The health freedom movement is a libertarian coalition that opposes regulation of health practices and advocates for increased access to "non-traditional" health care. The right-wing John Birch Society has been a prominent advocate for health freedom since at least the 1970s, and the specific term "health freedom movement" has been used in the United States since the 1990s. Vitamins and supplements have been exempted in the US from regulations requiring evidence of safety and efficacy, largely due to the activism of health freedom advocates. The belief that supplements and vitamins can demonstrably improve health or longevity and that there are no negative consequences from their use, is not widely accepted in the medical community. Very rarely, large doses of some vitamins lead to vitamin poisoning (hypervitaminosis). Roots and support base Health freedom is a libertarian position not aligned to the conventional left/right political axis. Libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2005. Prominent celebrity supporters of the movement include the musician Sir Paul McCartney, who says that people "have a right to buy legitimate health food supplements" and that "this right is now clearly under threat," and the pop star/actress Billie Piper, who joined a march in London in 2003 to protest planned EU legislation to ban high dosage vitamin supplements. Legislation United States The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) defines supplements as foods and thus permits marketing unless the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proves that it poses significant or unreasonable risk of harm rather than requiring the manufacturer to prove the supplement’s safety or efficacy. The Food and Drug Administration can take action only if the producers make medical claims about their products or if consumers of the products become seriously ill. An October 2002 nationwide Harris poll showed that, at that time, consumers still had widespread confusion about the differences between supplements and pharmaceuticals. Here, 59% of respondents believed that supplements had to be approved by a government agency before they could be marketed; 68% believed that supplements had to list potential side effects on their labels; and 55% believed that supplement labels could not make claims of safety without scientific evidence. All of these beliefs are incorrect as a result of provisions of the DSHEA. A law in the U.S. State of Virginia allows teenagers 14 or older and