We got home from a perfectly relaxing vacation, but when I went to the health food store to buy spelt bread for HH, the delightful feeling of calm vanished. The checker handed me a flyer that said in big red letters “The FDA will take away thousands of supplements unless you act now.”

According to the flyer and articles on google news, when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 it restricted the Food and Drug Administration from exerting authority over supplements as long as manufacturers made no claims about their products treating, preventing, or curing diseases.

In 2011 the FDA surprised supplement manufacturers with a proposed Guidance that would require “all dietary ingredients introduced into the marketplace since 1994 to undergo drug-like safety testing prior to marketing.” News reports go on to say that the new guidelines would require tests that could cost millions of dollars for each new ingredient.

Opponents of the guidelines say that many of these dietary supplements have been on the market for over a decade without significant side effects. They say that the FDA's proposed new dietary ingredient guideline appears to be nothing more than an expensive paperwork exercise intended to eradicate many safe products from the marketplace.

HR 3380 has been introduced by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana to stop the power grab by the FDA.

As I often remind you, I am a volunteer blogger. I have never met Dr. D. I have not talked or corresponded with him about this issue. These are my own thoughts.

I buy supplements from several sources: some online and some at local stores. I have tried a number of D’Adamo Personalized Nutrition supplements, and I take two of them regularly.

Dr. D wrote “Eat Right 4 Your Type” in 1997, and developed his supplement line after that. It looks to me like Personalized Nutrition products would be among those requiring the new and expensive FDA testing.

News reports say that for now, industry associations want to lobby the FDA to withdraw the proposed NDI Guidance. I’m sorry for my cynicism, but with the Obama administration seizing control over ever widening aspects of health care, I find the idea of the FDA paying attention to anyone who asks them to go in a more conservative direction highly unlikely.

Rep. Burton is a Republican. As I see the current climate in Washington, almost every bill that passes the Republican controlled House, is tabled and never comes up for a vote in the Democrat controlled Senate. However I did contact my Congressman’s office and express my support of HR 3380.

There are lots of issues involved in the 2012 Presidential election. Health Care is only one of them. But I believe that people like us on the BTD will have to seriously evaluate how much freedom to manage our own health in a preventive and manner we want to keep, and how much control over the manner in which unexpected health problems will be treated, we are willing to give up.

I think I need another vacation…but I can't afford the gas.