Speaker 1: What is this mysterious force that gives beauty to women
Speaker 1: and power to men? Since science wrested from nature those
Speaker 1: mysterious life giving health building elements, the vitamins, thousands upon
Speaker 1: thousands can enthusiastically tell you of the amazing and almost
Speaker 1: magic like results from their use. Vitamins as mysterious as
Speaker 1: electric current, yet as definite in results, are of three classes,
Speaker 1: all equally important. Eminent authorities declare that all three of
Speaker 1: the vitamins are necessary to health, energy, beauty, and proper
Speaker 1: physical development. Yeast is rich in one class of vitamins.
Speaker 1: Water soluble b raw unpasteurized milk is rich in another
Speaker 1: one of the vitamins. Fat soluble A certain fruits and
Speaker 1: vegetables are rich in another one of the vitamins, water
Speaker 1: solume will see. But with the discovery of a special
Speaker 1: process for successfully concentrating and combining all three of the vitamins,
Speaker 1: as in Mastin's vitamin tablets, millions of men and women
Speaker 1: everywhere have turned to this new and better way. Sufferers
Speaker 1: from constipation, indigestion, lowered vitality, skin troubles, under development, weakened
Speaker 1: nerve force, and lack of energy. Folks who have been
Speaker 1: ailing for years, the victims of under nourishment brought on
Speaker 1: by a lack of sufficient vitamins find in Maston's vitamin
Speaker 1: tablets just what they had always hoped and longed for
Speaker 1: but never expected to find. So, no matter what your age,
Speaker 1: nor how scrawny, haggard, care worn and run down you
Speaker 1: may be, no matter what tonics or preparations you may
Speaker 1: have tried in the past, or how hopeless you are
Speaker 1: of ever becoming alert, healthy, properly developed, and physically fit,
Speaker 1: with strong nerves, a keen, active mind, a clear skin,
Speaker 1: and generally improved appearance, you will find it well worth
Speaker 1: your while to make this simple test. If it isn't Mastin's,
Speaker 1: it isn't vitam on, Vite them on, Vite them on.
Speaker 1: It's always in all caps, so like it's important that
Speaker 1: you say it that way.
Speaker 2: That is exactly how I transcribed it from the newspaper
Speaker 2: ad in the Washington Times from January eighth, nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it so much.
Speaker 2: I do too, I do too. And there were I
Speaker 2: found a bunch of different ads too, but that one
Speaker 2: just really it really struck a chord. I don't know
Speaker 2: what kind of chord but dis harmonious, wonderful, a little
Speaker 2: bit of both. Yep, yep. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Welsh and I'm erin on an Updike.
Speaker 2: And this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have fun today.
Speaker 2: I really think that we are.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm thrilled. Such a fun I mean fun it
Speaker 2: maybe not may not be the right adjective to describe it,
Speaker 2: but this was a really eye opening and fascinating subject
Speaker 2: to research. I had to stop myself from going down
Speaker 2: a thousand different rabbit holes and just be like, Noah,
Speaker 2: we're sticking to this. This is what we're.
Speaker 3: Doing the same. I was like, keep it tight.
Speaker 2: Erric keep it tight, keep it understandable, keep it to
Speaker 2: the point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, today we're talking about supplements, and so
Speaker 2: there are a lot of different areas that we could
Speaker 2: explore with this, and we did toy with the idea
Speaker 2: of being like, should this be like a four parter,
Speaker 2: But I think what we wanted to do is that
Speaker 2: so you know, in the past, we have explored different
Speaker 2: vitamins in or like vitamin deficiency diseases in our episodes,
Speaker 2: and we're going to keep doing that. In the future.
Speaker 2: And so this is the purpose of this episode is
Speaker 2: not to go into each supplement that's on the market
Speaker 2: and talk about whether it's effective or does what it
Speaker 2: says it promises to all that kind of thing. What
Speaker 2: we wanted to talk about is just sort of like
Speaker 2: what is a supplement, what constitutes a supplement, what does not,
Speaker 2: and then how are they regulated, which, of course we
Speaker 2: want to explore how they used to be regulated and
Speaker 2: how that compares with today's regulation, and then kind of
Speaker 2: go into also like what that regulation means what someone
Speaker 2: can say on a label versus what they can't say
Speaker 2: on a label or in a commercial, and also wrap
Speaker 2: it up with like what does the supplement industry look
Speaker 2: like by the numbers?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, And we're painting with very broad brushes here,
Speaker 1: Like Karen said, we're talking about a very broad categorization
Speaker 1: like defining supplements.
Speaker 3: And so please.
Speaker 1: Everyone keep in mind a couple of things as we
Speaker 1: do this. We're not coming after your favorite supplement individually
Speaker 1: all and it's important I think to know too. Like
Speaker 1: we said, we've covered a lot of vitamin deficiency diseases.
Speaker 1: There are times and places and situations where supplements like
Speaker 1: vitamins or minerals are really important for particular people, for
Speaker 1: particular situations, and as we'll see, the marketing of these
Speaker 1: things is phenomenal, So all of us end up buying
Speaker 1: supplements that probably in fact don't do anything for us
Speaker 1: at the same time, so me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I think a big part of it
Speaker 2: is just sort of in not knowing, Like I learned
Speaker 2: so very much about what supplements like, what they're allowed
Speaker 2: to say these days, and so I think that's that's
Speaker 2: a big part of it, is that, like you, there's
Speaker 2: very careful wording that is designed to make you want
Speaker 2: to buy things.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's what we're focusing on kind of the
Speaker 1: supplement industry as a whole, and the ways that the
Speaker 1: FDA and the FTC even has kind of dealt with
Speaker 1: regulations surrounding these supplements, which also means that this is
Speaker 1: a pretty US centric story. But I have at least
Speaker 1: some data on things in other countries as well too,
Speaker 1: and we have sources. So if you live somewhere else
Speaker 1: and you're interested in, like what's it like in Australia
Speaker 1: versus South Korea versus the US, We've got some info
Speaker 1: on that too. But right right, all of that is
Speaker 1: jumping ahead, because first it's quarantiney time.
Speaker 2: It is what are we drinking this week?
Speaker 1: Nothing other than snake oil. Yeah, I mean had to be.
Speaker 2: It had to be the snake oil elixir, no strom whatever,
Speaker 2: all the different things, and in snake oil, it's actually
Speaker 2: quite delicious.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: It has bourbon, it has blueberries, it has lemon juice,
Speaker 2: it has simple syrup and a little bit of mint.
Speaker 2: We may have made something like this before, you.
Speaker 1: Know, one hundred and fifty episodes in or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's okay.
Speaker 1: But we'll post the full recipe for that quarantine as
Speaker 1: well as our non alcoholic plusy berita on our website
Speaker 1: This Podcast will Kill You dot com and all of
Speaker 1: our social media channels, and.
Speaker 2: On our website This Podcast will Kill You dot Com,
Speaker 2: you can find all sorts of cool things, including but
Speaker 2: not limited to transcripts. You can find links to bookshop
Speaker 2: dot org and our Goodreads list. You can find the
Speaker 2: sources for each and every one of our episodes. You
Speaker 2: can find links to merch You can find links to Patreon.
Speaker 2: You can find a first hand account form. And this
Speaker 2: is not really related to our website, but please rate, review, subscribe.
Speaker 2: Couldn't think of a good A good transition there.
Speaker 1: Totally worked, It totally worked. Yeah, it really does help
Speaker 1: us get new listeners and be able to keep making
Speaker 1: the podcast. So thank you for your support.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you. Let's get started.
Speaker 1: Okay yeah, okay, okay. So we're starting out defining what
Speaker 1: the heck of supplement actually is. Easy, easy logical place
Speaker 1: to start. And this definition comes straight from Congress really
Speaker 1: in an act that I think erin you're gonna end
Speaker 1: up talking a little bit about, and that is the
Speaker 1: Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, or the DSHA. I've
Speaker 1: also seen in nineteen DHA dha. Can I say.
Speaker 2: That that's how I saw in one news article it
Speaker 2: was like pronounced dsha.
Speaker 3: I love that they say we can pronounce that way.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. So the DSHA which was passed
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. So, according to this definition, and
Speaker 1: according to the FDA website, a dietary supplement is a
Speaker 1: product that you ingest, it must be ingested, which contains
Speaker 1: a quote dietary ingredient intended to quote supplement your diet.
Speaker 1: They literally just use the term to define the term.
Speaker 1: That's what they do.
Speaker 2: That means nothing, right, I know, Like is that really it?
Speaker 1: Aaron?
Speaker 3: That is the definition.
Speaker 1: So let us like actually dig down into breaking down
Speaker 1: what that really means, shall we? Yeah, because they don't.
Speaker 1: That is the actual definition listed. What this means regulatory
Speaker 1: wise is it's anything that you can purchase that you're
Speaker 1: buying to ingest. Specifically, it must be ingested. So this
Speaker 1: means you're eating it, you're drinking it, you're chewing it. Specifically,
Speaker 1: you're not rubbing it on. So it's nothing topical. It's
Speaker 1: nothing meant to be injected, and in fact, previously it
Speaker 1: wasn't even anything that was like just dissolving in your
Speaker 1: mouth like sublingual. Although there's gray area around that. The
Speaker 1: point is it's supposed to be something that you ingest
Speaker 1: and it goes into your stomach. Okay. That isn't directly
Speaker 1: a food product, meaning it's not meant to serve as food.
Speaker 1: It's not meant to be a meal or a snack
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And is also not a medication,
Speaker 1: meaning it's not something that's prescribed and it's not an
Speaker 1: over the counter drug either. These are supplements. So what
Speaker 1: are the kind of categories of this. These are all
Speaker 1: of our vitamins, meaning multivitamins and single vitamins. It's also minerals,
Speaker 1: it's prebiotics, probiotics. It's things like liquid ivy supplements, fiber supplements,
Speaker 1: collagen supplements, herbs, botanicals, amino acids, protein, powders, enzymes, extracts.
Speaker 1: It's a very long list of things, and they can
Speaker 1: come in a lot of different forms. It can be pills, capsules, gummies,
Speaker 1: but also concentrates, powders, teas, even bars, as long as
Speaker 1: they are not marketed to be a meal replacement bar.
Speaker 1: But if they're marketed as a supplement bar, then they
Speaker 1: are a supplement. It's an incredibly broad categorization of items.
Speaker 1: And part of the definition of a supplement is that
Speaker 1: the product itself is intended to do something more than
Speaker 1: what food does. It is not intended to be a
Speaker 1: part of your diet. The intention behind it is to supplement,
Speaker 1: to add or augment our diet. And we are going
Speaker 1: to get deep in this episode into how these things
Speaker 1: are labeled and regulated and how they are intended to
Speaker 1: be used quote unquote versus how they are actually used.
Speaker 1: Interesting and I'm going to stop really soon because I
Speaker 1: want to just like get straight into the history of
Speaker 1: these supplements. But I think that that part of it,
Speaker 1: this definition of supplements that they are intended in a
Speaker 1: specific way, is an important part of their definition, because specifically,
Speaker 1: supplements cannot claim to and can't be intended to treat, cure,
Speaker 1: or prevent or even really like alleviate the symptoms of
Speaker 1: any specific disease or condition or groups of diseases.
Speaker 3: Their function is really supposed.
Speaker 1: To be to augment the nutrients in our diet and
Speaker 1: provide us a potential benefit to our nutritional status and
Speaker 1: therefore our health and well being beyond the things that
Speaker 1: we eat.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's what a supplement is in the US.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean, I feel like a lot of the
Speaker 2: questions that I have are probably going to be answered
Speaker 2: later once we get more into the nitty gritty of
Speaker 2: DCHE and like all of the what you can put
Speaker 2: on a label, what you can claim, and how much
Speaker 2: you can claim. As long as you have that the
Speaker 2: FDA has not what is it whatever I happen in
Speaker 2: here evaluated these claims and this is not intended to cure, treat,
Speaker 2: or prevent any disease. Right, it is very interesting, Okay,
Speaker 2: but I feel like this is a really good starting point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like we know kind of what a supplement is.
Speaker 1: So like Aaron, and I will say briefly, in Canada,
Speaker 1: the definitions are slightly different in different countries. So in Canada,
Speaker 1: herbals and vitamins and things like that are pretty similar
Speaker 1: what we call dietary supplements, but the regulations are different.
Speaker 1: In the EU, vitamins and minerals are regulated one way,
Speaker 1: and then herbal remedies are regulated as something different, and
Speaker 1: so each different country does have a different system. So
Speaker 1: this is the definition of dietary supplement as defined by
Speaker 1: the US, and that's kind of what we're focusing on. So, Aarin,
Speaker 1: how did we get here with to this definition? Tell
Speaker 1: me about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a journey. I love, it's a journey. I
Speaker 2: think we can take a very quick break again and
Speaker 2: then and then get into it. Yeah, the history of
Speaker 2: the dietary supplement industry in the US really begins with
Speaker 2: the passage of the nineteen o six Federal Food and
Speaker 2: Drugs Act aka Wilie's Law. And you could also say
Speaker 2: that it begins with the discovery of vitamins, because vitamins
Speaker 2: have historically made up the bulk of the supplement industry
Speaker 2: here in the US. Other types of supplements like herbal
Speaker 2: or botanical supplements, they date back themselves like thousands of
Speaker 2: years in their use by humans.
Speaker 1: But in this.
Speaker 2: History, I'm not as focused on how people have used
Speaker 2: supplements over time as much as I am on how
Speaker 2: they've sold them and when their production began to be regulated.
Speaker 2: It's really just this is the history of the regulation
Speaker 2: of the supplement industry in the US, which sounds like
Speaker 2: very specific, but let me tell you this is a
Speaker 2: very broad topic.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's it sounds like you would think like, oh,
Speaker 1: the regulatory history of supplements, like that sounds boring.
Speaker 3: It's not going to be.
Speaker 2: Boring anything but boring it is. It is like, you know,
Speaker 2: twists and turns, shocks, surprises. I gasped out loud at
Speaker 2: least once or twice doing this research.
Speaker 1: The amount of text messages with like question mark exclamation mark,
Speaker 1: question exclamation was like.
Speaker 2: Can you believe this? This is outrageous. That's not how
Speaker 2: I speak. I don't that's how my text choice is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is. But this then brings us past the snake
Speaker 2: oils and tonics and elixirs of the eighteen hundreds that
Speaker 2: you know, sell a prom or that sold a promise
Speaker 2: of health and vitality without any evidence or sometimes evidence
Speaker 2: to the contrary. And it brings us to nineteen o six,
Speaker 2: when those elixirs and tonics and snake oils were still sold,
Speaker 2: still with this false promise of health and vitality, but
Speaker 2: with like the tiniest sprinkle of regulation. So long story short,
Speaker 2: really truly long story short. A growing awareness of the
Speaker 2: problem with mis labeled or tainted food and also drugs.
Speaker 2: Then some food poisoning scandals, a few exposes on the
Speaker 2: food industry, especially the Jungle by Upton Sinclair, and the
Speaker 2: work of food safety warrior Harvey Wiley. All of these
Speaker 2: things led to the passage of this act, the nineteen
Speaker 2: o six Federal Food and Drugs Act, And this Act
Speaker 2: was largely intended to protect consumers by requiring that producers
Speaker 2: had to accurately label what they were selling, like you
Speaker 2: couldn't put on a bag brown sugar when really what
Speaker 2: was in there was ground up place, which is what
Speaker 2: had been the case. Oh wow, okay, or like you know,
Speaker 2: oh we're selling this is ground cinnamon. Actually it's brick dust.
Speaker 2: These things happened. And if you listen to our book
Speaker 2: club episode last year on Deborah Blum and the Poison Squad,
Speaker 2: some of this stuff is like you're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Wiley Harvey's Law, brick dust, pond water and milk, like
Speaker 2: all that is very familiar. That is such a great
Speaker 2: book that it explores this particular act and some of
Speaker 2: the earth the events leading up to it in much
Speaker 2: more detail. I highly recommend. Anyway, this act required producers
Speaker 2: to accurately label what they were selling. It required them
Speaker 2: to list certain ingredients things like alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, cannabis,
Speaker 2: et cetera. There was like a list of a certain
Speaker 2: number of ingredients that had to be included on your label,
Speaker 2: and that drugs quote, substances used to cure, mitigate, or
Speaker 2: prevent disease end quote had to quote abide by the
Speaker 2: standards of strength, quality, and purity in either the US
Speaker 2: Pharmacopeia or the National Formulary end quote. Essentially, this nineteen
Speaker 2: o six law was intended to give consumers more information
Speaker 2: on what they were consuming so that they could decide
Speaker 2: whether or not they wanted to consume it, buy or beware,
Speaker 2: and because it was mostly about the content of the
Speaker 2: items that were being sold, drugs were still able largely
Speaker 2: to advertise as essential to health and preventative for all disease,
Speaker 2: whether that was true or false or somewhere in between.
Speaker 2: And perhaps the biggest growing segment of this newly regulated
Speaker 2: drug industry was vitamins. In the last few decades of
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds and into the nineteen hundreds, scientists had
Speaker 2: discovered vitamins. They had done a huge amount of research
Speaker 2: on like actually finding that there was more to food
Speaker 2: than just protein carbohydrates fats, and they were also making
Speaker 2: the links between vitamins and deficiency diseases Vitamin C and scurvy,
Speaker 2: thiamine and barry, barry, vitamin D and rickets and so on.
Speaker 2: And this was a huge breakthrough, this discovery of vitamins,
Speaker 2: as was the isolation and production of these vitamins, which
Speaker 2: by the nineteen twenties had become widely available and widely advertised.
Speaker 2: As we heard in the first hand account, there were
Speaker 2: ads for vitamins everywhere, and a lot of these vitamin
Speaker 2: ads also tended to target parents for their kids, so
Speaker 2: you could find ads for vitamins and Good Housekeeping Parents magazine,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of warning parents, warning readers that if
Speaker 2: your kid doesn't have this particular proprietary concoction of vitamins,
Speaker 2: their teeth and bones may never develop and they'll be
Speaker 2: sick all the time. And they can say that, like
Speaker 2: these ads could say that, and so it's certainly the case.
Speaker 2: Like as we've established on this podcast through some of
Speaker 2: the episodes that we've covered, there are deficiency diseases that
Speaker 2: if you are deficient in certain vitamins, you could have
Speaker 2: very substantial health impacts. But what was much less clear today,
Speaker 2: but also especially back in the nineteen twenties nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: was whether an excess of vitamins whether there was a
Speaker 2: point at which more is not going to do anything
Speaker 2: or could potentially be toxic. Right, So, was an excess
Speaker 2: of vitamins helpful or not? A lot of researchers working
Speaker 2: on the subject were suspicious that no, it was actually
Speaker 2: did nothing at all, and we need to do something
Speaker 2: about this. And so in the nineteen thirties, the FDA,
Speaker 2: which became official around nineteen thirty as the first consumer
Speaker 2: protection agency, they established a lab specifically to study these vitamins,
Speaker 2: like the health claims made about them, whether their labels
Speaker 2: were accurate, and especially whether they contained the amount that
Speaker 2: they were supposed to. And that was sort of underregulation, right,
Speaker 2: it was what did I say here? It was strength, quality,
Speaker 2: and purity, Okay, And guess what they found.
Speaker 1: That things were a total mess.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing multivitamins that had no vitamins at all, garlic
Speaker 2: pills that didn't prevent diphtheria as advertised, shockingly, shock shock shock,
Speaker 2: cod liver oil with just pitiful amounts of vitamin D,
Speaker 2: and so so many other things. So there's no surprise there.
Speaker 2: But the key thing is that these evaluations were made
Speaker 2: on drugs, on vitamins that were already on the market. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: not And it wasn't before they made it to the market.
Speaker 2: This wasn't like the final step in their production and
Speaker 2: you know, mass advertising to consumers. It was once they
Speaker 2: were already on the market. Under the nineteen oh six Act,
Speaker 2: there was no real procedure for ensuring the safety and
Speaker 2: quality of drugs before they made it to the market.
Speaker 2: Enforcement of the law itself was difficult due to a
Speaker 2: lack of organization and funding for enforcement like no one
Speaker 2: knew how to go about this in any sort of
Speaker 2: straightforward way, and drug companies could take a lot of
Speaker 2: shortcuts to start selling their product as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: I can see you nodding your head, like, yes, things
Speaker 2: haven't changed at all. Having are you talking.
Speaker 3: About nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: Are you're thinking about twenty twenties?
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep. Oh gosh, wow, Okay, I can't wait
Speaker 2: for the ups and downs and how we I'm telling
Speaker 2: you what it is. It's made me feel a little despair.
Speaker 2: But anyway, we'll just we'll leave the despair in the future,
Speaker 2: going back now to the nineteen thirties, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: this is sort of the way things stood with this
Speaker 2: nineteen six Act, just really no great regulatory control before
Speaker 2: these products went to market, and in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: this oversight would have very tragic consequences. When a chemist
Speaker 2: at a Tennessee pharmaceutical company, if you're interested, it's se
Speaker 2: Massingill Company. I may have talked about this on the
Speaker 2: podcast before this chemist put together made a concoction of sulfonellamide,
Speaker 2: which was an early antibiotic, combined it with raspberry extract
Speaker 2: and diethylene glycol to add some sweetness. Diethylene glycol has
Speaker 2: a sweet taste, it's cheap, colorless, odorless, and it's essentially
Speaker 2: commercial anti freeze. No studies. I think there had been
Speaker 2: like two toxicology studies done on DEG before this concoction
Speaker 2: was made, but I don't know if they if this
Speaker 2: chemist had access to them, I doubt it. And no
Speaker 2: studies were done animal studies, human studies, anything on this
Speaker 2: elix or sulfonilamide before it was produced and released and
Speaker 2: sold to multiple different states. Within a few months, reports
Speaker 2: of illness and death began to trickle in, and when
Speaker 2: the dust finally settled, at least three hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: five people were sickened, including many small children, and one
Speaker 2: hundred and five people died from taking this Yes bad
Speaker 2: and the owner of the pharmaceutical company pled guilty to
Speaker 2: adulteration and misbranding because DEEG was not on the label,
Speaker 2: and he was slapped with a hefty fine. But that's it.
Speaker 2: There was nothing in like, there was nothing else that
Speaker 2: the government could be like, oh, you know, you violated
Speaker 2: this act. Those were the ways that he that he
Speaker 2: violated this act. That the company violated.
Speaker 1: This Act just by not putting it on the label.
Speaker 2: There was no requirements for safety testing and so nothing.
Speaker 2: And this is what there was, like an evaluation by
Speaker 2: a task force and what they came to the conclusion
Speaker 2: of it was that there was nothing in the nineteen
Speaker 2: six Act that could have prevented this from happening. It
Speaker 2: reminds me a little bit in some ways of the
Speaker 2: tailenol poisonings. Things didn't have to be sealed, there were
Speaker 2: no protective labels in that way. So it's really interesting
Speaker 2: to think about proactive versus reactive regulation. A yeah, but anyway,
Speaker 2: it was clearly time for a new act. In nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty eight, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was passed, which,
Speaker 2: among other things, required that pharmaceutical companies show that their
Speaker 2: products were safe before selling them. And this act defined
Speaker 2: a drug as quote articles other than food intended to
Speaker 2: affect the structure or any function of the body of
Speaker 2: man or other animals.
Speaker 1: Fascinating areas.
Speaker 2: Isn't that so interesting?
Speaker 1: Wow? Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And this act also required that vitamin and other products
Speaker 2: sold for quote unquote special dietary needs that they had
Speaker 2: to label their contents clearly show Also the proportion of
Speaker 2: minimum daily requirements that it met for vitamins and minerals
Speaker 2: and include instructions for use. So it was a step forward.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties, the FDA
Speaker 2: came down hard on many companies selling vitamins and mineral
Speaker 2: supplements for their false health claims, and one case in
Speaker 2: particular against a company called Neutralite led to a decree
Speaker 2: that set out clearer limits on what supplement companies could
Speaker 2: claim on their label and in advertisements. And so, what
Speaker 2: this decree stated was that a company could say, if
Speaker 2: a symptom is caused by a vitamin deficiency, then in
Speaker 2: that case, the product could help if it contained that vitamin,
Speaker 2: assuming the link between vitamin deficiency and symptom had already
Speaker 2: established scientifically, But they could not make additional claims like
Speaker 2: such and such vitamin could relieve symptoms of arthritis, diabetes, cancer, impotence,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Like it had to be this can treat this,
Speaker 2: if this is a deficiency, if you have a deficiency
Speaker 2: in this, but you can't make claims beyond that, right
Speaker 2: beyond what scientifically known.
Speaker 1: If your gums are bleeding from scurvy, then vitamin C
Speaker 1: in this supplement can treat you.
Speaker 2: That is my understanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, it's all very hard, honestly to like
Speaker 1: interpret the like nitty like these wordings of things.
Speaker 2: I know, I feel like I need a degree in
Speaker 2: policy or law or something to something yeah something, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so that they could say this supplement, for defis your diet,
Speaker 2: but they they could not say that it cured or
Speaker 2: treated any disease.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: And over the rest of the nineteen fifties and into
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, more amendments were passed that increased FDA
Speaker 2: oversight of the supplement industry. If you claimed your product
Speaker 2: cured or treated an illness, you had to prove it
Speaker 2: before it went to market. That phrase minimum daily requirements
Speaker 2: was replaced with daily requirements because minimum implied that more
Speaker 2: could be beneficial when that had never been shown to
Speaker 2: be the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, okay, interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. Minimum and maximum daily amounts were set out
Speaker 2: for these vitamins and minerals, kind of putting an upper
Speaker 2: limit on like, yes, there could be a toxicity that
Speaker 2: people could develop if they have too much of this,
Speaker 2: and all supplements had to put this statement on their label.
Speaker 2: So think about this in contrast with the whole The
Speaker 2: FDA has not evaluated this, etcetera. Not intended to treat
Speaker 2: and cure whatever.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 2: Vitamins and minerals are supplied in abundant amounts by the
Speaker 2: foods we eat. The Food and Nutrition Board of the
Speaker 2: National Research Council recommends that dietary needs be satisfied by foods,
Speaker 2: except for persons with special medical needs. There is no
Speaker 2: scientific basis for recommending routine use of dietary supplements end quote.
Speaker 4: That used to be on every single That used to
Speaker 4: be the requirement.
Speaker 1: Wow, yes, okay.
Speaker 2: And so this is I don't remember exactly what year
Speaker 2: that went in, whether it was the sixties or seventies,
Speaker 2: which decade, But I think what's really interesting is that
Speaker 2: you start to see this shift in sentiment surrounding these supplements.
Speaker 2: So the nineteen thirty eight Act seemed really welcomed by
Speaker 2: the public as necessary for protecting consumers because probably the
Speaker 2: sulfonelamide poisonings were so horrifying. But these new regulations, these
Speaker 2: new amendments, in the sixties and seventies, people began to
Speaker 2: push back really hard against them, and they would continue
Speaker 2: to be pushback from the public and also from the industry,
Speaker 2: the industry and the senators and congress people who were
Speaker 2: receiving money campaign.
Speaker 3: Fund by the industry, by the.
Speaker 2: Industry, and so there there was just like an increasing
Speaker 2: amount of pushback, and I think it is really worth
Speaker 2: contemplating why, even if we don't have that answer. I
Speaker 2: think it's I think it's really important to try to
Speaker 2: understand what what are the drivers of this. And I
Speaker 2: think there's first that the supplement industry had grown so
Speaker 2: much and saw the potential for growth over subsequent decades.
Speaker 2: And it also put this extra resources into lobbying against
Speaker 2: any regulations or additional regulations that would force them to
Speaker 2: be transparent or be held accountable for the health claims
Speaker 2: that they made. Right, So it was like, the best
Speaker 2: way that we're going to make more money is going
Speaker 2: to prevent any additional laws from being.
Speaker 1: Passed, right, I mean, duh, but sorry what yeah?
Speaker 2: I know. Yeah. And then I think the other big
Speaker 2: piece of this puzzle is that it seems like they're
Speaker 2: throughout this time period, just on a big picture scale,
Speaker 2: in the US, there seems to be this trend towards
Speaker 2: mistrust of government and changes in health decision making technology
Speaker 2: had shown its dark side in atomic weapons, bullpull gas tragedy,
Speaker 2: Chernobyl DDT, like all of these things where it was like,
Speaker 2: look at look how fark technology has come and now
Speaker 2: it will destroy the planet and kill everyone. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then but also there were things like the Dalkon shield IUD,
Speaker 2: which injured many people who used it. There was the
Speaker 2: thilidamide even though we did have that did not happen
Speaker 2: in the US because because of the FDA and the
Speaker 2: steps that we took to prevent something like that from happening.
Speaker 2: But there was also like the estrogen dies which led
Speaker 2: to many awful outcomes including infertility, miscarriages, cancers, et cetera.
Speaker 2: All of these things eroded public confidence in the ability
Speaker 2: of government institutions to protect them. So it was sort
Speaker 2: of like, how are you going to say that you're
Speaker 2: going to add these extra regulations when you have failed
Speaker 2: to protect us in the past, like with these regulations.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting though, to like think of it that way,
Speaker 1: because like in the nineteen thirties, when they realized, hey,
Speaker 1: this regulation that we thought was decent actually isn't protecting us,
Speaker 1: So we need to do better. So, if you're being
Speaker 1: feeling like you're not being protected by the regulations from
Speaker 1: your government, how do you get to the answer of, well,
Speaker 1: let's strip away these regulations because they're not doing their job,
Speaker 1: rather than like, let's come up with regulations that are
Speaker 1: actually going to protect us. I don't know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to like get into that mindset.
Speaker 2: I feel like it is, and I think it also
Speaker 2: represents this this shift in the nineteen sixties and seventies
Speaker 2: that was sort of as a as a reaction to
Speaker 2: the darker side of technology, where it was like, let's
Speaker 2: go back to natural remedies, natural alternative medicine. We have
Speaker 2: left something behind by just casting all of that away.
Speaker 2: And I think that there's really interesting. I came across
Speaker 2: some interesting psychological research about the word natural and how
Speaker 2: even though the word natural has kind of lost a
Speaker 2: meaning in a regulatory sense, but how the word alone
Speaker 2: inspires more trust Ingesting something seems more natural and safer
Speaker 2: than being injected with something, and that interpretation, that perception
Speaker 2: remains even when someone is presented with scientifically proven data
Speaker 2: about the health benefits of vaccines compared to the lack
Speaker 2: of effects of some naturopathic remedies because it's like, well,
Speaker 2: but what's the harm. Also, and I think too that
Speaker 2: some of this is just an overall rejection of the
Speaker 2: paternalistic approaches of medicine and the government's role in medicine,
Speaker 2: sterilizing people without their consent, informing a husband about his
Speaker 2: wife's cancer but not the wife so that the husband
Speaker 2: could decide whether or not to tell her. That happened
Speaker 2: all the time. Yeah, the government's complete apathy during the
Speaker 2: AIDS pandemic, you know, dismissal over things like myolgic and
Speaker 2: cephalomyelitis that we just talked about, endometriosis. I think people
Speaker 2: felt like increasingly they had to take their own health
Speaker 2: decisions into their hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: I know that this supplement works for me, even if
Speaker 2: that is not scientifically proven, even it's if it's a
Speaker 2: placebo effect, even if it's just because you're you firmly
Speaker 2: believe what the supplement is telling you. It's I think
Speaker 2: I also don't know, like this is this is not
Speaker 2: something that I do have some papers about this, but
Speaker 2: I feel like this is something that I've tried to
Speaker 2: synthesize or think about, where it is just an overall
Speaker 2: rejection of you know, keep your hands off of my
Speaker 2: health decisions.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: It's also like the parallels or the like, comparing that
Speaker 1: to like where we exist today in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: and like the things that governments are trying to do
Speaker 1: with regards to our health like that. Yeah, okay, it
Speaker 1: makes sense, But it's like this these Yeah, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: how interesting.
Speaker 2: Eric, I know there is. There are so many fact
Speaker 2: and I feel like we often tend to lay the
Speaker 2: blame entirely at the feet of the supplement industry or
Speaker 2: like these people who are lobbying for regulation to allow
Speaker 2: them to do whatever they want, or we lay the
Speaker 2: blame at a few individuals who are spreading all of
Speaker 2: this miss and disinformation. And I think that we fail
Speaker 2: to recognize or acknowledge the role that the government or
Speaker 2: science or medicine has played in further eroding this trust
Speaker 2: or in breaking it to begin with. Yeah, anyway, food
Speaker 2: for thought, supplements for thought, so anyway. And so throughout
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, the FDA attempted to redraw regulations to
Speaker 2: gain firmer control over the sale and promotion of supplements,
Speaker 2: but lobbying from the supplement industry knock down proposed legislation
Speaker 2: as well as popular opposition to this legislation. And one
Speaker 2: of these exams is that there was a proposed legislation
Speaker 2: that required high dose supplements to be labeled as drugs
Speaker 2: and then thus require like a prescription to get, and
Speaker 2: then that was completely knocked down. As the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: came to a close, another act was making its way
Speaker 2: through Congress, the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act, which would
Speaker 2: require foods to have labels containing information on serving sizes, calorie, fat, vitamin,
Speaker 2: and mineral content. It would have to define things like
Speaker 2: light free, low, reduced, less high, and in the supplement
Speaker 2: realm quote, a claim made with respect to a dietary
Speaker 2: supplement of vitamins, minerals, herbs, or other similar nutritional substances
Speaker 2: shall be subject to a procedure and standard respecting the
Speaker 2: validity of such claim established by the regulation of the
Speaker 2: secretary end quote. So it was like, if you're going
Speaker 2: to make any claim about this supplement improving the health
Speaker 2: in any way, you have to prove it. You can
Speaker 2: imagine the supplement industry is feeling about this, not happy
Speaker 2: so as this fight went on, a public health crisis
Speaker 2: emerged that called into question the whole, like, if these
Speaker 2: vitamins don't do anything, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 2: I think that was a big part of it too,
Speaker 2: where it was like, you're telling me that these things
Speaker 2: don't do anything, so then what's the why do you
Speaker 2: care if I take them or not? Well in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, the answer to that was because bad things
Speaker 2: can happen. So that year, reports of esinophilia myyalgia syndrome
Speaker 2: linked to ingestion of L tryptafan began, which is an
Speaker 2: amino acid, began to pop up, and ultimately there were
Speaker 2: thirty seven deaths and fifteen hundred cases of EMS that
Speaker 2: were linked to or caused by this amino acid supplement.
Speaker 2: The FDA issued recalls and foreign imports of the supplement
Speaker 2: and formed a task force to prevent something like this
Speaker 2: from happening again. And what's so fascinating to me is
Speaker 2: that we saw what happened in nineteen thirty seven with
Speaker 2: the Sulfonillami tragedy, leading to the passage of the nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty eight Act that led to much better standards for
Speaker 2: protection of consumers. What happened in nineteen eighty nine, there
Speaker 2: was no public outrage that seemed to accompany this that
Speaker 2: would have pushed the legislation. This new regulatory legislation through,
Speaker 2: so under pressure from the public and especially lobbyist for
Speaker 2: the supplement industry, Congress passed another act after this one
Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety, the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act. So
Speaker 2: after that was passed, there was another act that Congress
Speaker 2: passed in nineteen ninety two, and it suspended that nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety act for a year from being put into effect.
Speaker 2: And even though it then would take effect, that extra
Speaker 2: site granted to the FDA to protect consumers would be
Speaker 2: very short lived because enter then the nineteen ninety four
Speaker 2: Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. This was the brainchild
Speaker 2: of Republican Senator or In Hatch from Utah and to
Speaker 2: a lesser extent, Democratic New Mexico Representative Bill Richardson. This act,
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety four dche reframed supplements as an economic issue,
Speaker 2: not a health one, and it was one that was already,
Speaker 2: according to this Act, facing too much restrictive legislation as
Speaker 2: it was. Orin Hatch claimed that this bill would cut
Speaker 2: down medical costs across the country by increasing consumer access
Speaker 2: to preventative measures in the form of untested and unregulated supplements.
Speaker 2: His claim really was like he said, we can help
Speaker 2: cut down the cost of medicine for Americans and for
Speaker 2: the America government if we allow more supplements to make
Speaker 2: it to the market, because then they can help with
Speaker 2: preventative medicine.
Speaker 1: They can be then the public will be healthier.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was his supplements, that was his reasoning. Okay,
Speaker 2: And I should note that at the time, Utah, the
Speaker 2: state that Hatch represented, was and actually is still one
Speaker 2: of the largest producers of dietary supplements, huge, huge market.
Speaker 2: This bill undid the work of decades of progress that
Speaker 2: was intended to protect the consumer and essentially completely changed
Speaker 2: the regulatory landscape of supplements. With the passage of DCHE
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four, it was no longer the consumers
Speaker 2: that were protected, but the manufacturers. Manufacturers didn't have to
Speaker 2: provide proof of efficacy or proof of safety before herbs
Speaker 2: or other dietary supplements made it to the market. All
Speaker 2: the companies had to do was just put that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sure that there's more that you'll talk about erin,
Speaker 2: But the number one thing that they really had to
Speaker 2: do was just put that fine print that we all
Speaker 2: know so well on the label. This statement has not
Speaker 2: been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended
Speaker 2: to diagnose, street cure or prevent any disease. The ramifications
Speaker 2: this had and continues to have on the supplement industry
Speaker 2: and the wellness industry overall are huge because the regulations
Speaker 2: today are largely unchanged from this nineteen ninety four Act
Speaker 2: thirty years ago.
Speaker 4: Thirty years ago. Oh, happy, happy anniversary.
Speaker 2: Happy years, so lovely, and so to tell us more
Speaker 2: about these regulations and what supplement manufacturers can and cannot do,
Speaker 2: over to you, Aaron, I will.
Speaker 1: Take it away. Oh, I'm so excited to right after
Speaker 1: a quick break. So under dche the regulation of supplements
Speaker 1: falls under the category of food. FDA is Food and
Speaker 1: Drug administration, but the regulation of supplements falls under the
Speaker 1: larger umbrella of food rather than drugs, and is importantly
Speaker 1: entirely separate from food stuffs or conventional foods. And of
Speaker 1: course it is separate from drugs, So drugs, pharmaceuticals, things
Speaker 1: that are in fact brought to market with the intention
Speaker 1: to cure, treat, or prevent diseases undergo pretty intense scrutiny,
Speaker 1: and we've talked a little bit about this process on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Before drug manufacturers have to show satisfactory evidence
Speaker 1: of safety and efficacy before new drugs or pharmaceuticals can
Speaker 1: be brought to market. This involves clinical trials, multiple phases,
Speaker 1: years and years of work, and lots of data before
Speaker 1: new drugs are approved by the FDA, and usually only
Speaker 1: for very certain indications. Food and food ingredients in conventional
Speaker 1: foods are regulated as well, but in a very different way.
Speaker 1: Food additives either have to be in a category that's
Speaker 1: called generally recognized as safe or GRS, which means that
Speaker 1: there's enough data on them, or like they've been used
Speaker 1: for a long enough time and in a long enough
Speaker 1: situation that there's kind of like a consensus that they're
Speaker 1: safe to consume, even if we don't have very specific
Speaker 1: studies on those ingredients, or they have to in fact
Speaker 1: be approved for use with like safety data that has
Speaker 1: to go into it and be presented to the FDA
Speaker 1: if you're going to use a new ingredient or a
Speaker 1: new food additive. With the creation of this new category
Speaker 1: of dietary supplements. There came a new term, dietary ingredient.
Speaker 1: A dietary ingredient does not fall within this food additive
Speaker 1: category and therefore also does not have to fall into
Speaker 1: the generally recognized as safe category. In short, FDA has
Speaker 1: no oversight whatsoever of these products, that is, dietary supplements
Speaker 1: prior to the time that they come to market. Let
Speaker 1: me say that again, the FDA does not have any
Speaker 1: authority to approve or deny any dietary supplements or their
Speaker 1: ingredients prior to manufacturers selling them to the public. The
Speaker 1: one exception of this is that if products are using
Speaker 1: a new dietary ingredient, which is anything that wasn't marketed
Speaker 1: prior to DCHE in nineteen ninety four, they have to
Speaker 1: notify the FDA seventy five days prior to going live.
Speaker 1: Just notify, just notify them. So like there's some red
Speaker 1: flags in terms of safety regulation right there. It's just that,
Speaker 1: like they there is no regulation whatsoever about what comes
Speaker 1: to market, and it is only in the post market
Speaker 1: phase that FDA can kind of do any sort of regulation,
Speaker 1: and even then only if adverse events are reported. The
Speaker 1: reporting of adverse events. The responsibility for the reporting of
Speaker 1: adverse events falls entirely on the manufacturers and only the manufacturers.
Speaker 2: Which initially they weren't even required to report.
Speaker 1: I believe, yes, I believe at some point they weren't required.
Speaker 1: It seems like from reading the FDA website it is
Speaker 1: required that manufacturers report, and there is a safety reporting
Speaker 1: portal that anyone can report concerns with regards to supplements
Speaker 1: and pharmaceuticals as well, But the only people who are
Speaker 1: technically held to supposed to be reporting are the manufacturers
Speaker 1: of the supplements themselves. It's a little bit a small
Speaker 1: amount of a conflict of interest there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's only as of two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: is what I remember that there was like actually mandatory reporting,
Speaker 2: because a lot of the papers I read from earlier
Speaker 2: than that were, like you, they.
Speaker 3: Don't even have to report adverse events.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's so fascinating to me that this
Speaker 2: is happening all of the time.
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's it is happening all of the time. Thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of new products are coming to market all of
Speaker 1: the time. The FDA has said outright, there is they
Speaker 1: have no list, like running list of all of the
Speaker 1: things that are currently on the market being sold as
Speaker 1: dietary supplements. Like they could not possibly, they do not
Speaker 1: have the staff, they do not have the resources to
Speaker 1: keep up with every single new thing that comes to market.
Speaker 1: There is a repository of dietary supplement labels, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting, but it's I mean, they're constantly updating it,
Speaker 1: but it's constantly out of date because of how many
Speaker 1: supplements are on the market. But that's not even all Aaron,
Speaker 1: that's like the one small part, right, that's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so there's a safety potential red flag that you're not
Speaker 1: getting things approved before they come to market.
Speaker 2: Well, hold on, but to before we go on to
Speaker 2: the next portion, whichever that is. I don't know what
Speaker 2: it is right now, it's going to be bad, but
Speaker 2: there have been a lot of safety issues with people
Speaker 2: getting really sick or dying from these supplements, and are
Speaker 2: the supplements still on the market, Like why don't we
Speaker 2: hear about that? It's just is so it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Absolutely there has been I think so. From one of
Speaker 1: the papers that I read, which I think was from
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, the FDA estimated at least fifty thousand adverse
Speaker 1: events annually, which is likely a drastic underestimate because it's
Speaker 1: estimated that only about one percent are actually reported. Some
Speaker 1: of these adverse events that are attributable to dietary supplements
Speaker 1: are likely very trivial, but some are potentially life threatening.
Speaker 1: The biggest ones that we see, not uncommonly are things
Speaker 1: like liver failure or renal failure, and this can happen
Speaker 1: from either toxicity from like overdose, especially if things like
Speaker 1: for example, vitamin A or things that are like philic
Speaker 1: and your body is not excreting, so if you're taking
Speaker 1: them in high quantities, it can cause toxicity. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is that there are a lot of interactions
Speaker 1: that can happen between supplements and supplements or supplements and
Speaker 1: other medications, especially because a lot of pharmaceuticals and supplements
Speaker 1: both rely on our CYP four fifty system and our
Speaker 1: liver for metabolism. So if you're taking a lot of
Speaker 1: different of these supplements and medicines that each of them
Speaker 1: are affecting the metabolism of the other, you can cause
Speaker 1: really serious damage because you're affecting the blood levels of
Speaker 1: these medicines and supplements, and many people don't report their
Speaker 1: supplement use to physicians, or physicians fail to ask people
Speaker 1: about what supplements they're taking, so this can easily get missed.
Speaker 2: Or they don't go to the doctor and because they
Speaker 2: don't have health insurance and exactly, yeah, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 2: just to one percent. This is an estimated one and
Speaker 2: it's fifty thousand per year, and that is one percent.
Speaker 2: Is there some air and math that we can do?
Speaker 1: Well? So I didn't do air and math because what
Speaker 1: it sounded like is that they the FDA estimated fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: but they also estimated them only one reported.
Speaker 4: So then like, yeah, it's unclear what okay, okay, right, so.
Speaker 3: What how did you get to that number?
Speaker 2: Still a staggering number, a staggering amount of problems and
Speaker 2: this is it's I think there was one paper the
Speaker 2: title who had something like Pandora's box in the title,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, yes, yeh. Because now that
Speaker 2: this is out there, now that the supplement industry has
Speaker 2: grown so so so so much, is there anything that
Speaker 2: ever is going to increase regulation? Right?
Speaker 1: How do how do we rein it back in? And
Speaker 1: it's not just the like toxicities from overdose or things
Speaker 1: like that. There's also safety issues that again, because these
Speaker 1: things can come to market without any pre market review
Speaker 1: or testing, manufacturers are still supposed to adhere to good
Speaker 1: manufacturing practices the same way that any food manufacturer is
Speaker 1: supposed to write. They're regulated in the same way as food.
Speaker 1: But reports back in like the early like the twenty
Speaker 1: tens and things like that revealed things like, for some examples,
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of supplements in some studies had various
Speaker 1: amounts of heavy metals in them. In some studies, up
Speaker 1: to like fifty nine percent of botanical supplements had plant
Speaker 1: species that weren't listed on the label whatsoever. And then
Speaker 1: eighty three percent of this time in some studies active
Speaker 1: ingredients were substituted for each other. So like what it
Speaker 1: said was in there, it's literally the nineteen thirties. In
Speaker 1: the twenty tens, there also have been a lot of
Speaker 1: cases of adulteration of quote unquote dietary supplements with actual pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1: Think fen fen, oh, yes, fen fen. In fact, half
Speaker 1: of all drug recalls since two thousand and four, like
Speaker 1: drug recalls have actually been from supplements because they were
Speaker 1: supplements that were adulterated with actual pharmaceuticals, and in many
Speaker 1: cases these still sit around on shelves for months even
Speaker 1: after they are banned.
Speaker 2: Right, Also, how much is like I remember reading something
Speaker 2: too about again going back to what's accurate on the
Speaker 2: label and the problems that that could have is some
Speaker 2: herbal or botanical supplements that have nothing of what they like,
Speaker 2: like gens It was like, there is zero jensing in
Speaker 2: these one hundred thousand bottles of ginsing or because when
Speaker 2: you have and I think we've talked about this several
Speaker 2: times on the podcast before, but when you are using
Speaker 2: something that's derived from a plant, there's not We have
Speaker 2: talked about different different individuals of the same species, different
Speaker 2: parts of the plant can contain drastically different concentrations of
Speaker 2: whatever compound it is that you're interested in, and that
Speaker 2: can lead to huge problems if we don't standardize how
Speaker 2: much you're getting, because then that affects use, that affects
Speaker 2: like the amount, Like maybe there's a certain amount that
Speaker 2: doesn't interact with the other medications that you're taking, But
Speaker 2: how do you know how much that amount is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent of everything, But this is just
Speaker 1: one half of the problem with the lack of regulation, right,
Speaker 1: because that is the safety half. Right. The safety half
Speaker 1: of regulation is an issue because there is no oversight
Speaker 1: before things come to market, so it's all post market
Speaker 1: that safety issues have to be identified and then dealt with.
Speaker 1: And the FDA does not have the capacity to look
Speaker 1: at and analyze all of the things that are coming
Speaker 1: to market and check them to make sure that they
Speaker 1: are what they're supposed to be, et cetera. There's just
Speaker 1: too many. But the other thing that DCHE did in
Speaker 1: the creation of this new category of supplements is that
Speaker 1: it allowed for supplements to make a lot of claims
Speaker 1: about what it is they are intended to do. And
Speaker 1: the vast majority of these claims are entirely unregulated by
Speaker 1: the FDA, which is very troublesome and confusing for consumers.
Speaker 1: So let's go over these types of claims. There's three
Speaker 1: main categories of claims, and some of them are regulated
Speaker 1: by the FDA, and some of them are not so
Speaker 1: health claims, which are things like adequate calcium can reduce
Speaker 1: your risk of osteoporosis, or like if you look on
Speaker 1: your cheerios box, uh huh, this is not an ad
Speaker 1: for cheerios, But Cheerios can quote help lower your cholesterol
Speaker 1: and reduce the risk of heart disease. Right. These types
Speaker 1: of claims that link a substance, a vitamin A, whatever,
Speaker 1: to a disease or a specific condition are called health claims,
Speaker 1: and these are in fact regulated by the FDA. They
Speaker 1: have to be based on evidence, they are reviewed by
Speaker 1: the FDA, and they have to be approved prior to marketing.
Speaker 1: There are both foods and supplements that can make these
Speaker 1: types of claims, although apparently in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: the FDA sent a big warning letter to Cheerios said
Speaker 1: that the way that they were marketing them would make
Speaker 1: them an unapproved drug. What because it's like so intense,
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty sure it still says that on the
Speaker 1: Cheerios box anyways.
Speaker 2: I feel like it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, anyways, But so those are health claims, right.
Speaker 1: If it's something about a substance doing something in relation
Speaker 1: to a specific disease, then it's a health claim, and
Speaker 1: that is at least to some degree regulated, Right, that
Speaker 1: has been reviewed by the FDA.
Speaker 2: I want to know more about that, Like, in the context,
Speaker 2: what does that mean that it's been it's been approved,
Speaker 2: like it's been regulated by the FDA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it means that like, there the links exist enough
Speaker 1: that like scientific data showing links for example of like
Speaker 1: calcium helping to reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Right, we
Speaker 1: know that there are links, There is enough data to
Speaker 1: show that calcium can reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Although
Speaker 1: even that now is a little bit in question. But
Speaker 1: so to be able to say that that statement has
Speaker 1: been kind of approved by the FDA. So if your
Speaker 1: supplement provides calcium, then you could say something like, calcium
Speaker 1: can reduce your risk of osteoporosis, and this product has
Speaker 1: calcium in it, Therefore, this product can help reduce your
Speaker 1: risk of osteoporosis. Right. That's how Cheerios does it because
Speaker 1: we know that eating soluble fiber can lower your cholesterol,
Speaker 1: which can reduce your risk of heart disease. And Cheerios
Speaker 1: contain soluble fiber. Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, But it's saying like we as a product can
Speaker 2: do this because without saying it's not just all soluble fiber.
Speaker 2: It's like, but we are special.
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, That's where it is very confusing and murky. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like can it do it as well as a
Speaker 1: statin No, definitely not. But anyway, then there are nutrient
Speaker 1: content claims, and these are like pretty basic. This is
Speaker 1: just things like this product is high in fiber or
Speaker 1: low in sugar, and this comes from that act that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Aaron, the Nutrient Education Nutrition.
Speaker 2: Some nineteen ninety Yeah, n LA or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these are also kind of a standard set of
Speaker 1: definitions that are regulated by the FDA. You have to have,
Speaker 1: you know, this much amount of sugar or this much
Speaker 1: amount of sodium to be low in sodium or low
Speaker 1: in sugar or whatever the claims are. So if you
Speaker 1: are claiming things that don't match up with your label,
Speaker 1: then you can be fined or reprimanded by the FDA.
Speaker 1: Those claims are regulated. K supplements can and do make
Speaker 1: another type of claim, which is called a structure function claim.
Speaker 1: And these are the ones that get really really tricky.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting, Aaron, because you said in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight one it was like anything saying that
Speaker 1: they have an effect on the structure or function of
Speaker 1: your body needs to Yeah, yep. So structure function claims
Speaker 1: are any type of claim that describes and I will
Speaker 1: quote here quote the role of a nutrient or dietary
Speaker 1: ingredient intended to affect the normal structure or function of
Speaker 1: the human body. What that is the most ambiguous term.
Speaker 1: So what it ends up meaning in practice is statements
Speaker 1: like quote calcium builds strong bones, or quote fiber helps
Speaker 1: your bowels be regular. Right. These types of things are
Speaker 1: structure function claims. They're not directly saying a disease right, right,
Speaker 1: They're not directly relating to the treatment or cure of
Speaker 1: a condition. They're things like boost metabolism, improves focus, strengthens
Speaker 1: hair and nails, glowing skin. Right. None of these are
Speaker 1: regulated in any way by the FDA. They do not
Speaker 1: have to be pre approved. And this is where it's
Speaker 1: even like another layer of tricky. Marketing and advertising is
Speaker 1: not controlled by the FDA. That's controlled by the FTC.
Speaker 1: So it's like a whole nother regulatory agency.
Speaker 2: I so I don't have cable TV anymore. I just
Speaker 2: have streaming services. And I was in a hotel yesterday
Speaker 2: in the day before and of course, like I always,
Speaker 2: you know, put on the TV. The amount of commercials
Speaker 2: for supplements, and I mean every single commercial that I
Speaker 2: watched was a supplement or a drug. It was It's
Speaker 2: been such a long time. It was so appalling. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that it was just like one after the other. And
Speaker 2: then always that fine print, always that fine print. That's
Speaker 2: just like we can say whatever we want, and I
Speaker 2: know that that's that's not you know, as you're as
Speaker 2: you're describing, it's not quite the case. But so what
Speaker 2: does then the like, how how does that regulation differ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so manufacturers that make these products are supposed to
Speaker 1: have evidence that their claims are truthful and not misleading,
Speaker 1: but they do not have to provide any of this
Speaker 1: proof to the FDA. And again, the FDA has no
Speaker 1: oversight of these claims prior to supplements coming to market.
Speaker 1: And that is why any supplements that have that are
Speaker 1: making a structure function claim have to have that disclaimer
Speaker 1: on the label that states these claims have not been
Speaker 1: evaluated by the FDA because the FDA is not looking
Speaker 1: at these claims. It is only the manufacturer who supposedly
Speaker 1: has evidence that these claims are not misleading. Now let's
Speaker 1: break that down a little bit more because it could
Speaker 1: be that, as an example, a particular dietary ingredient in
Speaker 1: mice at some unknown or specific quantity or concentration did
Speaker 1: in fact improve a mouse's concentration on a particular task. Right,
Speaker 1: that is evidence that this ingredient improves concentration. Or it
Speaker 1: could be that in cell culture, a particular ingredient at
Speaker 1: some quantity some concentration improved mitochondrial function, and then you
Speaker 1: could make that claim without being misleading.
Speaker 2: But these are studies done by the supplement companies.
Speaker 1: Potentially, or it could be studies done by anyone. Right,
Speaker 1: the supplement company just has to have There has to
Speaker 1: be evidence that they have in existence that the claims
Speaker 1: that they are making are not misleading.
Speaker 2: Okay, but digging into this evidence a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Does that have to show up in peer review journals?
Speaker 2: Can it show up to pay to published journal, Can
Speaker 2: it show up anywhere? Can it be one? Can it
Speaker 2: be a super subjective measure where it's one mouse who
Speaker 2: looks like maybe they're concentrating a bit more.
Speaker 1: You are asking exactly the right question, because the truth
Speaker 1: is that without anyone overviewing this evidence other than the manufacturer,
Speaker 1: we as consumers have no way of knowing what this
Speaker 1: evidence is, what populations the studies were done, in was
Speaker 1: it a dish, was it a single mouse?
Speaker 3: Was it dogs? Was it humans?
Speaker 1: Was it peer reviewed? Was it done by the manufacturer? Also,
Speaker 1: what were the concentrations of this ingredient or this molecule
Speaker 1: that were being used? What form was it being given in?
Speaker 1: Was it an eye dropper on a petri dish? Or
Speaker 1: was it thousands of milligrams of something? But the supplement
Speaker 1: contains four milligrams of whatever this thing is and you're
Speaker 1: going to ingest it. We don't know, and neither does
Speaker 1: the FDA. That's the point.
Speaker 2: This is.
Speaker 5: A Paul.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm surprised. I guess I shouldn't
Speaker 2: be surprised.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so like in theory, if things are marketed
Speaker 1: in a way that is misleading, then the FDA could
Speaker 1: investigate and you know, say, hey, this doesn't match up
Speaker 1: with what you're saying. But like how often can that happen? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the industry is so saturated.
Speaker 2: Right right, If there is a complaint that is made,
Speaker 2: who makes that complaint, who follows through that complaint? Can
Speaker 2: it be like can we just get a team of
Speaker 2: citizen scientists working together, like just grassroots effort to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: this label says X, Y and Z. I looked into
Speaker 2: the literature and found that there are no links. I'm
Speaker 2: making a complaint, like, how does that process work or
Speaker 2: is it have to.
Speaker 1: Be it's These are the questions, Aaron, and don't I
Speaker 1: don't know the answers to them. There's also like another
Speaker 1: just kind of little like underlayer of confusingness. It's very confusing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, intentionally, so, yes, it really is.
Speaker 1: Because supplements also have to have that asterisk that you mentioned, Aaron,
Speaker 1: that it does have to state that this supplement is
Speaker 1: not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease,
Speaker 1: because that is part of the definition of a drug
Speaker 1: and therefore not a supplement. So there's this statement on
Speaker 1: the FDA's website that like, if a supplement is marketed
Speaker 1: with one of those intentions or used with one of
Speaker 1: those intentions, then they are subject to regulation as a drug,
Speaker 1: as a pharmaceutical rather than a supplement. But I still
Speaker 1: don't understand how that actually happens. What I will say
Speaker 1: is that if you go on the FDA's like general
Speaker 1: page about supplements, it is just a long list of
Speaker 1: links of like warning letters and things that they've identified like,
Speaker 1: don't take this honey supplement that claims to do X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z, because it's actually full of sidentifhill yea
Speaker 1: like biabra in a honey supplement. And so it's not
Speaker 1: that they're not doing their job. It's just that all
Speaker 1: of their job is in post market review and there's
Speaker 1: way too many supplements on the market and that is
Speaker 1: way too difficult, and it means that consumers are getting
Speaker 1: their hands on things that are not regulated entirely by design,
Speaker 1: by design, by design, and like we already mentioned, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of instances and we'll link to a lot
Speaker 1: more for everyone of times when this has failed consumers drastically.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting the amount of anger vitriol attacks on
Speaker 2: things like vaccines, yeah, which are subject to a degree
Speaker 2: of oversight and regulation. That is something that the supplement
Speaker 2: industry has never ever seen. The scrutiny is there to
Speaker 2: protect consumers that those are the target of so much
Speaker 2: disinformation and like undermining of Yeah, where is this entire industry?
Speaker 2: And it's also kind of I think it relates to
Speaker 2: this weird paradox of the wellness industry. What is wellness?
Speaker 2: This is like a whole other thing. But I mean, like,
Speaker 2: I think that it relates to supplements in that you know,
Speaker 2: when you're talking about that there is the structure and
Speaker 2: function to improve the normal. Then what is first of all,
Speaker 2: what is the normal? What does that mean that phrases meaningless?
Speaker 2: It is how often is normal re evaluated? And that
Speaker 2: also also I think relates to stuff that we've talked
Speaker 2: about when it comes to like vitamin D and what
Speaker 2: is the daily requirement and maybe we do need to
Speaker 2: increase that. But I think it's like this wellness industry
Speaker 2: staying on the one hand, you're healthy and you're great,
Speaker 2: but you could be healthier.
Speaker 1: You could be better, you could be.
Speaker 2: Better, but you're not, but there isn't a disease that
Speaker 2: we're treating. So it's like, I think that it doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense because if you're saying you could be better,
Speaker 2: but you're already healthy and regulated right now, but your
Speaker 2: bowels could be better, then doesn't that doesn't that suggest
Speaker 2: or imply a state of disease? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't either, Aaron yikes Yikes is right. I have
Speaker 1: honestly like more that I could get into, but I'm
Speaker 1: kind of just like curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, curious about the financial state of the.
Speaker 1: Financials of things. Yeah. Ika, It's just such a tell
Speaker 1: us how big of an industry it really is. Erin.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 5: I think we need a break.
Speaker 2: Okay. So these are primarily US numbers, but I will
Speaker 2: throw in a few global ones that I came across.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety four, when Orrin Hatches DSHA was passed,
Speaker 2: around forty percent of the global population in the US
Speaker 2: reported regular use of dietary supplements, and the US dietary
Speaker 2: supplement industry came in at around and estimated three and
Speaker 2: a half to four billion dollars.
Speaker 3: I already know some numbers from today, so like, oh mg.
Speaker 1: Okay, geez.
Speaker 2: Right around that time, an estimated six hundred US supplement
Speaker 2: manufacturers produced around four thousand products.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay. Twenty five years later in twenty nineteen, we laugh,
Speaker 2: because otherwise we'd cry. That number of products in twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen had shot up to nearly ninety thousand from four
Speaker 2: thousand twenty five years earlier, and the dietary supplement market
Speaker 2: was an estimated forty billion dollars, ten times more, with
Speaker 2: around sixty percent of US adults reporting regular use, and
Speaker 2: things probably would have continued to steadily rise as they
Speaker 2: had before. But then a little something called COVID nineteen
Speaker 2: came onto the scene. Oh no, before COVID vaccines were released,
Speaker 2: were widely available, before anti virals for cod were developed,
Speaker 2: people increasingly turned towards dietary supplements that promised to boost
Speaker 2: or enhance their immune system. The most recent numbers that
Speaker 2: I found for the US are that in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: the dietary supplement market was valued at fifty point ninety
Speaker 2: one billion dollars, so nearly fifty one billion dollars. So
Speaker 2: that's three years prior it was forty billion. Wow, And
Speaker 2: that's the US alone. By twenty thirty, it's projected to
Speaker 2: reach seventy eight point nine four billion dollars. It's staggering.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the National Institute of Health's Dietary Supplement
Speaker 2: Label Database, and so this keeps a record of as
Speaker 2: many dietary supplements as they can, current and historical. And
Speaker 2: so I went to there and I filtered to look
Speaker 2: at just those currently on the market, and it came
Speaker 2: to one hundred and a line seven thousand, three hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty six labels. Wow, those are just the ones
Speaker 2: in the Statabase market in the database on the market
Speaker 2: in the database. Yep, that's up from four thousand in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. Comparing just twenty nineteen and twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: herbal supplement sales in the US rose to eleven point
Speaker 2: two six billion dollars in twenty twenty, up seventeen point
Speaker 2: three percent from twenty nineteen. So they shot up nearly
Speaker 2: twenty percent in one year sales for herbal supplements. These
Speaker 2: trends are also happening on a global scale. During COVID,
Speaker 2: there was a global increase in overall supplement use of
Speaker 2: twenty three percent, a forty percent increase in intake of
Speaker 2: vitamin C, and in eighty two percent increase in multi
Speaker 2: vitamin consumption globally.
Speaker 1: Why are people so obsessed with vitamin C? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Good marketing, literally, just marketing. The global dietary supplements market
Speaker 2: was estimated to be one hundred and seventy seven and
Speaker 2: a half billion dollars in US dollars in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: That's projected so from one seventy seven point five billion
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three projected to reach three hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: seven point four billion in US dollars by twenty thirty,
Speaker 2: so in seven years it's going to nearly double. So
Speaker 2: and that's the global market.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Clearly the dietary supplement industry is booming and it's
Speaker 2: going to continue to boom unless something is done regulation wise,
Speaker 2: which it probably won't be. And I think it's completely
Speaker 2: understandable why people take supplements. We've talked about that there
Speaker 2: are supplements that are important to take, and there are
Speaker 2: certain people that should be taking certain dietary supplements as
Speaker 2: disc just with their physician to make sure that there
Speaker 2: are no interactions, that they're getting exactly what they need
Speaker 2: in the amounts that they need it, all those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like if we take a step back and
Speaker 1: think about like the idea of supplementation on a very
Speaker 1: large level globally, globally, eight hundred over eight hundred million
Speaker 1: people worldwide are chronically under nourished and two billion people
Speaker 1: are affected by micronutrient malnutrition. Children are often the most
Speaker 1: affected by these, Like forty five percent of deaths among
Speaker 1: infants under age five are attributable to undernutrition. So the
Speaker 1: idea of supplementation makes a lot of sense in a
Speaker 1: lot of scenarios, and especially in a lot of countries
Speaker 1: that are low income countries or where food is difficult
Speaker 1: to come by and so undernutrition is an issue. But
Speaker 1: the truth is.
Speaker 3: That most of the parts of the.
Speaker 1: World that are economically advantaged are able to meet their
Speaker 1: nutrient needs with foods without supplementation of and minerals, except
Speaker 1: in certain scenarios like that we have data for like
Speaker 1: foldate in pregnancy, or like vitamin.
Speaker 3: D and rickets.
Speaker 1: Right, like, right, just the idea of supplements is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the issue.
Speaker 3: It's it's the rest of it.
Speaker 2: Well, And that market share is not in these areas
Speaker 2: that need it. The market share is in the areas
Speaker 2: that already can where the vast majority of people get
Speaker 2: all of their needs met with the food that they eat, right,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that we want to make clear
Speaker 2: that there is a very strong need for dietary supplementation
Speaker 2: in certain contexts. Yeah, and what we're talking about is
Speaker 2: not necessarily that really yep, Like it's not. We're talking
Speaker 2: about the other sphere of things that is the more
Speaker 2: revenue generating right here. And I also think that going
Speaker 2: back to what we've already talked about. In places where
Speaker 2: people can meet most of their dietary needs through the
Speaker 2: food that they eat, they're also seeing on TV or
Speaker 2: anywhere else convincing ads. They're always carefully worded, but they're
Speaker 2: very powerful in their persuasive ability to be like, you
Speaker 2: could use this, and even if even if you don't
Speaker 2: need it, it could enhance. And then our healths words,
Speaker 2: our healthcare system, like we talked about, makes these supplements appealing.
Speaker 2: No one wants to go to the doctor, especially here
Speaker 2: in the US, where like, Okay, it's going to take
Speaker 2: you three months to see your primary care physician, and
Speaker 2: then you go and you're like a cope, or you
Speaker 2: want me to make another appointment because I forgot to
Speaker 2: list that I want you to look at a mole
Speaker 2: in making an appointment, So now I have to make
Speaker 2: another appointment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because you only had fifteen or twenty minutes
Speaker 1: at that appointment. Anyways, because the primary care doct has
Speaker 1: to see forty patients in a day.
Speaker 2: And they're scribbling notes and you're like, are you even
Speaker 2: listening to anything that I'm saying? Yeah, And so I
Speaker 2: think that these supplements can provide this false promise that
Speaker 2: if you take them, it counts as preventative medicine and
Speaker 2: you won't have to go to the doctor, or maybe
Speaker 2: you do go to the doctor, and like we talked
Speaker 2: about the only fifteen minutes or not listening to you.
Speaker 2: They dismissed your concerns. They can't provide answers, And a
Speaker 2: lot of the times those supplements will promise answers even
Speaker 2: if they can't provide proof. Because they're not regulated, they're
Speaker 2: not required to follow through on those promises. There is
Speaker 2: this dark side to the supplement industry, and I think
Speaker 2: it became especially prominent during COVID. The early days of
Speaker 2: the COVID pandemic were, like I've already mentioned a boon
Speaker 2: to the supplement industry. Without curative medicine or medicine that
Speaker 2: treated without vaccines, people turned to supplements to protect themselves
Speaker 2: against this new respiratory virus. And that's evident in the
Speaker 2: growth of the industry. And then when the vaccine was
Speaker 2: ready for deployment, it shook the supplement industry.
Speaker 5: Up a bit.
Speaker 2: There would be sort of releases from CEOs being like
Speaker 2: don't worry everyone, like calm down, we're going to weather
Speaker 2: this storm of the vaccine being available, people will still
Speaker 2: want to take supplements. We just might might need to
Speaker 2: change our strategy. Sometimes that pivot meant that supplement brands
Speaker 2: would advertise their supplements as boosting your immune response to
Speaker 2: the vaccine itself, promising a more robust response to the
Speaker 2: vaccine no proof, no no proof, and other supplement companies
Speaker 2: or people who represented supplement companies would attack the vaccines themselves.
Speaker 2: A study from twenty twenty three found that one in
Speaker 2: three of the anti COVID vaccine like major actors that
Speaker 2: they and I don't mean actors, is in like acting business.
Speaker 1: I mean like Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just like the main people. One in three
Speaker 2: of the main anti COVID vaccine people that they studied
Speaker 2: in this study sold health supplements or merch or advertised
Speaker 2: for supplements. One in three of the of the major
Speaker 2: anti COVID vaxers and so they gave as an example
Speaker 2: in this paper the website Stop Mandatory Vaccination dot Com,
Speaker 2: which sold a product called pure Body Strength, which was
Speaker 2: advertised for children who had gotten vaccinated. Okay, other websites
Speaker 2: like Healthy Traditions dot com or Vaccine Impact dot Com
Speaker 2: advertised for or sold supplements directly. And of course this
Speaker 2: is not new to COVID. Just remember Alex Jones and
Speaker 2: info Wars, which made one hundred and sixty five million
Speaker 2: dollars between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen selling supplements and
Speaker 2: merch and is famously anti vacs, as well as pushing
Speaker 2: other incredibly harmful, horrible conspiracy theories. But many supplement companies
Speaker 2: or people who represented supplement companies or were paid by
Speaker 2: them as spokespeople, I guess, took advantage of the fear
Speaker 2: and health anxiety during the pandemic and they leveraged that
Speaker 2: to make money. These companies or influencers paid by these
Speaker 2: companies would tell you, don't get vaccinated, take these supplements instead.
Speaker 2: You don't need a vaccine, You don't need to inject
Speaker 2: those harmful things into your body, those chemicals. You should
Speaker 2: ingest these natural supplements. Our supplement companies alone responsible for
Speaker 2: the rise of anti science and anti vaccine rhetoric during
Speaker 2: the pandemic. No, of course not. There are many factors
Speaker 2: at play. So there's some great research done by the
Speaker 2: Center for Countering Digital Hate, and I'll include a paper
Speaker 2: or report by them in the notes for this episode
Speaker 2: because there are so many different sources of miss and disinformation,
Speaker 2: but only some of the misinformation is coming from people
Speaker 2: trying to sell supplements, and only some supplement companies are
Speaker 2: pedaling vaccine misinformation. But I think that this reveals a
Speaker 2: larger issue with the way that companies are permitted to
Speaker 2: profit off of misinformation directly or indirectly. Right, if you're
Speaker 2: promising to boost immune health, even if you're not directly
Speaker 2: saying like vaccines are bad, it's still saying something that
Speaker 2: is unlikely to be supported by scientific data in a
Speaker 2: way that is like meaningful. I don't have a solution
Speaker 2: for how to better regulate, but I feel like testing
Speaker 2: the supplements for safety and efficacy before they reach the
Speaker 2: market seems like a good place to start. And I
Speaker 2: don't think that's I mean, maybe this is very pessimistic
Speaker 2: of me, but I feel like that's not about to happen.
Speaker 2: I really do hope that something changes, though, and it's
Speaker 2: not a reactive change to some horrible thing that happens
Speaker 2: because of this unregulation or lack of regulation surrounding supplements.
Speaker 2: And maybe the smallest step forward is just people growing
Speaker 2: more aware of the lack of hurdles that supplement brands
Speaker 2: face before getting something to the market, and the vast
Speaker 2: profits that they enjoy. And so with that you can
Speaker 2: find all of this information, more information about the lack
Speaker 2: of regulation and all the profits and etc. In our sources.
Speaker 1: Let us tell you where we got this information from.
Speaker 2: Yes, one of the main papers that I used for
Speaker 2: the history part was by Swan from twenty fifteen called
Speaker 2: the History of Efforts to Regulate Dietary Supplements in the USA.
Speaker 2: And then there are several papers about the industry. I'll
Speaker 2: link to all of them, but there's like one great
Speaker 2: paper by Aurora from twenty twenty three called Global Dietary
Speaker 2: and Herbal supplement Use during COVID. I do really want
Speaker 2: to shout out a paper by Moran at All from
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four called Vaccine Misinformation for profit, Conspiratorial wellness
Speaker 2: Influencers and the Monetization of Alternative Health. Fascinating love it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I want to read that one. Yeah. I got
Speaker 1: most of my information directly from the FDA website. How
Speaker 1: handy is that?
Speaker 4: Heck?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But also a few papers that kind of went
Speaker 1: over and have highlighted some of the issues that have
Speaker 1: arisen as a result of this regulation, and then a
Speaker 1: couple others on the global landscape.
Speaker 3: Because sorry that this was a very US.
Speaker 1: Centric episode, but that's what we talked about today. We'll
Speaker 1: post the links, though. We'll post all of our sources
Speaker 1: from this episode and every one of our episodes on
Speaker 1: our website, this podcast will kill You dot com. Under
Speaker 1: the episode's.
Speaker 2: Tap, we certainly will. A big thank you to Bloodmobile
Speaker 2: for providing the music for this episode and all of
Speaker 2: our episodes.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Tom and Leanna for the wonderful audio mixing.
Speaker 1: Couldn't do it without you.
Speaker 4: Thank you to exactly Right, thank you to the dog
Speaker 4: that won't stop barking, and thank you to you listeners.
Speaker 1: We really, we really liked putting together this episode, so
Speaker 1: please tell us if you loved it, if you hated it,
Speaker 1: if you want more like I would, Obviously we're going
Speaker 1: to do more like deficiencies what we end up talking
Speaker 1: about supplementation there. But do you want more on like
Speaker 1: the more controversial supplements or like the supplements that you take?
Speaker 1: What do you take? Do you want? Do you want
Speaker 1: us to do an episode about it? What's to data
Speaker 1: on this one versus Lage one? Coq ten, coq ten,
Speaker 1: I've got collagen in my cupboard. I know it doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything, and yet and yet marketing it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens to it. Costco Costco is a yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: thank you, especially to thank you, especially to our wonderful
Speaker 2: generous patrons. We really appreciate your support so so very much.
Speaker 1: We really do. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Until next time, wash your hands.
Speaker 1: You feel the animals. Obama, Buba
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