A SWAT team bursts into Mel Gibson's mansion, finds the bathrobed actor taking his vitamins and drags him away in handcuffs as he protests, "It's only vitamin C, you know, like in oranges."
This nightmarish scenario takes place in a television commercial, and federal drug control officials say it couldn't happen in real life. But the TV spot symbolizes a battle over regulating dietary supplements that has pitted the government against vitamin-makers and prompted thousands of Americans to plead with Congress to save their pills."I don't know what to think," Sarah Lakey said as she shopped recently at an Alexandria, Va., health food store. "I got these fliers saying they were going to make people get prescriptions for vitamins, but the news said that wasn't true. What's going on?"
The Food and Drug Administration insists it will not touch anybody's vitamins, but under orders from Congress the agency is about to force makers of dietary supplements to live up to stricter labeling and safety standards.
On Dec. 15, the FDA will issue rules that are expected to require companies to show "significant scientific agreement" for any health claim their products make - the same standard applied to processed foods.
However, the new rules won't take effect until June, and that will give the industry's friends in Congress a chance to try to reach a compromise.
The regulations, required under the 1990 Nutritional Labeling and Education Act, will govern thousands of herbs, amino acids and other compounds - from shark cartilage to cow glands - that go on store shelves with little scientific scrutiny.
Hundreds of supplements that claim to prevent cancer or alleviate AIDS, cure baldness or prevent jet lag may have to change their labels, the FDA says.
Supplement-makers say the regulations are too strict. They are organizing a campaign to persuade Congress to deregulate the $4 billion-a-year industry. Flyers and commercials warn an estimated 76 million supplement-takers that the FDA secretly wants to pull all kinds of remedies off the shelf.
The supplement industry blames drugmakers.
"There is an international conspiracy by the drug industry to eliminate preventive therapy, and the drug industry is a very good friend of the FDA," said Gerald Kessler of the National Health Alliance, a lobbying group.
"Nothing's going to be taken off the market. That is a lie," said the FDA's Mitch Zeller. "But it's a very effective lobbying tool."
Bills introduced by Richardson and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would allow health claims with "reasonable scientific agreement."