Return of the Dark issueReturn of the Dark issue

We did a lot of reporting and talked to many supplement industry insiders for the recent NBJ Dark Issue 2. Not all of that reporting made it onto the pages. These are some quotes about what could be the biggest issue facing the industry: what the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory stance could mean for supplements.

Read more about the “Trump effect” and other issues in the supplement industry in the issue, available here. Purchase includes entrance to the Dark Issue 2 webinar at 2 p.m. EDT on March 28.

Here is some of what we heard that didn’t make it into the issue:

“I would be surprised if that (New Dietary Ingredient) draft guidance document ever gets finalized. I think it’s going to be four years of, unless there is a safety issue, there will not be a lot of enforcement.”

-Todd Harrison, lawyer, Venable LLP

“We’re small on the overall regulatory radar for FDA—small stuff. We’re $40 billion, but that’s still very small compared to food and drugs. But we are in the news all the time. We have a clear group of critics. They are not going away.”

 -Loren Israelsen, president, United Natural Products Alliance

“There are 25 employees at the Office of Dietary Supplements and eight of them are processing NDI notifications.”

-Larisa Pavlick, vice president for global regulatory and compliance, United Natural Products Alliance

“Companies are not even filing NDIs. We are seeing an uptick in GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) for sure.”

-Ashish Talati, lawyer, Amin Talati Upahyde LLP

“The companies that are importing stuff from China and the Far East, based on price, not really caring what is in it but making money on the deals—there is nothing in the (NDI guidance) law that’s going to stop those people.”

-Jeff Nedelman, Strategic Communications

“Where there is a void, it will be filled, and God knows we’ve seen that.”

-Karen Howard, executive director, Organic and Natural Health Association

“This is a great time to focus on efforts to build robust self-regulation that could even be a model for federal regulation in the future.”

-Rend Al-Mondhiry, legal counsel, Council for Responsible Nutrition