The reintroduced Dietary Supplement Listing Act would require every dietary supplement manufacturer, packer, or distributor to register its products with the Food and Drug Administration, submitting label information the company already holds. Senator Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who reintroduced the bill on January 15, 2026, frames it as a transparency measure; the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a major industry trade group, endorses it; and the Natural Products Association, another trade group, condemns it as an unnecessary burden. Understanding that split requires understanding what the bill asks for and what current law does not.
The Dietary Supplement Listing Act: A New Push for Transparency
Durbin's office announced the reintroduction citing polling that nine out of ten American adults support listing requirements for dietary supplements. The bill's core mechanism is simple: manufacturers would register products with the FDA, and the agency would make that information publicly searchable. The Council for Responsible Nutrition, which has advocated for a federal registry for years, called the bill's introduction a milestone in its effort to modernize oversight of the supplement marketplace. The legislation has also drawn endorsements from the Consumer Federation of America, the United States Pharmacopeia, U.S. PIRG, and the supplement company Ritual, according to Durbin's announcement.
Understanding the Current Regulatory Landscape: DSHEA's Limitations
The framework at issue dates to 1994, when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. DSHEA gave FDA tools to regulate supplements, but not the tools it has for drugs. The FDA's own consumer guidance states plainly that under DSHEA the agency is not authorized to approve dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed, and that in many cases firms can lawfully introduce supplements without even notifying the agency. The agency's oversight is largely post-market: facility inspections, review of premarket safety notifications for certain new dietary ingredients, and investigation of adverse event reports.
The market DSHEA governs has changed dramatically. When the law was enacted, roughly 4,000 supplements were on the market, according to the Council for Responsible Nutrition; current estimates cited by the group exceed 80,000 products. The FDA's consumer materials similarly note the number of products has expanded nearly twenty times since 1994. Yet, as CRN points out, FDA still lacks a comprehensive, up-to-date inventory of what is being sold — a gap the trade group argues undermines transparency, enforcement, and consumer confidence. A 2015 review of supplement regulation in the academic literature concluded that many deficiencies predating DSHEA were never adequately addressed.
