On the recordMay 23, 2012
I thank the Senator from Utah for his concluding remarks regarding the amendment that I assume will be offered by the Senator from Illinois, as it is cleared to be offered. I thank Senator Hatch for his great leadership on the issue of making sure the American people can have access to healthy, life-supporting vitamins, minerals and supplements, without having it go through untold processes and reviews and approvals by the FDA, and all that kind of regulation. Senator Hatch was the leader on the DSHEA bill when we passed it in 1994. I was happy to work in tandem with him on that. It has proven, through the years, to be a great success for the American people. The American people all over this country take vitamins and other supplements, and they are living healthier because of this. I say to my friend that I heard the Senator from Illinois on the floor yesterday give an impassioned speech about a very sad case about a young woman who evidently consumed some energy drinks with a lot of caffeine in them and had heart arrest and died. It is a very sad story. But as sad as that is, you can't keep people from abusing things. People also die every year from aspirin poisoning, where they took too many aspirin. Reasonableness has to enter into this. We have worked together to make sure the labels are good on all of these things, so that people know what is in them.…
