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> if the FDA could prevent people from selling harmless food items No. Supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding. > But not just actually da

by derleth 14y ago

> if the FDA could prevent people from selling harmless food items No. Supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding. > But not just actually dangerous supplements, but potentially dangerous supplements too. Well, yes. Or else you're fraudulently using your customers as test subjects. People get angry enough when video game companies do that. > This would effectively outlaw the sale dietary supplements Why would this be a bad thing? > What's so bad about the status quo, anyhow? Massive amounts of fraud. > The author gives a few examples, but almost without exception they are issues which are already solved. That scary story about the NJ factory? Yeah, that's actually ALREADY ILLEGAL. The owners WENT TO JAIL. After being discovered by FDA inspectors, who ALREADY have the power to inspect factories. Interesting how nobody's found half a rat in a factory that makes actual drugs, as opposed to "officially-not-a-drug" supplements. We need to raise the standards to make the bad things less common. Getting supplement makers up to the standards drug makers are would be good. > If that's a reason to effectively destroy the industry, then god only knows what we should do poultry farmers after the various salmonella outbreaks over the years. Shoot them, I guess? No, just raise the bar. Same as here. > And finally, to cap the entire piece...the author complains about the FDA not doing a good job of enforcing existing regulations. Which is...an argument for giving them more regulations to enforce. Uh....what? More and better regulations and more funding, yes. > Where I come from, serious failure on someone's part is not a good argument for increasing their role and responsibilities. So, given the failures of the free market to put fraudulent supplement makers out of business, why would we trust it to do so in the future?

Gormo 14y ago
> > This would effectively outlaw the sale dietary supplements > Why would this be a bad thing? Because people who wish to consume dietary supplements would only be able to obtain them via black markets which would likely expose them to more, not less, potential danger.
- derleth 14y ago
  But fewer people total would consume them, leading to less damage being done overall.
  - chmodd 14y ago
    History disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
    - derleth 14y ago
      There was and is a major cultural demand for alcohol that just isn't there for supplements.
      - Gormo 14y ago
        This is apparently not the case, since a large number of people continue to purchase and consume supplements, and if the article is to be believed, this has resulted in providing the producers of those supplements with sufficient resources to successfully prevent their market from being suppressed by political activity, a feat which even the alcohol industry was unable to accomplish in 1919.
  - Gormo 14y ago
    The 'damage' described in the article is the result of mis-labeled products being sold to unwary consumers, not of properly-informed consumers experiencing negative consequences of risk judgments that they've intentionally chosen to make. This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting, in which the protections of law are unavailable, than it is to occur in an open and above-board market, in which participants have recourse against such fraud. Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use, and it's entirely plausible that the 'overall' reduction in benefit may exceed the 'overall' reduction in harm, so even if we were to use your purely utilitarian criterion as our only decision-making guide, such a policy might still be unjustified.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting But less of it, since making it illegal would greatly reduce demand. Unless you can come up with a reason why supplements are similar enough to illegal drugs it wouldn't. > Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use Empirically, that is a very minor concern, if it is one at all.
Lazare 14y ago
> Interesting how nobody's found half a rat in a factory that makes actual drugs, as opposed to "officially-not-a-drug" supplements. Heh. You don't quite seem to be getting the argument. Supplements are officially food, and we find pieces of rats in food all the damn time. (Also bits of metal, glass, human body parts, bugs, and every other crazy damn thing you can imagine.) (Related: Food is potentially dangerous, but it's not tested. Again, what makes a vitamin C pill need clinical trials, but food not? Keep in mind, modern "food" is often just the product of a test tube, while many supplements are just lightly processed food (fish oil, for example). What's the difference?) What you need to do is figure out why it's a huge, huge, problem for their to be half a rat ground up in Joe Slob's dietary supplements, but just one of those things for there to be a some rat in his hamburger bun. So far, your argument for why supplements should be treated differently than food seems to consist entirely of "supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding." That's...probably not going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. If that's a goal of yours, you might want to rethink. (Also: You keep saying "fraud", but fraud is already a crime. Is it your argument that supplement makers aren't being prosecuted due to some massive far-reaching conspiracy at every level of the government? Or when you say fraud do you have some special definition of the word different than everyone else? Just curious!)

by derleth 14y ago

Gormo 14y ago

> > This would effectively outlaw the sale dietary supplements > Why would this be a bad thing? Because people who wish to consume dietary supplements would only be able to obtain them via black markets which would likely expose them to more, not less, potential danger.

derleth 14y ago
But fewer people total would consume them, leading to less damage being done overall.
- chmodd 14y ago
  History disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
  - derleth 14y ago
    There was and is a major cultural demand for alcohol that just isn't there for supplements.
    - Gormo 14y ago
      This is apparently not the case, since a large number of people continue to purchase and consume supplements, and if the article is to be believed, this has resulted in providing the producers of those supplements with sufficient resources to successfully prevent their market from being suppressed by political activity, a feat which even the alcohol industry was unable to accomplish in 1919.
- Gormo 14y ago
  The 'damage' described in the article is the result of mis-labeled products being sold to unwary consumers, not of properly-informed consumers experiencing negative consequences of risk judgments that they've intentionally chosen to make. This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting, in which the protections of law are unavailable, than it is to occur in an open and above-board market, in which participants have recourse against such fraud. Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use, and it's entirely plausible that the 'overall' reduction in benefit may exceed the 'overall' reduction in harm, so even if we were to use your purely utilitarian criterion as our only decision-making guide, such a policy might still be unjustified.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting But less of it, since making it illegal would greatly reduce demand. Unless you can come up with a reason why supplements are similar enough to illegal drugs it wouldn't. > Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use Empirically, that is a very minor concern, if it is one at all.

Lazare 14y ago

> Interesting how nobody's found half a rat in a factory that makes actual drugs, as opposed to "officially-not-a-drug" supplements. Heh. You don't quite seem to be getting the argument. Supplements are officially food, and we find pieces of rats in food all the damn time. (Also bits of metal, glass, human body parts, bugs, and every other crazy damn thing you can imagine.) (Related: Food is potentially dangerous, but it's not tested. Again, what makes a vitamin C pill need clinical trials, but food not? Keep in mind, modern "food" is often just the product of a test tube, while many supplements are just lightly processed food (fish oil, for example). What's the difference?) What you need to do is figure out why it's a huge, huge, problem for their to be half a rat ground up in Joe Slob's dietary supplements, but just one of those things for there to be a some rat in his hamburger bun. So far, your argument for why supplements should be treated differently than food seems to consist entirely of "supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding." That's...probably not going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. If that's a goal of yours, you might want to rethink. (Also: You keep saying "fraud", but fraud is already a crime. Is it your argument that supplement makers aren't being prosecuted due to some massive far-reaching conspiracy at every level of the government? Or when you say fraud do you have some special definition of the word different than everyone else? Just curious!)