Washington, D.C. – Today, the Natural Products Association (NPA) announced its opposition to legislation introduced by Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), which would grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad authority to prohibit certain ingredients in dietary supplements without a rendering on an ingredient’s safety.
“Tianeptine is already illegal, and as it has been referred to as contributing to the opioid epidemic by the Department of Justice, why is it not being scheduled to appropriately stop it and protect public health? Why is there not outrage from the bill’s sponsors Congressman Pallone and Senator Durbin, on the inaction from those charged with the safety of America’s food and drug when Tianeptine was first publicly identified as a problem by FDA in 2018? What’s in this proposal is a re-use of a part of the failed mandatory product (MPL) listing from last Congress, and doesn’t specifically address tianeptine, as the goal of this only appears to be restriction of legitimate and safe ingredients like, NAC, NMN, CBD and many other ingredients without any scientific basis.” said Daniel Fabricant, president and CEO of the NPA.
“As the NPA has stated time and time again, the FDA has the tools necessary to go after illegal products like tianeptine. Proposals like this make one think that the agency is genetically predisposed against basic law enforcement and would much rather spend taxpayer funded time and resources pursuing overreaching authorities that muddy the waters for legitimate dietary ingredients. If tianeptine is such a priority, why hasn’t Congress asked the DEA to schedule the ingredient like other dangerous products? If enacted, the unintended consequences would threaten innovation and worse limit access to safe ingredients spanning probiotics, botanicals, amino acids, vitamins and more.”
The Natural Products Association has ignited a grassroots campaign, which can be found here.
