnecessary procedures, and surgery-related mishaps, well the modern health care system actually becomes the LEADING cause of death in the United States. Consider, for instance, that:

•The recorded error rate of ICU’s is like the post office losing more than 16,000 pieces of mail every hour of every day, or banks deducting 32,000 checks from the wrong bank account every hour, 24/7.
•The recorded medical errors and deaths equate to six jumbo jets falling out of the sky each day, 365 days a year.
•Since 2001, a recorded 490,000 people have died from properly prescribed drugs in the United States, while 2,996 people died on U.S. soil from terrorism, all in the 9/11 attacks; prescription drugs are therefore 16,400 percent more dangerous than terrorism. If deaths from over-the-counter drugs are also included, then drug consumption leaps to being 32,000 percent more dangerous than terrorism. And conventional medicine viewed as a whole is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism
Your Body is Not a Petri Dish

How can it be that clinically tested, FDA-approved drugs that are supposed to “cure” diseases are ending up hurting, and in some cases killing, so many people?

Because even under the BEST circumstances, such as a drug going through unbiased, stringent, long-term testing, when it is released into an uncontrolled environment (your body), anything can happen.

You may be taking another drug that interacts badly with it. Or perhaps a food you eat causes an unforeseen reaction. There are countless possibilities, and only a tiny fraction has been “tested for” in a lab.

And that is under the best circumstances. Often, studies are biased, results are skewed, and drugs are put on a fast-track to be approved before anyone really knows whether they’re safe. In a sense, it is all a gamble, and there are no 100-percent safe drugs. 

This is why just about every time you open a newspaper or skim the news online, there is a new headline about another drug disaster: an unforeseen side effect that has harmed innocent people.

It’s YOUR Body

The take-home message from all of this is to remember that, ultimately, it’s your body, and your decision what to put in it. If your doctor suggests you take a drug, do some research before you take it, because once you do, it could be too late.

Make sure you are aware of the potential side effects of the drug, read the package insert, and remember that even if it lists a side effect as rare, it can still happen to you.

Many, many drugs are vastly over-prescribed and unnecessary. So make sure that you make drugs a last option, not a first choice. For example, all of the following conditions can be treated or prevented with LIFESTYLE CHANGES, yet if you go to a typical doctor, you will likely be prescribed a potentially dangerous drug instead:

•Diabetes 

•Heart disease 

•High blood pressure 

•High cholesterol 

•Insomnia 

I realize that it takes a massive shift in thinking to realize that your body can heal itself, and that often drugs only hinder the process. But I believe that you, and society as a whole, are ready for it.

But here’s the thing: don’t wait until you’re sick or slowing down to make healthy changes. Do them NOW. Become an active participant in your health, and leave the horrific drug side effects behind for good."


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## alergyfree (Feb 15, 2011)

Vitamins can only help so much. First step I believe is people understanding the short and long terms effects of what they eat.
The next problem is they don't care to change enough to make a difference.
It's just easier to take a pill.
And every body knows vitamins don't do anything to prevent illness let alone help the human body recover from any illness. 
Cause that's what the doctors tell us......


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## cqp33 (Apr 2, 2012)

Maybe Durbin should try to regulate lightning since it is more of a health hazard than vitamins! Just saying!


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

I just don't get all the pill taking, vitamins or other. :dunno: If you're honestly that concerned about your health, don't spend a fortune on vitamins, get them how God intended you to. Eat the actual fruit or veggie! We're all preppers here, we know oxygen does bad things to vitamins but we somehow forget that bit of knowledge when we go buy all these heavily processed vitamin pills. I must be missing something.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

Research ... Folks...


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

I take a fish oil supplement because I can feel the difference when I dont take it, and I dont think eating enough fish is healthy given heavy metal levels in fish, and the prvelence of farmed fish from china. I also take a daily multi vitamin because I know I dont eat healthy enough, too much processed foods. 

Ultimately my goal is to produce all my own food, at that time I dont think ill need much in the way of supplements. Until then, I would prefer it if I would continue to be allowed to make my own choices and not need a presciption for vitimins.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

cqp33 said:


> Maybe Durbin should try to regulate lightning since it is more of a health hazard than vitamins! Just saying!


 Savage calls him 'Turban Durbin' because although he is an marine vet, he turned on the marines for the obomb allies.


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## AfleetAlex (Nov 8, 2013)

If you eat healthy, you don't need vitamins.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

well, if you wanna dine on fukushima glowing salmon n crab cakes, go right ahead. Ill just take my fishoil supplement..

also nutropics are interesting...


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

RevWC said:


> FDA approved..I'll stick to Vitamins..
> 
> "Every year, more than 2 million Americans suffer from serious adverse drug reactions. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these reactions cause about 100,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the country.


That's ridiculous. Prescription drugs SAVE a multitude of lives for everyone who dies taking them. Nobody in the their right mind would suggest that no one take prescription drugs as prescribed. Besides, a lot of people on prescription drugs are really sick to begin with. You can't say in a lot of cases what actually killed them. My late first wife died from a series of illnesses and complications from kidney disease at the age of 30. She was extremely weak and on a number of medications at the time. Medications prolonged her life. They didn't cause her death.

And it's ridiculous to compare supplements to prescription drugs as if supplements are good and prescription drugs are bad. What we can't measure are the lives lost because people wouldn't go to the doctor and instead treated serious conditions with supplements.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

FatTire said:


> well, if you wanna dine on fukushima glowing salmon n crab cakes, go right ahead. Ill just take my fishoil supplement..
> 
> also nutropics are interesting...


Maybe the fish oil supplements were made from glowfish found near Fukushima.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

and maybe im smart enough to source my stuff...


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

BillS said:


> That's ridiculous. Prescription drugs SAVE a multitude of lives for everyone who dies taking them. Nobody in the their right mind would suggest that no one take prescription drugs as prescribed. Besides, a lot of people on prescription drugs are really sick to begin with. You can't say in a lot of cases what actually killed them. My late first wife died from a series of illnesses and complications from kidney disease at the age of 30. She was extremely weak and on a number of medications at the time. Medications prolonged her life. They didn't cause her death.
> 
> And it's ridiculous to compare supplements to prescription drugs as if supplements are good and prescription drugs are bad. What we can't measure are the lives lost because people wouldn't go to the doctor and instead treated serious conditions with supplements.


1. Sorry to hear about your wife my sincere condolences.
2. I never said all prescription drugs are bad but the facts are 100,000 people die per year from prescription drugs.
3. I am sure millions are saved from antibiotics and other prescription drugs per year worldwide. However let us look at all the misused drugs prescribed that are incorrect and have addicted a whole bunch of people..
4. "Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing"
5. I do not want the Government dictating to Doctors what Vitamins I can take to line the pockets of big pharma and doctors!
6. I buy my fish oil from Fat Tire so I know it's good! 

"From inability to let well alone; from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old; from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art and cleverness before common sense; from treating patients as cases; and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, Good Lord, deliver us."


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## Dude111 (Dec 28, 2012)

RevWC said:


> I wonder how much Big Pharm gives to Durbin?


Probably alot!!!!

They want ppl giving them $$$$$$ for thier garbage instead of using NATURAL THINGS which are better!


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## dixiemama (Nov 28, 2012)

Some of us have to take vitamins (myself included) because we don't get enough. I have a genetic mutation that causes my body to not process folic acid from natural sources like it shld. I have to take OTC folic acid to counteract that if I want other illnesses to be treated and to have healthy pregnancies.


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