Ephedra banned!

Bowing to hysteria, the feds outlaw ephedra, then signal that they're not done yet

Go ahead, stroll into your local convenience store, snap up a carton of cigarettes and smoke until you cough up a lung. Or, if you'd prefer, grab of case of rotgut booze and drink until you vomit blood. Just don't waltz into a health store or pharmacy and try to score some ephedra, punk.

That's the message the federal government delivered on December 30, 2003, when Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy Thompson announced that the popular and effective weight-loss supplement ephedra would be banned in the United States. The prohibition was scheduled to take effect 60 days after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially publishes its reasons for removing the diet aid from the market, although the FDA did advise consumers to cease using the supplement immediately.

Naturally, consumers did no such thing, but instead began feverishly stocking up on soon-to-be-unavailable ephedra products, according to retailers and online distributors. Tellingly, the gyms and health clubs of America didn't turn into hellish killing fields after the run on these allegedly dangerous products.

As FLEX has exhaustively pointed out during the past three years, the evidence "proving" ephedra to be unsafe if used as directed wilts under close scientific scrutiny. In reaching their decision to banish ephedra, the HHS and FDA leaned heavily on the accumulation of Adverse Event Reports (AERs), which are a catalog of consumer complaints reported to the FDA. But AERs are little more than a codification of anecdotal experience and aren't classified as research data. Moreover, in 1999, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, stated that "the AERs [compiled by the FDA] were poorly documented."

Perhaps more persuasive to government officials was the media tsunami of overheated accusations implicating ephedra in the high-profile deaths of several top athletes, although the link between the supplement and the fatalities remains inconclusive. Even the tragic case of Steve Bechler, a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, which drove the white-knuckle media panic into overdrive, did little to prove ephedra's dangers. The link is even weaker if one eliminates the preconceived biases of the coroner in the case (see "The Trials of Ephedra," FLEX, June '03).

Ironically, there is plenty of evidence regarding a separate health issue: obesity. The National Institutes of Health calls the problem an epidemic, and some experts estimate that obesity is killing 300,000 people per year in the United States. Then there was the study released in January 2004 by the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen, Denmark, that found 14% of American boys and 15% of American girls were obese, making U.S. adolescents by far the fattest in the world. And you thought their backpacks were overstuffed.

In the midst of this plague of paunch, federal bureaucrats act to ban a proven effective weight-loss product. Worse, members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are crafting bills that will further erode the rights of consumers to use nutritional supplements. So, as the country's health-care system is ravaged by obesity-related disease and American employers face dramatic losses in productivity from dangerously overweight workers, the federal government declares war on the fitness industry. Where's the logic in that?

This country can do better. To save your freedom of choice from the newly empowered nanny state, contact your representative (see sidebar) and make your voice heard. Make sure that ephedra is the end and not the beginning of the new war on supplements.

RELATED ARTICLE: GET INVOLVED: STOP THE ASSAULT ON SUPPLEMENTS

A doctor's prescription for creatine? Sound ridiculous? Think again. Currently, some members of Congress are creating bills that will significantly harm the ability of manufacturers and retailers to provide the products you've come to rely on for your bodybuilding needs.

The lessons of liberty never change. To retain your freedoms, you must fight for them. We strongly urge FLEX readers to contact not only their local representatives, but also key senators and representatives who have voiced intentions to heavily regulate the supplement industry. Passionately vocal Americans can make a difference. Our leaders need to hear from you.

Contact these congressmen and tell them to leave supplements alone.

* Senator John McCain: 241 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510; (202) 224-2235; Web form: mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=contact.home

* Representative Henry Waxman: 2204 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515; (202) 225-3976; e-mail: www.house.gov/waxman/contact.htm

To find your representatives, go to www.senate.gov or www.house.gov.

PUBLIC CITIZEN, A CONsumer safety watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., recently demanded that the FDA ban all ephedra products. The group cited nearly 1,400 reports to the FDA of ephedra-related health problems, ranging from hypertension to death, between 1999 and 2001. It also cited 876 reports filed with the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) between 1997 and 1999.

Ephedra, also known as ma huang, has been used for more than 4,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine. It has recently become popular as an ingredient in weight-loss and performance-enhancing supplements in America. Controversy started this past summer when two college football players who reportedly had been using ephedra died. Coroner and doctor reports were inconclusive, but that didn't stop Public Citizen from filing its petition in September. Three days later the National Football League barred its players from using the supplement, voicing concerns over safety.

The FDA reports cited by Public Citizen are misleading because they aren't verified or documented with medical records, says Wes Siegner, legal counsel to the Ephedra Education Council, an industry organization in Washington, D.C. Public Citizen cites a rise in ephedra problems, but Siegner points out that more than 3 billion ephedra supplements are sold each year, making the 1,400 cases reported to the FDA over three years a low figure. And when you compare the number of AAPCC ephedra reports to the number of aspirin-related problems--2,621 in just one year--ephedra's 876 reports over three years is also low.

So will the FDA ban ephedra? FDA officials won't say when they will reach a decision. But Rob McCaleb, president of the nonprofit Herb Research Foundation in Boulder, Colo., says that historically the government has banned few herbs and that it's unlikely the agency will pull ephedra from the supplement market. "[Ephedra] can be safely used when taken as directed by normal, healthy people," says McCaleb.
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