Mike Raiford wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
>>
>> Sure. But (for example) a magic bracelet that makes you thin would be 
>> a "drug" by their definition - even though none of the chemicals that 
>> compose it ever end up inside you.
>>
> 
> yyyes. But then the FDA is there to smack people who make 
> unsubstantiated claims when regarding the health effects of a particular 
> product. The term "drug" is a technicality in this regard. As in, "So 
> you say it acts like a drug, then? We'll just have to treat it like a drug"
> 
> What I wonder is why is there a loophole for anything marked as a 
> "Dietary Supplement"
> 
Well. Technically, the loopholes are in how you make the claim. You 
**can be** sued and lose if you claim something, and it can be proven it 
doesn't work at all. In the case of Dietary Supplements, they are 
intended to be "just that". People can sell books that lie about what 
they do, etc. Until someone sues them, or someone dies from it, they can 
even get by with doing the same thing that the dude selling "healing 
bracelets" does, because for the FDA to take action it has to have 
either been "submitted" for testing, or someone has to sue over it. 
Otherwise, the FDA simply doesn't have the labs or resources to check 
"everything". There was even a case a while back, and I imagine "some" 
places are still pulling this stunt, where Chinese imports of 
"supplements" where killing a few people, and the FDA stepped in to find 
out why. Turned out, the existing herbal mixtures had copycat 
pharmaceuticals added, **including** in some cases, diet drugs for 
obesity, and other medications, and in some cases *4 times the lethal 
dose* of some ingredients (which is to say, lethal to those with 
compromised systems, or reactions to the drug, which made them unable to 
survive the dosing).

The loop hole is simple. Since the FDA can't, by any stretch of the 
imagination, test "everything", and Dietary Supplements often fall into 
a kind of vague category that was deemed "outside their purview", they 
can't act on anything other than false advertisement, or *actually* 
cases of injury to someone from using a product, whether it be magic 
beads, or some random herb they tell you is "good for your heart", which 
simultaneously failing to carry things like violet extract, which "does" 
work, and is sold, by legit pharma, as a named drug, because they can 
**accurately** measure how much you get, where as, herbals, even if they 
do work, which most don't, can be effected by everything from climate, 
rainfall, temperature, picking time, drying method, mixing methods, 
secondary binders and other ingredient, if you use those to make pills 
from them, and even the individual persons **specific** reaction to the 
secondary ingredients, which may either a) counter the effect of the 
main one, b) heighten it in someone with an allergy, c) have an entirely 
unintended effect that is worse than thing being cured in them, etc.

Dietary Supplements are "generally" safe, but only because 90% of them 
do jack to start with, and you have as much to worry about eating a 
salad as taking the supplement. The ones that do something, are 
unpredictable, too low a dose to matter, (which included toxic ones that 
in large enough doses could kill you, but in the herb are nearly 
non-existent), or do to one of numerous factors, simply don't do what 
they "should" if you, I don't know..., took them to a lab, extracted the 
active ingredient and... made a confusingly named drug from that? lol

Its a case of, "mostly harmless", except when its "not". And that is why 
they can get by with this stuff. Well, that and, if *anyone* suggested 
increasing funding, building more labs, and actually "testing" any of 
it, half the country, not just the libertarians, new agers and people 
running the scams, would scream bloody murder and whine about 
"unnecessary big spending".

Put simply, if it worked, it would be a drug, if it "sort of works", 
they are not going to do anything with it until someone makes a version 
that works well enough to "be" a drug, and if it doesn't work, **you** 
have to sue them for lying, not the FDA, then somehow prove you are right.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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