[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 16, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   INTRODUCTION OF THE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT FAIRNESS IN ADVERTISING ACT

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                         HON. MICHAEL D. CRAPO

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 16, 1998

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation to reaffirm 
Congress' intent in enacting the Dietary Supplement Health and 
Education Act (DSHEA). In enacting DSHEA, Congress intended to ensure 
that all Americans have access to factual information about vitamins 
and other dietary supplements so that they can make informed decisions 
about their health.
  Among other things, DSHEA requires the Food and Drug Administration 
(FDA) to promulgate reasonable guidelines to regulate the content of 
dietary supplement labels. The expressed goal of this requirement is to 
ensure that the labels give consumers information necessary for them to 
make informed decisions on whether they want to take a particular 
supplement. The information on the labels is to be factual and cannot 
make claims regarding medical or disease benefits (which are reserved 
for FDA-approved drugs), but can inform consumers of the benefits and 
effects of the supplement. After some fits and starts, the FDA has 
complied with DSHEA, and consumers are benefiting.
  It seems only logical that the same information the FDA allows on the 
label of a dietary supplement should be permitted for use in 
advertising of that same supplement. However, the Federal Trade 
Commission (FTC) is seeking to regulate the advertising of dietary 
supplements by denying consumers some of the very information that 
DSHEA required the FDA to let them have. Not only is it unfair to 
require the manufacturers of these products to work under two sets of 
contradictory regulations, but it also repudiates the intent of 
Congress that consumers have accurate and helpful information in making 
decisions about their health.
  Mr. Speaker, the legislation that I am introducing would require the 
FTC to allow the same information in advertising of dietary supplements 
that is allowed on labels of the same products. It simply forbids one 
federal agency from adopting requirements for an industry that Congress 
prohibited another agency from adopting.

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