We can try to protect gullible, desperate people from predators - and I'm sincerely in favor of doing our best - but for as long as "truth in advertising" means "you can legally say literally anything about anything and bury 'not true' in the middle of 20 paragraphs of 4-point type on a folded paper insert in the packaging," everyone but the worst among us loses.
I keep seeing ads for something called "anti-lazy drops", which, wow. They aren't even trying to make this snake oil sound real. Do you think that's on purpose, like (supposedly) the terrible grammar and spelling in scam emails? Like if you're dumb enough to think "anti-lazy drops" are a real thing, you won't be able to figure out that you're being scammed, or how to undo it if you do.
My anti-lazy drops didn't work so I tried the anti-crazy drops which also didn't work so I tried the anti-Swayze drops which also didn't work, but that's ok because there's no way the Jake Gyllenhaal remake will be as good as the original.
Geez, at least the snake-oil salespeople used to put a little effort behind their scams. They would usually just make some 30 second to one minute video on some bogus health claim, edit it to appear as if it was an actual news article - sometimes even providing TV stations with "clean" (no graphics) versions - so they can insert the fake "news" item into their usual phony "Health Minute" sponsored by some local hospital or health food store during the morning and afternoon news to fill time before Tammi brings us the weather and make it appear like it's "news" covered by a "reporter."
Now all scammers need to do is buy some internet ads. No respect for the old ways!
The reason suplements are such crap, is because of an industry effort to make them self-regulating.
"Most people think that dietary supplements and herbs are closely regulated to ensure that they are safe, effective, and truthfully advertised. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although some aspects of marketing are regulated, the United States Congress has concluded that “informed” consumers need little government protection. This conclusion was embodied in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994—commonly referred to as “DSHEA”—which severely limits the FDA’s ability to regulate these products...
DSHEA also prohibits the FDA from banning dubious supplement ingredients as “unapproved food additives.” Before DSHEA’s passage, the FDA considered this strategy more efficient than taking action against individual manufacturers. Now the only way to banish an ingredient is to prove it is unsafe. Ingredients that are useless but harmless are protected. Nor is there any practical way for the FDA to ensure that the ingredients listed on product labels are actually in the products."
Just as an example to add to yours, the NYAG sampled supplements on drug store shelves,
"But almost 80 percent of the pills officials tested did not contain the key plant ingredient listed on the label, and included fillers like rice and beans, and additional ingredients such as wheat, mustard or radish."
Adderall and other stimulants literally have no effect on me.
Non-stimulant ADHD medicines are thankfully not controlled substances, but they are absurdly expensive. Quelbree is patented even though it was invented in the 1970s, and Atomoxotine is generic but as expensive as Quelbree for no knowable reason (the patent expired in 2016 and I've asked every psychiatrist, GP, pharmacist, and insurance rep I've spoken with in the last 8 years why Atomoxotine is so expensive despite being generic and they all say they don't know.)
Talk to them about anti-depressant medication in the class of selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (which includes atomoxetine) and maybe you'll find something with an off label use for ADHD.
Hate to sound like a broken record , but make sure everybody you know VOTES!! TFG and his cultists need to be stopped before they can totally destroy the USA. I know we all enjoy making fun of them, but it's really not a laughing matter. They are a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER!! Make no mistake
"Faced with what appeared to be a massive grass-roots consumer effort, the majority of Congressmen co-sponsored legislation that would virtually remove food supplements from FDA jurisdiction. U.S. Senate Bill S-2801, introduced by Senator William Proxmire and referred to as the “Vitamin Bill,” became the rallying point. As it turned out, S-2801 never came to a vote by itself, but Proxmire managed to push it through the Senate by attaching it to an unrelated but popular bill. The bill’s harmful effects were softened somewhat by a compromise made through the efforts of Representative Paul Rogers, but a version did pass—much to the detriment of American consumers. The so-called “Proxmire Amendment” prohibits the FDA from limiting the potency of ingredients of vitamin and mineral products that are not “inherently dangerous” and prevents the agency from ridding the marketplace of useless “dietary supplement” ingredients and irrational combinations of ingredients. It became law because the health-food industry misled many of its customers into believing that the FDA intended to greatly restrict the sale of supplement products.
Unknown to Congress and the FDA, a large percentage of those who wrote protest letters to Congress were not merely confused users of vitamin supplements. They were also sellers. Hundreds of thousands of people worked as “distributors” engaged in person-to-person sales for large companies like Shaklee, Amway and Neo-Life. I strongly suspect that these people—who took in hundreds of millions of dollars each year selling unnecessary supplements—formed the core of the letter-writing campaign."
Urg. I remember the two times I accidentally signed up for a subscription.
The first, I thought I was just buying an old game I liked online to play on my computer (Fairy Godmother Tycoon, it's hilarious). NOPE. I was buying ACCESS to the game and had to pay five bucks a month to keep that. THANKFULLY it was on my credit card, not the debit card, so it was easier to notice since back then I only used that card maybe three or four times a year.
The other time was Stamps.com. I went on to see if they still had the John Oliver stamps and tried to order...something or other. Anyway, I accidentally signed up for a subscription instead. That was twenty bucks a month. I noticed that one a lot faster.
Found out that the husband of one of my friends has died. She had him cremated. His service is on? April 20th. Yes, 4/20. He grew his own. I am supposing she'll go back to England, now. She won't stay in Texas, because she hates the politics and she's from the UK. Her MIL passed last year, so she has no family, other than her grown children, two of whom are already in there.
I'm hoping she'll give me her honey spinner. She should make a pretty penny of the eight acres they have.
RIP, James Randi
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_randi_homeopathy_quackery_and_fraud?language=en
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY! Isn't that Faux Noise's defense when called out on their lies?
We can try to protect gullible, desperate people from predators - and I'm sincerely in favor of doing our best - but for as long as "truth in advertising" means "you can legally say literally anything about anything and bury 'not true' in the middle of 20 paragraphs of 4-point type on a folded paper insert in the packaging," everyone but the worst among us loses.
I keep seeing ads for something called "anti-lazy drops", which, wow. They aren't even trying to make this snake oil sound real. Do you think that's on purpose, like (supposedly) the terrible grammar and spelling in scam emails? Like if you're dumb enough to think "anti-lazy drops" are a real thing, you won't be able to figure out that you're being scammed, or how to undo it if you do.
My anti-lazy drops didn't work so I tried the anti-crazy drops which also didn't work so I tried the anti-Swayze drops which also didn't work, but that's ok because there's no way the Jake Gyllenhaal remake will be as good as the original.
Doctors don't want you to know this one weird trick… I'm pulling on you~
Geez, at least the snake-oil salespeople used to put a little effort behind their scams. They would usually just make some 30 second to one minute video on some bogus health claim, edit it to appear as if it was an actual news article - sometimes even providing TV stations with "clean" (no graphics) versions - so they can insert the fake "news" item into their usual phony "Health Minute" sponsored by some local hospital or health food store during the morning and afternoon news to fill time before Tammi brings us the weather and make it appear like it's "news" covered by a "reporter."
Now all scammers need to do is buy some internet ads. No respect for the old ways!
The reason suplements are such crap, is because of an industry effort to make them self-regulating.
"Most people think that dietary supplements and herbs are closely regulated to ensure that they are safe, effective, and truthfully advertised. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although some aspects of marketing are regulated, the United States Congress has concluded that “informed” consumers need little government protection. This conclusion was embodied in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994—commonly referred to as “DSHEA”—which severely limits the FDA’s ability to regulate these products...
DSHEA also prohibits the FDA from banning dubious supplement ingredients as “unapproved food additives.” Before DSHEA’s passage, the FDA considered this strategy more efficient than taking action against individual manufacturers. Now the only way to banish an ingredient is to prove it is unsafe. Ingredients that are useless but harmless are protected. Nor is there any practical way for the FDA to ensure that the ingredients listed on product labels are actually in the products."
https://quackwatch.org/consumer-protection/dshea/
Just as an example to add to yours, the NYAG sampled supplements on drug store shelves,
"But almost 80 percent of the pills officials tested did not contain the key plant ingredient listed on the label, and included fillers like rice and beans, and additional ingredients such as wheat, mustard or radish."
https://www.npr.org/2015/02/03/383578263/new-york-attorney-general-targets-mislabeled-herbal-supplements
Adderall and other stimulants literally have no effect on me.
Non-stimulant ADHD medicines are thankfully not controlled substances, but they are absurdly expensive. Quelbree is patented even though it was invented in the 1970s, and Atomoxotine is generic but as expensive as Quelbree for no knowable reason (the patent expired in 2016 and I've asked every psychiatrist, GP, pharmacist, and insurance rep I've spoken with in the last 8 years why Atomoxotine is so expensive despite being generic and they all say they don't know.)
Talk to them about anti-depressant medication in the class of selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (which includes atomoxetine) and maybe you'll find something with an off label use for ADHD.
the fux gnus of big pharma?
Hate to sound like a broken record , but make sure everybody you know VOTES!! TFG and his cultists need to be stopped before they can totally destroy the USA. I know we all enjoy making fun of them, but it's really not a laughing matter. They are a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER!! Make no mistake
okay, mushroom woo is at least a tiny bit original if you squint just hard enough.
also, this crap is good old orientalism at its finest.
Spoiler Alert!
You want to know who's to blame for the complete and utter non-regulation of supplements?
It's a Republican.
Orrin Hatch and William Proxmire.
"Faced with what appeared to be a massive grass-roots consumer effort, the majority of Congressmen co-sponsored legislation that would virtually remove food supplements from FDA jurisdiction. U.S. Senate Bill S-2801, introduced by Senator William Proxmire and referred to as the “Vitamin Bill,” became the rallying point. As it turned out, S-2801 never came to a vote by itself, but Proxmire managed to push it through the Senate by attaching it to an unrelated but popular bill. The bill’s harmful effects were softened somewhat by a compromise made through the efforts of Representative Paul Rogers, but a version did pass—much to the detriment of American consumers. The so-called “Proxmire Amendment” prohibits the FDA from limiting the potency of ingredients of vitamin and mineral products that are not “inherently dangerous” and prevents the agency from ridding the marketplace of useless “dietary supplement” ingredients and irrational combinations of ingredients. It became law because the health-food industry misled many of its customers into believing that the FDA intended to greatly restrict the sale of supplement products.
Unknown to Congress and the FDA, a large percentage of those who wrote protest letters to Congress were not merely confused users of vitamin supplements. They were also sellers. Hundreds of thousands of people worked as “distributors” engaged in person-to-person sales for large companies like Shaklee, Amway and Neo-Life. I strongly suspect that these people—who took in hundreds of millions of dollars each year selling unnecessary supplements—formed the core of the letter-writing campaign."
https://quackwatch.org/consumer-protection/dshea/
grab your big box of Crayolas® . . . find "Fucking Shocked" . . . color me.
Urg. I remember the two times I accidentally signed up for a subscription.
The first, I thought I was just buying an old game I liked online to play on my computer (Fairy Godmother Tycoon, it's hilarious). NOPE. I was buying ACCESS to the game and had to pay five bucks a month to keep that. THANKFULLY it was on my credit card, not the debit card, so it was easier to notice since back then I only used that card maybe three or four times a year.
The other time was Stamps.com. I went on to see if they still had the John Oliver stamps and tried to order...something or other. Anyway, I accidentally signed up for a subscription instead. That was twenty bucks a month. I noticed that one a lot faster.
I guarantee there are people who read the disclaimer and still ordered the snake oil. Wishful thinking is a powerful force.
Yes, woo belief once taken on, is very strong.
"said “nutrients” being Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, Chaga and Turkey Tail —"
Likely contains none of the above.
As someone pointed out earlier NO "Eye of Newt" The single most important ingredient in any magic snake oil elixir!
Found out that the husband of one of my friends has died. She had him cremated. His service is on? April 20th. Yes, 4/20. He grew his own. I am supposing she'll go back to England, now. She won't stay in Texas, because she hates the politics and she's from the UK. Her MIL passed last year, so she has no family, other than her grown children, two of whom are already in there.
I'm hoping she'll give me her honey spinner. She should make a pretty penny of the eight acres they have.