07.01.09
Responding to a story in the May issue of Sports Illustrated (SI), the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), Washington, D.C., said in a statement that the article mischaracterizes the supplement industry and fails to understand current regulation. The article, entitled “What You Don’t Know Might Kill You,” claims “Would-be experts and untested products feed a $20 billion obsession with better performance across all levels of sports.” However, Steve Mister, president and CEO of CRN, said this figure is simply overstated and is actually closer to about $2.5 billion. He went on to argue that a majority of companies in the supplement industry engage in responsible marketing and general business practices. “The article is surprisingly one-sided and suffers from an unfortunate lack of understanding of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA)—both in terms of what the law did, and what it allows FDA to do…According to the article, DSHEA ‘razed virtually every barrier to entry into the marketplace.’ With that premise, the extreme examples the article describes appear to be a product of DSHEA, when in fact, they more likely result from FDA’s lack of enforcement of that law over the past 16 years.”