Supplement Groups Seek Hill Champions For DSHEA Defense in 2014

A top legislative priority for the supplement industry in 2014 is developing congressional champions who can help it defend DSHEA, navigate potential labeling legislation, push for coverage under health savings accounts and meet other goals.

Dietary supplement industry trade groups will focus their 2014 legislative efforts on building a new cadre of congressional champions to protect the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act from changes that could slow the industry’s growth through increased regulatory burdens.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of DSHEA, which could trigger scrutiny and questions about whether the law is effective and could require trade groups to actively defend the act.

“When you have a watershed law like that, that reaches a milestone anniversary, there will be people who will want to look at that and ask, ‘Has it been fully implemented? Have we really understood all that DSHEA was intended to do? Are there things that need to be massaged 20 years later now that things are very different and products are very different than they were in 1994?” said CRN President Steve Mister.

Top Dietary Supplement Legislative Priorities

• Gain supplement coverage by health savings and flexible spending accounts
• Protect the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act from unwanted amendments
• Block the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act
• Support nationwide GMO labeling requirements while blocking state-level requirements
• Recruit a cadre of industry advocates in Congress

For example, when DSHEA was passed in 1994 it was aimed more at standard vitamins and minerals and not necessarily at products that act on the central nervous system or contain large amounts of isolated small components of a food.

Now is not the time to crack open DSHEA and see if there are elements that should be changed, in part because one of the main authors of the act – Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa – will retire at the end of 2014 and the other – Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah – will not run for reelection in 2018, NPA says.

Longtime supplement industry ally Sen. Tom Harkin is retiring from Congress at the end of 2014.

This could leave DSHEA without strong protectors if it were opened to amendments. To counter this vulnerability, industry must rebuild a team of champions to advocate for the law as it stands if a movement to amend the act becomes a reality.

Outreach to new allies in Congress will therefore be a major priority for NPA in 2014, Welch said. The industry needs “a good mix of people who are up and coming and who are newer to the House or Senate, but we also want some people who are in positions of leadership,” she said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a steadfast supplement industry advocate, will not seek re-election in 2018.

A “very powerful” person of interest to NPA is Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, an area focused on natural products, said Welch. “It is good to have constituent support for a topic when you go and start working with a new member of Congress,” she said.

A member of Congress since 1992, Murray is on the influential Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Harkin currently leads. She also chairs the Budget Committee.

Sen. Patty Murray represents Washington, an area focused on natural products, and could be key ally for the supplement industry.

NPA also is courting Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who “is a great little rock star for us,” and who has defended DSHEA in the past, Welch said (Also see "Supplement Self-Regulation Key To Preventing More Oversight – Heinrich" - Pink Sheet, 6 May, 2013.).

In addition, NPA and CRN have worked with Rep. Chaffetz, R-Utah and Democrat Reps. Jared Polis, Colorado, and Frank Pallone, New Jersey, as chairs of the Dietary Supplement Caucus in the past. Together all three of them have constituents from every part of the supplement arena: suppliers, manufacturers, marketers and consumers.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, in his first term after serving in the House, is recognized as a congressional ally for the supplement industry.

Mister also noted that potential and existing champions in the Senate include Republicans Tim Scott and Lindsay Graham from South Carolina and Mike Lee from Utah, and Democrat Michael Bennet from Colorado.

Labeling Legislation Poses Challenges, Opportunities

Welch hopes cultivating new advocates also will help protect the supplement industry from bills such as Sen. Dick Durbin’s Dietary Supplement Labeling Act, which the Illinois Democrat introduced in the summer of 2013. The act threatens to require serious adverse event warnings on supplement labels and would require firms to register new products with FDA within 30 days of launching (Also see "In Brief: Acetaminophen Warnings, OTC HSA Bill, Durbin’s Supplement Reg Bill" - Pink Sheet, 5 Aug, 2013.).

Even though the bill has not moved forward, “probably because nothing is moving forward at this point,” NPA is “actively watching it and our legislative team is really taking a look at any other vehicles that may be a good source for an amendment” where Durbin could append the bill, Welch said.

Also on the labeling front, NPA has its eye on state and local legislation that would require supplements and foods to label their products as containing genetically engineered food ingredients.

The trade group does not support creating a patchwork of local level requirements, and was relieved when such proposed measures in Washington state and California failed, but it does support the federal Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act, Welch said.

“NPA supports labeling the consumers’ right to know so we would support voluntary [GMO labeling], but we would also support mandatory [labeling] as long as it … is federally based and has preemption for the state level requirements” and does not allow consumers to bring class action suits, Welch said.

She acknowledged many in the industry probably do not want to track and label GMO ingredients, but she said getting out in front of the issue is important because “it is something that isn’t going away and we need to address it and we want to make sure we address it really well.”

Health Account Eligibility

NPA also hopes legislation introduced in 2013 will move in 2014 to allow consumers to buy dietary supplements with funds from flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts.

Unlike OTCs, supplements were not originally covered by FSAs/HSAs, but a provision in Hatch’s Family Health and Retirement Investment Act, S.1031, introduced in May would add dietary supplements to the items covered by FSAs/HSAs (Also see "In Brief" - Pink Sheet, 10 Jun, 2013.).

“Industry at large would consider this a good win. Getting support for preventive care is something that NPA feels very strongly about, so the FSA allowance to be used with dietary supplements would be a good thing,” Welch said (Also see "FSA/HSA Coverage Tops CHPA 2014 Legislative Goals" - Pink Sheet, 6 Jan, 2014.).