Don't Nuke Our Supplements !
Healthfreedom.net
The American Association for Health Freedom opposes the irradiation of dietary supplements and supports the American Herbal Products Association letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to request that the agency deny a food additive petition that would allow the use of ionizing irradiation on dietary supplements and dietary ingredients. AAHF will be submitting our own letter to the FDA supporting AHPA’s position and providing our own comments.
We feel that if there was ever an approach that could, in a single swoop, lessen the potency of herbs and other dietary supplements, then it is irradiation.
There is good evidence now that almost any dosage of ionizing radiation does some damage (if it can kill pathogens, it can damage other cells and molecules), and any dosage above 10kGy is considered very high. 30 kGy is just plain crazy! Vitamins are much more prone to break down when not present in a food matrix, as is typically the case in dietary supplements. In other words, consumers could seriously be misled if the stated label content is different from the actual content which has been reduced as a result of irradiation.
There are other risks as well: the formation of radiolytic products which can be harmful and the increased risk of migration of components in packaging materials (e.g. plasticizers like bisphenol-A) into the food or dietary supplement product.
Irradiation of bioactive compounds in these nutritional supplements is well known to change those molecules and destroy them, thus changing the unique structure that makes these compounds effective nutrients.
Bottom line, if something is irradiated, it should not be permitted at the levels that have been suggested to the FDA and it should be clearly indicated on the label by ingredient.
What You Can Do
Contact Congress (using letter below, please take a moment to personalize it, we list some talking points that you can cut and paste) with a copy going to the FDA.
Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):
Your Congressperson
Your Senators
Below is the sample letter:
Subject: Don't Nuke Our Supplements Reduce Notification that Food is Irradiated! Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here], As our elected member of Congress, I urge you to please tell the FDA we do want our supplements irradiated. I agree with the American Association for Health Freedom (www.healthfreedom.net) and the American Herbal Products Association (www.ahpa.org) that this is a uniquely bad idea. Please refer to their letters for additional detail. (In reference to the following FDA Dockets: FDA Docket No. 03F-0182 and FDA Docket No. 2005N-0272.)
Please contact your colleagues on the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee and on the authorizing committee that oversees the FDA, and urge them to tell the FDA not to approve irradiation levels that would damage our supplements.
Though the petition to irradiate dietary supplements with up to 30 kGy has languished since 2003, the more recent action by the FDA in Docket No. 2005N-0272, seeks to further relax notification of irradiation in food products, even calling this method "Pasteurization." This indicates the FDA is beginning to visit these issues and rule on them.
Please do not allow the FDA to nuke our dietary supplements in the name of food safety. Sincerely, (Your Name)
cc:
Dr. Lane Highbarger