A call to more heavily regulate the supplement industry

The bottom line is that the market is NOT taking care of these things. The market has largely NOT taken care of purity, content, efficacy, and safety. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing efficacy. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing side effects. The market has NOT taken care of misleading labeling.

These things are - right now - actual problems. People are spending billions of dollars a year on unregulated supplements being marketed to them for essentially specious purposes. The market has not fixed this.

I wouldn't either if people are happy to spend billions on my crap.

Exactly. People are so happy to lap this stuff up, there's no market pressure for any of it. The public clearly doesn't give a damn if the stuff actually works, as long as some "expert" goes on TV and tells them it does.

But if they're so happy with the arrangement, why take it away from them? Why do you want to make people unhappy, jonnythan? First you say you're smarter, THEN you wanna take away their fun! Sheesh!

That's the thing about scientists. We don't want to be told something works. We want to see the data. We want to know what people are putting into their bodies. And then we get called a bunch of uncaring so-and-so's by paranoid, knee jerking, fine upstanding, pot smoking citizens. *sniff*

I wasn't aware scientists liked to tell people what to do.

Where am I telling someone to do something?

This whole thread is about telling people what to do. You think you are smarter than the rest, so you get to say what we can or can't put in our own bodies.

The thread is a discussion on potentially regulating and industry. Not telling individuals they can or cannot consume something.

Let me help this thread out with a real example from my past experience.

Garlic supplements. Garlic supplements can thin your blood. This has the potential to be dangerous if you are taking Warfarin.

When I sold garlic supplements, I checked with my customers. I was not required to, however, and many other managers/staff did not. There is no requirement to post contra-indications on the bottle.

You can, today, go out and buy garlic oil supplements, take them on top of your Warfarin, and have no idea that there is a potential interaction.

You can also get prescriptions from different doctors that can counteract or cause a negative reaction. It is impossible to prevent that from happening. People have to be responsible. You can't force it through laws.

You're right. It's hopeless. Let's not even try.

And food safety - to heck with it. You can catch E.Coli from spinach grown in your garden, right? So why make farms adhere to any sort of safety standards?

Drug testing? Nah, just let them put it on the market and find out about side effects from the populous. I'm sure if enough people die, then the links will be made to the drugs in at least a couple of years, and the company will get it right off the shelf before too many more people die or are made sick enough to live the rest of their lives in financial ruin from medical bills.

Your nihilistic viewpoints ignore the fact that you are currently protected by countless regulations, and you have no idea what would happen if they were not in place. We all live a luxurious, protected life, with little or no worry about the safety of the food we eat and the medicines we use, precisely because of the regulations you so despise.

What *must* be done is to have an avenue of justice for victims. We must keep laws simple and to the point. A false sense of security is much more dangerous than a free market.

The bottom line is that the market is NOT taking care of these things. The market has largely NOT taken care of purity, content, efficacy, and safety. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing efficacy. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing side effects. The market has NOT taken care of misleading labeling.

These things are - right now - actual problems. People are spending billions of dollars a year on unregulated supplements being marketed to them for essentially specious purposes. The market has not fixed this.

I wouldn't either if people are happy to spend billions on my crap.

Exactly. People are so happy to lap this stuff up, there's no market pressure for any of it. The public clearly doesn't give a damn if the stuff actually works, as long as some "expert" goes on TV and tells them it does.

But if they're so happy with the arrangement, why take it away from them? Why do you want to make people unhappy, jonnythan? First you say you're smarter, THEN you wanna take away their fun! Sheesh!

That's the thing about scientists. We don't want to be told something works. We want to see the data. We want to know what people are putting into their bodies. And then we get called a bunch of uncaring so-and-so's by paranoid, knee jerking, fine upstanding, pot smoking citizens. *sniff*

I wasn't aware scientists liked to tell people what to do.

Where am I telling someone to do something?

This whole thread is about telling people what to do. You think you are smarter than the rest, so you get to say what we can or can't put in our own bodies.

The thread is a discussion on potentially regulating and industry. Not telling individuals they can or cannot consume something.

That completely ignores consumers, as if consumers have *nothing* to do with the very existence of an industry. People don't buy things because they are for sale. Rather, people sell things that consumers want to buy.

The bottom line is that the market is NOT taking care of these things. The market has largely NOT taken care of purity, content, efficacy, and safety. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing efficacy. The market has NOT taken care of scientifically establishing side effects. The market has NOT taken care of misleading labeling.

These things are - right now - actual problems. People are spending billions of dollars a year on unregulated supplements being marketed to them for essentially specious purposes. The market has not fixed this.

I wouldn't either if people are happy to spend billions on my crap.

Exactly. People are so happy to lap this stuff up, there's no market pressure for any of it. The public clearly doesn't give a damn if the stuff actually works, as long as some "expert" goes on TV and tells them it does.

But if they're so happy with the arrangement, why take it away from them? Why do you want to make people unhappy, jonnythan? First you say you're smarter, THEN you wanna take away their fun! Sheesh!

That's the thing about scientists. We don't want to be told something works. We want to see the data. We want to know what people are putting into their bodies. And then we get called a bunch of uncaring so-and-so's by paranoid, knee jerking, fine upstanding, pot smoking citizens. *sniff*

I wasn't aware scientists liked to tell people what to do.

Where am I telling someone to do something?

This whole thread is about telling people what to do. You think you are smarter than the rest, so you get to say what we can or can't put in our own bodies.

The thread is a discussion on potentially regulating and industry. Not telling individuals they can or cannot consume something.

That completely ignores consumers, as if consumers have *nothing* to do with the very existence of an industry. People don't buy things because they are for sale. Rather, people sell things that consumers want to buy.

I'm currently taking some MBA marketing courses. I can tell you that this is categorically wrong.

I cannot comment on whether government should regulate the claims that herbal supplements make as I'm totally biased towards clinical trials and western medicine. However, I find it really interesting that there is an argument about the FDA (or some company) verifying/regulating the content of these supplements.

This is from a new study where 44 supplements from 12 different companies were tested....
BMC Med. 2013 Oct 11;11(1):222.
DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products.
Newmaster SG, Grguric M, Shanmughanandhan D, Ramalingam S, Ragupathy S.



"Although we were able to authenticate almost half (48%) of the products, one-third of these also contained contaminants and or fillers not listed on the label. Product substitution occurred in 30/44 of the products tested and only 2/12 companies had products without any substitution, contamination or fillers. Some of the contaminants we found pose serious health risks to consumers."

Even if you don't like government regulation, how can one argue that these companies should continue to be left to their own devices and blatantly mislabel and mislead the public?

*edited to fix picture

I cannot comment on whether government should regulate the claims that herbal supplements make as I'm totally biased towards clinical trials and western medicine. However, I find it really interesting that there is an argument about the FDA (or some company) verifying/regulating the content of these supplements.

This is from a new study where 44 supplements from 12 different companies were tested....
BMC Med. 2013 Oct 11;11(1):222.
DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products.
Newmaster SG, Grguric M, Shanmughanandhan D, Ramalingam S, Ragupathy S.



"Although we were able to authenticate almost half (48%) of the products, one-third of these also contained contaminants and or fillers not listed on the label. Product substitution occurred in 30/44 of the products tested and only 2/12 companies had products without any substitution, contamination or fillers. Some of the contaminants we found pose serious health risks to consumers."

Even if you don't like government regulation, how can one argue that these companies should continue to be left to their own devices and blatantly mislabel and mislead the public?

*edited to fix picture

I love how the anti-regulation side ignored my question as to what due diligence would entail.