this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024

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Why is selling fake medicine legal in the USA? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFxS8UeJ/

This user appears on my TikTok feed all the time selling some product that she claims helps with acid reflux. As someone who has acid reflux, I have done a massive amount of research, and even read research papers and research studies on the subject to aid in my treatment of the illness. It's a pretty serious illness, and it's definitely not easy to treat or come up with a treatment plan, which is why there are so few medicines that are actually FDA approved for it...

But this lady is out here pushing her medicine claiming it's a miracle cure to acid reflux. There are lots of these nowadays, not only on TikTok but on Facebook as well. People pushing these alternative treatments and making such ridiculous claims, half of them probably false.

What I want to know is this. Why is this legal in the USA? Surely there should be some sort of governing body that prevents people from doing this and makes it illegal to spread this kind of misinformation?

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

It's not legal, it's about enforcement. Perfect enforcement is difficult, and often lags years behind.

in the US, vitamins and supplements have a different regulatory requirement, very light. Basically can't be poison. So you'll often see many of these miracle cures sold, but when you read the box itself, it's vitamin, it's a supplement, it's not designed to treat any specific condition.

At what point does the TikTok video go from simple marketing puffery into fraud? That's a fun and difficult question

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not legal, it's about enforcement

It's legal also. There's an official homeopathic exception in medicine. For those who don't know what that is, imagine taking 1ml of something (it doesn't have to be medicine) and diluting it to 1% in a gallon of water and then taking 1ml of that and diluting it to 1% in another gallon of water, and repeating that ten or twenty or more times. That's homeopathic "medicine", it's hokey bullshit and it gets a legal pass.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Just to add to the wonkyness: not only is the active ingredient not a medicine, in many occasions it's actually the virus or bacteria or whatever caused the disease. This gets dilluted to the point where it's extremely unlikely that even a single atom of the original brew is present. And then they claim that the resulting liquid has a memory of losing the ingredient such that it has the ability to remove new particles of that ingredient (or something like that).

It's fantastically cartoonish and preys upon people who lack a certain understanding of logic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Ironically a live vaccine approach.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I am glad the regulators are slowly cracking down on homeopathics. Companies selling those placebos now have to publish disclaimers like this admitting that it's BS:
https://homeoworks.com/disclaimer/

Not that it will stop a lot of people from buying homeopathics, but it's a start.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Instead of trying to go after then for selling legal garbage, go after them for false advertisement when they tell you their fake medicine can do this, that, and give you a bigger dick.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I need fake medicine to SHRINK my dick.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Gas Station HRT?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Call it Sheds and have a label showing a buck turning into a doe. It would sell out in Appalachia.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Placebodong pills.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Some of those vitamins can cause harm in sufficient doses as well, so it gets pretty complicated.

The biggest issue for enforcement is Republicans defunding the FDA and other regulatory agencies so they can't keep up.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 weeks ago

Consumer protections are very lacking in the US. Corporate profits always have priority.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I remember when people were marketing horse dewormers as a cure for covid. People bought it too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

It's still insane to me that people were actually doing that. I know meds like ivermectin and pyrantel are used in humans but still.... Horses have BIG organs, and that paste is a suspension dosed specifically to get rid of equine intestinal worms. It's not the same as the pill you get from a pharmacy.

Even if those people who ate horse dewormer felt no ill effects I bet there's some organ damage in there. I'd hazard a guess that human livers and kidneys don't like high doses of that stuff.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

but imagine all the brain worms they accidentally killed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

The brain worms already starved.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The internet creates a bit of a whack-a-mole problem with this one. Reminds me of certain bracelets and other consumer products sold as emitting some sort of "negative ion energy" for health benefits. Testing found they had Thorium, and were significantly radioactive.

If I recall correctly the Dept of Energy got involved with that one. Since the products came from overseas, though, there's only so much that can be done.

Yeah, here we go: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34769689/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And, on whack-a-mole, when one vape import gets banned, another company starts right up doing a very marginally different chemical mixture and ships it out. They can say “well you banned X, but technically not X” and the whole process starts over.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

That’s an issue of not letting oversight agencies have enough teeth. Not a “welp we’ll just never figure this one out I guess” type of situation. We’re not special and other countries have solved many of these problems.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

We’re not special and other countries have solved many of these problems.

I really wish more Americans would understand this. We are looking at the results of several generations of constant bombardment of "American exceptionalism". This is what happens when valuing the individual over the community becomes a core value of a society.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I cannot believe it’s legal to sell fake homeopathic ‘medicine’ in drug stores next to actual medicine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Not that I looked up what it was meant to be, but from the name I assumed it was a probiotic. Very different from homeopathic but about as medical

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Because increase regulation on these people would also lead to increased regulation on larger corporations.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh no ! Please don't infringe on my freedoms to poison people for profit!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

Laughs in red 40

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

This is the real trickle down economics. Lobbying leads to lax regulation on companies leads to influencers exploiting the system for gain as well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

pretty much been the path since reagan and self regulation (when there is any at all) and we have not even been feeling the effect from the roberts court.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Technically she didn’t make any medical claims. I think it’s legal because she could argue she didn’t make any specific medical claims, plus no government agency is going to find an individual worth their attention

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

if you watch the video she claims it cures acid reflux and GERD and makes all sorts of promises about it. There's no way to know if she's being truthful. She could make up 96% of it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

It's basically a requirement in the US to file a lawsuit to get anything done with regards to businesses doing shady/illegal shit. There's just too much bullshit for the agencies responsible to go after every single offender. And corporations know it.