Dietary supplement industry trade association the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) this week launched an advertising campaign to run in two Congress publications as part of its bid to educate Congress on industry issues.
The education outreach effort, which also includes monthly mailings to all congressional offices, is designed to emphasize the benefits of dietary supplements and reinforce the fact that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) provides an appropriate and viable framework for regulation. CRN is also hoping it will be positioned as the source for responsible, science-based information on the dietary supplement industry.
"With all the recent controversy surrounding a few specific products, we felt it important to point out that our industry encompasses a wide range of products that are valued for their health benefits by more than 150 million Americans," said CRN president Dr Annette Dickinson.
"In addition, we hope the campaign will open a dialogue that allows us to talk further about how our industry is regulated, why we appreciate FDA's recent efforts to more fully enforce that regulation, and the ways in which industry needs to increase its own self-regulatory efforts."
The advertising campaign focuses on the benefits of dietary supplements, as a category, and includes the tag-line 'DSHEA: It Makes Sense, Let's Make it Work'. The black-and-white ads will appear nine times, from June through September, in Congress publications Roll Call and The Hill.
CRN began sending out color monthly mailers, which focus on a different category each month, in March, beginning with the multivitamin issue. Other monthly mailings have included calcium and folic acid with upcoming mailings planned for ginkgo, antioxidants, echinacea, glucosamine/chondroitin and omega-3 fatty acids.
The campaign is being featured on the CRN website.