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Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

fda.gov

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Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#21

Post by Sanzig »

lokar wrote: post #15
bpodgursky wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we have an honest conversation about whether there's any good reason for Viagra to require a prescription? The barrier right now is that you have to waste 2 hours and $100 to tell a doctor that you have ED. What's the point? It's not stopping anyone except people too poor or busy to jump through the hoops.

A middle ground is to let a pharmacist dispense it after going over side effects, instructions, interactions and existing conditions (without a Rx).

Yeah, I think this is the most reasonable approach. ED medication can have some nasty side effects and interactions, so a medical professional should be in the loop - but that professional could easily be a pharmacist who already has a copy of all the other Rx drugs the patient is taking.

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#23

Post by [deleted] »

duxup wrote: post #18

More and more Amazon just seems like a "you're on your own" scam site. I can't figure out what I'm getting anymore. Half the listings are sponsored ads when I search. I searched for "Lego" this past Christmas and on the first page I got a bunch of products that were in what looked just like Lego boxes with Lego fonts and numbering ... but were not made by Lego and were clearly made to deceive. I noticed some items I…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#24

Post by Forgeties79 »

pbj1968 wrote: post #16

Heard a talk once by someone that managed nutrition for an NFL team. She said periodically clusters of players would pop positive for meth and inevitably it would be some new supplement that was giving them results and they told all their teammates about it. They’d just tell them to quit using it and move on. Interesting story, possibly true.

And I imagine a lot of nutritionists on teams kind of know what’s going on, but are disincentivized from looking too closely at it unless it could really hurt somebody. Or rather, it could hurt somebody enough for someone to notice immediately or impact their performance in the short term. This is obviously armchair speculation, but I’ve seen it in other industries, time and time again. Everyone kind of knows, but nobody wants to be the squeaky wheel that gets the star player - or major piece of equipment - out of commission.

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#25

Post by mrweasel »

duxup wrote: post #18

More and more Amazon just seems like a "you're on your own" scam site. I can't figure out what I'm getting anymore. Half the listings are sponsored ads when I search. I searched for "Lego" this past Christmas and on the first page I got a bunch of products that were in what looked just like Lego boxes with Lego fonts and numbering ... but were not made by Lego and were clearly made to deceive. I noticed some items I…

The good thing about Amazon is that they've made it increasingly easy to stop buying from them. Finding the things you need is increasingly difficult and even if you find it, most of it seems like obvious scams. Amazon went from a bookstore to the "everything store" and back to being just a book store, because those are the only items you can reasonably find and trust to not be scams.

It must be rather difficult to be in the US where Amazon is so dominant, because I given up and just rely on local webshops.

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#26

Post by noodlesUK »

I think with the state of things, Amazon should be completely banned from selling anything that might be construed a supplement. They have such lax controls that your protein powder or vitamin pills might contain pretty much anything. Even reputable brands bought from their brand storefront might be counterfeit [1]. You’d be shocked at the number of things that are counterfeit. A friend of mine recently bought a niche optical device, and it turned out it was a fake, despite being allegedly sold by the manufacturer. Amazon needs to stop co-mingling inventory, and it also needs to stop selling things that have no safety testing whatsoever, especially in the food and supplement space.

https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#27

Post by fallingknife »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #2

I’m glad the conclusion says the products lists are not the only ones to which this letter applies. Otherwise Amazon could just remove the products mentioned and make the FDA play wack-a-mole. As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average person to protect themselves.

I'm certainly in favor of these regulations that require supplements and food products to accurately list ingredients. I'm also in favor of the FDA coming down hard on violators.

But it seems perfectly reasonable that law enforcement should have to play whack a mole. That's kind and of how it works with innocent until proven guilty. I'm not a fan of the whole "you enforce it for us or we come after you" approach. In reality what it means is that gate keepers like Amazon have to put in place policies that are much more strict than the actual rules in order to avoid even a chance of getting hit. Agencies like the FDA know this and use it as a way to put in place de facto policies that are much stricter than they could legislate.

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#29

Post by dboreham »

jeffrallen wrote: post #4

Cool! Now do their crappy cords that are likely to burn down your house. Amazon Basics should be terminated with prejudice.

Nanny state socialism! The market should take care of dangerous products. Nobody is going to buy such a cord twice.

Re: Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

#30

Post by noodlesUK »

gruez wrote: post #14
jeffrallen wrote: post #4

Cool! Now do their crappy cords that are likely to burn down your house. Amazon Basics should be terminated with prejudice.

I checked a random amazon basics powerstrip and there's an ETL certification mark on them. As much as it's popular to hate on amazon for fakes/subquality products, your particular example is a poor one. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/...

Funnily enough AmazonBasics is probably the safest set of products on Amazon, as nobody but Amazon is allowed to sell those products. A brand name item might be a fake, but AmazonBasics is always the original (potentially crappy anyway) product.
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