A couple days ago I told you about pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline’s attempt to classify weight loss claims for dietary supplements as disease claims. Many believe this is an effort to quash competition from the dietary supplement industry.
Dr. Mark Lange, Market America’s director of quality control, made this observation about the report…
I’m piecing together what is a disturbing trend – big pharma influencing the FDA to declare certain dietary supplements as drugs. Many dietary supplements are effective in the treatment of diseases (although we are prohibited from making such claims). Pharma develops a drug based upon historical use of a dietary supplement and then petitions FDA to ban dietary supplements containing that ingredient because they are now drugs and cannot be sold without a prescription. Case in point – red rice yeast. Red rice yeast in the past reduced cholesterol levels because it contained one of the statin drugs, namely lovastatin. The FDA made an administrative decision that this dietary supplement was a regulable drug, and thus removed it from the unregulated shelves of the health food store. Now resveratrol and a particular form of vitamin B6 are under similar review.
Ultimately, well-informed consumers of dietary supplements come out as the loser because now they must pay big bucks for a prescription drug. This is a power grab pure and simple. We used to think that dietary supplements would be safe from pharma because there was no value in a substance that can’t be patented. That type of thinking is dated. Drugs made from vitamins/minerals/herbs have patented usage claims and the dietary supplement industry better wake up before the rug is pulled from under them.
Dietary supplements must be granted protection from the action of pharma. AHPA’s Herbs of Commerce (an FDA-referenced book) could be used to formulate a master list of herbs falling under a grandfather clause. We are not attempting to prevent pharma from developing herb-based drugs. We are, however, trying to protect our industry and the interests of consumers.