CAFTA has no impact on supplements law, says AHPA
fears that the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA),
passed on Thursday, will have an impact on US dietary supplements
regulations, writes Jess Halliday.
The agreement, which formalizes a new trade agreement with Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, has been the subject of comments recently posted on the internet by detractors, who claim the section on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures would force the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to be amended.
The so-called National Health Federation issued a statement calling CAFTA "another critical link by which health-freedom haters hope to bypass [DSHEA] and obligate the United States and Canada by treaty to harmonize to the harshly restrictive Codex vitamin-and-mineral standards".
But in an updated document about the Codex guidelines and dietary supplements, AHPA said that concerns were groundless, since CAFTA only proposes to reaffirm existing World Trade Organization SPS agreements, not introduce new ones.
What is more, DSHEA is not actually a SPS measure, according to the WTO definition of the term.
As AHPA present Michael McGuffin explained, "The fact that DSHEA is not a sanitary or phytosanitary measure makes this section of CAFTA irrelevant to DSHEA."
CAFTA is the latest in a string of international measures to have raised fears over dietary supplement availability in the US.
The adoption of the Codex guidelines for vitamin and mineral supplements last month was also preceded by debate over whether it would force an amendment to DHSEA.
But as AHPA explained in the same document, Codex can affect a country's domestic laws by forcing them to be more relaxed only if they are more restrictive than the guideline.
As DSHEA is less restrictive than the Codex guidelines, AHPA and other industry associations such as the Council for Responsible Nutrition maintain that it will not be affected.
Also last month the European Parliament adopted the Directive on Food Supplements, which comes into effect today. Unlike Codex, the directive does have the force of law in the EU 25 member countries, but it only affects the US insofar as companies wishing to export supplements to the EU will need to make sure they adhere to it. It will not affect the domestic operations of American companies.
Although AHPA concedes that the EU members may work to make the Codex guidelines quite similar to their new law, it reinforces the message that the US will be unaffected.
"It is absolutely clear that none of these new regulations will usurp the authority of the US Congress by forcing new laws that limit our rights to access a wide range of dietary supplements," said McGuffin.
"Even if all three of these laws come into full force, Americans will continue to be able to make informed self-care choices and to use vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements."
AHPA's updated communication can be downloaded here.
