LLRX.com, the Law Librarians' Resource Exchange, the premier legal research site on the internet, has published "Researching Laws and Information on Nutritional and Dietary Supplements On the Web," the Nutrisuplaw.com

The potential impact of rules adopted by the Codex Alimentarius commission, especially what effect these rules may have on nutritional supplement availability in the US and elsewhere, has been hotly debated.

In the last 24 hours, FDA has issued two press releases on supplement issues, one concerns another ephedra seizure, and a second warns (albeit belatedly) about brazilian diet pills.

This article in Natural Products Insider contains an excellent discussion of FDA regulations regarding food additives that are Generally Recognized As Safe or GRAS. As the article notes, with the passage of DSHEA in 1994, dietary ingredients used in nutritional supplements no longer had to qualify as GRAS, but instead were regulated under a different regulatory scheme that I have described briefly in the Research Guide appended to this blog.

Beginning January 14, 2006, supplement industry lawyer Jonathan Emord who represented the plaintiffs in the landmark case Pearson v. Shalala will host “Health Law and Politics.”

Vero Beach, Florida based supplement maker Orange Peel Enterprises, makers of the Greens+ line of supplements containing, among other herbal ingredients, chlorophyl, has sued the maker of Super Greens Plus for trademark infringement.

This article reports that two professors from the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University, Karen Russo France, Ph.D. and Paula Fitzgerald Bone, Ph.D.,

A personal note here to my readers wishing everyone a Happy New Year! Like many people, I have resolved to lose weight this year. No great supplement news there, but there is a website called SparkPeople that is offering a free on-line diet program similar to other paid programs available on the internet.

An article entitled 'Functional Drinks: an uncertain future' co-authored by Craig Simpson and Darren Abrahams, attorneys in the Brussels office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, is featured in the 2005/2006 Life Sciences Industry Report and is available on the internet here.

According to this article the Governor of New Jersey signed an executive order today that, among other things, "directs state health officials to come up with a plan to check nutritional supplements for steroids."

The National Nutritional Foods Association has just released a guide for nutritional and dietary supplement retailers to assist stores with 2 issues: 1) what to do when the FDA comes knocking for an inspection, and 2) how to provide nutrition information to customers within the law and FDA regulations.

Ayurveda is an ancient system of medicine from India that uses herbs to bring the mind and body into balance for optimal health and well being.

While nutritional supplement patents are not unheard of, it is still somewhat unusual for nutritional supplement makers to apply for patents on their formulations. Instead, supplement makers typically rely on trade secret protection, creating proprietary blends of ingredients and keeping the formula secret.

NNFA sent out an email alert yesterday with updated information on ephedra. The association said that this update was prompted by recent seizures by FDA of dietary supplement products containing ephedrine alkaloids.

Dateline, my home town, Boca Raton, Florida, which, previously unknown to me, is home to a kava bar called Nakava where this root of the pepper plant is served up as "horrible tasting" tea to thirsty college students at nearby Florida Atlantic University, so says USA TODAY.

  Earlier this year, legislators in California proposed a new law that would set up a universal healthcare system in the state, similar to the Canadian system.

We told you about the last teleseminar here. Well, the NNFA is doing it again, but the call is limited to the first 200 NNFA member companies to respond.

Scott Bass, counsel to the NNFA, and head of the International Food and Drug Law Practice at Sidley Austin Brown & Wood has penned an excellent article about the current state of the nutritional supplement industry.

In what appears to be the first enforcement action since last year's ephedra ban, the US Marshalls, working with the FDA, has seized 2634 bottles of "Nature's Treat Energy Plus #1 from Nature's Treat, Inc.

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) and NPIcenter have collaborated to create a subcription database to access all notifications the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received for new dietary ingredients (NDIs).