Writing to representatives

Nutcracker

The U.S. Senate can be a tough nut to crack.

That’s what an HSI member named Josephine found out when she tried to get through to several senators after reading the e-Alert “Under the Gun” (11/10/03) about two senate bills proposing changes to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The problem: several of Josephine’s e-mails bounced back as undeliverable. She also says, “I went to the senate bill page and put in Senate Bill S 722 and S 1538, which were the topics of today’s HSI newsletter, but those bills never came up. Bills other than health bills had those numbers. Could there be
some mistake?”

Why the e-mail addresses listed at congress.org might be out of service, I couldn’t say. But if the e-mail won’t go through, try sending a letter by snail mail instead. It’s not quite as fast and easy, but it will probably get more attention than an e-mail.

As for reading the text of a current bill – those can be hard to find on the congress.org site. An easier place to look for bills is the Library of Congress web site: loc.gov. On the LOC homepage, click on “Thomas / Legislative Information.” That will take you to a page where you can enter any bill number for a quick link to the full text and status of the bill.

So be like Josephine and exercise your voice! Tell your Senators that you strongly support S. 1538 (“DSHEA Full Implementation and Enforcement Act”) which will provide all the funding necessary to insure consumer protection under DSHEA. Tell them you hope they’ll support S. 1538, while also opposing S. 722 (“Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003”), which will only limit our freedom to make our own health care choices with the responsible use of dietary supplements.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute