Countywide : Health Stores Fight Proposed Legislation

Health food store owners and their customers across Ventura County have banded together to oppose new federal legislation that they say would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unprecedented ability to ban many vitamins and holistic remedies now in wide use.

FDA officials have denied that the legislation would adversely affect health food store owners, and a staff member of the congressional panel considering one of the bills said the proposed legal changes have been targeted by a national disinformation campaign.

More than 30 people attended two educational forums last month to discuss the Federal Food, Drug, Cosmetic and Device Enforcement Act, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act and a series of reports from a task force on dietary supplements.

The efforts to restrict alternative medicines have been labeled “real Big Brother bills” by opponents, who said some provisions of the legislation would give the FDA sweeping powers to remove health products from market shelves, issue subpoenas for records without due process and recall products ruled to be defective.

Opponents also fear that the legislation would dramatically reduce the potency of vitamins and require prescriptions for many dietary supplements now bought over the counter.

“We really don’t need anyone to tell us what we can eat or put in our bodies,” said Kajbira Funari, a spiritual healer who works at the Heart of Light Metaphysical Book Store in Ojai.

Added Joy Sanders, owner of Kay’s Nutrition, a Simi Valley health food store serving 45 to 60 people per day: “What they are really trying to do with this bill is shut off the alternative approach, and have it be where the only way you can take care of your body is to go to the medical establishment.”

Many health food store owners and customers are worried that the bills could ban or place severe limitations on their ability to purchase herbs, powders, high-potency vitamins and homeopathic remedies.

But Lewis Adelson, an assistant for the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, said the bills will not give the FDA any powers that it does not already have.

Adelson also denied that the bills would curtail the sale of vitamins or require prescriptions for drugs now sold over the counter.

“This is simply about enforcement,” Adelson said. “It will not affect the viability of products as long as they are labeled correctly.”