Tom Harkin: “I just want to say, first of all, that I have the greatest respect, as he knows, for the Senator from Illinois. He is…”

“I just want to say, first of all, that I have the greatest respect, as he knows, for the Senator from Illinois. He is one of the true consumer champions in the entire Congress and has been for all of his time here. So it is kind of hard to argue against the Senator when he is such a champion of consumers. But on this issue I think we part a little company. I want to make it very clear that under DSHEA, supplement labels must already disclose their ingredients--must disclose their ingredients. Even when a product is reformulated, if the supplement contains new ingredients, then the label must reflect that change. These were all added to the bill. We added that for consumer protection. Now, again, it is not as though FDA doesn't know what is out there. Under current law, supplement manufacturers have to biannually register their products. There is a biannual registration requirement right now. So the concern is that FDA just doesn't have the resources to do anything. I have tried--and the Senator knows because he is on the Appropriations Committee--to get more funds for the FDA to do this, but we haven't been able to get the funds necessary for the FDA to even do what jobs they are supposed to do now. I repeat for emphasis sake that every FDA Commissioner--those appointed both by Democratic or Republican Presidents--have said the DSHEA gives them adequate authority to keep dangerous products off the shelves. So the authority is already there.…”