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Healthy INSIDER Podcast 23: The fight against new natural products regs in Puerto Rico
Earlier this year, Puerto Rican health officials issued an administrative order that imposes new registration and inspection requirements on manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of natural products, including dietary supplements. Faced with the new requirements and fees, an irked natural products industry has sought help from the U.S. Congress, which has authority over Puerto Rico and is currently considering measures to help the island with its debt crisis.
June 22, 2016
In February 2016, Puerto Rico's Secretary of Health Ana Ruis Armendariz, M.D., signed a new administrative order that establishes new registration and inspection requirements and fees for manufacturers, distributors and retailers of "natural products," a move that the natural products industry thinks is redundant, cumbersome and instituted only to generate new income for the debt-laden island. The Natural Products Association (NPA) set up a page on its SaveOurSupplments.org site for NPA members and others in the industry to learn about the requirements and fees and why they are not good for the industry and consumers. The site also offers visitors an easy way to reach out to their senators and representatives in Congress to support efforts to repeal this administrative order.
In this podcast, INSIDER talks to Dan Fabricant, Ph.D., CEO and executive director of NPA, about the potential ramifications of such an order, the grassroots effort against this order, and the work NPA is doing on Capitol Hill to get this order removed, including successfully getting an amendment attached to the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) being considered in Congress.
In this podcast, we will discuss:
The requirements and fees imposed by this order,
Congress's authority over Puerto Rico,
How an amendment addressing this order was attached to PROMESA,
What the amendment does to address the administrative order,
Why industry members and stakeholders should be concerned about this order, and
What industry can do to support efforts to repeal this order.
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