FDA ‘not looking to throw out DSHEA’
An FDA official on Monday discussed the potential modernization of a 27-year-old law governing the regulation of dietary supplements.
FDA in recent years has supported efforts to modernize the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). But the agency “is not looking to throw out DSHEA and start fresh,” an FDA official said Monday during an event hosted by the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA).
“Rather, we’re talking about building on the current framework,” said Cara Welch, Ph.D., acting director of FDA’s Office of Dietary Supplement Programs (ODSP).
FDA officials are among those in favor of modernizing the law to reflect changes in the marketplace over the last 27 years. The industry has ballooned “from $4 billion in sales in the ’90s to well over $40 billion today [and] from fewer than 4,000 products to estimates as high as 80,000,” Welch reflected during AHPA’s 9th Botanical Congress, a virtual event this year due to the ongoing pandemic.