Fwd: FW: Sen.Schumer confirms support for Supplement Safety Act

[Guest guest]

What most people do not realize is that the facts are immaterial to the course

of action for the establishment. The fix is in. You must change the

establishment to protect the people instead of protecting big business.

Frank

 

 

Mon, 05 Jan 2004 16:04:34 -0900

Sandy Mintz

FW: Sen.Schumer confirms support for Supplement Safety Act

 

 

From Arnold Gore:

 

At a meeting this afternoon with Michael Towbman,Senator Schumers director

of Government Affairs we were told that Senator Schumer was continuing to

support the Supplement Safety Act. The act would provide that a supplement

can be removed from the market after " one or more serious adverse events

..... " Where adverse dietary supplement experience means an adverse event

....without regard to whether the event is known to be causally related to

the dietary supplement. " We presented the statistics from the American

Association of Poison Control Centers for 2002 and 2001, both indicating

extremely low numbers of deaths associated with supplement use as follows:

 

2002 2001

Vitamins 2 0

Multi-vitamin+Iron 1

Vitamin E 1

Electrolyts & Minerls 5 7

Iron 4 1

 

Potassium 1

Magnesium 5

Amino Acids 0 0

Herbs & Botanicals 3 7

Ephedra in Combinat 2 3

Ephedra-single igrdt 1 3

Kava Kava 1

Homeopathic 2

Other single ingrdt non botanic 1

Unknown Supp/Homeopathic 1 2

___ ___

11 19

These low numbers could be statistical errors they are so small.

This compares to deaths from prescription drugs estimated at 106,000 by the

Journal of the American Medical Association of April 15,1998.

 

We then explained that most of the concern comes from the media hype given

the stories of the tragic deaths of Steve Bechler a baseball player for the

Baltimore Orioles died in February 2003 in Spring Training after trying to

take off weight-he weighed 320 lbs on a 6 ft 2in frame.He wasd training in

South Florida heat at 78 degrees. He had a prior history of heat stroke in

high school and his half brother died at age 20 of an aneurysm after playing

baseball. A detailed review by the Baylor University Center for exercise,

Nutrition & Preventive Health Research was presented. This report is

at http://www3.baylor.edu/HHPR/ESNL/EphedraStatement.htm

 

Also the death of Kory Stringer a football player with the Minnesota Vikings

in August 2001. Stringer weighed 340 lbs and waoverweight and out of shape

trying to make a highly vompetitive NFL team. A bottle of Ripped Fuel was

found in his locker. The bottle had ephedra and caffeine. An autopsy found

only caffeine-but ephedra was blamed!! For some strange reason they NEVER

even tested him for ephedra! It sounds as if they decided to blame ephedra

after the fact when they found the botle containing ephedra in his locker

but did not tell the medical examiner who performed the autopsy. Stringer's

wife told coach mike Tice that her husband may have been fasting for the

past week to lose weight while in training, therefire needing even more

energy from his food-he probably was dehydrated.

Mr. Towbman said he already knew that, but it made no difference to Senator

Schumers unalterable support for the regulation of these body building and

athletic performance enhancing supplements like ephedra and creatine. He

underlined the use by young teenage athletes as a problem the bill would

address. He said it was impractical to limit the bil to only ephedra sne

other supplements like creatine were also a problem. He did not want to look

up the appropriate poison control figures. By the way Creatine is an amino

acid that Poison Control reports show no deaths from creatine in 2001 and

2002. Major adverse effects were 2 in 2002 and 5 in 2001.This is very small

considering the millions of users.

 

Mr.Towbman eagerly pointed out Sen.Schumer's opposition to the drug

companies on his advocacy of allowing reimportation of prescription drugs

even though the drug companies and FDA opposed it. I then ponted out that

FDA used the same pretext of alleged safety concerns about unsafe drugs

being reimported from Canada. Schumer saw through this that FDA was using

safety, but actually was protecting the drug companies from competition. FDA

has a history of hostility to supplements. In 1989 they removed L-tryptophae

a sleep aid and anti depresant. It was later proven in major medical

journals that a bathch of L-Tryptophane was manufactured by a new

genetically engineered process that went wrong and a few people died. FDA

stiil removed ALL L-trytophane from the market and later allowed it back as

a prescription drug at much higher prices.We don't want this to happen with

other supplements that compete with prescription drugs such as St.John's

Wort for depression.

 

The only thing we can do is make calls of stromg opposition to Senator

Schumers position co-sponsoring the Supplement Safety Act and refusing to

copnsider or respond to the facts that show his safety concerns to be

completely unfounded and irrational. If he does not withdraw his

co-sponsorship and support for the Supplement Safety Act S.722 we will have

to not support his re-election in 2004.

Call Senator Schumer at the number nearest you.

Sen. Charles Schumer New York City office tel. 212-486-443

Albany office 518-431-4070

Buffalo " 716-846-4111

Binghamton 607-772-6792

Hudson Valley 914-285-9741

Long Island 631-753-0978

Rochester 585-263-5866

Syracuse 315-423-5471

 

Washington,DC office 202-224-6542

 

E-mail: senator

 

Sandy Mintz

PO Box 111818

Anchorage, AK 99511-1818

 

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/Scandals/past_scandals.htm

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/Out_of_Control/past_ool.htm

 

SPONSOR OF SBS, VACCINES AND AUTISM ONLINE CONFERENCES AT

http://www.redflagsdaily.com

 

" Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. " - Wendell Phillips (1811-1884),

paraphrasing John Philpot Curran (1808)

 

 

 

 

 

Hotjobs: Enter the " Signing Bonus " Sweepstakes