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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

#161

Post by 1920musicman »

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.

Adding restricted ingredients to generally available supplements is a known tactic that supplement producers utilize extensively. In the past, this has been a well-known "secret" that bodybuilders basically relied on: buying tainted pre- and post-workout supplements that contain illegal steroids and such.

It's a better regulated industry now, but with the explosion in supplement popularity over the last decade I doubt there is an easy way to test and punish all manufacturers. If you look at the list of supplements included in that warning letter, they have classic nonsensical names that Chinese companies are known for (WeFun, Genergy, etc). None are on www.amazon.com anymore, but hundreds of other supplements show up with absolutely no way of telling whether any of them are clean (e.g. "Endurance 2Nite").

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

#162

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dahart wrote: post #149
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does “merely-harmful” mean? Drugs that really only harm the person who takes them if abused. Alternatively, drugs which are unproblematically sold over the counter the world over. > Everything is available on the black market Available versus commonly procured. > that doesn’t mean regulations are BS, it means people are willing to risk breaking the law to avoid being tracked It means they’re willing to break r…

> We can’t impute motivation. Correct, you’re right, I was speculating on alternative reasons people might avoid the doctor. We also don’t have evidence that the cost or time of a doctors visit is the reason for the existence of the black market demand, contrary to your claim above. Of course, a huge risk for black market purchases is that they turn out to be fake and/or have unlisted harmful ingredients. It’s alread…

> co-pay and a quick Zoom call with a doc seems like a better choice to me

Nobody is arguing it isn’t. The point is the forced choice is flawed. There wouldn’t be a market for the adultered stuff if the medicine were OTC.

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

#163

Post by pompino »

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.

Amazon tracks the "wrong item was sent" returns to find such items. They outsourced the checking to the customers, but they're eating the cost of processing the returns/shipping. Maybe that is cheaper in the long run?

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

#164

Post by libria »

exegete wrote: post #118
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…

>Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right (daily exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like shit most of the day....same with most my age... I’m nearing 40. Are you sure it’s normal to feel terrible most of the day when eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep? This doesn’t sound normal to me.

GP might have an illness/disease and fully aware of their condition, none of us know. No need to lose the main point by flexing our superior health against them.

That point being: All of us deteriorate. We all reach an age/state where conventional medicine has reached its limit and snake oil begins to be look attractive. Not all of it is proven wrong, none of it is proven right.

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

#165

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by BobaFloutist »

bilbo0s wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA likely needs a data team if they don’t have one already to monitor Amazon for ongoing compliance. Similar to the SEC’s data team that monitors capital market data flows for anomalies that would indicate illegal behavior. My two cents: good market to be looking for good data folks who might want a (potentially remote) federal agency data job with shakiness in tech. https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-scie…

If you've ever been with a startup that needed a 510k, you'd know that the FDA regularly monitors everyone for compliance. At least in my narrow domain of medical imaging and treatment planning devices they do. I'd be surprised if they didn't have similar mechanisms in place in every area of their 'jurisdiction'. It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just distributors. Doesn't really even hurt me. If RTP is a p…

> Because every report will, by law, have to include the source of the product.

I don't think it's an undue burden that if you're going to sell things people are ingesting, you have to know and communicate where they came from.

And I feel like small people that try to market supplements won't be especially damaged by this. It feels like as much as anything this would "hurt" small people that try to start a supplement manufacturing cottage-venture on a shoe string, over which I don't expect to lose any sleep.

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

#168

Post by sixothree »

techbrovanguard wrote: post #59
dboreham wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

I assume this is sarcasm. But obviously this country has gone so far off the deep end that you can no longer tell.

The number of people who literally believe we should not regulate things like this is staggering.

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

#169

Post by wkjagt »

exegete wrote: post #118
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…

>Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right (daily exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like shit most of the day....same with most my age... I’m nearing 40. Are you sure it’s normal to feel terrible most of the day when eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep? This doesn’t sound normal to me.

One of the things that really bother me being over 40 is that my body is no longer immune to injuries. I can now throw out my back just my sneezing too enthusiastically.

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

#170

Post by jdksmdbtbdnmsm »

partiallypro wrote: post #102
jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a tiny few Americans can afford filing such types of lawsuits, and only a tiny few of those people are interested in pursuing such things.

This isn't correct, most personal injury lawyers don't charge you directly. They take a percentage of the settlement or victory. There's way more money to be made with the "no fee" model than charging hourly in these instances.

Time and availability are expensive commodities. Who's paying for that?
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