More than 100 top legal and regulatory experts participated in the CRN/ACI 4th Annual Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Forum last week in New York City, hearing from a faculty of more than 40 experts, including congressional staff, officials from FDA and FTC, three state attorney’s general offices, as well as CRN and several member companies. After opening remarks, CRN President & CEO Steve Mister addressed the group for the kickoff session, “New Insights on the Politics, Policy, and Regulation of Dietary Supplements: Analysis of the Latest Developments on the Hill and at FDA.”

Mr. Mister’s presentation took a look at how far the dietary supplement industry has come in just one year—last year at this time, it was still reeling from fallout from the actions of the New York Attorney General. Mr. Mister explained that in 2016, industry stakeholders engaged in substantive conversations about quality, transparency and accountability and now several industry initiatives are in progress, including the product registry spearheaded by CRN. He noted that these initiatives are all moving forward while the industry concurrently responds to legislative proposals—both at the state and federal levels—and regulatory enforcement issues, and at the same time disseminating data-backed messages about the value of dietary supplements to Americans’ health and wellness as well as to the economy.

Tiffany Guarascio, deputy staff director, ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and chief health adviser for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, followed Mr. Mister. Ms. Guarascio noted there is no current focus on dietary supplements in the committee, but gave an informative overview of how the committee’s activities intersect with regulatory concerns and industry issues.

Over the course of the two-day conference, with additional workshops, attendees also heard from FDA’s Steven Tave, acting director, of the agency’s Office of Dietary Supplement Programs; Scott Kaplan, FDA’s associate chief counsel; and Michelle Rusk, a top attorney in FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices. Greg Zoeller, Indiana attorney general, along with head staff from state attorneys general offices, Phil Carlson, of South Dakota and Matthew Lenz, of Rhode Island, shared state enforcers’ viewpoints in an open discussion moderated by CRN’s Rend Al-Mondhiry.

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