Political Quotes

“Madam President, we are rapidly approaching a vote on the Paul amendment, and I know the Senator wants to have a couple of minutes to speak on that. I rise in opposition to the Paul amendment. I oppose it for several reasons. Perhaps the most important reason is that this is a drug bill. This bill deals with drugs and devices. It does not deal with food. We dealt with dietary supplements and vitamins and things such as that in the food safety bill that we passed 2 years ago and that bill, again, was a consensus bill that has been through the committee structure. We brought it to the floor and had a lot of debate on it. We made modifications at that time to the whole area of vitamins, minerals, and supplements, and that is the proper place to address it, not on a bill such as this. This bill is a bill on drugs, not on supplements and food, so that is the most important reason. I will make that same argument on the Durbin amendment. That should not be here because this is a drug bill. On substance, I would say this bill kind of turns food law on its head. It would allow supplements to be sold with claims to cure any disease, such as AIDS or cancer, without any kind of FDA review whatsoever. I take a backseat to no one in terms of my support for the vitamin, mineral, and supplement industry and their products. Senator Hatch and I were the two people who put through the DSHEA bill, the Dietary Supplementary Health and Education Act in 1994.…”