Defending Your Health Choices

Preserving Access to Safe and Reliable Dietary Supplements

NOW Foods cares about people’s health, believing that everyone has the right and should have the ability to choose health care options appropriate for their own individual needs. While reasonable regulation is necessary to protect the public excessive regulation can dramatically increase costs and unnecessarily reduce your available options. This is especially true for new products; as the endgame for many overzealous advocates of more regulation is government pre-approval and veto power over all new products. As we have seen in Canada and other countries, this “nanny state” mentality denies their citizens most of the products that Americans now safely use and rely on to maintain their families’ health.

In this time of concern for rising healthcare costs, with so many people either underinsured or even lacking health insurance, more and more people are relying on the proven safety of natural products like dietary supplements to self-insure their health. But don’t take that current freedom for granted! Legislators who are opposed to the widespread use of today’s dietary supplements have set their sight on these products, ignoring plenty of evidence (and common sense) to falsely presume that legal supplements are ‘unregulated’ and ‘unsafe’. But ‘consumer protection’ and product ‘safety’ are often only pretexts for imposing harsh new restrictions on these already-safe products, which the majority of Americans rely on as a key part of our healthy lifestyles.

NOW Foods believes that natural prevention - including nutrition - should be at the top of the list in terms of cost-effectively promoting and maintaining health; together with other sensible lifestyle actions like diet and exercise. We work very diligently to make affordable quality dietary supplements available for all as a primary means of supporting adequate nutrient intake to benefit health. NOW Foods wants to make sure that over-regulation does not limit your dietary supplement choices. We do this by defending the integrity of DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act passed in 1994 that currently regulates the dietary supplement industry and sets strict rules for manufacturers, including the federal requirement that all manufacturers follow Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

Did you know that in 1994, NOW Foods bused employees, consumers, and friends to rallies at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago to support the passage of DSHEA? Today, NOW Foods continues its efforts to defend DSHEA. NOW promotes industry responsibility by supporting organizations that promote the quality of natural products; and also supporting scientific research into the testing, health benefits, and potential healthcare savings associated with the use of dietary supplements. We currently support grassroots efforts to change our health care system for the better by promoting the use of nutrition and supplementation to improve wellness; which studies have shown could help contain the escalating cost of healthcare in America.

For more information about NOW’s advocacy efforts on your behalf, please contact us at Advocacy@nowfoods.com or click on this link to see more about this topic: NOW's Truth Advocate

Here are some independent organizations that NOW Foods supports through membership, financial contributions, board of directors’ membership, committee work, and/or the personal efforts of NOW’s employees:

-This is a select list of scientific organizations supported by NOW Foods that develop information for use by the natural health industry-

American Botanical Council (ABC)

American Herbal Pharmacopeia (AHP)

Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC)

American Oil Chemists' Society (AOCS)

Natural Health Research Institute (NHRI)

Natural Products Foundation

This is a select list of organizations actively advocating for natural health issues:

American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF)

American Herbal Products Association (AHPA)

Alliance for Natural Health www.anhcampaign.org/

Citizens for Health (CFH)

Citizens Speaking Out for Health on LinkedIn.com

Mid-American Health Organization (MAHO)

Natural Products Association (NPA)

Organic Trade Association (OTA)