You know that the misinformation regarding supplements in the mass media and on Capitol Hill really angers me, and as you know I have been known to take to the airwaves, videowaves and lecture halls to try to combat it.
Especially now with what has been going with the food "safety" bills in D.C. right now, there is no better time for a scientific symposium that focuses on the safety of nutritional supplements while also discussing the cost-effectiveness data, something particularly relevant in today's troubled, slowly recovering economy.
With that in mind, I wanted to remind all of you about a very exciting conference that's coming up in the second half of November, on Thursday, November 18th, entitled the:
Natural Health Research Institute (NHRI) 5th Annual Scientific Symposium, “Natural Products – Cost-Effectiveness & Safety of Dietary Supplements”
http://www.naturalhealthresearch.org/nhri/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/NHRI-Symposium-09.23.10.pdf
Session 1: Cost Effectiveness of Natural Products will be chaired by Ron Watson, PhD. Chairman of NHRI, Dr. Watson has edited 60 biomedical books, particularly in nutrition and food sciences. He has directed several NIH funded biomedical grants relating to immune function and cardiovascular effects. He is an internationally recognized CAM researcher, nutritionist and immunologist. Professor Watson is a distinguished member of several national and international nutrition, immunology, and cancer societies, having published 450 research papers and reviews.
Session 1 will also feature Dr. Paul Coates, director of the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements and Michael Morton, the cofounder of Nourish America (formerly called Vitamin Relief USA).
Session 2: Safety of Dietary Supplements will be chaired by Russell M. Jaffe, Ph.D., M.D. Dr. Jaffe is President of PERQUE LLC, a firm producing items for practitioners. Formerly he was an official at the National Institutes of Health and Clinical Center in Bethesda, the US Public Health Service, and on the editorial board of The New Physician. For the past four years he has been selected as one of America’s Top Physicians, and selected as International Scientist of the Year in 2003 at Oxford. His published research includes over 400 papers in the areas of clinical and nutritional immunology, toxic minerals, hormones, and chemical disruptors, and autoimmune disease.
Session 2 will also feature: Dr. Bruce Ames, Dr. Rick Kingston and Dr. John Hathcock.
The symposium, to be held at the Hilton at Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale, Illinois will be attended by scientists, medical researchers, practitioners and other interested professionals. Additional information will be announced in the coming weeks.
As a board member of the NHRI, I am especially excited about this powerful symposium. We will be making additional information, including audio recordings, available in the near future for those reporters and industry science and safety executives who cannot physically be there.
Strategy. Communications. Trade Relations.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
News Flash: ‘Supplements Are Safe, Healthful and Well-Regulated’!
By James J. Gormley
On March 25th, 1999, I was part of a live television debate on FOX-TV’s “Good Day New York” with a drug industry attorney on the topic: “Are dietary supplements regulated?”(1)
Needless to say, with all of the facts showing how well regulated dietary supplements were then, winning the debate was not a difficult accomplishment; I even had the host, Jim Ryan, on the side of supplement consumers about midway through the segment.
In fact, the regulations and laws governing nutritional supplements today are even more stringent than they were in 1999, when I did that show.
READ MORE
On March 25th, 1999, I was part of a live television debate on FOX-TV’s “Good Day New York” with a drug industry attorney on the topic: “Are dietary supplements regulated?”(1)
Needless to say, with all of the facts showing how well regulated dietary supplements were then, winning the debate was not a difficult accomplishment; I even had the host, Jim Ryan, on the side of supplement consumers about midway through the segment.
In fact, the regulations and laws governing nutritional supplements today are even more stringent than they were in 1999, when I did that show.
READ MORE
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Chromium picolinate may boost elderly memory
Writing in the findings published in Nutritional Neuroscience, scientists from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine report that daily supplements of the compound improved learning, recall, and recognition memory tasks.
Chromium is an essential trace mineral that occurs naturally in small amounts in some foods, including brewer's yeast, lean meat, cheese, pork kidney and whole grain bread and cereals. It is poorly absorbed by the human body but is known to play an important role in the metabolism of carbohydrate, fat and protein.
Several reports have indicated that chromium picolinate is better absorbed by humans than other forms of the mineral.
Twenty-six older adults were recruited to participate in the study and they were randomly assigned to 1,000 micrograms of chromium picolinate per day (Chromax, Nutrition 21) or placebo capsules for 12 weeks. The new study was supported by Nutrition 21.
"These new study results support the findings that Chromax chromium picolinate can also improve glucose metabolism in the brain, resulting in improved brain function,” said James Komorowski, VP of research and development for Nutrition 21.
<<READ MORE>>
Chromium is an essential trace mineral that occurs naturally in small amounts in some foods, including brewer's yeast, lean meat, cheese, pork kidney and whole grain bread and cereals. It is poorly absorbed by the human body but is known to play an important role in the metabolism of carbohydrate, fat and protein.
Several reports have indicated that chromium picolinate is better absorbed by humans than other forms of the mineral.
Twenty-six older adults were recruited to participate in the study and they were randomly assigned to 1,000 micrograms of chromium picolinate per day (Chromax, Nutrition 21) or placebo capsules for 12 weeks. The new study was supported by Nutrition 21.
"These new study results support the findings that Chromax chromium picolinate can also improve glucose metabolism in the brain, resulting in improved brain function,” said James Komorowski, VP of research and development for Nutrition 21.
<<READ MORE>>
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Orrin Hatch Letter to John McCain About S. 3002
This letter was sent by Senator Orrin Hatch, senior member of the HELP committee, to Senator John McCain on March 4, 2010, in large part as a result of the massively successful letter-writing campaign initiated by Citizens for Health and several other groups.
Please click here.
Please click here.
9 Reasons S. 3002 Has to Go
By James J. Gormley
http://www.citizens.org/?p=1965
1. No phase-in period or “effective date”. Since legitimate dietary supplement companies and health-food stores would not have even one day to come into compliance with the new law, they would effectively be breaking the law the day after S. 3002 is passed.
2. Registration of supplement licensors. S. 3002 would require outfits that license dietary supplements to register their “facilities” under the FDA Food Facility program established by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002. Including these requirements would go against the purposes of the Bioterrorism Act and would serve no useful purpose other than creating more bureaucracy and red tape.
3. Registration of health-food stores. S. 3002 is unclear as to whether the current retailer exception to the Bioterrorism Act registration requirement is intended to be honored for supplement retailers.
4. Product and ingredient registration. The product/ingredient registration process included in S. 3002 is unclear in its use of the terms “ingredients” and “labeling.” As worded, S. 3002 would apparently require duplicate, therefore unnecessary, registration of every product at every point in its distribution! This would be an incredible burden, one that would mandate annual updates, and one that would not protect any proprietary information that is not required on product labels but that that may be required to be submitted in the registration process.
5. Replacement of new dietary ingredient (NDI) requirements with an FDA positive list. FDA received information between 1996 and 1998 from dietary supplement trade associations to record ingredients believed to be marketed in the U.S. prior to the passage of DSHEA. If there is any lack of clarity as to what dietary ingredients are “old,” the agency should initiate rulemaking to formally adopt the ingredients directly submitted by the trade associations.
6. Retailer evidence of compliance. The bill’s proposal to require health-food stores to obtain evidence of compliance with product registration and NDI notifications is would be ridiculously burdensome and something that is not required for other regulated goods.
7. Civil penalties. The bill would establish new, unnecessary civil penalties despite the fact that current law already imposes adequate fines and penalties for violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
8. Non-serious adverse event reports. The FDA itself has made it clear that it would not be helpful for the agency to receive boatloads of minor or trivial (and probably not substantiated) adverse event reports associated with dietary supplements. Under current law, dietary supplement companies are already required to maintain records of all adverse event reports for 6 years and the FDA has the authority to inspect these records at any time.
9. FDA recall and “cease distribution” authority. S. 3002, as well as other food safety legislation already introduced in the 111th Congress (such as S. 510), would provide FDA with authority to mandate products recalls when health risks are presented by marketed products, which is fine. However, what is not fine is that S. 3002 would obligate the agency to issue a “cease distribution” order for any supplement identified as adulterated or misbranded, even in the absence of any perceived health risk.
http://www.citizens.org/?p=1965
1. No phase-in period or “effective date”. Since legitimate dietary supplement companies and health-food stores would not have even one day to come into compliance with the new law, they would effectively be breaking the law the day after S. 3002 is passed.
2. Registration of supplement licensors. S. 3002 would require outfits that license dietary supplements to register their “facilities” under the FDA Food Facility program established by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002. Including these requirements would go against the purposes of the Bioterrorism Act and would serve no useful purpose other than creating more bureaucracy and red tape.
3. Registration of health-food stores. S. 3002 is unclear as to whether the current retailer exception to the Bioterrorism Act registration requirement is intended to be honored for supplement retailers.
4. Product and ingredient registration. The product/ingredient registration process included in S. 3002 is unclear in its use of the terms “ingredients” and “labeling.” As worded, S. 3002 would apparently require duplicate, therefore unnecessary, registration of every product at every point in its distribution! This would be an incredible burden, one that would mandate annual updates, and one that would not protect any proprietary information that is not required on product labels but that that may be required to be submitted in the registration process.
5. Replacement of new dietary ingredient (NDI) requirements with an FDA positive list. FDA received information between 1996 and 1998 from dietary supplement trade associations to record ingredients believed to be marketed in the U.S. prior to the passage of DSHEA. If there is any lack of clarity as to what dietary ingredients are “old,” the agency should initiate rulemaking to formally adopt the ingredients directly submitted by the trade associations.
6. Retailer evidence of compliance. The bill’s proposal to require health-food stores to obtain evidence of compliance with product registration and NDI notifications is would be ridiculously burdensome and something that is not required for other regulated goods.
7. Civil penalties. The bill would establish new, unnecessary civil penalties despite the fact that current law already imposes adequate fines and penalties for violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
8. Non-serious adverse event reports. The FDA itself has made it clear that it would not be helpful for the agency to receive boatloads of minor or trivial (and probably not substantiated) adverse event reports associated with dietary supplements. Under current law, dietary supplement companies are already required to maintain records of all adverse event reports for 6 years and the FDA has the authority to inspect these records at any time.
9. FDA recall and “cease distribution” authority. S. 3002, as well as other food safety legislation already introduced in the 111th Congress (such as S. 510), would provide FDA with authority to mandate products recalls when health risks are presented by marketed products, which is fine. However, what is not fine is that S. 3002 would obligate the agency to issue a “cease distribution” order for any supplement identified as adulterated or misbranded, even in the absence of any perceived health risk.
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