(L-R) Senator McCain, Challenger JD Hayworth,.....John Hammell in the IAHF Office
IAHF List:
For the past couple of weeks I've been probing deeply into a number of issues surrounding Senator McCain's bill S.3002 (The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010), and on Thursday I'm going to the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus Ohio where 700 dietary supplement companies selling sports nutrition products will have booths. I'll be there through the weekend. I'm hoping some of these companies can assist in my making additional trips to DC to kill this dangerous bill. Your donations are badly needed to help pay for this trip to Ohio.
My purpose in going to "the Arnold" will be to urge these companies and the public to help kill S.3002, and to drive Senator McCain, its sponsor, from office by assisting JD Hayworth who is running against him. (Hayworth is a strong supporter of DSHEA and opposes S.3002) I have flyers reading to pass out to the 700 booths where I'll ask them to distribute them to thousands of attendees.
I'll also be asking Sports Nutrition Companies to assist IAHF in self policing the dietary supplement industry because the excuse for McCain's bill is that some criminals have been operating in our midst selling illegal synthetic steroids masquerading as "dietary supplements" which they're NOT. They've been brazenly selling illegal steroids on bodybuilding websites mixed in with legitimate legal supplements. The FDA has more than ample power to deal with these criminals, something they've already been doing, so theres no reason to make sweeping changes to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. (More on this.)
Durk Pierson, formulator of several cutting edge dietary supplements, urges us to think of the absurdity posed by S.3002 this way:
"Remember Richard Reid, the terrorist shoe bomber?
Did his attempt mean that the US needed to register shoe stores and shoe salesmen? Did it mean that the US needed to create more regulations on shoe manufacturers? Did it mean that all new shoe designs had to be approved before sale by a shoe design czar?
No, of course not! It simply meant that more testing needed to be done at airports to make sure that people were not walking on board airplanes with bombs on their feet disguised as shoes rather than legitimate shoes.
That's it. If McCain wants to pass a bill giving the FDA $10,000,000 to purchase products advertised to increase muscle and test them for anabolic properties, that shouldn't interfere with legitimate dietary supplements.
How do you test for new synthetic anabolic steroids? Put out a bid for a test that measures activation of a human testosterone receptor that has been coupled to jellyfish green fluorescent protein expression in bacteria. Simple routine genetic engineering of bacteria. Add an anabolic substance to the culture, and it will soon glow green under long wave UV. There are at least a dozen US biotech firms that could deliver such tests in less than a year. Anything that would activate the human receptor for testosterone would be detected. End of problem."
(Several attempts to communicate Pierson's message to Senator McCain's office went nowhere hence my strong feeling that he must be driven from office- he is an enemy of dietary supplement consumers.)
HOW S.3002 POSES A THREAT TO GUT THE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT HEALTH & EDUCATION ACT AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO STOP IT
Right now, under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, supplement companies have broad leeway allowing thousands of products to be sold, but under S.3002, a so called "Positive List" would be created by the FDA, and if one or more ingredients in a supplement companies product is not on this list, they'd be blocked from selling it unless they filed an "NDI" or "New Dietary Ingredient" application with the FDA, and the FDA approved it.
The World Anti Doping Agency and the US Anti Doping Agency have a list of over 400 different ingredients currently found in dietary supplements that they've banned athletes from using. Most of these ingredients are legal, but a few are not under current law. It is not reasonable for these organizations to impose their will on the public at large, but thats what they're trying to do, under false pretenses.
FDA has a very poor track record of approving NDIs. Since passage of DSHEA, they've hardly approved ANY NDIs, moreover, despite frequent requests from the supplement industry for the FDA to provide a guidance document to facilitate approval of NDIs, the Agency has failed to act on this request. This illustrates FDA's longstanding bias against dietary supplements. They don't want to do anything to help our industry bring products to market. If a company were to sell a product containing even one ingredient not on FDA's "Positive List", it could be raided, charged with misbranding, and heavily fined. This would cause thousands of products to be removed from the market very quickly including many of your favorite products.
S.3002 would also require supplement manufacturers to report even minor Adverse Event Reports to the FDA, a very impractical requirement considering that FDA has very limited resources with which to review these AER reports and that would prevent the SERIOUS Adverse Reactions that are WORTH looking at from being properly examined making consumers LESS safe, not MORE safe.
Whats totally outrageous about this is that supplements, which are much safer than either prescription or OTC drugs, or than food in common form, would be subject to a much more restrictive requirement when none is needed!
S.3002 would also give the FDA automatic recall authority over dietary supplements, a higher standard than is imposed on prescription drugs which are far more dangerous!
It would also impose a registration requirement of all supplement companies, their products and ingredients, imposing yet another layer of red tape that will drive small companies under while increasing costs to consumers- doing nothing to improve safety.
THE EXCUSE DRIVING S.3002: ILLEGAL STEROIDS
MASQUERADING AS "DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS" (FDA Already has all the power they need to take these illegal products off the market)
See this FDA press release about Bodybuilding.com's voluntary recall of 65 dietary supplements that may contain illegal steroids. Several different manufacturers were named in the recall.
From this we see that FDA has ample enforcement power under the Anabolic Steroid Control Act to address this problem of illegal steroids being sold as "dietary supplements" (which they are not).
The solution is to not give the FDA more power which they have a long history of abusing when it comes to dietary supplements, the solution is for the FDA to do its job properly by making more of an effort to enforce the law!
Its also not a bad idea for the supplement industry to do more to police itself by reporting companies selling these illegal products to the FDA. Consumers can also help with such an effort.
The US Anti Doping Agency is pushing McCain's bill by disseminating anti dietary supplement propaganda from its website.
In an attempt to influence congress to pass S.3002, they've built this special site. Several calls and emails IAHF sent to USADA ceo Travis Tygart have not been returned. Its clear to me that Tygart is no friend of health freedom, he'd like to see DSHEA be repealed, and he won't listen to reason on this issue.
IAHF's EFFORTS TO SELF POLICE THE INDUSTRY
I found several bodybuilding product websites that are openly selling illegal synthetic steroids, and I sent each of them variations on the following letter which I cced to the FDA. I don't TRUST the FDA to do their job in instances like this (since they want McCain's bill to be driven through congress and it helps them do that when these illegal products remain on the market)
I also cced my letters to the Inspector General's office at the Department of Health & Human Services. (The IG serves as an internal policeman inside HHS, and FDA is under that umbrella. The IG's office has forced FDA at times to do their job, and I hope that happens here if FDA fails to act.)
In my letters I quoted the law to them showing them that DSHEA forbids them from selling products containing ingredients that are not found in food and which have been chemically altered. I sent them the urls of pages on their site that I wanted them (and the FDA) to review since it appeared that they were selling illegal synthetic steroids. I will follow up to insure that either these companies act, or that the FDA takes action. If FDA fails to act, I'll go to the IG to demand that they MAKE FDA take action!
In my letters said: "Do not sell ANY of these items or ANY chemically altered hormonal products from ANY manufacturer":
List of Alleged Chemically Altered Steroids STILL on sale at several bodybuilding product sites
These has been on the market for over 5 years. 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
4-chloro-17a-methyl-androst-1, 4-diene-3-17b-diol
4-chloro-17a-methyl-androst-4-ene-3-17b-diol
Anti-estrogenic steroid. 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
6-bromo androst-4-ene 3, 17 dione
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
2a,3a Epithio-17a -methyl-17b-hydroxy-5a-androstane
MATD: 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
17a-methyl-5a-Dehydro-Etiocholan-4, 6-Dien-3-One-17-ol
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
17-a-methyl-etioallocholan-17b-ol-3-hydroxyimine
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
2,17-dimethyl-5-androstan-17-ol-3,3'-azine
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
5a-etioallocholan[2,3-c]furazan-17b-tetrahydropyranol ether
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
3,2-c]pyrazole-5alpha-etioallocholane-17beta-tetrahydropyranol
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
Methyl-1-Etiocholenolol
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO KILL MCCAINS BILL
You'll find a form letter here that you can send with one mouse click to your Senators. Please forward this alert to as many people as you can, and urge them to also take action! Urge them to sign up for IAHF alerts by by going to the IAHF website.
Do anything you can to assist JD Hayworth's campaign to unseat McCain who badly needs to be driven from the Senate. Hayworth is running against him in the Republican primary. McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and the only reason he wasn't thrown out was that his father was an Admiral. He also crashed a jet on the flightdeck of a carrier killing a huge number of people, causing a fire that took 24 hrs to put out, and he should have been court martialled. Again, the only reason he wasn't was his father was an Admiral. We don't need this idiot messing with our lives by pushing this moronic bill, he doesn't belong in the US Senate.
Hayworth has been a Congressman in the past, and he's a staunch supporter of DSHEA. I've spoken with his staff and they're fully embracing the health freedom issue. McCain has a huge campaign warchest though and incumbents aren't easy to drive from office. Please donate to Hayworth's campaign at his website.
IAHF NEEDS YOUR HELP TO GET TO OHIO & TO DO THIS WORK
Please help me make this trip to the Arnold Bodybuildng Products trade show, I'm leaving Thursday, return monday and will be passing out thousands of flyers on the show floor to the public via as many companies booths as I possibly can. Your generous donations make it possible for me to run IAHF, and no one is working harder to defend your access to dietary supplements!
Please donate via paypal at this site or via check or money order to IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd., Point Roberts WA 98281 USA. Thanks for your support! Please forward this to as many people as possible and urge them to join you in taking action against S.3002!
