The following blog is one that I have been reading off and on for a while now. Enjoy
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What can't be said about herbs |
 Do you think poor diet can contribute to disease and poor health? Sugar provides calories, but how do you think a person's health would be after a year of eating nothing but sugar? Do you think changing a person's diet might have any chance of reversing illness and disease (especially if poor diet is contributing to the poor health)? If you do believe that what people eat can have some impact on disease then you may be surprised to know what can't be said about dietary herbal supplements in marketing. Dietary Supplements are regulated as food and not drugs, and that determines what can and can't be said in advertising. In the U.S., if a product is classified as a drug then the law permits manufacturers to claim that the product can improve health. If a product is classified as a food then the law (Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994) does not permit manufactures to claim that the product can improve any health problems. They can say that they help support health that's already normal, but they can't imply that they can make less than optimal health any better. You might say, "That's funny, I hear companies advertising that supplements will help people lose weight, or cure this and that, all the time." That's true, and you'll also notice that those companies that make those claims do not stay on the market very long before they are shut down by the FDA. The FDA hasn't proven, and isn't saying, that no herbs can benefit any illness, the FDA is just operating under a law that is preventing manufacturers from saying so without the product being classified as a drug. Dietary supplement manufacturers can't even use double-blind scientific studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals that show that an herb treats a disease as a basis upon which to make claims about their products that have that herb as an ingredient. Just because an herb has been shown in studies to help correct a certain health problem doesn't mean a manufacturer's product, that contains that herb, will generate the same benefit. Companies that produce herbal dietary supplements (which are classified as food) aren't even allowed to share what other people are saying (testimonials) about how their products have helped correct their health problems or the health problems of others. Only if the manufacturer gets its own particular product classified as a drug with the FDA and goes through the approval process for drugs would the manufacturer be allowed to make such claims. The New Drug Application process with the FDA can easily cost on the order of 80 million dollars, and no companies undertake that financial risk without a good chance of recouping that investment. It would be very hard to recoup that investment if the company did not have a patent on the product to protect their interests, and herbs can't be patented because they already exist. Competing companies could make similar products with the same ingredients and sell them at a fraction of the cost (since they don't have to recoup $80 million). So whether companies are legally allowed to say their products can correct health problems, doesn't depend on whether they can or can't, but whether they are classified as foods or drugs. Isn't that surprising? Denis Wilson, MD P.S. > You'll notice in our Newsletters that we share testimonials from people about how the T3 therapy has turned their lives around. We are allowed to share those because T3 is classified as a drug. |
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