Statements not evaluated by FDA...why not?

[Free4Life11]

I always wondered why the FDA wouldn't evaluate the claims and statements on vitamins and other supplements. Maybe now with the stimulus they will have funding to do so? I just think it would be nice to know if the stuff I am taking REALLY can do all that it claims to. Also the products could potentially be safer if they are regulated.

There's got to be some reason they don't, but I'm just not sure why. I know they aren't really either a food or a drug, but they are close enough.

 

[Lisa_M]

Here's why they aren't:
"But in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which allowed supplements—broadly defined as vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids and other products that don't contain approved pharmaceutical drugs and don't claim to treat diseases—to be sold with no proof of effectiveness or safety, and without approval from the FDA (page 59). That legislation, heavy with lobbyists' fingerprints, razed virtually every barrier to entry into the marketplace."
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1155395/index.htm