FIGHT FOR YOUR NUTRITIONAL HEALTH RIGHTS

Senators McCain and Dorgan Betray Dietary Supplement Consumers

Email or Call your Senators - Let them know you do not support this new Act which will take away your freedom of choice regarding your health and nutritional values and beliefs!

From http://www.citizens.org/

The Voice of the Natural Health Consumer

On Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) of 2010. This bill would amend DSHEA and undermine, if not entirely eliminate, consumer access to valuable dietary supplements, according to Jim Turner, Citizens for Health Board Chair.

Over the next week, Citizens for Health will report in detail on specific sections of the bill, which would:

• Reverse the 100-year long status of supplements as foods;
• Create onerous requirements for supplements not applied to other foods or even to prescription drugs; and
• Wipe out significant numbers of small supplement manufacturers and sellers.

"This bill, typical of Washington's 'destroy the economy, wipe out consumer rights, and undermine individual health' mentality," says Turner, "thoughtlessly reinforces the costly, unresponsive, dangerous policies that have created an unsafe and depleted food supply and a bankrupt health care system."

This bill takes power, choice, and self-determination from consumers and gives it to government. Urge your Senators to avoid co-sponsoring it. The people of Arizona and North Dakota, who believe in consumer rights, safe and healthy food, and responsible government, deserve better Senators. McCain and Dorgan are up for re-election this year - and if this bill passes, voters will line up to set them straight in November.

Stay tuned to www.citizens.org for further developments, and enter your email address to receive our blog posts on issues of importance to the natural health and wellness community.

James S. Turner is a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Swankin and Turner, formed in 1973, and Board Chair of Citizens for Health, the consumer voice of the natural health community. From 1968 to 1971, Mr. Turner worked with Ralph Nader, and wrote The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on Food Protection at the FDA (Grossman 1970).

In 1975, he successfully opposed the Federal Trade Commission proposal to ban the words "natural," "organic" and "health food" from all commerce. In 1990, he lobbied successfully-with many others-for passage of the "Organic Food Production Act of 1990". In 1994, he worked with the newly created Citizens for Health to pass DSHEA. Congress received one and a half million communications supporting DSHEA.

Turner also led the team that persuaded FDA to approve acupuncture needles (1996); campaigned successfully against the 1976 Swine Flu program, which the government stopped for being dangerous; lobbied successfully for the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, which legalized health claims for food; and wrote Making Your Own Baby Food (Workman 1974, Bantam 1975, 2nd expanded edition Workman 1976).

He recently co-authored, with A. Lawrence Chickering, Voice of the People: The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life (da Vinci Press, 2008).