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Science Policy News The 2023 ASPET Washington Fellows have authored policy briefs as part of their experience in the Washington Fellows Program. A policy brief is a summary of information with recommendations that highlights a policy problem and helps readers understand, and likely make decisions about, government policies. The fellows were asked to write a brief on any policy area that interests them. This final activity for the 2023 Fellows Program provided an opportunity for participants to implement what they learned from the program that included advocacy and policy writing. Their briefs also provide writing samples they can use in the future. This section includes policy briefs from eight of the fellows.
The Rapid Rise of Dietary Supplement Consumption: A Case for Increased Efforts Towards Regulation and Safety Research Caitlin J. Risener, M.S., PhD Candidate Emory University, Molecular and Systems Pharmacology
What are Dietary and Herbal Supplements? Dietary supplements are defined by congress in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 as products that are taken orally (as a capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid), intend to supplement the diet, include one or more dietary ingredient (i.e., vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, enzymes, tissues from organs or glands, or extracts of these). Herbal supplements (also referred to as “botanicals”) are a subset of dietary supplements that contain one or more herbs.
Rapid Market Growth of Dietary and Herbal Supplements Dietary and herbal supplement sales are multi-billiondollar industries steadily increasing over the last decade in the United States. Experts estimate that the overall sales of dietary supplement market ($33.7 billion as of 2020) will increase by 4% by 2025. Herbal supplement sales in 2011 totaled $5.302 billion, then increased nearly 140% to $12.350 billion by 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a notable spike in sales for all dietary supplements
The Pharmacologist • September 2023
(7.5%), with a 17.3% increase in herbal supplement use from 2019 to 20206-8. These trends suggest that many U.S. residents placed trust in what they believed to be “natural” remedies during difficult times in public health.
“Natural” Does Not Necessarily Mean “Safer” Many dietary supplements are marketed based on potentially harmful understudied ingredients using overzealous claims not backed by scientific research. The lack of appropriate research funding towards safety and pre-market regulation for dietary supplements poses a risk to public health. Though sales of herbal supplements increased tremendously, the funding towards researching safety and efficacy of all dietary supplements remains inadequate with a steady average of $262.7 million from 2012-2022. In 2020, $318 million of government funds were devoted to dietary supplement research, which was only 0.94% of the revenue brought into the U.S. market from dietary supplement sales. While the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates medical products under the U.S. Department of Human and Health Service, many consumers are unaware that the FDA does not
