https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFxS8UeJ/
This user appears on my TikTok feed all the time selling some product that she claims helps with acid reflux. As someone who has acid reflux, I have done a massive amount of research, and even read research papers and research studies on the subject to aid in my treatment of the illness. It’s a pretty serious illness, and it’s definitely not easy to treat or come up with a treatment plan, which is why there are so few medicines that are actually FDA approved for it…
But this lady is out here pushing her medicine claiming it’s a miracle cure to acid reflux. There are lots of these nowadays, not only on TikTok but on Facebook as well. People pushing these alternative treatments and making such ridiculous claims, half of them probably false.
What I want to know is this. Why is this legal in the USA? Surely there should be some sort of governing body that prevents people from doing this and makes it illegal to spread this kind of misinformation?
It’s not legal, it’s about enforcement. Perfect enforcement is difficult, and often lags years behind.
in the US, vitamins and supplements have a different regulatory requirement, very light. Basically can’t be poison. So you’ll often see many of these miracle cures sold, but when you read the box itself, it’s vitamin, it’s a supplement, it’s not designed to treat any specific condition.
At what point does the TikTok video go from simple marketing puffery into fraud? That’s a fun and difficult question
It’s legal also. There’s an official homeopathic exception in medicine. For those who don’t know what that is, imagine taking 1ml of something (it doesn’t have to be medicine) and diluting it to 1% in a gallon of water and then taking 1ml of that and diluting it to 1% in another gallon of water, and repeating that ten or twenty or more times. That’s homeopathic “medicine”, it’s hokey bullshit and it gets a legal pass.
Just to add to the wonkyness: not only is the active ingredient not a medicine, in many occasions it’s actually the virus or bacteria or whatever caused the disease. This gets dilluted to the point where it’s extremely unlikely that even a single atom of the original brew is present. And then they claim that the resulting liquid has a memory of losing the ingredient such that it has the ability to remove new particles of that ingredient (or something like that).
It’s fantastically cartoonish and preys upon people who lack a certain understanding of logic.
Ironically a live vaccine approach.
I am glad the regulators are slowly cracking down on homeopathics. Companies selling those placebos now have to publish disclaimers like this admitting that it’s BS:
https://homeoworks.com/disclaimer/
Not that it will stop a lot of people from buying homeopathics, but it’s a start.
Instead of trying to go after then for selling legal garbage, go after them for false advertisement when they tell you their fake medicine can do this, that, and give you a bigger dick.
I need fake medicine to SHRINK my dick.
Gas Station HRT?
Call it Sheds and have a label showing a buck turning into a doe. It would sell out in Appalachia.
Placebodong pills.
Some of those vitamins can cause harm in sufficient doses as well, so it gets pretty complicated.
The biggest issue for enforcement is Republicans defunding the FDA and other regulatory agencies so they can’t keep up.