April 13, 2010
The FDA Food Modernization Act (S. 510), also referred to as the “Food Safety” bill, has been modified to exempt dietary supplements from language that otherwise creates a slippery slope toward U.S. harmonization with Codex Alimentarius. ANH-USA worked to protect the natural health community from this dangerous provision that threatened access to high quality, therapeutic supplement doses by working with key senators to modify the language, now for the second time.
The most worrisome provision of the bill initially required the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) to recommend that U.S. foreign 
trading partners harmonize with Codex. This odd language was no doubt very intentional. How could we recommend harmonization to other countries if we rejected it for the U.S.? So in effect we were committing ourselves to a much more restrictive regulatory regime for supplements.
As the Senate moved forward with the Food Safety bill, Senator Harkin (D-IA), committee chair, working closely with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), promised to see what could be done to make absolutely clear this legislation was not intended to impact our access to dietary supplements. At that time, Senator Harkin modified the Codex provision, asking the FDA to consider “whether and how” to recommend U.S. foreign trading partners harmonize. This was a very important change and a tremendous show of support from both Senators, but we were still concerned that the inclusion of Codex language in the bill could be used to support future U.S. harmonization with Codex standards on dietary supplements.
ANH-USA worked with our allies in the Senate over the past several months to include additional language providing stronger protection for supplements. New language has now been added specifically stating, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the regulation of dietary supplements.”
Full story HERE
