Supplements
The debate topic that I had to preside over was the regulation of drug and herbal supplements. Since I broke the debate into six parts - Pros & Cons of labeling, claiming and advertising, this paper will follow the same format. I am going to go over in great detail the high points of both sides debate. Then the paper will conclude with my own analysis of the case, and which group I thought stated their case more strongly. Except for the fact I will talk about all of the pros and then discuss the cons of the issue.The debate began with Kerri stating her teams' case as to why the government should step in and place stricter regulations on the entire supplement industry. I totally agree with her in that when people buy goods, the contents inside should be fully disclosed. Unfortunately for the consumer government intervention is not even allowed when the issue deals with dietary supplements. In fact the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 made the dietary supplements untouchable by the FDA. Of course this law does not apply to medical drugs, which fall under a completely different category. The only power granted to the FDA is to pull a product from the shelf due to false labeling, but not
Obviously since herbal and dietary supplements are drugs, the ingredients used in them must be disclosed on the bottle's label, but as we all know the print is microscopic and most people don't know what the stuff is. Perhaps this country takes that information for granted, and will just take anything regardless of what they know about a product. The DSHEA act allowed claims if "A statement claims a benefit related to a classical nutrient deficiency disease and discloses the prevalence of such disease in the United States, describes the role of a nutrient or dietary ingredient intended to affect the structure or function in humans, characterizes the documented mechanism by which a nutrient or dietary ingredient acts to maintain such structure or function, or describes general well being from consumption of a nutrient or dietary ingredient. In summary further government interference in this industry is not needed or wanted by the people purchasing the products. Any supplement in the dietary category that makes such a claim would be unapproved, and therefore illegal. The United States society is already swamped with rules and regulations on everything, drug and herbal supplements should not fall in the category. A very great point that was brought up during the debate by the con team was that the claims made for dietary supplements meet the definition of a health claim as defined by the NLEA. "The manufacturer of the drugs are usually responsible for explaining how a product works and what ingredients allow for the process to work. Should the manufacturer be found guilty of false labeling even though they felt that they were correct in their testing methods? This team believed that the manufacturers should not be accountable for the action. Testing methods between manufacturers and researchers is in some cases extremely different presenting a new problem for the FDA. Also the small amount of drugs on the market meant that there was less advertising to worry about. They simply place more warning labels on the product. The debate for non-regulation of claiming in the business has numerous good points that were well stressed upon by the team. the list goes on but I think you get the point. The con side stated repeatedly that although there is no regulation, the FDA does watch over the industry and looks for any wrongdoing.
Common topics in this essay:
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PROS Regulation,
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,
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Acceptance Essays
