The last time US Democrats controlled Congress, in 1994, dietary supplement makers received a huge windfall: a new law that gave them the right to make unproven health claims about their products.

This time around, things don't look quite so rosy for the industry, which has grown from a $9.5 billion enterprise in 1994 to a $22 billion behemoth.

We will take a hard look at dietary supplements. John Dingell, House Energy and Commerce Committee

“We will take a hard look at dietary supplements,” Democratic congressman John Dingell, new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters the day after the November elections. “You might even find that the Department of Justice will be looking into possible criminal sanctions.”

The Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act, signed into law in December, and largely supported by the industry, requires companies to report adverse reactions to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but puts the onus on the agency to prove that a supplement is unsafe.

Since 2003, following reports of deaths related to ephedra (Nat. Med. 9, 634–635; 2003), Dingell has tried to push through another bill that would significantly boost the FDA's authority to investigate supplements, even when the agency has not received reports from the companies of bad reactions.

Supplement makers have no incentive to bring dangerous products to market, says Steven Mister, president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition in Washington, a lobbying group for some 80 supplement firms. “Somebody who is in this for the long run is going to take care of their consumers.”