Herbal scammery

A study published in BMC Medicine analyzed the contents of a large number of herbal remedies/supplements and found shocking but unsurprising results:

59% of the tested products contained plant species not listed on the label.

One-third of these contained contaminants or fillers not listed on the label.

There was product substitution in 68% of the products tested. For example, bottles contained alfalfa instead of the ginko biloba promised on the label.

32% did not contain the main ingredient listed, but did contain something else not listed.

As an example, some products contained wheat, without listing it on the label, and did not contain the principal ingredient promised. This could be serious for someone with a true wheat allergy. (Lots of people think they are allergic to wheat when they are not.)

Only 41% of the tested products were accurately labeled.

Herbs are drugs. But sold as supplements or as "herbal medicine" rather than as drugs, there is no FDA oversight. There is no testing. "Herbal remedies" are drugs that are untested, are unrefined, and are sold in a form where the actual active ingredient is at an unknown dosage. You can be getting far more or far less of the active ingredient than you think, or you can be getting something else entirely. Some "herbal remedies" illegally contain actual drugs, not listed on the label, which may be counter-indicated for the person taking them.

It's a sad fact that the companies selling herbal remedies and supplements are so politically powerful that they've gotten BOTH political parties to support and pass legislation removing such products from government regulation and oversight.

Shouldn't consumers have the right to accurate labeling, so that they'd actually know what they are taking? Orrin Hatch doesn't think so. With plenty of support from both sides of the aisle, he sees to it that every kind of "alternative" quackery, from herbal supplements to chiropractic to homeopathy is unregulated, so that practitioners can sell whatever they like, whether it works or not, with no testing, no demonstration of efficacy or safety (some of those herbal supplements/remedies tested included toxic ingredients not listed on the label) and not even any enforcement of accuracy of labeling.

The above statistics come from an article on the Neurologicablog web site, published by Steven Novella. I became aware of it from the latest edition of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast. (Available free from the link, or on iTunes.)

 

Yes, it is. But Orrin Hatch and his pals (both sides of the aisle) decided in their wisdom that the herbal supplement companies, homeopathists, and other health scam artists should be exempt from the FDA.

We had the economic collapse in 2008 after Congress decided that credit default swaps were "too complicated" for anybody but bankers to understand, so they should be allowed to operate without federal oversight. While the cat's away the mice will play, and the banker mice brought down the economy.

Supplements, complementary and alternative medicine (SCAMS) won't bring down the country, but the purveyors are laughing all the way to the bank as they sell whatever they feel like stuffing into a bottle to unsuspecting consumers, and Orrin Hatch has fixed it so the FDA has no jurisdiction. If you don't call it a drug, and you don't claim it cures a specific disease, the FDA cannot touch you. (There's a symbiotic relationship between the sellers of these scam supplements, and the publishers of pamphlets that make the claims for them: Health-food stores buy the pamphlets and give them away free. Gullible people take the pamphlets, read that this or that herb cures this or that illness, and buy the herbs. The FDA has no jurisdiction because neither the manufacturers nor the retailers are making any claims. The publishers of the pamphlets can print whatever they like because that's free speech. Everybody makes money from gullible people, and it's all permitted because Orrin Hatch thinks that "natural medicine" doesn't need oversight to assure that it's safe and effective, or even that labels are honest. Or maybe because he's getting money from supplement lobbyists.)