Dietary Supplements Face Curbs on Claims
NY Times - 4/25/98
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed prohibiting makers of dietary supplements from suggesting that their products can treat, prevent or cure a disease or a symptom.
Consumers buy $5 billion worth of dietary supplements each year: pills, capsules and teas that are not approved by the agency.
Federal law allows truthful claims that the products maintain healthful "structure or function" of the body, but not claims that they treat diseases.
The rule would bar makers of supplements from claiming that they prevent the development of cancer, reduce the pain or stiffness of arthritis, lower cholesterol or "support the body's ability to resist infection or fight a virus."
Supplement makers would also be barred from implying that their products are substitutes for drugs, like calling a product "Herbal Prozac."
The proposal "will be helpful," said Annette Dickinson of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, which represents supplement makers. The industry agrees with many of the agency's suggestions, Dickinson said.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS