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The Impact And Limits Of The Constitutional Deregulation Of Health Claims On Foods And Supplements: From Dementia To Nuts To Chocolate To Saw Palmetto, Margaret Gilhooley

Mercer Law Review

The Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") recently issued an enforcement policy identifying the types of health claims in the disclaimers that are constitutionally permitted on foods and dietary supplements. In 1990 Congress required that before a company could make a health claim on a food product, the FDA must approve the claim as based on significant scientific agreement. While the 1990 law gave the FDA discretion to establish a lesser standard for nutritional supplements than for food products, the FDA chose to apply the same standard. Thus, claims on nutritional supplements had to be supported by significant scientific agreement. Supplement …