A new FDA document reveals new plan to classify almost all vitamins, supplements, herbs, and vegetable juices as regulatable drugs.  In addition, massage oils an rocks will be categorized as medical devices. Docket No. 2006D-0480, Draft Guidance For Industry on Complementary an Alternative Medicine Products an Their Regulation by the FDA, is accepting comments until April 30.

Under this new set of guidelines, the FDA will determine whether herbs, supplements, vitamins, or massage stones will be regulated as drugs/medical devices.

The purpose of this change would be to regulate things like juices that are market as "cures" for various ailments.  In the docket, it elaborates saying, "if a person decides to produce and sell raw vegetable juice for use in juice therapy to promote optimal health... [and] if the juice therapy is intended for use as part of a disease treatment regimen instead of for the general wellness, the vegetable juice would also be subject to regulation as a drug under the Act."

While the new Act may serve to regulate supplements in a beneficial way, critics are saying that the FDA is simply trying to regulate natural supplements off of the market.

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