Supplements: clarifying the record.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

The article "Tighter Regulation of Supplements Is Urged" (Clinical Psychiatry News, April 2009, p, 42) repeated an inaccuracy that has been written and spoken so many times that it is accepted as fact.

According to the article: "The FDA lost its authority to regulate the ingredients of dietary supplements before marketing with the enactment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994."

As president of L & S Natural Inc., I know that in truth: The FDA only lost its authority to regulate dietary supplements that were sold in the United States before Oct. 15, 1994.

Therefore, the FDA does not have the authority to ban the old herbal standards--like garlic, ginger, ginseng, or sarsaparilla.

Supplements that were introduced into the United States after Oct. 15, 1994, that contain a new dietary ingredient that was not marketed in the United States in a dietary supplement prior to that date, however, are not sheltered by DSHEA, and it is inaccurate to give this impression in your publication.

Why, then, do we have advertisements for so many new supplements splashed all over the media--and sold helter-skelter?

The answer to this question is the same answer one that explains why so many people speed but fail to get speeding tickets, and why so many fudge their income taxes but fail to get audited:

It's a problem of enforcement--not one of regulation.

Stephan Dorlandt Los Angeles

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