[Fwd: a news release from Public Citizen

[Guest guest]

OMJournal wrote:

Feb.

9, 2000

 

Statement of Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., Public

Citizen’s Health Research Group,

Concerning the Food and Drug Administration’s

Announcement on

Herbals/Dietary Supplements for

Pregnancy

We are pleased that the Food

and Drug Administration (FDA) has acted, just one week after our

letter urging the agency to stop the use of dietary supplements for

pregnant women and two days after its regulation became final on Feb. 7.

The FDA realizes it made a serious

mistake in yielding to pressure from the herbal/diet supplement industry

and allowing promotion of the industry’s largely untested products for

pregnancy-related conditions such as morning sickness or edema (leg swelling).

The well-known dangers of many herbal products for pregnant women should

have been sufficient for the FDA not to have issued the reckless Jan. 6,

2000, regulation.

The larger issue is the crippling effect

of DSHEA (the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994), under

which these regulations were issued, on FDA’s regulatory authority. Hundreds

of people in this country have had life-threatening heart arrhythmias including

many deaths from weight-reduction products containing the herb ephedra.

Until DSHEA is repealed or significantly amended, these preventable disasters

will continue.