CFSAN Chief Tells Congress DSHEA is Sufficient

WASHINGTON--Robert Brackett, director of the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition (CFSAN) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), testified in a March 9 House Government Reform Committee hearing on dietary supplement safety and education that current law provides regulators sufficient authority to enforce laws on dangerous supplements. He said despite numerous complaints the supplement industry is unregulated and the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) does not adequately protect consumers, the supplement industry is indeed regulated, and the current administration has no plans to change federal law governing supplements.

"[DSHEA] does provide the ability for us to take action on unsafe dietary supplements," he said. "At this point we have no reason to think we don't [have sufficient authority]."

In the same hearing, Kathleen Jordan, general manager of the NSF Dietary Supplement Certification Program, told lawmakers NSF International is a key organization that is putting dietary supplements under closer scrutiny, starting with its newly-developed NSF/ANSI Standard 173, which is designed to assure consumers that labeled nutrient content matches what is actually in the bottle. We agree with the committee that there is much more work to do when it comes to addressing the safety of supplements and the safety of consumers, Jordan testified. It is our goal to provide objective, reliable information about dietary supplements and all categories of products we independently test and certify so that purchase, use and regulation decisions can be based on reliable information.

The National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA) applauded the Congressional discussions on dietary supplement regulation and safety. NNFA hopes todays hearing will underscore the value of DSHEA as an effective framework for governing supplements, and also emphasize the need for adequate anabolic steroid enforcement, the group said in a release. In addition, we hope the hearing sheds light on the fact that the typical consumer of vitamins, minerals and other dietary supplements is not regularly being exposed to anabolic steroids. Those products that have been called into question were marketed as sports supplements, a category that represents a very small percentage of total dietary supplement sales.