As a Canadian, I cannot help but keep my eyes on what the Americans are doing with regards to various legislation. Canada in a lot of ways is like a calmer, more reasonable version of it’s American neighbors, and when they take a stand on a topic, it often trickles north of the border as well. When I first heard of DSHEA I was hopeful, but in practice it became obvious that there simply wasn’t enough control around the legislation.

There’s been at least one attempt since DSHEA to toughen up the controls around dietary supplements, and it was shouted down, so I’m hesitant when I read on Neurologica today that Henry Waxman (pictured) is putting forward a bill to (in Dr. Novella’s words) “require vitamin companies to defend their health claims with actual evidence.”

It’s about time. It frustrates the hell out of me that people can dry out some kelp, shake on some garlic, grind it up, and claim it’s the cure for cancer with absolutely no validity to the statement. If a restaurant touted their eighteen pound hamburger, ate in a single sitting, could actually cure cancer you can be damn sure that there’d be a lot of people up in arms about false advertising, but somehow all this time the vitamin/supplement hawkers from Big Placebo have been getting away with it.

Obviously, the bill is not law yet, and it’s anyone’s guess if the Canadian government would follow suit, but it’d be nice to see the Americans take a harsher stance on this, and the benefits would no doubt trickle their way north. It’s like when the Texans decide that all science textbooks need to promote Creationism equally with Evolution. Sure, it’s just one state, but if they’re the biggest consumer of the textbooks, they make policies which impact lots of other places. Hopefully this same sort of thing happens.

Jim