Making Health Claims Legal: The Supplement Industry's War with the FDA

It's interesting that the consumer base who takes supplements were appealed to by the supplement industry and that grass roots groups formed against strict regulation. I would think that people would want studies done on drugs to make sure they are safe but perhaps many people are very attached to their supplements that they believe work and if they haven't experienced problems, they probably don't want them taken away due to insufficient evidence.

I loved the labelling quote that she includes: Food package labels were the results of politics, not science and had become "so opaque or confusing that only consumers with the hermeneutic abilities of a Talmudic scholar can peel back the encoded layers of meaning." I thought this quote was really fitting and really shows a huge issue that exists: that politics appears to be more important than science in health related decisions. I don't really know how to deal with the contradictions of our regulatory agencies, how they are supposed to promote health and base information on science but in our capitalistic economy businesses also matter. Its a huge connundrum, and really overwhelming for me to think about sometimes.

Sometimes I feel that our governmental set up is very strange and contradictory, leading to many inefficiencies. It's based on capitalism and people don't want the government to control that area and they want government to preserve this but at the same time we seem to want to take a protectionist approach with health issues and the government. How do you accomplish both these things? It seems near impossible to me. I would think that a government should care more about their constituencies health and safety but apparently they care more about keeping industry happy.

I was really astounded by the changes to how reduced fat things are labelled. Three grams less of fat doesn't appear to me to be a huge health difference. Wow, very misleading to consumers. I was also really upset when I read about the flagrant use of the world healthy. I feel like we focus too much on individual nutrients without looking at the food as a whole. Yes, some candy may be low in fat, for instant, Twizzlers. BUT they are really high in sugar which can be converted to fat if you eat too many calories. So its kind of like it does have fat but the general public is unaware of this and the food companies know that and take advantage of it. It seems to me also that the industry was way too alarmist about the FDA's intentions but people tend to be moved by alarmist things.

It does worry me though that regulation of supplements could increase the prices of them (especially if they become "drugs"), and some people probably really do benefit from some supplements, especially things like folic acid and I would want them to be pretty affordable. It also would become confusing with things like Total cereal and whether that would be considered a drug, which seems silly to even think about that happening but it really is a supplement.

I will say that I think its sad that so many people "rely" on dietary supplements. I really don't think that its necessary in most cases and that people really can get much of their nutrients from food, possibly barring folic acid and calcium for lactose intolerant people. To use myself as an example, I spent very little money on food but I eat a lot of fruits, vegetable, beans, grain and meat sometimes and I've done dietary analysis with computer programs on myself and I'm barely deficient in anything. So i think it's definitely possible to be healthy for cheap if people were willing to commit to it.