NPA: Change in House could help make FDA more accountable

22-Nov-2022 - Last updated on 21-Nov-2022 at 17:00 GMT

The change in House leadership could be an opportunity to hold federal agencies more accountable, says Daniel Fabricant, PhD, head of the Natural Products Association.

Fabricant spoke with NutraIngredients-USA at the recent SupplySide West trade show in Las Vegas, NV. The video was recorded immediately before the midterm elections. While the predicted ‘red wave’ did not come to pass, Republicans did pick up enough seats in the House to claim a slim majority. A majority of any margin gives the new Speaker of the House the ability to name new heads of the various committees.

“With that change in leadership can we use the committees and their jurisdiction to maybe dive a little bit deeper on maybe why FDA isn’t as focused on inspections, hasn’t come up with a solution for CBD. Those are the kind of things we really want to see moved forward,” Fabricant said.

New House leadership could provide opportunity

The makeup of the new Congress may also have provide more of an appetite for approving the use of HSA funds to pay for dietary supplements. NPA has pushed the idea for a number of years without success thus far.

“We got close this Congress to moving HSAs forward. I think we’re going to get a lot closer with the next Congress,” he said.

Fabricant said the HSA issue revolves round questions of basic freedom and fairness as well as pure common sense.

“Seventy percent of Americans already use supplements and they can’t use money their employers are already setting aside to pay for them. C’mon. This has to make a little more sense,” he said.

Fabricant said NPA doesn’t entirely agree with the idea that the supplement industry is in trouble in terms of representation on Capitol Hill.

“In the Senate we’ve had people like Mike Lee, stepped up big on NAC,” he said. “In the House, we have bipartisan support against MPL.”