Downtown Asheville supports three thriving health-food stores that sell lots of vitamin, mineral and herbal supplements. Do you take at least one type of supplement or utilize any of what is called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)? If so, read on. The Federal Drug Administration is using legal maneuvering [that may] end your access to natural-health therapies, [and] the deadline for public comments to the FDA is April 30. (To review the document, go to www.fda.gov/cber/gdlns/altmed.pdf and read the “Guidance for Industry: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.”)
I’m very concerned that a portion of this “guidance” is an end run around the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act passed in 1994, which declared that supplements be regulated like foods. And I’m very concerned that this could lead to losing the freedom to choose your own healing modalities.
How could this happen? By using the term “medicine” rather than “modality” for CAM practices, the FDA sets the stage so that anyone who is not a licensed physician is breaking the law by using these approaches, since she or he is then considered “practicing medicine without a license.”
Similarly, by using the term “treatment” rather than “therapy,” the FDA limits those who can perform CAM practices. Again, anyone who is not a licensed physician is breaking the law by using CAM modalities.
And by using the terms “medicine” and “treatment” instead of “modalities” and “therapy,” all substances—including vitamins, minerals, herbs, co-factors etc.—automatically become untested drugs since they are being used to prevent, treat, mitigate or cure disease states. Such use can only legally take place with FDA-approved drugs.
How can we protect CAM practices, practitioners and products? By millions of individuals speaking their opinions. Now is the time to act. Our window of opportunity slams shut on April 30. Check out www.HealthFreedomUSA.org . Contact everyone you can reach to ask for their participation in this comment campaign. We can kill this assault on personal-health freedom.
Submit your electronic comments to www.fda.gov/dockets/ecomments through April 30. Choose “Docket Search” and use Docket ID 2006D-0480. Your comments must be identified with that docket number.
— Elizabeth Pavka
Asheville
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