FDA MAY TRY TO RESTRICT VITAMINS -- AGAIN

Ten years ago the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tried to regulate vitamins as drugs if they contained more than one and a half times the recommended daily allowance. All but the smallest doses of vitamin C, for example, could have been banned from over-the-counter sale.

That proposal touched off one of the most massive public outcries in history. Not only did the FDA have to kill its plan, but an act of Congress prohibited the agency from regulating food substances like drugs in the future, unless it could prove that they were dangerous.

Earlier this month the FDA, working with the American Dietetic Association and with support from the American Dairy Board, set into motion a sophisticated plan which could lead to new restrictions on food supplements. While not directed against treatments for AIDS, resulting new rules might affect or even ban a number of "alternative" therapies.

So far, all that's happened is that the FDA has warned that Americans might be poisoning themselves, and asked physicians to voluntarily report any suspected adverse effects of vitamin overdose, on the same form already used to report side effects of drugs. No one has objected to collecting such information, which could be used legitimately to warn vitamin
users and doctors about any dangers. The health-food industry has been complacent, apparently expecting the data to vindicate its claim that vitamins and other food supplements are safe.

The problem is that asking all the4 doctors in the country to report suspected bad effects of food supplments, and only the bad effects, will produce such masses of data that there will be enough horror stories to fill any number of Congressional hearings. Erroneous reports alone could do so, even if the vitamins were innocent. The FDA can select these horror stories
and use them at the times and places of its own choosing. The requirements of patient confidentiality will probably prevent independent analysis by outsiders.

Then Congress will have the choice to let babies be poisoned, etc., or to do something. And if Congress does act, it will most likely grant broad regulatory authority, instead of narrow powers which would have to be re-legislated every year as situations changed. In this way the FDA will satisfy that driving hunger which is the ultimate motivation of any active
bureaucracy -- the relentless quest for more power.

What can we do? It's hard to protest, because so far there's nothing to protest against. If horror stories do get used, it will be hard to protest without appearing heartless. The plan is a masterpiece of strategy for taking away people's power over their own lives, and putting that power into the hands of a medical establishment which is not only expensive, but
usually unwilling to run the legal risks of trying alternative treatments at any price.

One thing we can do is make sure that people know what's going on. And we can raise the question of whether we are a nation of people who make their own decisions, using warnings and advice from the experts, or whether a committee of experts should decide what's best for you, and use police powers to enforce your compliance.