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Ephedra is back from the dead! Judge strikes FDA ban down!
I got a call very early this morning. The caller yelled saying 'Ephedra is back! The government cannot regulate supplements! Pro-hormones will come back soon too! I had no idea what was going on until he told me that a federal judge just struck down the ephedra ban. Wow!
We are stunned today. Since the attack on ephedra a few years ago, coupled with lots of lawsuits and bad press, the FDA decided to ban all supplement ephedra sales about a year and a half ago. In some states (like New York and California), it was a little more. So you can imagine the surprise that hit the airwaves on Thursday, April 14, 2005, when a federal judge struck down the FDA ban on supplements containing ephedra.
A company called Nutraceutical had claimed that ephedra has been used for hundreds of years by people, and that the FDA overstepped its bounds when they regulated it as a drug, but not as a good.
Judge Tena Campbell said that the FDA did not follow the rules, which says that the FDA has to prove that the dietary supplement is harmful, and not that the manufacturer has to prove that it is safe. That is required with a drug, but not with a supplement.
Where we go from here no one know right now, but one thing is for sure, some supplement companies are savoring the idea of bringing back ephedra, which was one of the most successful weight loss and energy products out there. The only problem is finding the right insurance company, because of the few people who will use ephedra's side effects to sue anyone anytime.
We also don't know whether the states or individual cities or even sports federations now have the authority to ban something which is now legal again. The upcoming weeks will be quite interesting.