Why if Natural Supplements( MSM, etc) are supposedly fake and inefficient, why not banned from Pharmacies?

Question

In most pharmacies, there's a large selection of natural things:

Fish Oil, Glucosamine, MSM, Ginko Biloba, etc etc

And the Pharmacy has them and sells them. If these things are fake and fraudulent, then why wouldn't Pharmacies be punished.

It's just like Kevin Trudeau, he's commiting fraudulent stuff and he already got in trouble for it, so why not Pharmacies who willingly sell Natural/herbal/supplements.

I do believe in herbal products but I'm asking this cause many people dont, and say that they are all inefficient.

Answer 1

Regarding fish oil, glucosamine and Vitamin E:  My allopathic physician and the allopathic physician of my lover and my parents ALL prescribe these supplements (and MANY others), so please remove your head from your ***.  Prescription for Nutritional Healing was written by an MD, James Balch.  The Fourfold Path to Healing was written by an MD, of VERY great renown in the Anthroposophical Community, James Cowan.  Linus Pauling was a Nobel Laureate.  These folks are hardly mental midgets, thank you very much, and these are just a few examples of physicians and scientists and researchers who both use and prescribe vitamins and supplements.  There are thousands of MD's who not only KNOW supplements work, they use and prescribe them, and not all of them are orthomolecular doctors, either.  Don't even waste your time arguing this point, you've already lost.

Answer 2

Many of the herbals don't work or people aren't taking them correctly to get the intended effect.  However, very few of them are actually dangerous.  The supplement with the highest amount of dangerous side effects is actually Kava.  It has been banned in most other countries.  However, the studies on this are not from the U.S., and thus, the FDA cannot use them to get the drug off the market.  Supplements have to be proven dangerous for them to be removed.  Supplements cannot claim to cure any disease.  There are regulated like food.

Answer 3

As the nutritional supplement industry is worth billions, last estimate I read was 44 billion. And pharmacies work as a business. They can make a lot of money selling them.

As long as they don't hurt anyone, then they aren't banned. The manufacturers operate within the law, so they aren't punished.

Its like how skin care products claim that they can reverse aging, and they contain products like "alpha hydroxy", which doesn't exist. They don't work either, but they aren't banned.

I bet the pharmacist knows they don't work, anyone with a science degree knows that. But money is money.

In Australia we are not allowed to make health claims on food. But pharmaceuticals are different. They can be whatever, and there is no regulations on their efficacy.

They are not fake. If they say they contain vitamin C, thats what they will contain. But if they work or not is another matter.

Answer 4

Honey, honey, honey,

When the FDA or the AMA comes after you like they did with Mr Trudeau and others before him-that's a vote of confidence in my book.

Herbal products and vitamins work, especially if you know who makes the ones you are buying.  I try to stay away from any vites or herbs that are made by some of the largest pharmaceutical companies...sometimes they don't seem to work so well....

Pharmacies see that the public won't let them (herbs and vites) go, and since they don't want to miss a buck they have started selling some of them.  Of course it is paltry, they make much more off of scripts, but, hey a buck is a buck.

Pharmacies don't get into trouble because they are on the "right" side of the FDA.  Everyone complains about the oil companies but it is the medical world that is taking us to the cleaners

I urge everyone in the free world to buy, rent or steal (don't need to steal it it is worth paying for) a copy of

"Politics in Healing: The Suppression & Manipulation of American Medicine"  by Daniel Haley (Author)  It will make you cry in rage and frustration.  It explains the problems with the FDA and the AMA and a few other felonious groups.

Back to your question, it's the claims that are made on the bottling or on the tv or whatever that get sellers into trouble.  Medical health claims shouldn't be made on the labels.  If someone states that Saw Palmetto is the best thing to take for the prostate-bar none...then one might not buy all the prescriptions that the doctor is pushing...stuff that might even have horrible side effects..taking it a paranoid step further..there a more scripts and more doctors to see and buy once you develop one of those horrible side effects...it's a never ending circle but very very lucrative

Surprisingly, I do see health claims on some of the vites and herbs sold at pharmacies and even in grocery stores.  How can that be??  Granted they are vague statements

Answer 5

Primarily because most of them aren't fake (there are a very small number of illegitimate companies, but the same applies to drug companies). All the ingredients you've mentioned have been tested many times over the hundreds or thousands of years that they've been used, not to mention that all of them have been tested under current-day standards. In order for the FDA to allow the supplements to be sold on the market, they have to have proof that they aren't harmful, so the appropriate tests have been done.

Supplement companies are regulated by a few main companies (namely the NPA and USP) to make sure that the fraudulent companies are removed as soon as possible (much like the FDA does for drug companies).

I've used several supplements that I've found a great benefit from, as have billions of people world-wide (and many more throughout time). However, I'm not sure what you mean by "inefficient". If you mean they take time to work, then yes... that's to be expected. Supplements basically give your body nutrition it's otherwise lacking... so your body can use that nourishment to support parts of the body to keep them healthier (or to make them healthier). It takes your body time to repair itself after getting the materials it needs, just like it takes time to heal a bruise or broken bone.... or to get over an illness.... or to recover from mal-nutrition (starvation).

Also, please don't put supplements in the same category as Kevin Trudeau.... he is one of the WORST examples of anyone who "promotes health" in the world. He's an advertising man that's trying to make money and complain about the government... not to mention that he doesn't seem to care about who he hurts based on what information (false or true) that he gives.

I would be curious to find out where you heard that supplements were fake or ineffective, though.