Posted on 06/09/2019 9:38:20 AM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Food and Drug Administration ignored untold numbers of adverse events, including deaths, regulators finally announced in February 2019 that they will increase oversight of the dietary supplements industry
Dietary supplements are big business. Three out of four Americans take one or more on a regular basis, and for older Americans the fraction is four out of five. One in three children also takes supplements. The estimated number of supplement products increased form 4,000 in 1994 to 50,000-80,000 today. Out of pocket expenditures for herbal and complementary nutritional products are about $50 billion, reports Henry Miller. 1
One of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on health conscious American consumers is the hype and outright fraud of dietary supplements that don’t work and are sometimes dangerous.
What could be easier to counterfeit and smuggle than a pill?
I took hundreds of different ones for extended periods of time after severe head injury now 14 years old.
NONE did ANYTHING :) But I don’t recall an adverse side effect.
THAT being said, if you are on an SSRI, there are a number of supplements that can interact with them to cause serotonin syndrome, and if you are on an MAOI antidepressant, again, there are a number of dangerous supplements if taken together than can cause stroke, etc.
So, here we come with the “justification” for massive price increases across the board on all supplements.
It’s for our own good, of course. Vitamin D3 $100 for a bottle of 30. B complex, how about $75 for bottle of 25? Want your fish oil? How about $2 per pill?
They did nothing...but rip you off!
I have a close relative who is in terrible health who spends hundreds at a time on these unknown and unknowable pills. Believes every idiot YouTube he watches. It really makes me mad.
They are putting this out to try to get people behind having supplements made unavailable.
A lot of people die from prescription medications. They should focus on those.
Obviously people need to be careful what they take and buy them from reputable suppliers, but we don’t need the government to regulate things and have them declare many helpful, useful things as harmful.
Be in pain that drives you to psych wards so that you won’t be alone with it because it is so dangerously bad.
Head injury headaches are unGodly and anyone who hasn’t had them shouldn’t comment on them.
Stay awake for 70 plus hours regularly.
Then talk like a tough guy about what you are willing to turn to.
Have a good one.
> Dietary supplements are big business. <
Oh, but do I hate to call for more regulation. But so many supplement providers - even the legal ones - are such liars. Take this and your prostate health will improve. Take that and your memory will improve.
Prescription drug manufactures have to prove effectiveness and safety. They have to go through a process. The same should apply to supplement manufacturers.
(And yeah, I know, “buyer beware” applies. But I sure hate to see liars take advantage of the gullible.)
Let’s face it. If something works,
it will be made prescription only.
The article is the typical drug industry diatribe against vitamins. Claims vitamin C doesn’t cure cancer. Well, neither does aspirin. Stupid.
I don’t know how more regulation will solve this.
There was a case in Germany from last year....cancer drugs were found to be fraudulent (not from the original maker). Of all drugs to select....this pharmacist chose this (probably the pricey stuff). Only way that the guy got caught (ran this through two or three pharmacy shops that he owned)....was that he came to be at some trade show and hinted this, and one of his buddies turned him in.
I had a mechanic from five years ago that had ordered the brake pads. Came in....he was about halfway through putting them on and something just didn’t seem right. Looked at the box...it was not the ‘feel’ of the normal name-brand box (cheaper cardboard). He stopped and went to full inspection of the pads, and they just weren’t of the same quality you’d expect. He returned them and went to a different parts guy.
I think this whole fake products game is running across all segments of society now.
There’s actually quite a bit of legitimate research dietary supplements being conducted. You do have to learn to understand and what constitutes proper studies and research. You don’t get your information from a story written in the Associated Press by a illiberal drooler whose research on an article comes from surfing the web.
Also, mainstream medicine such as the Mayo Clinic and WebMD frequently publish pretty fair evaluations of different supplements and the research that has been conducted on them
Another thing most people who follow supplement fads don’t understand is that if you don’t happen to need a particular supplement taking a bunch of it doesn’t do you any good, and can do the opposite.
We have an excellent family doctor who stays up on all of it and analyzes our blood work and health with that in mind. He has made several very helpful suggestions to my wife and I.
My brother some years ago was the executive director of the national herbal products Association. I learned some very useful things about the whole industry.
I’m a believer in supplements. If the govt thinks it HAS to get involved, then analyze the contents of any supplement for purity and it has what it says on the label and make the results public. Otherwise stay the hell out of supplement regulation. The market can handle the rest.
> I think this whole fake products game is running across all segments of society now. <
Yep. But I was thinking of unproven products, not fake products. For example, I was watching a TV ad recently. It was for a product that claimed to give men over 40 a healthier prostate. That is almost certainly a lie, meant to take in the gullible.
What was really sleazy about the ad was that they had a few men giving testimonials. But in real small letters at the bottom of the screen was “actor portrayal”. Even those men were lying.
Prescription drugs cannot just claim to do something they cannot do. The FDA would not permit it. The same should apply to supplements.
FDA means ‘push everything to big pharma’ to make them more money
Well, if taking 100% of the recommended daily intake for each supplement makes you feel better, obviously I’ll feel 20x better if I take one with 2000% the recommended daily intake....
Some of these supplements do make a difference in specific situations for certain people. It is a good idea to take a multivitamin/mineral tablet to supplement your diet as you get older and your digestive system does not do as good a job at absorbing nutrients. That is just common sense. And a fish oil pill for those who do not like to eat fish has been proven to have some benefit for many.
When I was training for bicycle racing I used to take Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Alpha-Lipoic Acid because it helped to metabolize stored fat at a quicker rate during long rides. It is difficult to eat enough while riding 60 to 100 miles to provide enough carbohydrates to keep up a good pace. A cyclist relies on stored fat during this type of effort and when you can metabolize it quicker it helps one to keep up a faster pace. Of course it is difficult to definitively prove why the time it takes to complete a specific course is shorter and the rider feels more comfortable and has more stable blood sugar measurements. But even if the results were partially because of psychological benefits I am convinced that they helped.
Even though studies have suggested the two supplements have other purported health benefits such as less brain damage after a stroke... I didn’t take them unless I was on a training regimen because my wife claimed that they made me smell bad. I also would not use any supplement that did not come from a reputable source.
From the article, “Counterfeit pharmaceuticals kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.”
The author is apparently convinced that overhyping has worked so well for those pushing “Global Warming” that he should use the same tactic.
The headline crows about “Counterfeit pharmaceuticals” but the article is about real supplements, those that are mislabeled, and those that are counterfeit.
Article needs more work, then resubmit with corrections.
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