The Omnibus Spending Bill was released on December 20 without including the controversial Mandatory Product Listing (MPL) of dietary supplements.

Daniel Fabricant, PhD, president and CEO of the Natural Products Association (NPA), stated, “This is a big win for consumers, for innovation, and for access to the healthy products that millions of Americans rely on and turned to during the height of the pandemic. We expected that industry critics would try to use the lame duck as another backdoor opportunity to jam this through and that’s exactly what happened. But thanks to NPA’s advocacy and the tens of thousands of individuals who took part in our grassroots campaign, that effort was rejected. We are incredibly thankful to our members, our Board of Directors, and our allies in Congress who stood firm against this misguided and unnecessary approach.”

NPA staff and board of directors worked with influential members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, the chief negotiating committees for the FDA user fees, expressing significant concerns with including provisions from the Dietary Supplement Listing Act, including MPL, according to the association.

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) also released a statement, commenting that "The exclusion of MPL provisions comes within weeks of the American Herbal Products Association's (AHPA's) letter to the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives committees with oversight over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in which the association requested that MPL language be excluded from any must-pass appropriations legislation considered during the last weeks of the 117th Congress. The decision to shelve MPL legislation in the current Congress also followed a December 7 floor speech in which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) made his final appeal to his Senate colleagues to include MPL legislation in the omnibus bill.

A longtime proponent of establishing a legal requirement for dietary supplements to be listed with the FDA, Durbin introduced the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022 with Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) in April and has reportedly vowed to continue to push for MPL legislation in the next Congress, which will convene in January 2023.

For more information, visit www.npanational.org and www.ahpa.org.