Weight loss supplements sold over the Internet may contain hazardous ingredients
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comOnline diet pills could be next drug safety 'catastrophe'
Seeded on Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:45 AM EST (msnbc.com)
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Well, I don't see what the problem is ... these same libs who write (and comment on) the stories here on MSNBC say making cannibus widely and readily available is the best thing for everyone, so what is the problem with diet pills being easy to obtain? Michelle is constantly badgering us that we need to keep our weight under control, so I would think this would be good news for libs ... must be that diet pills are not "sufficiently taxed"? Is that what this is leading up to?
No the problem is that this stuff can actually kill you, and the chemicals in the products are not being disclosed. Cannabis is a natural plant.
You're totally missing the point. These products may contain dangerous ingredients not listed on the label. Those who need to lose weight somehow refuse to face the fact that normally speaking, the only way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories. Take some responsibility for yourself instead of blaming the govt, restaurants (although they could definitely serve smaller portions), and food companies. Politics has nothing to do with it; however, companies that do not properly label their products should be closed down.
No he's not missing the point, he's just another Liberal basher whose mantra is "Conservatives Good, Liberals Evil". You can tell he's just a troll because he ignores the facts and goes straight to "attack mode". His kind is to be ignored and pitied.
Another reductionist moron.
Way to turn even this into a partisan issue, STexan. You are reliable, if nothing else.
Our supplement-crazy nation is throwing their money away on stupid 'cures' that probably do more harm than good. Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it can't kill you. After all, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury are 100% natural substances. Use your brains, people.
Do not forget that people are throwing the idea that "organic" supplements are mostly no better, after all, an organic compound just consists of carbon and hydrogen.
Wait! You left out oxygen! My favorite carbs have to have carbon, hydrogen AND oxygen to be counted as organic compounds. Mmmmmm--carbohydrates!
While I agree that people should use their brains, the notion that it mainly applies to supplements bothers me. I know a 20-year-old who had her gall bladder removed yesterday, rather than change her ridiculous eating habits. My neighbor has used Lanacane for over 20 years, for a skin condition on her hands and feet that itches ferociously and swells up. Then her physician told her to stop and gave her a drug that within weeks took away her ability to taste. We made an ointment with aloe, vitamin E and colloidal silver and for the first time in years, it is disappearing, and her ability to taste has returned. Great doctors, she's had. She has diabetes. Her problem could probably have been dealt with by using vinegar and epsom salts in her bath.
Medicine and pharmaceuticals. Yeah. Trust THAT without engaging your brains!
The ironic thing is that right next to the headline of this article is a banner ad for a "freaky muscular growth" supplement. Advertising fail.
Really? I got an ad for Metamucil. Oh, snap!
Ahhh... Phen Phen online now.
I think first lady Nancy Reagan had it right "Just say no to drugs"
Trainwrecks are very popular in America right now. We all love to watch em! I wouldn't confuse the reason for her popularity & say it's because she's a "shrewd" politician and "not dumb". The American public likes to encourage public spectacles ...it makes us feel better about our own lives!
oh, and then suddenly we care so much about our citizens so much so to take away something that "may" be detrimental to our health, yet, decisions made by insurance companies often make decisions that are detrimental to our health to benefit their bottom line. Insurance companies are allowed to make those kinds of decisions every day. Nobody cares to change that...
The real problem, IMHO, is that the FDA has taken to banning anything that even remotely resembles something that actually HELPS people loose weight. Ephedrine based weight loss products worked amazingly well, and yes, some people who took 5 to 10 times the recommended dosages had heart attacks. The FDA couldn't establish any link between heart attacks and the actual RECOMMENDED dosages, but because people had em when they OD'd that supplement was removed from the market completely. The FDA and the government tells you that being overweight is one of the leading causes of death, but then removes any supplements that helps people loose weight. Gotta love bureaucracy.
Let's try this on for size. FDA, you tell me what the risks are, and let ME decide if I want to take those risks. Land of the free, home of the brave... not really. Now it the land of the regulated home of the wusses.
Good luck with that. The FDA has a HORRID track record for putting the public health first. You come second to drug company profits. It has been proven and the FDA has been CAUGHT in lie after lie while allowing drugs to remain on the market that their own scientists warned should have never been allowed.
Drugs in the US alone kill over 270,000 people per year, and that is if you take them accordingly!!
Lets keep the diet pills and ban the FDA.
What else can you expect, they are underfunded, undermanned and lack enough authority to regulate all the compounds in the market, also the gold standard of clinical trials do not have the funding (privately) to keep going indefinately, so even drugs that have long term adverse effects will not be seen until being released into the market.
That isn't true. Avandia was tested prior to being FDA approved by it's own scientists that warned they had serious concerns about what it does to your heart. The upper FDA management said "drug companies are our customers" and fired the lead scientist.
800+ heart attacks and thousands of heart disease patients later.....
They got sued over this and lost.
The FDA ignores Federal Judges orders daily with immunity.
This is a very EVIL government agency, there is no doubt about it. We haven't even mentioned GMO foods yet..... There were over 44,000 documents from the FDA's own scientists that questioned the dangers of GMO foods. It was released and you are now seeing the pandemic of disease, allergies, sterility, cancers and heart disease. These are the SAME things that showed up in testing on rats. GMO FDA APPROVED.
I have NO FAITH in the FDA anymore and anyone with any brains should question this agencies real agenda and it has NOTHING to do with you being healthy. Think corporation profits.....
All the drugs you criticize the FDA for banning, especially those that were sold over the counter, have contributed to death and permanent injury. You really might want to do some homework (just a little google) before you offer your "Opinion".
The FDA was dismantled to a considerable degree by Reagan and by Bush and the result is death. Small government? It's been taken apart and that's where the problems actually are.
By saying "criticize the FDA for banning" are you meaning the VERY FEW people killed by supplements or the 250,000 killed each year by big pharma drugs (some pulled, most still on the market killing to this day)?
Just curious of which one you are talking about.
Geoffreyf, the "drugs" like ephedra that you say "have contributed to death and permanent injury" were under a dozen, and in most cases the person had taken many more than the recommended dosage. Plus one of the deaths was caused by also drinking nine cups of coffee and then getting killed in an auto accident. Hundreds die every year from taking aspirin. Ephedra is so much better than pseudo-ephedra for sinus problems, and can't be used to make meth ... but the FDA pulled it. It also is a wonder drug for some asthmatics. The FDA pulled ephedra because big pharm wanted it pulled. PERIOD
"If a weight loss supplement is working, it could be due to a stimulant whose safety is unproven,"
I say if it's working then leave it alone. I'm on the Republicans side when it comes to reducing the size of our government because I'm sure whatever people are policing internet drugs have more important things to do. People are desperate to lose weight. They don't realize that this corporate run food factory produces meat brimming with growth hormones....What do you think this leads to for a full grown adult? That's why our kids are hitting puberty at age 6 now. Also, our insurance system sucks...they're not gonna pay for lyposuction, or even a gym membership. Every drug that has ever been produced in this country, prescription or not, if it was successful at making people lose weight, it was taken off the market for "stimulants" that were "dangerous". Yet, most people didn't suffer bad side effects and the good of making people lose weight & feel better. The good outweighs the bad. Why doesn't our government leave this alone? Cigarettes are probably causing more health problems (heart & cancer) than these weight loss drugs. Altho, smoking cigarettes does make most people lose weight. Maybe people who want to lose weight should smoke cigarettes? That seems to be a legal way to lose weight. This is so stupid, so very stupid! Guns are legal...people use guns to kill people. I bet the number of people who die from being shot is a higher number than the number of people dying from taking diet pills with stimulants. I bet the number of people who die because their insurance won't pay for life saving measures is higher than the number of people who die from taking diet pills with these "dangerous" side effects. I bet the number of people who cannot afford healthcare and end up dying from a stupid sickness that we have treatment for is bigger than the amt of people who die from taking these diet pills. Why not just put a warning on the bottle with the side effects and let the people decide for themselves? There's too much big brother in our country. We live in a dictatorship society it seems. The amount of death from diabetes is higher than the death caused by these diet drugs w/ the so called dangerous stimulants. Remember, not everyone in this country is entitled to healthcare. All people in the United States are not "created equal". We do not have a basic human right to healthcare. Only the ones who can afford it. How many people die a year whose death would have been prevented had they been able to go to a doctor or get a prescription? I bet that number is higher than the number of people who die from taking these diet drugs.
Let me add just one thing to the fact that only the ones who can afford it have health care. Our elected officials have amazingly good health care and you and I are paying for it, whether we can afford it or not. Every American should be getting the same fine health care Boehner is receiving.
I agree with most of the logic behind what you said, except for the remark about growth hormones. The are used in several of the meat operations, but the growth hormones used are digested just as the proteins of the meat are (the hormones are actually proteins too). They don't lead to people developing faster. Sexual maturity is based on percentage of full grown weight, and with American culture today that is reached faster because of poor eating habits and the unhealthy food options that are readily available). Diets high in soybean, flax seed, sesame seed, etc. will lead to very large increases in estrogen (which is a steroid hormone and isn't broken down in digestion) that would be more worrisome than growth hormone intake.
If you are injecting growth hormones straight into your blood stream or subcutaneously, then yes it will have an effect on human growth and development.
LoveMyRats: If you really are against politicians and policies that ensure that "not everyone in this country is entitled to healthcare. All people in the United States are not "created equal". We do not have a basic human right to healthcare. . . ," why would you be a Republican? The Republican Party has been the political arm of Big Business, including Big Insurance and Big Pharma, at least as far back as Calvin Coolidge said in 1923, "The business of America is business." In December, Republicans showed they were quite willing to starve millions of people made jobless and homeless by their reckless deregulation of market protections to force Democrats to give $700 billion to already wealthy people and, in the process, raise the national debt. Don't you realize that the Republican-Tea Party anti-government rant of "governmental waste and corruption" or "tax revenues are handouts given to the lazy and/or unproductive" are arguments that will enrich the wealthy more than other taxpayers?
I read this morning that opposition to the 2009 health insurance reform bill is down to 30%. I recall that, at the end of the worst presidency in history, Bush still enjoyed 30% public support. These are the folks who still believe that there a "death squads," that Obama was born in Kenya, that Obama is either a communist or socialist without having any idea of what these economic theories are about or how they differ, and that believe Obama is the anti-Christ, a religious belief that has no place in secular politics as envisioned by the First Amendment. This 30% consists in large part of former Southern crackers (that's the name for White folks who opposed racial equality in the 60s and 70s, aka racists) and mindless dittoheads who wait breathlessly for the latest version of hate-filled fear to come on down from Hannity, Limbaugh, or Beck. Why would you want to be one of these frightened nincompoops?
Well said..
If the federal government weren't slamming doctors over the head for prescribing safe, effective, and inexpensive prescription diet pills like phentermine HCL and other drugs, then no one would have to resort to buying these fly by night pills on line.
Furthermore, the FDA banned an extremely effective OTC pill with ephedrine because an incredibly tiny amount of people took five times the amount they should have and died of an overdose. At the proper dose, the drug was 100% safe. (Blame the DEA on that, too, as those drugs can be used to make meth..... and the ban didn't stop meth production one bit.)
The blame for this is squarely on the DEA and FDA. Let the doctors be doctors.
The article stated “…the FDA doesn't have as much regulatory power over supplements as it does over drugs…” This is a ridiculous statement. If the FDA was truly looking to regulate the “drug companies” they would require them to imprint an expiration date on every pill (month and year). How does anyone know that the pills dispensed by your local pharmacies are not out dated and useless? Did you ever take a prescription drug and for some reason or another it didn’t seem to help? And don’t say it won’t or can’t happen; it happened to my wife. She was dispensed a 90 day supply of outdated high-blood pressure pills by a very well known Pharmacy. The FDA must require all drug companies to imprint the expiration date on every pill.
agree with previous comment. natural is not always safe; death angel mushrooms are natural and pardon the pun very deadly. nature (ala natural ) is both deadly and benificial; people need to think before they act on a quick fix. buyer beware.
Hatch and Harkin have no intention to regulate the supplement industry. They are big supporters of the industry and are supported hugely by its lobbyists, and their proposed legislation is just a ploy to prevent more substantive regulation from being considered.
Hatch and Harkin were behind the original 1994 DSHEA bill which effectively stripped the FDA of any ability to regulate supplements as drugs. As a result, this fraudulent industry has been able to expand unchecked, especially in Hatch's home state of Utah, where they even modified their commerce laws to allow local pyramid scheme marketers to steal money from gullible out-of-state victims.
If a supplement works, then it should be able to prove it, just like drugs have to. If it doesn't work, then it's a scam and shouldn't be sold at all.
As the author here pointed out, the supplement industry is incredibly under-regulated. The pre-market approval process is almost nonexistent and the ability of the FDA to identify, analyze, and initiate action against adulterated products is basically nil. The FDA simply can't do its job with the staff and budget it's given.
Since the government is unable to protect us, it's up to the consumer to assess the safety and efficacy of a product. Clearly, if a supplement actually produced significant fat loss safely and with lasting results, it would be plastered on every newspaper and online media outlet front page. The fact a relatively obscure dietary supplement is solely advertised and only available by way of the internet should be enough to make a rational person suspicious. Clearly, that company is trying to fly under the radar. If they had a legitimately beneficial product, why would they hide? Unfortunately, in the case of dietary supplements, "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is" essentially always proves to be true.
So what's the answer, then? Supplements aren't it, to be sure. Solid nutritional principles can fix just about everyone. Exercise on top of it only helps the cause. Individuals need to face the fact that "there is no free lunch" when it comes to fat loss and body composition maintenance. You have to put in the work and develop the discipline to create healthier habits.
Your body directly reflects the way that you treat it. Drugs and supplements are simply not needed. When you begin to treat your body properly, it will respond in turn. Fat loss isn't complicated. It simply takes proper nutrition planning and a bit of exercise to go along with it!
NutritionPerfected.com/np-blog.html
The issue is NOT whether the supplements are effective. For generations, family doctors prescribed amphetamines to housewifes looking to lose a few pounds, and, rest assured, they worked like a charm... they were also highly addictive and highly abused. The point is that the market is flooded with supplements that make all kinds of claims (some of which could well be true) and absolutely no information on what is actually in the pill. It is not such a crazy thing to require a company selling you something intended for human consumption to tell you WHAT IS IN THEIR PRODUCTS THAT YOU WILL BE INGESTING. You can thank Orrin Hatch for this, by the way. He is the one who championed the bill that turned the supplement business into the wild west (and, thus, it is more than a little ironic that he is suddenly the "hero" who is trying to get a bill that increases regulation on the supplement industry out of committee). It is no secret that this is the reason many athletes get suspended for performance enhancing drugs these days.... because a wide variety of supplements claiming to be amino acids or other "harmless: muscle building concoctions are actually spiked with large amounts of annabolic steroids, and, to be clear, these aren't just supplements purchased online from China or Mexico. You can buy these at a GNC store in any mall in America. To be clear, I am a firm "hands-off" guy when it comes to over-regulating drugs and supplements. HOWEVER, requiring a supplement manufacturer to CLEARLY and HONESTLY list the ingredients in their supplements and REQUIRING them to practice sufficient quality control to ensure that what is written on the label is correct is NOT over-regulation. It is good common sense. Shame on Orrin Hatch for even creating this situation in the first place.
"The issue" implies that there is only one issue with the supplement industry. In fact, there are many issues.
Effectiveness is indeed one issue. Companies that sell worthless, ineffective supplements are con men, and its not surprising that an industry that welcomes and encourages con men see its share of bad behavior.
Safety is another issue. Many supplements have never been tested adequately for safety or to identify side effects. And the DSHEA effectively prevents the government from doing anything proactive. They can only react when people start getting sick or dying.
Quality is another issue. These companies should be held responsible for ensuring the identity, potency, and purity of their products is maintained and accurately indicated, but that means little if the supplements themselves are ineffective or unsafe. Even if the products aren't adulterated, many supplements are virtually impossible to accurately dose since concentration of active ingredients can vary widely in herbal preparations.
Marketing is another issue. The supplement industry is full of pyramid schemes and marketing scams that are only legal because some states (esp. Utah) allow this industry to write its own regulations. The laws on the books prevent them making outright claims on the product packaging and advertising, so instead they make ambiguous statements, supported with disclaimers and instead have industry groups push claims for their ingredients through books, TV, the internet, and as much junk science as they can bankroll.
As for Hatch, it's not irony, just bad reporting. Hatch and Harkin want to strengthen the DSHEA and its protections for supplement manufacturers, and their legislation is intended to prevent attempts from more responsible lawmakers to weaken it. Hatch is still the supplement industry's best friend and isn't showing the slightest pang of guilt over the mess he helped create.
The article says, "look for a seal on the bottle from NSF International, the United States Pharmacopeia, or ConsumerLab.com. Note that these companies are paid by supplement makers to evaluate their products for safety, purity, and ingredient list accuracy."
Not quite right. The seal on the bottle means the product is *less likely* to have problems with safety, purity and ingredient-list accuracy. These factors can vary from batch to batch of the same brand, especially when a brand decides to start using a new raw-material supplier for any of a variety of reasons that start with cost-savings.
Also, re ConsumerLab, there is good news and bad news.
The good news: They have a subscription website that periodically reviews a number of brands of a given supplement or herb, and lists which pass the composition & purity tests, along with those that fail (and why). And many of the brands that are tested do *not* pay to be included in the review.
The bad news relates to the brand that DO pay to be included in a ConsumerLab test -- what CL's calls their "Voluntary Certification" program. Any VC brand that passes is identified as having paid for inclusion. However, when any VC brand fails (for improper composition, heavy metal contamination, or any other reason), it is COMPLETELY EXCLUDED from the report -- i.e., the failure is kept secret...kind of an upfront payoff. Subscribers aren't even told that the brand was tested, I found that particularly disturbing with CL's Chromium testing last year, where numerous supplements were contaminated with the potentially carcinogenic form of Chromium that was at the center of controversy in the movie Erin Brockavich. There were likely additional brands which ConsumerLab KNEW contained this carcinogen, but these safety hazards would not be divulged to subscribers (who PAY for the reports, no less) for the brands that paid to be tested -- again, basically upfront hush-money. The ethical implications are obvious.