Cures All Known Complaints

New at Reason: Should the FDA be treating supplement makers like a bunch of cutpurse mountebanks? Ron Bailey says Nay!

Comments

[Jason McCullough]

The problem with the peer-reviewed studies he mentions is that they don't meet FDA requirements. Full stop.

As pointed out in this Washington Monthly article, the "nutritional supplement" horseshit that Hatch pushed through is effectively repealing the Safe Food & Drug Act.

[Kevin Carson]

Jason Ligon,

I'm genuinely sorry about what happened to your friend/loved one. I've seen some of my own die from cancer, albeit going the radiation chemo route.

But I still hesitate to conclude that herbal/vitamin treatments are worthless. Your experience is as anecdotal as many of the accounts of success with, say, green tea, Hoxsey's red clover, etc. I'd like to see some studies presenting valid statistical assessments of how such treatments work over a large population.

There are MD's whom I respect immensely, like Andrew Weil, who acknowledge the value of some herbal or nutritional treatments, but by no means give uncritical or blanket approval to all of them.

And in fact, those controlled, double blind studies are awfully skewed toward substances that can be patented and sold for high prices. (Even so, there is conventional research cited in relatively mainstream venues like Prevention on the anti-cancer value of some "herbal" stuff like Green tea).

The answer is not an ideological reaction to "herbal" and "nutritional" treatments, as such, but a critical examination of which ones work, and how well, and to what extent they should be integrated with other conventional therapies.

I don't, of course, dismiss "anecdotal" evidence, either from your experiences or mine. Anectodal evidence is just another name for inductive reasoning, which is as old as mankind. People made valid inductive judgments that, say, willow bark was good for fevers, long before anyone ever heard of controlled, double blind studies. In the absence of other information, it's better to act on anecdotal evidence than none at all.

[Jason Ligon]

Kevin,

I have always said that, as an skeptical empiricist, I will believe any claims that are established under double blind studies against placebo.

I don't doubt that there are many herbals that serve some medicinal function, on the grounds that we are dealing with organic compounds if for no other reason.

My beef is with the ghouls who cash in on the fears and hopes of the desperate by peddling snake oil under blatantly false pretenses. The worst part is that the conspiracy types feed the fire by telling everyone magical almost free cures 'must' be out there, presumably next to the recipe for cold fusion.

I have seen a woman invest some $1000 on equipment designed to destroy cancer cells by way of finding the harmonic resonance frequency of just those cells. She built the thing in her basement.

Some people are just shitty human beings, and the guy who came up with that scam has to be high on the list.

I digress. In short, I won't dismiss anything that has passed a skeptical inquiry, but I wish the rest would stop lying about it.

[Skip]

Given Ron Bailey's general worship at the alter of science (and that's a complement, not an insult), I was exceedingly surprised to see that he's in with the supplement/vitamin crowd.

As said above, most of it is simply useless at best. For example, food in this country is so fortified that nearly no one needs to take vitamin supplements on a regular basis. If you eat 2 bowls of Captain Crunch a week you're probably good to go.

Kevin Carson is right that we shouldn't outright dismiss all "alternative medicines" - there's currently some interesting research looking into acupuncture, for example - but you will be hard pressed to find an area in which science is more regularly abused, misused, and ignored than in the realm of vitamins/supplements/alterna-medicine.

Too much FDA oversight is decidedly not the most pressing problem there.

[Kevin Carson]

Skip,

Existing levels of oversight of label information isn't too much of a pain in the ass, because I can do my own research. But if the expand their current level of paternalism to limit dosage size or to ban certain supplements, that's a different matter.

Jason Ligon,

I'm pretty skeptical of claims based on New Agey-sounding "science," like orgone or homeopathic doses. I like to see at the very least some plausible chemical/biological explanation for a supplement's effect, along with anecdotal evidence beyond the "satisfied customers" blurbs in an advertisment.

[Warren]

Skip,
Well said.

Jeff,
The common thread seems to be Ron's indulgence of his own prejudice. While I'm in agreement with his views on genetically modified foods and human cloning, I've heard others articulate them better. And then there's stuff like the medical choice piece where he just goes off the deep end. Does anyone else think it's time for Ron to go?

[JDM]

I think it's time for Ron to go, but for exactly the opposite reason.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Hungary for love

[Shady O'Grady]

Funny how disclosures can really put an article in perspective. Thanks for those.

[Jeff Smith]

Just to be clear - I don't think it is time
for Ron to go. I really like his conference
dispatches.

These issues about the scientific establishment
are tough because science is very intertwined
with government as it presently operates. I
struggle with them as someone who is to some
extent part of the science establishment and
who has a wife who is very sympathetic to
alternative medicine. Plus I know from reading
occasional papers in the health litearture
that the medical folks do not always get stuff
right or have the best standards of evidence
(putting aside the clinical trials literature).

So, Ron should stay, but he should answer my
emails. Just kidding. 🙂

Jeff

[Phill]

This is not directly related to the FDA article, but I started a yahoo discussion group that aims to get the government out of the drug treatment business
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti12step/
please join today!
Phill

[Jason Ligon]

I am all for peer reviewed data being available for consumers, but I have to say that 99.9999% of all claims for supplements that I have come across are misleading or outright lies.

I had the experience of watching someone with cancer try to shark cartiledge, mega vitamin dose, and herbal remedy herself to health. Everyone knows that 'real' medicine is cheap and readily available, and that the pharmas just can't cash in, and blah, blah, blah.

It is infuriating to see. I wish the market would provide a voluntary label indicating that such and such a claim is actually peer reviewed, but we aren't there at the moment.

[Jeff Smith]

Hmmm ... last week Ron wanted to put the
government in charge of making treatment
decisions for children of religious parents.

This week he argues that the government does
a bad job of trying to influence the treatment
decisions of adults.

I'm missing the common thread here.

Jeff

[nm156]

All you need to do to (dis)prove the claims of whatever it is they're hawking is look for the fine print wher it says, "results NOT typical." Once you see that you know the person selling you is full of it. If the results on the infomercial are atypical, why would you believe that your results would be the same? Caveat emptor, kiddies.

[nm156]

If the ad has fine print which states that the results shown are, "not typical," then you know it's bogus crap. Tanstaafl, kiddies.

[Nic]

I became a libertarian in the ealy 90s when the FDA proposed draconian regs that would have banned innocuous and beneficial supplements like CoQ10 and evening primrose oil. The FDA has a decades long history of bias against dietary supplements. People have an absolute right to experiment with nutrients and herbs they feel may be beneficial to their health. DSHEA is one of the few libertarian laws I can think of. What part of freedom of choice don't you authoritarians understand?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Durk Pearson, man I haven't heard that name in a while. Did he ever kick his chili dog habit?

[Lieber Katherine]

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DATE: 01/20/2004 07:10:36
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