Speaker 1: Previously on the dream the health freedom movement broadly anti vaxxers.
Speaker 1: They all say that the government is hiding the cure
Speaker 1: for cancer or autism or what have you, because they
Speaker 1: make more money off of us when we're sick. I
Speaker 1: do tend to point out that all these conferences, they
Speaker 1: leave the lecture hall and they literally enter a marketplace immediately.
Speaker 1: That's how all of them are set up, so that
Speaker 1: you are funneled directly into the place where you buy things.
Speaker 1: You will hear people with a scientific specialty in one
Speaker 1: field claiming expertise in another. Remember early on in the
Speaker 1: season when we were talking about the origins of the
Speaker 1: vitamin and supplement industry. In a nutshell, all of these
Speaker 1: products we ingest or rub on ourselves or whatever they
Speaker 1: came about, because right around the Industrial Revolution, we started
Speaker 1: messing with our food in ways that took vital nutrients
Speaker 1: out of it. Most of that messing around was done
Speaker 1: in an effort to preserve food or make it safer.
Speaker 1: Around the same time, trains started moving food and drinks
Speaker 1: and drugs around the country faster than ever before, so
Speaker 1: folks up north could suddenly have salad at Christmas time.
Speaker 1: It was thrilling for salad eaters probably, But as with
Speaker 1: any new technology or big trend away from old practices,
Speaker 1: along with all this progress came the conmen. Take bread,
Speaker 1: for example, you used to have to bake it yourself
Speaker 1: or go to your baker and buy it and eat
Speaker 1: it that day before it went bad. But then with
Speaker 1: preservatives and faster shipping, bread factories came along, and with
Speaker 1: them money hungry industry types who decided to put things
Speaker 1: in read like copper sulfate to make it seem heavier.
Speaker 1: They watered down our milk and then added chalk to
Speaker 1: it to make it look like they hadn't and they, okay,
Speaker 1: now this one's really gross. They mixed ground up lice
Speaker 1: into sugar, and that's just the food. Drugs were getting
Speaker 1: adulterated as well. Just about any cofft serrup you gave
Speaker 1: your kid at that time had some sort of opiate
Speaker 1: in it. Cocaine was everywhere, famously inspiring the name of
Speaker 1: Coca cola, arsenic and beauty products led in everything. It
Speaker 1: was a mess. As these dangers became more well known,
Speaker 1: the government began to do its job to protect the
Speaker 1: public interest. Beginning in the eighteen seventies, Congress took up
Speaker 1: like a hundred bills trying to regulate this stuff, until
Speaker 1: finally the Federal Food and Drug Act was passed in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh six, which basically said, you can't sell food
Speaker 1: or drugs that can hurt or kill people. We're making
Speaker 1: that illegal. Now. You can't cover up food additives. You
Speaker 1: have to tell people if what you're selling them contains heroin.
Speaker 1: The guidebook for what was okay for people and what
Speaker 1: wasn't was the US Pharmacopeia or USP. You've seen that
Speaker 1: on bottles, and it's a book kind of like the DSM,
Speaker 1: the one that they used mental health, but it's for
Speaker 1: food and drugs. A lot of folks in the supplement
Speaker 1: industry try to make it sound like the USP has
Speaker 1: some sort of governing power, but they don't. They're an encyclopedia,
Speaker 1: and if you're playing by the rules, it's pretty useful
Speaker 1: in making sure you don't hurt anyone with your products.
Speaker 1: But that's it. But if you didn't care and you
Speaker 1: were just trying to make money, you could ignore the USP.
Speaker 1: And the FDA at the time was mostly focused on
Speaker 1: all that food nonsense, not so much on the drugs
Speaker 1: so people still got away with murder literally until a
Speaker 1: new version of the law was passed in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight called the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This
Speaker 1: is the one that said you had to prove the
Speaker 1: safety of your products before you sold them to people,
Speaker 1: and that's the idea the supplement industry has been fighting
Speaker 1: against ever since. The fight basically boils down to this,
Speaker 1: who do you trust more with your health and safety?
Speaker 1: Government or industry? Are you a fan of the Jungle
Speaker 1: or Atlas Shrugged, Bernie or Trump. The problem complicating this
Speaker 1: this particular moment in time is that it's hard to
Speaker 1: tell the difference between industry scions like Bezos and government
Speaker 1: scions like Trump. But the bottom line is that protecting
Speaker 1: our own health and safety requires information, and right now,
Speaker 1: no one has to provide it. Today you're going to
Speaker 1: hear from two people at the front lines of this
Speaker 1: fight that is still raging. The first, David Kessler, was
Speaker 1: the FDA commissioner when DACHE, the Dietary Supplement Health and
Speaker 1: Education Act, passed in nineteen ninety four. That's the one
Speaker 1: that basically stopped the FDA from ever regulating vitamins and supplements.
Speaker 1: It wasn't his fault that the supplement industry bill got passed,
Speaker 1: but we wanted to know how the hell it happened.
Speaker 1: How did the organization that we think of as the
Speaker 1: one who keeps us safe? How did they lose control?
Speaker 1: Here our other guest, Steve Mister. Yes, mister mister is
Speaker 1: his name. Is the president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a food safety board or something, but
Speaker 1: is actually just the cleverly named largest lobbying organization for
Speaker 1: the supplement industry. Here's David Kessler, formerly of the FDA. So,
Speaker 1: I was Commissioner of FDA under two presidents, appointed by
Speaker 1: the first President Bush, we appointed by President Clinton and
Speaker 1: was there for a little under seven years. I'm a physician.
Speaker 1: I'm a pediatrician. I ran a hospital in the Bronx
Speaker 1: and was dean of two medical schools. And here is
Speaker 1: Steve Mister from CRN. I'm Steve Mister. I'm the President
Speaker 1: and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. The Council
Speaker 1: for Responsible Nutrition, or we call it CRN, is the
Speaker 1: industry's trade association for dietary supplements. So we are a
Speaker 1: member organization and our members are the companies that make
Speaker 1: both the finished products that you would see on the
Speaker 1: shelf as well as all of the ingredients that are
Speaker 1: in the supply chain. So we represent about one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety companies between those companies that are making products
Speaker 1: and those that are providing services to the industry. I
Speaker 1: looked up who some of those companies are on their
Speaker 1: hilarious stock photo filled website, so many smiling faces and
Speaker 1: business attire, and they include wait for it, Amway a
Speaker 1: von Dotera, Herbal Life, the Honest Company, Mary Kay for
Speaker 1: some reason, even though they have nutrition in their names,
Speaker 1: so it's like what And then some names you'd expect
Speaker 1: to see, like Bear and Archers, Daniel Midland. Just keep
Speaker 1: those names in mind as you listen to mister mister
Speaker 1: talk about this conglomeration of conglomerates. Dan asked David Kessler
Speaker 1: what his thoughts were on CRN. What was your impression
Speaker 1: of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. I think that they
Speaker 1: were sort of middle of the road. They were not
Speaker 1: just a fly by night organization. But make no mistake,
Speaker 1: I mean their members are industry manufacturers who sell these products,
Speaker 1: who have an obligation to their shareholders to make money.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that, but you can't hold them out
Speaker 1: as a public health group. Can you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about the background why Dshay came about. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, Congress past the Nutrition Labeling Education Act that
Speaker 1: required nutrition facts on all packaged foods and required certain
Speaker 1: standards if companies were going to make claims about their
Speaker 1: food products. So if you wanted to say prevent heart disease,
Speaker 1: you have to meet certain scientific standards. You couldn't just say,
Speaker 1: go have a focus group and say that's what consumers want,
Speaker 1: reduces the risk of heart disease and slap that on
Speaker 1: your label. You had to have certain science to back
Speaker 1: up that claim. And Congress set that for food substances.
Speaker 1: But Congress could not agree among themselves on what should
Speaker 1: be the standard for that claim on dietary supplements, and
Speaker 1: basically turf the issue to FDA and said, FDA, you
Speaker 1: go decide what the standard should be if a dietary
Speaker 1: supplant manufacturer wants to make a claim. So what we
Speaker 1: did was we adopted the same standard as the standard
Speaker 1: for foods. If you want to make a claim, they
Speaker 1: should be significant scientific agreement, not absolute science, not perfect science,
Speaker 1: but there be scientific agreement that backs up that claim. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what the FDA meant by significant scientific agreement was
Speaker 1: repeatable scientific studies done by impartial scientists and doctors. The
Speaker 1: dietary supplement industry didn't like that. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: have that kind of scientific rigor to support the claims
Speaker 1: that they made, and they lobbied Congress very hard. Lawmakers
Speaker 1: got more mail on that during those years than almost
Speaker 1: any other issue, and that led to the passage of
Speaker 1: Dushe Dan asked Steve Mister what his organization, the Council
Speaker 1: for Responsible Nutrition, what their role was in the passage
Speaker 1: of DUCHE. CRN was was one of many organizations that
Speaker 1: was at the table back in nineteen ninety three and
Speaker 1: ninety four that led to the passage of DUCHE. And
Speaker 1: we're really very proud of it looking back now it's
Speaker 1: twenty five years old, and the impact that it has
Speaker 1: had for both the industry and for consumers, it's been remarkable.
Speaker 1: And what are some of those impacts. The real key
Speaker 1: to DSCHE was that it balanced consumer access and that
Speaker 1: was very important. You know, there were millions of consumers
Speaker 1: that came out and urged their members of Congress to
Speaker 1: pass this law. I just want to pause for a
Speaker 1: second to remind you those millions of consumers who wrote
Speaker 1: to Congress in favor of Duchey, those were the people
Speaker 1: influenced by ads, ads funded and widely distributed by folks
Speaker 1: from the supplement business, ads that use scare tactics like
Speaker 1: that the government wanted to take away your freedom of choice,
Speaker 1: like that one that Mel Gibson started where a swat
Speaker 1: team busted into his home to take away his vitamin C.
Speaker 1: So it balanced their right to have access to these products,
Speaker 1: but at the same time created a framework that allowed
Speaker 1: the FDA to regulate them and to oversee the safety
Speaker 1: without creating the kinds of pre mark market obstacles that
Speaker 1: would have shut down the industry. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that? I don't think it's accurate. Why not, because
Speaker 1: I don't think that The fact is that there ever
Speaker 1: was a question about access. The issue was whether there
Speaker 1: had to be a scientific basis to support its claims.
Speaker 1: I would walk into a health food store and there
Speaker 1: would be big signs say FDA wants to take your
Speaker 1: vitamins away, or FDA wanted to make your vitamins by prescription.
Speaker 1: Those were just lobbying gimmicks to gin up the base
Speaker 1: to get them to write their congressman. The real issue
Speaker 1: was whether there had to be significant scientific agreement to
Speaker 1: support the claims that the industry wanted. What would be
Speaker 1: the standard for significant scientific agreement. Significant scientific agreement would be,
Speaker 1: in essence, the weight of the evidence, not just a
Speaker 1: paper here or a paper there, or a paper who
Speaker 1: pay someone to publish. But when you look at the evidence,
Speaker 1: the weight of it, the totality of the evidence supports
Speaker 1: that claim. By claim, David means what the company claims
Speaker 1: their products can do. So what happened with the passage
Speaker 1: of du Se? What were you left with as far
Speaker 1: as your ability to regulate or enforce? The industry basically
Speaker 1: de se in a significant way, deregulated dietary supplement, certainly
Speaker 1: compared to food. Congress just wanted to get it off
Speaker 1: its plate and said that as long as you're not
Speaker 1: making a disease claim, you can't say something that this
Speaker 1: cures Alzheimer's a cure as cancer. But if you said
Speaker 1: that the product increases memory or builds the immune system,
Speaker 1: if you were a structure of function claim right, the
Speaker 1: industry could get away with that, because the FDA would
Speaker 1: have to bear the burden of showing that that was false,
Speaker 1: rather than the industry having to determine that that was true.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to remind everyone what happened when
Speaker 1: DSCHE was passed in regards to these claims. These claims
Speaker 1: are what manufacturers put on dietary supplement bottles to tell
Speaker 1: people what the supplement is supposed to do. David Kessler
Speaker 1: and the FDA had been pushing for their claims to
Speaker 1: be backed by what he refers to as significant scientific agreement.
Speaker 1: In other words, they had to have science to back
Speaker 1: up claims on the bottle. The industry didn't want that
Speaker 1: at all, so they came up with something kind of
Speaker 1: like a compromise. Because of DSCHE, the industry was not
Speaker 1: allowed to say that their products could prevent or cure
Speaker 1: a disease, but what they could say was that the
Speaker 1: product could help your body in its efforts to ward
Speaker 1: off a disease. This new type of language was called
Speaker 1: a structure function claim. There are structure function claims all
Speaker 1: over those moon juice powders I was taking restores balance
Speaker 1: on a cellular level. Whatever that means addresses the effects
Speaker 1: of stress, ignites energy in and out of the bedroom.
Speaker 1: Those are structure function claims. So by agreeing to no
Speaker 1: longer tell people that their products could cure or prevent,
Speaker 1: say cancer, with no scientific evidence to back that claim up,
Speaker 1: they're now able to say that their products can help
Speaker 1: your body's immune system in its own efforts to fight cancer.
Speaker 1: And all of this is why when David from the
Speaker 1: FDA talks about the passage of d say, he sounds
Speaker 1: like he just got beat up, But when Steve from
Speaker 1: the industry does, he sounds like he just fell in love.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about structure function claims? Sure? Can you
Speaker 1: describe what a structure function claim is? A structure function
Speaker 1: claim is a claim for the product that links the
Speaker 1: product to some sort of beneficial effect on the structure
Speaker 1: and function of the body. They were very important to
Speaker 1: the negotiations of Duchey all the way through because it
Speaker 1: was important that companies be able to make representations about
Speaker 1: their products that did not rise to the level of
Speaker 1: treating a disease. Say I had a product that was
Speaker 1: being marketed as something that could benefit the bodies already
Speaker 1: existing ways of fending off a certain type of disease
Speaker 1: or disease in general. How would I say that on
Speaker 1: the bottle? So we know that there are many both
Speaker 1: herbals as well as some of the essential nutrients that
Speaker 1: helped build your body's defenses and build a stronger immune system.
Speaker 1: So you could put something out if you had evidence
Speaker 1: of that that says that it helps to you know,
Speaker 1: support a stronger immune function or supports immunity. Those are
Speaker 1: a legitimate structure function claims. I stood for, if you
Speaker 1: want to make a claim, make sure there's some science
Speaker 1: to support that claim, and make sure it's good science.
Speaker 1: Industry didn't want that. There were millions and millions of
Speaker 1: dollars at stake, and they readily admitted that. Congress said,
Speaker 1: you know these substances, let's not put that burden on
Speaker 1: the industry. Let them sell their substances. So you know,
Speaker 1: Congress gets to make those laws, but consumers should understand
Speaker 1: what those laws are. And the industry, because it maybe
Speaker 1: it got the benefits of an essence deregulation, shouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to then say, oh, that law does more than
Speaker 1: it does. That law assures that their products are safe
Speaker 1: and their claims are supported. That just isn't the case.
Speaker 1: But in the end, the American people get what they
Speaker 1: want through their elected representatives, and what they get on
Speaker 1: dietary supplements is consumer would be rare. There is no
Speaker 1: pre market notification with regard to claims or any substantiation
Speaker 1: of the claims. The consumer is left to determine for
Speaker 1: themselves whether the claims are in fact true. I can
Speaker 1: tell you if you're talking about anything that would resemble
Speaker 1: the requirements for a pharmaceutical we would absolutely oppose that
Speaker 1: kind of premarket approval process. If they were to impose
Speaker 1: those kinds of standards on these products that are essentially
Speaker 1: natural products or as botanicals, vitamins, minerals, amino assets, and
Speaker 1: things like that. If they were to impose that level
Speaker 1: of premarket review, it would drive the cost up, it
Speaker 1: would make them unaffordable, and it would really hurt access
Speaker 1: to these products. Were you proposing pharmaceutical level premarket testing
Speaker 1: be required. No, there was not a requirement for adequate
Speaker 1: and well controlled clinical trials, which is what the drugs
Speaker 1: injured was, But there was a requirement for a significant
Speaker 1: scientific basis for that claim. They would much rather not
Speaker 1: invest in that science be able to make the claims
Speaker 1: that they make, but just the problems we don't know
Speaker 1: whether they're true or not. I think they would sell
Speaker 1: a lot more product and be able to charge more
Speaker 1: for their product if we if it really had an effect.
Speaker 1: Right now, these products are sold and maybe they work,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't. Good luck, somewhere between eighty and eighty
Speaker 1: five thousand supplements are on the market right now. Is
Speaker 1: that does that work with what the figures you have? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that leads us to another problem that I
Speaker 1: think that is one of the areas that Dusche didn't
Speaker 1: take care of. We really don't know how many products
Speaker 1: are in the US marketplace. FDA has estimated it could
Speaker 1: be anywhere between fifty and eighty thousand, and the fact
Speaker 1: that you have this thirty thousand product delta is a
Speaker 1: good illustration that despite many of the things to Shay did,
Speaker 1: it did not allow FDA to really see into the
Speaker 1: industry and see what the marketplace looks like. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that CRN is advocating for something
Speaker 1: that we call a mandatory product listing, which would be
Speaker 1: every product that would be in the marketplace would have
Speaker 1: to notify FDA and give FDA copy of the label,
Speaker 1: as you know, the entry price of getting into the market,
Speaker 1: and that would finally give FDA that last piece of
Speaker 1: authority to know what's in the industry, and then they
Speaker 1: could say with certainty there are seventy five thousand products
Speaker 1: or there are eighty thousand products, because then they would
Speaker 1: know that. All sounds good in theory and sounds like
Speaker 1: the industry regulating itself. But if you stop for a
Speaker 1: second think about it, it's just a database products, so
Speaker 1: things could be made up or wrong. Right, We asked David,
Speaker 1: that seems like something that could be helpful to the FDA.
Speaker 1: As it does. That seem like something that would realistically
Speaker 1: could get past and it's subject to some scrutiny and
Speaker 1: evaluation and there's independent judgment or is it just the
Speaker 1: industry having the say of what's in this database? I'm
Speaker 1: not familiar with it. I mean the general rule when
Speaker 1: it comes to drugs, go read the information about that
Speaker 1: drug and you've had an independent evaluation that you can trust.
Speaker 1: And so that would make it illegal for a company
Speaker 1: to enter the market if they hadn't given prior notice
Speaker 1: to the FDA. That's right, and it would be an
Speaker 1: administrative violation would be very easy for FDA to enforce that.
Speaker 1: If they found products on Amazon or found products in
Speaker 1: your local drug store and they were not properly listed,
Speaker 1: that would be an audiatic violation. Well, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: If FDA has to go after each product and make
Speaker 1: a case, assemble the science, bring in the experts, go
Speaker 1: to court, spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: You can do that here or there, and the FDA
Speaker 1: does it. Maybe the FDA can do a handful of
Speaker 1: those cases a year, but it certainly can't have a
Speaker 1: marketplace that has truthful and non misleading labels. Something that
Speaker 1: came up a lot and our reporting was safety, our
Speaker 1: supplements safe, and how would we know a few weeks
Speaker 1: after I started taking all that moon juice stuff at
Speaker 1: whatever quantity I wanted, because the label wasn't clear about
Speaker 1: what was appropriate, I began puking, like about an hour
Speaker 1: after I'd take it. I'd puke anywhere from two to
Speaker 1: ten times. Took me a few days to figure out
Speaker 1: what was wrong, because honestly, my first instinct was not
Speaker 1: that it was the super trendy health powder that they
Speaker 1: sell at the cafe down the street from my house.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe I had a virus, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have a fever, so maybe food poisoning from the salads
Speaker 1: I'd started eating. And we all know about the great
Speaker 1: menace of tainted lettuce because they do lettuce recalls, so
Speaker 1: who knows. Eventually I decided to stop taking the stuff,
Speaker 1: and coincidentally, the puking stopped. I didn't call Moon Juice
Speaker 1: or the grocery store where I bought the lettuce. I
Speaker 1: doubted myself the fact that I didn't make a complaint.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a win for the industry. Our products
Speaker 1: are one of the safest products out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the number of recalls, even on
Speaker 1: the food side of the marketplace, I mean, every week
Speaker 1: there are recalls around food, Salmonella, E. Colei, listeria, one
Speaker 1: thing after another. But aren't there recalls around food because
Speaker 1: the regulation is more robust. No, actually it's less. If
Speaker 1: you look at the regulation of supplements, it lies somewhere
Speaker 1: between the regulation of food and the regulation of drugs.
Speaker 1: For instance, they don't have an adverse event reporting requirement
Speaker 1: we do. That would be incorrect. Food is much more
Speaker 1: heavily regulated, it has to be significant scientific agreement. That's
Speaker 1: not the case with dietary supplements. Should supplements have a
Speaker 1: warning label if there are possible side effects of drug interactions?
Speaker 1: I think that is a question that's best left to
Speaker 1: the individual ingredient. And if you notice, many supplements on
Speaker 1: the market do have advisory statements on them because the
Speaker 1: manufacturer makes a conscious decision to alert consumers if, for instance,
Speaker 1: if they're on a certain medication that might interact with it,
Speaker 1: or know, for instance, if it's a product that contains
Speaker 1: a lot of caffeine, they'll warn pregnant and lactating women
Speaker 1: to avoid the product. But that's really a decision that's
Speaker 1: best made on a product an ingredient basis. I certainly
Speaker 1: don't think that there is a rigorous system of warning labels.
Speaker 1: There may be some, but again there's a very little
Speaker 1: scientific basis or oversight. So you may see in some
Speaker 1: instances when there are allergies, you may see certain warning labels.
Speaker 1: So Saint John's War. What we know about Saint John's
Speaker 1: War is it can interview with drugs that prevent things
Speaker 1: like transplant rejection or drugs they are used to treat
Speaker 1: heart disease, seizures, certain cancers. Do you believe that Saint
Speaker 1: John's work should be required to have some sort of
Speaker 1: warning label on its bottle? Again, at least if you're
Speaker 1: talking about my memory, I think I can't speak for
Speaker 1: every one of them, but I think most of my
Speaker 1: members who sell Saint John's work do include some kind
Speaker 1: of cautionary statement on the label. I would say that
Speaker 1: consumers ought to know about that if they're taking medications
Speaker 1: that could know where supplements could interact with them. But
Speaker 1: you know that's a two way street. We know that grapefruits,
Speaker 1: for instance, interact with a lot of prescription drugs, and
Speaker 1: we don't require warning labels on grapefruits. What we do
Speaker 1: is we require doctors to ask their patients before they
Speaker 1: prescribe that medication, tell me about the products that you
Speaker 1: what do you eat? H and then and the burden
Speaker 1: that is on the physician prescribing that product to caution
Speaker 1: the person not to eat grapefruit while they're on that medication.
Speaker 1: So I think it goes both ways. Doctors also have
Speaker 1: an obligation to understand that consumers. As I said, three
Speaker 1: quarters of Americans are using dietary supplements. They should be
Speaker 1: asking consumers about their supplement usage and then advising them
Speaker 1: if they need to go off of one of those
Speaker 1: products while they're on the drug. Do you think that
Speaker 1: doctors should be responsible for knowing each of the products
Speaker 1: that are on the market and the burden should shift
Speaker 1: to them for warning their patients if there are potential
Speaker 1: drug interactions? And where does the science come from on that?
Speaker 1: So the doctors are educated? Who does that? There are
Speaker 1: national databases that are available will that doctors can consult
Speaker 1: that will tell them if there are potential interactions between
Speaker 1: supplements and certain classes of drugs. They're proprietary, but doctors
Speaker 1: can certainly get into them. What does that mean they're proprietary.
Speaker 1: It means some private company has developed not a supplement company,
Speaker 1: but some private information company or publishing house has developed
Speaker 1: the database. And so you know, you pay an annual
Speaker 1: subscription fee to have access to it, and you can
Speaker 1: go in and look at these databases to see if
Speaker 1: there are potential interactions. Those are private companies that develop them,
Speaker 1: so you can pay an annual subscription fee. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: your experience if that seems to be an effective method
Speaker 1: for getting doctors information. I think that again, this may
Speaker 1: not be give you a lot of confidence, but when
Speaker 1: it comes to these dietary supplements, the average doc is clueless.
Speaker 1: They may know one or two. Certainly, if you're an
Speaker 1: obgyn FO look asked. Because the science is there, they're
Speaker 1: going to be very knowledgeable about that. But the last
Speaker 1: thing you want to do is rely on your doc
Speaker 1: for dietary supplement advice. I mean unless that doc is
Speaker 1: prescribing them and they're knowledgeable and that's what their practice are.
Speaker 1: But that's those are few and far between. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been dean of medical schools, I've trained medical students.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just is not that scientific basis that
Speaker 1: has been really developed over the last fifty years. It's again,
Speaker 1: they are they are all low priorities. I read your
Speaker 1: Code of Ethics and some of the voluntary policing or
Speaker 1: guidelines that you ask people to follow. How do you
Speaker 1: know that members of the CRN are actually complying with
Speaker 1: the code of Ethics that the FDA or even the
Speaker 1: Council has proposed. So we do self police our guidelines.
Speaker 1: We occasionally will take one of our guidelines and then
Speaker 1: go out and look at all of the companies in
Speaker 1: our space and look to see, you know, are our
Speaker 1: members actually abiding by them. So, for instance, we have
Speaker 1: a voluntary guideline around protein to be sure that companies
Speaker 1: are accurately labeling their protein powders with the right amount.
Speaker 1: And so a couple of years ago we went out
Speaker 1: and did a sort of an undercover operation, you know,
Speaker 1: purchased a lot of our company's products and sent them
Speaker 1: out for analysis. We were very pleased to at the
Speaker 1: end of that to be able to report back to
Speaker 1: the membership that they were percent compliant. So we do
Speaker 1: those kinds of things on a regular basis to be
Speaker 1: sure that there's some teeth to our voluntary programs. What
Speaker 1: I'm wondering is if we want your scientists telling us
Speaker 1: whether something has a low enough level of toxicity or
Speaker 1: if it's effective. You know, I'm going to take personal
Speaker 1: affront of that, Dan, the fact that someone works for
Speaker 1: an industry trade association, they do not check their integrity
Speaker 1: at the door. And you're suggesting that because somebody works
Speaker 1: for an industry association that they somehow has an agenda
Speaker 1: that would get in the way of their scientific integrity. No,
Speaker 1: our scientists look at the adverse event reports. They look
Speaker 1: at what's going on in the industry and they are
Speaker 1: able to make, I think, you know, very strong independent
Speaker 1: judgments based on what they see. I mean to ask
Speaker 1: the average consumer what they think about the industry policing themselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, pick any industry you want. Are you some advantages? Sure?
Speaker 1: Does it really give you a lot of confidence? Probably not. So.
Speaker 1: If the industry really cared about consumer confidence, it would
Speaker 1: not have a lobbied Ford SHAA. But that's what the
Speaker 1: industry bought through the enactment of legislation. And as long
Speaker 1: as consumers understand when they pick up a dietary supplement
Speaker 1: that does not have the FDA in premature, then the
Speaker 1: consumer at least knows that they're on their own and
Speaker 1: can bring their own judgment to that. Do you think
Speaker 1: we should think of self policing is not enough when
Speaker 1: it comes to things that we ingest that could affect
Speaker 1: our health well. Self policing is certainly not going to
Speaker 1: solve a problem in and of itself, because we don't
Speaker 1: have the kinds of sticks at the end of the
Speaker 1: day that an enforcement agency would, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that in addition to all of
Speaker 1: the self regulatory work that we do. We strongly support
Speaker 1: increasing resources to FDA, and in fact, the industry, working
Speaker 1: with some other groups, helped FDA get an additional three
Speaker 1: million dollars this year in the budget specifically for dietary
Speaker 1: supplement programs. Three million may not sound like a lot,
Speaker 1: but prior to this, the Office of Dietary Supplement Programs
Speaker 1: was operating on only about seven million. So going from
Speaker 1: seven million to ten million is a substantial increase for
Speaker 1: the agency and that's really what needs to happen, is
Speaker 1: there needs to be more enforcement. Self policing is not
Speaker 1: going to solve the problem on its own. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think they would like very much for they would be
Speaker 1: a strong FDA in the FDA to give their products cover.
Speaker 1: The problem at the end of the day is while
Speaker 1: they may say they want a strong FDA, they don't
Speaker 1: want a strong FDA when it comes to the regulation
Speaker 1: of dietary supplements. What I like to have other independent
Speaker 1: scientists also looking at this other than just the industry.
Speaker 1: Of course I would, and there are there are groups
Speaker 1: like the US Pharmacopeia and SF and Informed Choice that
Speaker 1: look at products as a third party. Certifier. But that's
Speaker 1: a very different thing to say that a someone who
Speaker 1: works for my industry is incapable of analyzing. Well, I
Speaker 1: didn't say they were incapable. I was saying that asking
Speaker 1: the public to trust the information that comes from an industry,
Speaker 1: trade and lobby group is asking a lot. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Us Pharmacopeia, the USP is a standard setting organization.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that for the last hundred years, the
Speaker 1: USP has worked very closely with FDA and has enacted
Speaker 1: some of the highest standards in the world. But USP
Speaker 1: doesn't review labels or review claims. It sets standards, and
Speaker 1: in the case of dietary supplements, they can or cannot
Speaker 1: be followed. I've always believed that one of the great
Speaker 1: things about the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in
Speaker 1: the last hundred years of regulation is that it protects
Speaker 1: against economic fraud. Go back a hundred years ago and
Speaker 1: we lived in a marketplace of snake oil. You put
Speaker 1: a claim on a bottle and you can sell it
Speaker 1: for as long as you can maintain credibility in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the consumer. But that's economic fraud, and it's
Speaker 1: one of the great things about consumer Protection and the
Speaker 1: Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and those things are linked.
Speaker 1: No doubt, preventing harm is the first priority. Safety is
Speaker 1: the first priority. But I was the commissioner who sees
Speaker 1: thousands of gallons of orange juice there were labeled fresh
Speaker 1: when it wasn't fresh. And I did that because I
Speaker 1: thought consumers had a right to be able to trust
Speaker 1: the label. If you're going to sell a product and
Speaker 1: put it on the shelves and make a claim and
Speaker 1: say it's fresh, it should be fresh. Just imagine if
Speaker 1: the FDA could use this same power in the vitamin
Speaker 1: aisle at CBS or whole foods. Like, No, you cannot
Speaker 1: say that your product cures colds or fixes your digestion problems.
Speaker 1: That would be wild But that's not the way it is.
Speaker 1: It's the wild West. You know, the industry will look
Speaker 1: to what its competitors are doing and if they're cheating,
Speaker 1: and if they're getting away with things, they'll likely do
Speaker 1: the same. But if you insist on certain standards and
Speaker 1: everybody will rise to meet those standards, no doubt, they're
Speaker 1: making sure that what's on the label is what's in
Speaker 1: the product. It may cost more in the short run.
Speaker 1: But just think of the millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 1: that we spend on products that don't work. Where is
Speaker 1: that money going? I understand I took on the tobacco industry.
Speaker 1: Tobacco in some ways was easy compared to the dietary
Speaker 1: supplement industry. Tobacco, I think, in front of the American
Speaker 1: public does not have a lot of credibility. I think
Speaker 1: most people recognize that for fifty seventy five years that
Speaker 1: industry lied to the American public. So people see the
Speaker 1: industry for what it is. The political cloud I mean,
Speaker 1: did the lobbying effort on the part of the dietary
Speaker 1: supplement industry, the ginning up of the consumer to say
Speaker 1: FDA was going to take away your vitamins. They were
Speaker 1: very effective. We got beat by the dietary supplement industry.
Speaker 1: They won I think the public health loss. But so
Speaker 1: being grandma, Ruth called me the other day to wish
Speaker 1: me a happy birthday and to tell me she loves
Speaker 1: me and that God loves me. For all you wondering
Speaker 1: if we're still talking after I spoke negatively about her
Speaker 1: essential oils, Yes, and I asked her what she thought
Speaker 1: of all this of the idea of the government regulating
Speaker 1: her supplements. She told me she's frightened of that idea,
Speaker 1: and then she threatened that she'd have to start buying
Speaker 1: her essential oils and trace minerals and colloidal silver on
Speaker 1: the black market. Her beliefs about how these products benefit her,
Speaker 1: though so much evidence points to the contrary, wouldn't be shaken.
Speaker 1: So we started talking about my cousin's prom dress. We've
Speaker 1: been talking all season about the safety of unregulated wellness
Speaker 1: products that, though most of them just work their way
Speaker 1: through your system, have been known to hurt and even
Speaker 1: kill people, like that liver destroying oxy elite pro stuff
Speaker 1: that GNC was selling in Hawaii. But on top of
Speaker 1: the potential physical harm this stuff could do who knows
Speaker 1: no one's really in charge, there's the financial harm the
Speaker 1: wellness industry inflicks upon us. The millions of dollars millions
Speaker 1: of people spend on tens of thousands of products and
Speaker 1: services that might not or simply don't work, millions of
Speaker 1: dollars that would be better spent on things we at
Speaker 1: least no have some efficacy that we don't have to
Speaker 1: believe in for them to help us. A complicated thing
Speaker 1: about wellness is that it means something different to each
Speaker 1: of us. I hated almost every wellness treatment I got
Speaker 1: during this journey because I spent so much precious, precious
Speaker 1: time and precious money and drove all over town to
Speaker 1: sit down somewhere other than my house where I can
Speaker 1: watch TV and hang out with my kid neat fast food.
Speaker 1: I said almost every wellness treatment. After I was released
Speaker 1: from the hospital for the maybe measles, I went for
Speaker 1: one last wellness treatment on my tour of hellness. It
Speaker 1: was called a tuning fork session, which I kept referring
Speaker 1: to as getting forked. I had no idea what to expect.
Speaker 1: I imagine something like a sound bath, which I've also
Speaker 1: never been to, but I think is like sitting in
Speaker 1: a room while people played giant wineglasses or whatever, or
Speaker 1: something like that, but with tuning forks. Instead. What I
Speaker 1: got was one of the most moving, immersive, relaxing experiences
Speaker 1: of my entire life. I laid down on a massage table,
Speaker 1: just like you would to get a massage. I closed
Speaker 1: my eyes. The practitioner had a hard disk strapped to
Speaker 1: her leg that she tapped tuning forks on and then
Speaker 1: either placed them on my body in different places, or
Speaker 1: walk around my head with them. I think a sound
Speaker 1: bath bowl thing was maybe used at some point, but
Speaker 1: I was so blissed out I never once opened my eyes.
Speaker 1: After we were done, and I sat up in a daze,
Speaker 1: like feeling super stoned. She said, this is going to
Speaker 1: sound weird, but are you sure this is your first
Speaker 1: time doing this? Yes? Okay, because you gave over to
Speaker 1: the experience faster than any first time client I've had.
Speaker 1: Usually people are uncomfortable or ask questions, but you were
Speaker 1: just out, So I hope you don't mind. But I
Speaker 1: did a little work on your inner child, all right.
Speaker 1: I just left the tuning fork session, and I am
Speaker 1: not calling it forking anymore. Okay. That inner child thing
Speaker 1: kind of made me side by her because I was
Speaker 1: blessed out, but I was still Jane. But was I
Speaker 1: still Jane? Was I still me the skeptic the cynic
Speaker 1: sitting there feeling better than I had in a really
Speaker 1: long time. I don't even feel like making any jokes
Speaker 1: right now. It was so like, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: feeling emotional. I feel bad that I'm doing this for
Speaker 1: a pont cast. Kind of okay, made me feel really guilty. Um,
Speaker 1: And I didn't ask her if I could record because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to offend her. She was just feeling nice.
Speaker 1: I would go so far as to say I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like me in that moment, but I felt, well,
Speaker 1: oh man, I don't know. All right, UM, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of called Dan. I'm kind of glad he's not here
Speaker 1: right now. I don't know, i'd be really embarrassed, but
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna do this again. I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: back next week. It was so nice. The Dream is
Speaker 1: a production of Little Everywhere and Stitcher, written and reported
Speaker 1: by Me and Dan Galuji, editing by Peter Clowney and
Speaker 1: Tracy sam Miilson, Producing by Lyra Smith and Stephanie Kayuki.
Speaker 1: The Dream is executive produced by Me, Dan Galucci, Peter Clowney,
Speaker 1: and Chris Bannon. Our mixing engineers are Casey Holford and
Speaker 1: Brendan Burns. Special thanks to Catherine Price. Rate review and
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen. Thank you,