The COVID-19 quarantine changed everyday life for Americans, including many aspects of our diet, health and exercise regimens. One change that has not received enough scrutiny is that during the pandemic, millions of Americans turned to dietary supplements. In 2020, sales of dietary supplements were 14.5% higher than the previous year — the largest growth spurt since 1997, according to the Nutrition Business Journal’s 2021 report on supplement sales.
Today, nearly three-quarters of U.S. consumers take regular doses of vitamins, fish oil, herbs and similar products, the Council for Responsible Nutrition reports. The Food and Drug Administration is tasked with overseeing the booming supplement industry, but the agency has less insight and exerts far less oversight than many Americans say they want and expect.
A national survey conducted for The Pew Charitable Trusts showed about half of adults overestimate the regulatory scrutiny that dietary supplements receive. The reality is that the FDA doesn’t know for certain what products are on the market or what’s in them. This is a serious challenge — one that Congress can address by passing Senate Bill 4090, known as the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022, a bill recently introduced by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind.
