Washington, D.C., February 12, 2015—In response to media reports that the New York State Attorney General issued subpoenas to four retailers requesting substantiation of claims made for herbal supplement products, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the leading trade association for the dietary supplement and functional food industry, issued the following statement:
Statement by Steve Mister, president & CEO, CRN:
“We are confident that the companies subpoenaed will be able to provide the substantiation to support the label claims on their products. Federal law already requires that any claims made by manufacturers or marketers of dietary supplements have substantiation to support those claims.
The federal law requires that dietary supplements have ‘competent and reliable scientific evidence’ in support of any structure/function claims they make for their products. Under the law, dietary supplements cannot be sold with labeling that claims to treat, cure, prevent or mitigate a disease, and FDA has full authority to take action against companies that misbrand dietary supplements or make false or misleading claims. In addition, the manufacturing of dietary supplements is regulated by Good Manufacturing Practices regulations, enforced by the FDA. Similarly, the advertising for dietary supplements must be truthful, not misleading and substantiated with credible and reliable scientific evidence, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.
We continue to urge the Attorney General’s office to show the same transparency he is demanding of the industry by releasing the full DNA barcode testing report that started this inquiry.”