[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 149 (Thursday, September 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4630-S4631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Dietary Supplements

  Mr. President, on a related matter, Congress has a big decision to 
make in the next few weeks. Every 5 years, Congress must reauthorize 
FDA user fee programs. These programs authorize FDA to collect user 
fees from companies they oversee: prescription drug companies, medical 
device companies. These fees help provide the funding that FDA needs 
for staff.
  In fact, almost half of their funding comes from user fees. But we 
shouldn't settle for a clean authorization of FDA user fees. We should 
give FDA the authority to collect user fees from e-cigarette companies, 
and we should provide FDA with new authority to protect America's 
health by better regulating the dietary supplement industry.
  I want to thank the members of the Senate HELP Committee, especially 
its chairman, Senator Patty Murray, for including my proposal for 
better regulation of dietary supplements in the committee-passed bill.
  But I fear this commonsense proposal may be lost in the sauce in the 
closing days of this fiscal year.
  Many people are surprised to learn that today dietary supplement 
companies are not even required to register their products with the 
FDA. They aren't required to tell the FDA even the ingredients of their 
products.
  If you are going to put a product on the shelf in America, most 
Americans walking into that drugstore or that vitamin shop believe that 
there has been

[[Page S4631]]

some government review of the product, some inspection, some standards. 
Not the case. When it comes to prescription drugs, they have to be 
proven to be safe and effective. Not so for dietary supplements. These 
products can hit the shelves and make outrageous claims and not be 
regulated in any way, like prescription drugs.
  What our bill says is that each of the companies selling these 
products has to register with the FDA the name of the product and the 
ingredients in the product. So if something goes wrong and people start 
getting sick, we at least have the most basic information to protect 
Americans.
  The FDA is one of the most important Agencies in the Federal 
Government. It has fallen on hard times. It is there to protect the 
health of families across the country, especially our children. Whether 
it is dietary supplements or tobacco or e-cigarettes, we need to make 
sure the FDA not only has the tools for the job but uses them.