Will Dietary Supplements Get Oversight?

Government oversight of dietary supplements is moving closer because of an agreement among senators to include guidelines in a food safety bill,known as the FDA Food Safety Modernization Bill.

Those provisions include:

--Requiring all dietary supplement manufacturing, processing and holding facilities to register with the Secretary of Health and Human Services;

--Riving the Food and Drug Administration authority to issue a mandatory recall order if a dietary supplement is adulterated or misbranded or "the use of such supplement could cause serious adverse health consequences such as death;"

--Requiring the FDA commissioner to publish guidelines on new dietary ingredients "as soon as possible;"

--Mandating that the FDA notify the Drug Enforcement Administration when a new product contains a synthetic anabolic steroid.

Find it here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510

It has a way to go, but this is a baby step in the right direction.