The oft-repeated quote stating that dietary supplements are unregulated is patently false, and you only have to look at the very first sentence on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Website to settle that dispute. There, it plainly states: “FDA regulates both finished dietary supplement products and dietary ingredients. FDA regulates dietary supplements under a different set of regulations than those covering ‘conventional’ foods and drug products. Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA): FDA is responsible for taking action against any unsafe dietary supplement product after it reaches the market.”

Should Supplements Be Regulated Like Drugs?

Dr. Paul Offit and others want supplements to be regulated like drugs, ostensibly to ensure their safety and effectiveness. But are drugs really safer? Prescription medications kill over 100,000 people each year when properly prescribed, while vitamins have not caused a single death in 27 years. Painkillers alone kill 23,000 Americans each year. And Vioxx, created by Merck, was responsible for over 60,000 deaths before being pulled off the market. That was just ONE drug approved by the FDA as “safe.”

The FDA can, and has, shut down supplement makers that do not meet these regulations. For example, in November last year, federal agents seized more than $2 million worth of supplements once it was discovered that the product contained methylhexanamine (DMAA). We have all the regulations we need, and many we created for industry instead of consumer benefit. If anything is lacking, it’s the enforcement of the regulations already in place, both for drugs, foods, and supplements.

Three years ago, Orthomolecular.org issued a press release with the following information, Over a 27-year period, vitamin supplements have been alleged to have caused the deaths of a total of eleven people in the United States. A new analysis of US poison control center annual report data indicates that there have, in fact, been no deaths whatsoever from vitamins ... none at all, in the 27 years that such reports have been available.

Other data further support the remarkable safety record of dietary supplements. For example, data from the European Union indicate that pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times as likely to kill you as dietary supplements! It should come as no surprise then that FDA-approved drugs are responsible for 80 percent of poison control fatalities each year.

Supplements that are deemed hazardous are typically “spiked” with some form of pharmaceutical drug or synthetic ingredient. With very few exceptions, it’s not the natural vitamin or herb in itself that is shown to be dangerous. Suspect products almost always end up being of the “diet” or “fat burner” variety, along with muscle-building and high-energy products. Lumping vitamins, minerals, and herbs with long historical use in with these highly adulterated types of supplements is unfair and inaccurate in the extreme, but most people don’t make this separation when they read in the news that “supplements are dangerous.”

Then there’s the issue of efficacy. As recently as December 2013, the media was again rife with articles bashing supplements as being either dangerous or useless, or both. Mark Sisson published some insightful commentary on these attacks, including the following, “...The study the authors of the editorial chose to examine looked at the effect of multivitamins on cognitive decline and memory. Turns out multivitamin intake had no effect on cognitive decline or memory when compared to placebo. Of course, even if multivitamins have no effect on cognitive health it doesn’t say anything about other health conditions. Just last year, a study using the same PHSII data found a beneficial effect on cancer incidence from multivitamin use, with daily multivitamin use predicted a moderate but significant reduction in overall cancer risk, particularly in men with a history of cancer.”

I would add that this report actually failed to review several of the more well-known health benefits of vitamin D, which is one of the least expensive supplements. For example, experts estimate it could cut the rate of cancer by half. So, were you to factor that into the calculations, the savings could likely go up by a factor of 1,000 or more, allowing for the potential of saving trillions of dollars instead of billions.

Why Not Enforce Stricter Regulations on the Real Health Hazards?

Meanwhile, in 2009 alone, there were nearly 4.6 million drug-related visits to American emergency rooms, with more than half due to adverse reactions to prescription medications – most of which were being taken exactly as prescribed. So where’s the real danger to your health? Is it from vitamin supplements or pharmaceutical drugs?

A veritable mountain of data shows that pharmaceuticals pose a significant threat to your health, and should be used with extreme caution. Drugs, not supplements, are the hazardous products and Dr. Paul Offit, Congressman Henry Waxman, Senator Durbin and others really should spend some serious time investigating, if they want to protect public health.

The bottom line is, more regulations will eliminate competition and this is the end goal. Big Pharma is in perfect position to take over the industry, as they already own many of the largest supplement companies. Drugs are 62,000 times more likely to kill you than your vitamins. Again, DSHEA and the safety profile of supplements in general render additional regulations of supplements completely unnecessary.

Remember, if you are interested in optimizing your health, your BEST solution is to choose the highest quality foods possible, and eat a wide variety of whole organic foods. Once you have addressed your diet and are looking for further improvement, odds are you might benefit from some supplements, such as an omega-3 supplement and a probiotic, for example. There are many others you could then consider depending on your specific circumstances, including a high-quality multivitamin, additional antioxidant support, and others.

Dr. Joseph Mercola finished his family practice residency in 1985 and was trained by the conventional model. In his first years of private practice, he treated many symptoms with prescription drugs and was actually a paid speaker for the drug companies. But as he began to experience the failures of this model in his practice, he embraced natural medicine and has had an opportunity over the last thirty years to apply these time-tested approaches successfully with thousands of patients in his clinic. Over 15 years ago he founded Mercola.com to share his experiences with others. The site is the most visited natural health site in the world for the last seven years with nearly two million subscribers. He’s also written two NY Times bestselling books, and has had frequent appearances on national media.