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Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

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

#151

Post by beambot »

dehrmann wrote: post #141
ta988 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you replace the Calcium with chalk you would still have a source of calcium so it wouldn't be that bad :D

It's better than that. According to Wikipedia > Chalk is typically almost pure calcite, CaCO3, with just 2% to 4% of other minerals The supplement I just looked up uses Calcium Carbonate. That could just be purified chalk and be in compliance with the FDA. In fact, it probably is just that.

Animals eat naturally-occurring chalk (and other substances) to regulate key minerals. It's called geophagia.

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

#152

Post by phkahler »

TaylorSwift wrote: post #86

Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work, most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or calcium supplement with chalk. Some supplements do work, but since they're not regulated, they're drowned out by nonsense and noise. OK, so you don't want to be a rube?...you do your research and then piece of shit fitness influencers tell you "ohh...that vitamin you bought form Walgreens or C…

I cured my asthma with magnesium and iodine ssupplements. While I agree with you that there are false claims out there, I have data to show stuff worked for me. YMMV of course.

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

#153

Post by jacurtis »

ta988 wrote: post #93
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #43

I don’t think Amazon should have any protections for being a marketplace. Especially since we all found out about co-mingling, and how reviews are transferable between vendors and sometimes between products. They should be liable for any damages caused by these drugs, as well as patent/copyright/trademark infringement for any counterfeit products. I don’t feel the same for ebay, reverb, or facebook. I’m not sure wher…

Reviews are transferable? I was wondering because many reviews I have seen don't seem to be for the product I am looking at at all.

There is a blackmarket of repurposed Amazon Product Pages. This is a problem that Amazon knows about and does nothing to resolve.

So the way it works is that some company makes a page for a stuffed animal for example. They name the product page appropriately and start selling their toys. They push hard and gets lots of reviews and build up the aSEO (amazon search Optimization) for that page. They build up 1,000 positive reviews for their stuffed animal averaging 4.8 stars. Cool.

Now they decide to stop selling that toy and instead start selling fidget spinners. Why start from scratch and go through the work of building up all those reviews again and the aSEO that took years on the stuffed animal product. Instead they just go in and change the title, the URL slug and the images to represent the new Fidget Spinner. They publish the changes and now, within seconds of posting their new Fidget Spinner is one of the best reviewed fidget spinners on Amazon and starts immediately getting sales because the page has strong aSEO and high reviews which makes it present well in search results. Visitors of the page see the high reviews and buy the product. They start selling thousands of Fidget Spinners overnight and build up to 2,000 positive reviews.

Now that company sells fidget spinners and then gets sued for using toxic glue in the building of their fidget spinners. No problem. THey change their name from SpinnyAltodaWidgetCorpIncUnlimitedPlus to ShenzenSpinnyWidgetToyPlusUnlimitedCorp. New company, now you can't sue them. Then they change the name on the product page and keep selling the same product with a different name and same reviews, building it up to 3,000.

Now the company goes under. But they have all these high performing amazon pages. Here is where the fun begins, they literally go up for auction. Companies will page hundreds of thousands for a top performing amazon page. They sell the page to the highest bidder. Now a new company ShenzenShitzuSuperCorpPlusMegaChargerMorePlusPlus buys the page and starts selling Fish Oil supplements. They just change the name, images, URL, and company information, but it is technically the same amazon page. Then they start selling Fish Oil supplements with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.8 stars. They immediately shoot to the top of the search results and start selling thousands of bottles overnight because people are overwhelmed by the positive reviews of this product and its age and legacy on Amazon tells Amazon to push it to the top of search results.

This is the black market of Amazon pages. These pages change hands often many times a year. Amazon could easily prevent product changes above a certain threshold or even across categories to prevent or eliminate this, but they don't want to. They are complicit in these behaviors by turning a blind eye to what they know is happening.

Here is a detailed article about Hijacked Reviews from Consumer Reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-reviews-ratings/hij...

For example, in one review they find a phone charging cable that has reviews for zip ties, hand soap, shaving cream, and gaming headsets all in the reviews for a phone charging cable. This page has been hijacked several times by entirely different product types.

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

#154

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sdbrown wrote: post #124
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe the minor hurdle of having to require a doc to check on the potential for side-effects really is justified? Viagra is trivially available on the black market because many people don’t want to put up with that B.S. Antibiotics have a public interest in being gatekept; they harm everyone if abused. A similar argument can be made for addictive substances. Merely-harmful drugs, on the other hand, can be disclaime…

How, in your view, does dilution change the therapeutic index of a chemical? If a drug is effective at 20 milligrams, but at 60 milligrams has a steep rise in the incidence of hypotension, how does taking that same 60 milligrams in a larger volume of filler (e.g. water, or spread across more physical pills) change the fact that you've just taken 60 milligrams?

> how does taking that same 60 milligrams in a larger volume of filler (e.g. water, or spread across more physical pills) change the fact that you've just taken 60 milligrams?

It increases tolerance to mismeasurement and mistake. Same reason many pharmaceuticals require multiple pills for minimum dosing despite a concentrated form existing. A child eating a single pill, or you missing that you popped an extra pill into your hand, causes less damage.

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

#155

Post by bumby »

epmaybe wrote: post #133
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work, most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or calcium supplement with chalk. Whether or not that's true, if you replaced someone's magnesium supplement with viagra , you could seriously hurt them. >> FDA confirmed through laboratory analyses that the [...] products, purchased on www.amazon.com, contained [...] the active ingredients in…

holy crap, that’s insane. You don’t just accidentally add sildenafil or tadalafil to your supplements. Unless the FDA is misidentifying compounds present in the herbs in these supplements, which seems unlikely but I’m no pharmacology expert.

Although they are most associated with ED, those supplements are also performance enhancers. For decades, unscrupulous supplement companies have put illicit or prescription drugs in their products. Many of those drugs (not the supplements) do, in fact, work. The rumor was the gameplan was to start with that until you get enough market hype and then remove them, but I've also heard some of the illicit drugs are cheap enough that they could still continue tainting them and make a profit. So even if they work, people deserve to know what they're putting in their bodies.

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

#156

Post by Scoundreller »

tonyarkles wrote: post #145
epmaybe wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap, that’s insane. You don’t just accidentally add sildenafil or tadalafil to your supplements. Unless the FDA is misidentifying compounds present in the herbs in these supplements, which seems unlikely but I’m no pharmacology expert.

Yeah, I don't think "accidentally" is something that happened here. What's the best way to make your "all-natural Viagra" actually work? Make it with real Viagra.

I’d be surprised if the buyers were expecting any different.

With the amount of mislabelled product out there in circulation (and presumably a general lack of harm), does it still make sense to require a prescription?

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

#157

Post by patmorgan23 »

lumb63 wrote: post #65
noodlesUK wrote: post #26

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 nich…

Calling for Amazon to be banned from selling supplements is extreme, IMO. But they should be accountable for preventing counterfeit items from being sold or marketed as the items they’re counterfeiting. In cases where the authenticity of the item has not been verified, that should be made clear to the buyer. Absence of such an indicator would mean the product is authentic (consumers should IMO be able to rely on prod…

If they sell people counterfeit food and health supplements they should be banned from selling those items (at least for a period of time) until they can figure out proper inventory controls.

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

#158

Post by blagie »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #5

Nothing bought on Amazon should be consumed or applied topically or otherwise come into prolonged contact with your body. I learned this the hard way a few years back with some counterfeit shampoo that severely burned my scalp after a single use.

Here's my list of things I won't buy on Amazon.com:

- Anything which goes in or on my body (foods, medicines, etc.).

- Anything which is easily knocked off (SD cards, memory, SSDs, etc.)

- Bed sheets (oddly enough, you'll often get lies on materials and fabric)

- Thing I need reliably / reliably on-time (I cancelled Prime after several shipping issues)

Since I cancelled Prime, things added to this list include:

- Most digital content (they added ads to music I paid for as soon as I cancelled Prime, and many newer Kindle books are hard to back up into non-DRMed formats)

Most of what I will buy on Amazon are generic gizmos, like kids toys, cables, generic keyboards, battery chargers, basic tools, and basic clothing (kids pyjamas and that sort of thing). However, it's no longer my first source. I'll go Aliexpress, eBay, and Walmart first.

I now have Walmart's equivalent of Prime instead. It's not great, but it's better. There is zero customer service, but shipping times are more accurate than Amazon, generally faster, and they'll actually let you know if something is running late or early (which is huge, if you're planning a project). Walmart's selection is worse than Amazons, but I'm hoping it will catch up. I also am starting to go to local stores again.

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

#159

Post by justinator »

TaylorSwift wrote: post #86

Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work, most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or calcium supplement with chalk. Some supplements do work, but since they're not regulated, they're drowned out by nonsense and noise. OK, so you don't want to be a rube?...you do your research and then piece of shit fitness influencers tell you "ohh...that vitamin you bought form Walgreens or C…

same with most my age...thus we're desperate for anything that will make us feel better and not have any side effects that make things worse.

The issue is that a chronic mistreatment of your body (similar to what you describe). The solution is a chronic loving of your body. Best time to start was 20 years ago. Second best time is today. I wish you luck and I can tell you: it doesn't have to be the way you describe, but it WILL take patience and a life-long commitment.

And yeah: forget supplements. Focus on good food.

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

#160

Post by sdbrown »

eggy wrote: post #92
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.

But then you cut off the career path of an FDA lackey in becoming a big pharma exec after they've served big pharma so well. Curious if they went after supplements that don't step on big pharma products, but are actually harmful to the public they supposedly serve. Reminds me of the X-Ray glasses and aphrodisiac ads from old magazines and comics when I was a kid. Cosmetics get away with anti-aging and beautification…

Tadalafil (Cialis) is available as a generic in the United States. If you think "big pharma" is served by drugs going off-patent, you may want to re-evaluate your perspective.

If you want to get more reasonably unhappy with market exclusivity, look at Celgene's grip on thalidomide/lenalidomide/pomalidomide for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

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