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Dear Member,

Recently you may have received an alarming email expressing a claim that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is attempting to regulate Complementary and Alternative care. We are sending this email to you so that you can be reassured that this is nothing to be concerned about.

In 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). Under this Act the manufacturer of dietary supplements and similar products is responsible for the safety and purity of the product before it reaches the market. The FDA takes action after a product has reached the market if a concern about its safety or purity has been raised. The FDA has no authority to regulate a product that isn't a threat to public health and cannot take initiative to expand its authority unless expressly authorized to do so by Congress.

As part of its ongoing mandate to insure the safety of dietary supplements, the FDA is preparing to issue a guide to the products on the market to help consumers and regulators distinguish between those products that are regulated as unsafe (for example, lead-contaminated herbs), regulated as cosmetics (for example, herbal skin peeling creams), regulated as drugs (for example, cannabis), or regulated as food (for example, vitamins and most supplements).

The report is advisory, but will be useful in light of recent findings that some herbal products may have profound physical effects. For example, the February 2007 edition of the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE published findings that Lavender Oil and Tea Tree Oil appear to seriously increase the production of estrogen in men and women. Findings such as this may well lead the FDA to issue an advisory that these substances should not be used casually in creams and lotions.

The FDA is presently in a comment period to allow the makers of such products to bring information to the FDA concerning the category they believe their products should fall into. If you want to read the whole proposal, you can find it at www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKET.../E7-3259.htm. If you make your living manufacturing vitamin pills, herbal capsules, cosmetics or similar substances, you should pay attention to what the FDA is doing as it may have some impact on you.

You may notice that nothing about this matter concerns the practice of hypnotism, nor can it. The FDA is only concerned about Complementary and Alternative Medical Products and Devices. That is, they are only empowered to regulate substances and medical appliances. They have no authority to regulate an activity such as hypnotism.

The emails that have been circulating raise an alarm claiming that this is the first step toward total government regulation of hypnotism and similar practices. In our opinion this is a gross exaggeration. The FDA barely has the resources to regulate what is within its mandate now. Any attempt to expand that mandate would require a new Act of Congress, and no such Act is contemplated. The only extension before Congress is to bring pet food under better FDA oversight in the wake of the recent problems with Menu Foods, Inc., that sold products harmful to the dogs and cats who ate them. It is far from clear that even this extension will actually become law.

While we are sure that some people circulating these emails are acting in good faith, it appears that some of the activity has a profit motive.

In several of the emails examined, concerned persons are directed to an alarming web site with an official-sounding name. Once there, they are asked to enroll by giving their contact information, and to list the contact information of other interested persons who then receive similar emails.

The web site appears to capture this information to create a mailing list that can be used for marketing purposes by companies selling vitamin supplements and similar products. Those who know how to use header information to browse web sites will discover, as did we, that these sites appear to actually be on-line vitamin stores. Apparently, this is something called Guerilla Marketing.

The National Guild of Hypnotists maintains a nation-wide watch on laws and regulations that might affect your freedom to practice hypnotism. We have acted aggressively and successfully whenever actual threats have appeared, and we have a long history of success. While we must all remain vigilant, we need to be mindful that some people will encourage rumors for their own economic gain.

NGH Communications Department

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Posts: 2552 | From San Francisco | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged |