THE US Food and Drug administration is virtually powerless in regulating the $25 billion dietary supplements industry, even though many of its products contain illegal synthetic steroids that can damage livers or kidneys and cause strokes or lung blood clots. Yet the unregulated supplements are hugely popular among young people in the Boston area who are intent on bulking up and improving their athletic performance. Congress should give the agency the power and the money to police the industry.
Under the current law, the FDA can take action against manufacturers of supplements with harmful ingredients only after there are reports of bad reactions among users. But for the most part it can’t require firms to show that their products are safe before they go on the market. That’s an enormous loophole, given that the damage caused by steroids tends to become apparent only after long periods of use.
Steroids and substances like them are far from the only illegal or contaminating ingredients in supplements. In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Pieter Cohen of Harvard Medical School said more than 140 contaminated products have been identified, and the harmful ingredients include toxic plant material, heavy metals, bacteria, prescription medications, controlled substances, experimental compounds, and drugs rejected by the FDA because of safety concerns.
Cohen wrote that, while hazardous ingredients are most commonly in products for sexual enhancement, athletic performance, and weight loss, they are also in supplements marketed at consumers with diabetes, high cholesterol, or insomnia. With vitamins and supplements now used by 114 million Americans, Congress should end its 15-year experiment with lax regulation of the industry. It hasn’t worked.
Even the most faddish users of supplements have a right to know what’s going into their bodies.
