post ephedra: fda to ban steroids, "precursors"...

[germeten]

US readers need to write their congressmen immediately against HR 207. This bill if passed will outlaw by April 2004, anabolic steroids "and their precursors" to include many herbs, including ginseng, damiana, suma, saw palmetto, etc. This is a bold attempt by the pharmaceutical lobby, who has been salivating for years to regulate dietary supplements! No longer will they have to compete against the herb industry because they will control both! Ephedra was just their foot in the door! Next it will be diuretics or any other supplement they will claim is a public health concern. Not having studied herbs as their profession, see how doctors have figured a way to pay themselves for just that while giving themselves as much time as they want! All they will need is a few articles, papers or published references on an herbs' benfits or risks as they see them, to begin prescribing. Direct access to dietary supplements, including natural anabolics, has always been about responsible use. All plant seeds contain steroids for their own growth! The bill's language defining "precursors and precursors of precursors" can be taken all the way back to corn, beans and cabbage! The general public doesn't know or understand this will affect the whole dietary supplement industry, not just anabolic distributors. The question occurs why the government wants to ban one of the most common chemicals and building blocks of all animal life-- testosterone!

 

[swolt]

informing and disturbing. sounds like monopolization to me

 

[pokkeyy]

Being that most of my masters studied sports supplements, I am very scared of what this act intails. I have kept up on most of it, but this is the first time i heard that arpil 2004 is D-day. MY thesis is being done on androstenedione and female. I have spent most of my college years studing andro, test and precursors! It amazes me that in 1994, Congress enacted the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA), one of the most popularly supported pieces of legislation in American history. The DSHEA was passed to protect health-affirming nutritional products from those forces seeking to unfairly remove them from the market or to restrict them as expensive prescription-only drugs. DSHEA protects the freedoms of consumers of nutritional products while nevertheless providing full authority to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to outlaw unsafe products. But now only years later the DSHEA is under attack in Washington. Trying to use teens as the excuse, several new legislative efforts would have devastating effects on mature adults throughout America.
To use the Controlled Substances Act to ban many of these products is an abuse of the law, and would set a disturbing precedent that might open the door for the criminalization of other healthful dietary supplements.
go to www.aimforhealth.com/housebill207.htmand that will list the memebers and their address or go to congress. gov website and find out more directly http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery