One Significant Difference between Pharmaceuticals and Alternative Remedies

[MineralMan]

8. Actually, the patient information handout in the bag

is identical with the one on the website. That's the legal requirement. Of course, on the site, you can also read the prescribing information if you have enough medical knowledge to understand it, as I do. But the patient information handouts are standardized and the same. Pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money designing the content in those, to satisfy the FDA. Even more is spent on the prescribing information for doctors, along with the money spent doing the required clinical trials and monitoring reports once the medication is on the market.

No such requirements exist for supplements. Most of them are as harmless as they are useless, but not all of them. While many believe they are healthier for taking those supplements, that's not actual clinical evidence. It's just a feeling people have about the supplements. The supplement industry depends on those feelings, and that's what they sell, really.

Ask a supplement manufacturer whether you should take some product for your illness. They'll hem and haw and tell you nothing. They can't. They don't know, because no clinical trials have been done and they're restricted by law to not tell you that their products are either efficacious or safe. It's a great deal for them. They can sell you good feelings with almost no risk.

Then there is homeopathy, which is absolutely safe, since it contains nothing. Those guys have it bagged. They can sell you plain water for big bucks. It won't hurt you, of course, but it will do nothing for you either. A perfect combination for scammers.