> Worse, there is a strong bias towards misinformation--look at the health supplement market, which is basically a market the seedy snake oil sellers set up to

> Worse, there is a strong bias towards misinformation--look at the health supplement market, which is basically a market the seedy snake oil sellers set up to get around FDA regulation. The pure food and drug act was passed to deal with the snake oil industry, which was in the process of reinventing and legitimizing itself into the pharmaceutical industry. The supplement industry was later exempted from the requirements for patent medicine producers because there is no way to monopolize the profits of many treatments based on supplements. Some companies have patented certain aspects of their supplement's production or delivery mechanisms, but (I believe) the natural biological molecule itself can't be patented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act (1908) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Food%2C_Drug%2C_and_Cosmetic_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Food%2C_Drug%2C_and_Co... (1938)