Final Comments on the Dietary Label Committee & It's Report

The following are my final comments to the committee:

August 26, 1997

To the Committee on Dietary Supplement Labels:

At your meeting in Reston, Virginia on August 14 &15, 1997, Dr. Dickinson and Mr. McCaleb said they didn't want to get into the issue of whether or not a substance banned by the FDA as a OTC could be sold as a dietary supplement. Dr. Fisher's remark about colloidal silver prompted their comment. Dr. Kumanyika added that the Commission cannot deal with individual substances adding that all rules of government don't agree.

I believe that Attachment 1 shows that this is a very important issue that relates to all substances, not just one in particular. If the information in it is accurate, it seems as if at least one judge thinks so too. Mr. McCaleb, the author of the paper, definitely did when he wrote it.

At the end of this same paper Mr. McCaleb writes that, "Germanium rose to popularity, then declined as cases of toxicity were reported. Germanium is only healthful in very low doses." I don't know anything about germanium. Is it one of those substances that has a long history of use without reports of adverse reactions, or is it a new dietary supplement tested on unsuspecting people in the living rooms of America?

I believe that in Attachment 2 Mr. McCaleb makes a wonderful argument for regulating botanicals as OTCs.

If my comments seem trivial and picky to you, wait till you hear from the other victims of quackery. How do you think I feel listening to a committee on which the industry representatives, completely disregarding the health and well-being of human beings, want the license to sell anything that will make a buck?

If a Presidential Committee was set up to recommend regulations for the tobacco industry and it had several representatives of that industry but no victims and no representatives of consumer groups, there would be rioting in the streets.

I cannot help myself. I was injured decades ago by fraudulently marketed snake oil and I will not take any unproven or unregulated substances that can injure me further, but I can help others. And believe me. I am going to do everything in my power to do just that.

I demand truth in advertising and that the same standards be applied to all the players. Mr. McCaleb can't have it both ways. He cannot summarily dismiss, as he did at the meeting in Reston, the adverse reaction reports sent to the FDA as hearsay while representing an industry that uses anecdotal evidence as their biggest marketing tool.

Would you like the name of a Shaklee distributor who will testify that she has been trained to use personal experience in just this way?

The FDA is a huge agency. I have no trouble believing that there could be very serious problems with the way that they do their job. I also have no trouble believing that there may be very big problems with the Justice Department and the FBI, but that has not caused the government to hand law enforcement over to the Mafia. Why in the world would they hand food and drug evaluation over to the quacks?

DSHEA legalized fraud in America. People have been killed, injured and robbed just so quacks can improve their bottom line. The cases are in the courts now. Just wait until the judgements are in and the victims face down the industry that injured them and the government that let them get away with it. The era of money before people must end now.

Rosemary Jacobs

As you can see in reading my final comments, I was angry when I wrote them. I was angry because I believe that the President's Committee on Dietary Supplements represented the dietary supplement industry and not the American public. It represented a special interest group with a financial interest in the products that they were regulating. I think that is grossly unfair and undemocratic.

It is an example of government behind-closed-doors with a few making the laws and the regulations that will govern the many.

In my opinion, America is fast becoming the nation that our ancestors sailed across the ocean to escape. Fewer and fewer people are regulating everyone else and those without computers and faxes and the knowledge to use them to their best advantage are not being heard.

I suspect that this has to do with the rapid introduction of all the new communications technology within the last few years. I don't think that politicians have kept up with it or found methods to keep in touch with constituents in the Information Age. The only messages that get through to them come from special interest groups with the money to hire the talent to bombard them with promotional material pushing their agendas.

As a result, ordinary people are just dropping out and not voting.

There are many victims of dietary supplements. Charles Gaylord, Acting Associate Commissioner of the FDA, filled out a survey for a public interest group in which he indicated that 40 percent of the complaints that FDA received in 1996 were about dietary supplements.

Until now Chris and I are the only ones speaking out.

(URL Chris' story to be posted.)
(URL dangerous supplements to be posted.)

I am putting together some of the victims' stories that I have heard and calling them "Unsubstantiated Reports" in honor of Rob McCaleb. They are my antidote to the supplement industries "anecdotal evidence." URL to be posted. If you would like your story posted, please let me know. email: [email protected]

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