Ingredients of Shady Origins, Posing as Supplements

[groovedaddy]

DR. PIETER COHEN is scanning the shelves inside a shop in Chinatown here when something familiar — and potentially dangerous — catches his eye.

“What’s that yellow box, behind the other one?” Dr. Cohen asks the clerk.

It is Pai You Guo, a supposedly natural weight-loss supplement from China that, according to federal authorities, has tested positive in the past for containing two hazardous drugs, including a suspected carcinogen. The product was recalled in 2009. One of Dr. Cohen’s patients in the Boston area ended up in the hospital last year with a range of ailments after taking Pai You Guo, a brand-name that, loosely translated from Chinese, means “the fruit that eliminates fat.”

But he has seen worse: kidney failure, heart problems, depression, addiction — all, he says, caused by tainted products sold openly as dietary supplements in shops across the nation and on the Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/business/supplement-drugs-may-contain-dangerous-ingredients.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25

[HuckleB]

1. Recommended, but it's still at zero.

[trotsky]

2. On the positive side now at least.

You'd think everybody would want to know what's in the pill they take, no matter where it comes from. :shrug:

[HuckleB]

10. They want the "FREEDOM" to be fooled by scam artists.

It's an interesting thing, considering that, for many, their next thought is how evil "Big Pharma" is...

[TygrBright]

3. If it sounds too good to be true...

...IT'S TOO FUCKING GOOD TO BE TRUE.

Sheeeeesh...

News flash, people: There is no known substance that will "make you lose weight" or even substantially HELP you lose weight, without potentially dangerous side effects. There is no known substance that will give you a trouble-free, fully controllable boner for as long as you want, without potentially dangerous side effects. There is no known substance that will make your hair grow back, without potentially dangerous side effects. There is no known substance that will make you smarter, sexier, more limber, more attractive, younger, happier, richer, blahblahblah.... etc.

Really.

If you want to go that route, start activating your mind-body interface on your own behalf with Positive Affirmations or something. It is about as scientifically valid as Magic Pills without the potentially dangerous side effects.

One of the sad, costly side effects of trashing a public education system that at one point was starting to do a barely-adequate job of teaching a few scientific analysis and critical thinking skills to some kids, is the vastly ballooning potential for grifters who want to get rich selling Magic Shit to wishful-thinking, unhappy people without the tools to detect and protect themselves from such predators.

disgustedly,
Bright

[TheWraith]

4. That's not really fair.

There are lots of successful drugs which can do great things for health, with few side effects. The problem is mainly when you have an industry, in this case "alternative medicine," which is completely unregulated and outside the control of something like the FDA. When you can sell anything, with any claims about it, that introduces a whole world of danger.

[TygrBright]

5. Absolutely. There ARE successful drugs which can do great things with few side effects.

But they can't make you skinny or strong or give you a great boner or put hair back on yer head, etc.

And in order to work effectively with few side effects, they need to be appropriately prescribed after a thorough assessment and evaluation and sometimes even some tests. You may even need to be monitored while you are taking them.

You can NOT just walk into a store or order something off teh Tubes on your own bat and lose weight, Make Her Happy With Your Rock-hard Manhood, blahblahblah... that's the "too good to be true" part.

Disclosure: I take supplements.

I take a multi-vitamin, and a couple of extra items recommended in writing (they are not prescription items, so I won't say "prescribed") by my physician, who believes that many "alternative therapies" do have some merit and incorporates them into her array of treatments. But they are not going to have Magic Results for me. They may help somewhat in maintaining my health as is. Sometimes they may provide a very mild, minor relief to some non-serious but uncomfortable symptoms of aging.

No magic, no promises. They may or may not work. I choose to believe they have some beneficial effect, in the hope that my belief, as well as the substances themselves, will potentiate the mind-body healing link, but I would not make assumptions or expect to have any scientifically validatable results.

If it sounds Too Good To Be True, it's TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

patiently,
Bright

[saras]

6. FIne. Get the FDA out of the control of the pharmaceutical/war industry and maybe we'll trust them

Until then they simply are not a respectable authority. While they may do, or commission, good work, they mix it with the worst of junk science (the medical/scientific history of antidepressants indicates profoundly that they DON'T WORK AND NEVER DID, anecdotal evidence to the contrary).

But people start taking them, and they get better, and they come to the same sort of belief in them that people who heal after using alternative medicine do when it works for them after the mainstream fails.

[TheWraith]

7. A $30 billion dollar industry which runs on junk science accusing actual scientists of junk science?

The reason they call it science is because it works. Because it's not based on anecdotes. Because it's based on rigorous testing, not simply the power of belief.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Know what really works? Repeating positive affirmations for an hour every day

while you exercise.

[ThatPoetGuy]

9. That's a good line!

I'm going to use it in conversation, thanks.