Political Quotes

“Mr. President, almost 1\1/2\ years ago I sent the Government Accountability Office a letter asking them to examine the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System for dietary supplements. Dietary supplements, vitamin pills, and mineral pills are common across America. There are shops all over Chicago and downstate Illinois selling these supplements, and many people--including myself--take a vitamin each day. Maybe it is good for me, maybe it isn't. I hope it is good. It is certainly not harmful. But there are thousands of dietary supplements for sale. They are not all made in the United States, and they are not all made to the highest specifications. So we said to the Food and Drug Administration, We want you to collect information from American consumers if there is a problem. If there is a dietary supplement that is being sold and someone has an adverse event--in other words, a health event--that could be serious, report it to the FDA. If we receive more than one, it is worth taking a look at to see if there is a pattern emerging and we should take something off the shelf. Today the General Accountability Office released a report assessing how the system is working on this adverse event reporting on dietary supplements, and they had some recommendations. This reporting system is an important surveillance tool the FDA uses to identify and respond to cases of serious adverse reaction, such as heart attacks, hospitalizations, and, in some cases, death.…”