NJ Senator Keeps his Promise - Bans our Herb!!!!

Senator Lautenberg,

I do not appreciate the reference to possible removal of Vitamins from the market. If this was a joke - it wasn't funny.

Please be advised that serious injuries, adverse reactions, and/or deaths are usually not attributed to the herb ephedra. It is difficult to find any such info in the 100s of years of useage in Western or Eastern medicine in any literature. http://www.supplementquality.com/news/ABC_ephedra_monograph.html states that 'the rate of occurrence of heart attacks and strokes among people who use ephedra seems to be no different from that in the general population' and that:
'The Ephedra Education Council, an industry-based group, presented a review of both the published literature on ephedra safety and on the FDA's collection of 1000 adverse event reports. This review concluded there was no evidence of an association between ephedra and serious adverse events at the industry-recommended levels of intake. It also criticized an analysis of 1000 adverse event reports that was conducted by FDA consultants and subsequently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

An FDA-sponsored review of 140 of the events reported to its MedWatch program concluded that one-third were "probably" and another third were "possibly" associated with ephedra. These included 17 reports of hypertension, 13 reports of palpitations and/or tachycardia, 10 reports of stroke, and 7 reports of seizures. Of these, 10 resulted in death and another 13 in disability.

The Ephedra Education Council also presented the results of the first comparison of how often heart attacks, strokes and seizures occur in the general population and among ephedra users, discovering no evidence of increased risk.'

Overdose was the frequent cause in most if not all of the cases attributed to this drug.

Ephedrine is an isolated component of ephedra. It is concentrated and potent. Instant coffee is also a concentrated and more potent form of the coffee bean. I hope that the more 'stringent' standards will apply to coffee as well.

This letter will be published on the number #1 most visited alternative health site in the world, www.curezone.com
as well as on my site, www.bobmantz.com. It also has been forwarded to the Life Extension Foundation.

Regards,

Robert Mantz, Jr.
----- Original Message -----
From: frank_lautenberg@lautenberg.senate.gov
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 5:10 PM
Subject: Responding to your message





December 22, 2003


Mr. Robert Mantz

Cranbury, New Jersey 08512


Dear Mr. Mantz,

Thank you for contacting me regarding federal regulation of dietary supplements. I agree that this is an important matter, and I appreciate your comments.

When I began to consider this issue, I believed that the Food and Drug Administration already had ample authority to regulate dietary supplements. Upon further examination, however, I have become concerned that the current regulatory structure contains serious loopholes. The Senate Commerce Committee, of which I am a member, held hearings in October on the safety of certain dietary supplements, and the information presented there led me to believe that our current system is inadequate to protect public health.

The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act contains provisions that allow the FDA to remove supplements from the market if they are deemed to pose an immediate hazard or an unreasonable risk to public health. This is determined by the number and severity of "adverse event reports" (AERs). There is some evidence, however, that AERs, sometimes numbering in the thousands, have not been reported to the FDA. Faced with this lack of adequate reporting, I believe that more stringent standards may be necessary.

I want to stress that no one in the Senate has any interest in removing supplements such as Vitamin C from the market. Our concern lies solely with substances such as ephedra - substances that have been linked to serious injuries and deaths.

I will continue to support efforts to ensure the safety of our food and drugs, and I thank you for your comments.



Senator Frank Lautenberg
http://lautenberg.senate.gov/

http://www.bobmantz.com

Tweet