Science Vs. Supplements

I really had no idea until fairly recently that supplements were not regulated. That is just scary. It just seems obvious that they would be, since other medicines and food are. I don't think people know this in general, I have friends and acquaintances that swear by certain herbal supplements and if you try to tell them they aren't proven to work they scoff. The fine distinctions Nestle points out between disease claims and health claims may make sense to a scientist or politician involved in this but it's not going to be obvious to the average consumer who will think that a supplement might diagnose or treat something.

The FDA versus the FTC seems to fit well into a theme in our government that I see after reading this book: that there is so much conflict between regulatory agencies and that one regulatory agency has interests that completely contradict the other regulatory agency. This seems really inefficient and dangerous. The discrepancy between what can be advertised and what can be on a label seems problematic. The average consumer I can guess will be more swayed by the advertising and less likely to critically examine the label, causing the consumer to be misled. Its just so interesting how semantics come into play so often in policy making, it can be seen in the acceptable claims vs. the unauthorized claims. This reminds me of the wording issues surrounding the dietary guidelines earlier in the book.

Her outline of the two cultures regarding supplements was really interesting. I think I fall more into the science-based approach but I can definitely see the rationale for the other approach. It just seems like the industry and DSHEA have taken the belief model way out of context and have mis-interpreted it in order to fit their needs.

In some ways, I can see how having to regulate every supplement would be near impossible given the sheer volume of herbal and botanical remedies out there. It would have been nice if from the very beginning regulations had been really strict so that only the best supplements were even allowed to be sold. But now there are just so many that having to regulate them all and prove them all safe and effective seems like a ridiculous task that is not government's top priority and probably rightly so at the moment. It's really interesting how Kellogg managed to evade FDA restrictions. It just seems that the industry and FDA could work together to promote actually healthy products that they would both benefit from, instead of fighting each other.