Science, Politics, and the Regulation of Dietary Supplements: It's Time to Repeal DSHEA

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, resourceful entrepreneurs have advertised a wide variety of purportedly simple and painless cures for cancer, including liniments of turpentine, mustard, oil, eggs, and ammonia; peat moss; arrangements of colored floodlamps; pastes made from glycerine and limburger cheese … [T]his historical experience does suggest why Congress could reasonably have determined to protect the terminally ill, no less than other patients, from the vast range of selfstyled panaceas that inventive minds can devise.[Individuals have] the right to be treated by a health care practitioner with any medical treatment (including a treatment that is not approved, certified, or licensed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) that such individual desires or the legal representative of such individual desires.The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect.