Dietary supplement listing requirement not part of US spending bill

Josh Long, Associate editorial director, SupplySide Supplement Journal

December 20, 2022

2 Min Read
Dietary supplement listing requirement not part of US spending bill

The $1.7 trillion spending bill unveiled Tuesday by Congress does not include a legislative proposal that would require listing of dietary supplement products with FDA, industry sources said.

The development was a welcome one for industry stakeholders who oppose mandatory product listing (MPL), including the Natural Products Association (NPA).

“This is a big win for consumers, for innovation and for access to the healthy products that millions of Americans rely on and turned to during the height of the pandemic,” NPA President and CEO Dan Fabricant said in a news release.

Those supporting MPL include the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and FDA.

In September, the director of FDA’s Office of Dietary Supplement Programs, Cara Welch, said her agency often faces “an information gap about the marketplace.”

“And to be clear, FDA believes we have a data gap in understanding the extent of the dietary supplement marketplace,” Welch said during a conference hosted by the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA). “We don’t know all the products that are out there.”

MPL, she added, “would go a long way to address that data gap.”

Earlier this month, Durbin urged his colleagues to include reform of the dietary supplement industry in an end-of-year omnibus bill.

“The legislation I have with Republican Senator Braun would require supplement companies to tell the FDA what products they’ve put on the shelf and what’s in them. Just that basic,” Durbin said in a speech on the Senate floor. “It’s a simple fix that would improve the safety of the supplement market.”

Ultimately, MPL didn’t make it into a bill that will fund the government through September of 2023, according to industry sources. CNN reported the Senate is expected to vote to approve the spending bill this week and then send it to the House of Representatives for approval before government funding runs out on Dec. 23.

MPL has been a contentious issue within the industry. Critics maintain a listing requirement is unnecessary and burdensome. They also have argued FDA could use a public database of product labels to unduly restrict access to dietary supplement products, including when FDA and industry stakeholders disagree over the legality of an ingredient.

Gretchen DuBeau is executive and legal director of the Alliance for Natural Health USA, one of the groups opposed to MPL.

“U.S. consumers appreciate access to a broad range of affordable dietary supplements,” DuBeau said in a statement last week. “They do not want unnecessary additional regulation that will increase costs and decrease access to this overwhelmingly safe option to support their health naturally."

 

 

About the Author

Josh Long

Associate editorial director, SupplySide Supplement Journal , Informa Markets Health and Nutrition

Josh Long directs the online news, feature and op-ed coverage at SupplySide Supplement Journal (formerly known as Natural Products Insider), which targets the health and wellness industry. He has been reporting on developments in the dietary supplement industry for over a decade, with a focus on regulatory issues, including at the Food and Drug Administration.

He has moderated and/or presented at industry trade shows, including SupplySide East, SupplySide West, Natural Products Expo West, NBJ Summit and the annual Dietary Supplement Regulatory Summit.

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn and ping him with story ideas at [email protected]

Education and previous experience

Josh majored in journalism and graduated from Arizona State University the same year "Jake the Snake" Plummer led the Sun Devils to the Rose Bowl against the Ohio State Buckeyes. He also holds a J.D. from the University of Wyoming College of Law, was admitted in 2008 to practice law in the state of Colorado and spent a year clerking for a state district court judge.

Over more than a quarter century, he’s written on various topics for newspapers and business-to-business publications – from the Yavapai in Arizona and a controversial plan for a nuclear-waste incinerator in Idaho to nuanced issues, including FDA enforcement of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).

Since the late 1990s, his articles have been published in a variety of media, including but not limited to, the Cape Cod Times (in Massachusetts), Sedona Red Rock News (in Arizona), Denver Post (in Colorado), Casper Star-Tribune (in Wyoming), now-defunct Jackson Hole Guide (in Wyoming), Colorado Lawyer (published by the Colorado Bar Association) and Nutrition Business Journal.

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