Speaker 1: Previously on the dream should there be a limit beyond
Speaker 1: which the product is going to have to be considered
Speaker 1: an over the counter drug instead of a supplement. So like,
Speaker 1: if it's a vitamin see at a level that could
Speaker 1: be consumed in food, it's one thing. And if it's
Speaker 1: vitamin see at a level way beyond that, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not really a food like substance anymore, and maybe now
Speaker 1: it's over the counter drug. And that freaked out the
Speaker 1: nascent supplement industry, and they managed to get a number
Speaker 1: of really influential pieces of legislation passed which basically forbid
Speaker 1: the FDA from ever setting standards or limits on what
Speaker 1: vitamin products could contain. Last episode, we heard from Katherine Price,
Speaker 1: a science journalist who wrote a book called Vitamania. Katherine's
Speaker 1: the woman who convinced Dan, former lover of vitamins and supplements,
Speaker 1: to throw out all of his pills, tinctures and powders
Speaker 1: and rethink the amount of money and energy he was
Speaker 1: putting into his daily supplement routine. This was for two reasons,
Speaker 1: One because he couldn't trust that all the ingredients on
Speaker 1: the label actually in the supplement he was taking. And
Speaker 1: two even if the ingredients were what the manufacturers claimed
Speaker 1: they were, there was almost no chance that studies had
Speaker 1: been done on each of these products that could explain
Speaker 1: the efficacy or potential side effects of what he was
Speaker 1: putting in his body. That lack of information was a
Speaker 1: result of a series of legislative wins for the supplement
Speaker 1: industry that left the FDA, the government agency that's supposed
Speaker 1: to regulate these products, with very little power to do so.
Speaker 1: And it started with a piece of legislation called the
Speaker 1: Proxmire Amendment that was passed in nineteen seventy six. What
Speaker 1: was the Proxmire Amendment? So, the Proxmire Amendment was the
Speaker 1: industry's response to a set of proposed regulations from the
Speaker 1: FDA that basically said, Okay, everything that the FDA is
Speaker 1: now proposing to regulate, we want them to not be
Speaker 1: able to do any of those things. You know what,
Speaker 1: It reminds me of what HR thirty four O nine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does, Huh. It sounds like the Anti Pyramid Scheme
Speaker 1: bill that was like, here's the anti part. The anti
Speaker 1: part is you can't call us a pyramid s game,
Speaker 1: but then boxing it up as something that is some
Speaker 1: sort of Consumer Protection, right, Yeah, and that's what we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about today, just how bad things
Speaker 1: got under Proxmyer and then the weaker and weaker legislation
Speaker 1: that came afterwards, to the point where supplements actually did
Speaker 1: to kill people in some cases. Catherine has some more details,
Speaker 1: and she also has a way we can learn to
Speaker 1: protect ourselves, which because of this crazy history, we have to.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it all started with Proxmyer. The power shift
Speaker 1: was bad enough that a few years after the Proxmirementment passed,
Speaker 1: the FDA looked at the study they had done from
Speaker 1: sixty six to seventy three and the proposed regulations that
Speaker 1: came out of it and ended up throwing them all out.
Speaker 1: And that left them taking a news stance, which was,
Speaker 1: we can look into single companies at a time, but
Speaker 1: we don't have the bandwidth or the resources, and there
Speaker 1: was no political will to look into the entire industry
Speaker 1: at once, which is what they're hoping to be able
Speaker 1: to do with those regulations, to actually go to the
Speaker 1: industry and say we expect you to live up to
Speaker 1: certain standards as an entire industry. So why were these
Speaker 1: senators on board here? Well, some of them did have
Speaker 1: financial interests, whether they yeah, maybe they came from a
Speaker 1: state that sold a lot of supplements, or a lot
Speaker 1: were manufactured there or something. But I think the main
Speaker 1: thing was they were getting a lot of pressure from
Speaker 1: the public. It helps to put the public's concerns in
Speaker 1: context here. This was nineteen seventy six, were on the
Speaker 1: heels of losing the Vietnam War, and a president had
Speaker 1: resigned because he was found to be a liar and
Speaker 1: a cheat, and at that time anyway, that didn't win
Speaker 1: you a lot of public support. People became suspicious of
Speaker 1: the powers that be. Some vitamin and supplement manufacturers took
Speaker 1: advantage of this. Take for example, the infamous case of Latrill,
Speaker 1: also called vitamin B seventeen, which is not a vitamin
Speaker 1: at all, but instead a derivative of apricot seeds that
Speaker 1: folks have claimed can cure cancer, though all it's ever
Speaker 1: been found to do is poison people. Some hawksters, a
Speaker 1: father and son duo named Ernst Crebs Senior and Junior,
Speaker 1: patented it and sold it as a vitamin to get
Speaker 1: around FDA testing, and in the seventies, when enough people
Speaker 1: got sick, the FDA tried to shut them down. A
Speaker 1: year's long battle ensued. Some John Bircher's, the far right organization,
Speaker 1: who were tangentially pals with the crebs, stepped in and
Speaker 1: argued that the government shouldn't be able to dictate which
Speaker 1: treatments cancer patients can try, and as a perk, that
Speaker 1: also meant that their friends should be able to sell
Speaker 1: cancer patients whatever bologna they wanted. They eventually lost, but
Speaker 1: it's an argument that persists to this day. Here's Catherine
Speaker 1: Price again. The dietary supplement industry had a number of
Speaker 1: powerful industry groups that it formed, and the basic purpose
Speaker 1: was to convince the American public that the FDA was
Speaker 1: trying to take vitamins away. They were using the word
Speaker 1: vitamin to refer to all of these products. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, they're lying about what the FDA is trying
Speaker 1: to do. That wasn't true. They weren't trying to take
Speaker 1: vitamins away. Second, they're using the word vitamin to refer
Speaker 1: to products that were not vitamins. And third, they argued
Speaker 1: that any attempt by the FDA to regulate these products
Speaker 1: would amount to an infringement of American personal freedom. And
Speaker 1: as every American knows, we really don't like it when
Speaker 1: people tried to take our freedom away or our personal
Speaker 1: choice right. Turns out this was a very effective tactic
Speaker 1: for the industry and when they would turn to again
Speaker 1: twenty years after the Proxmyer Amendment, when a health crisis
Speaker 1: triggered a new investigation into the supplement industry. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen eighties, a disease started popping up
Speaker 1: that had really horrible symptoms. It was later figured out
Speaker 1: that the disease was called eosinophilia myalgia syndrome or MESS.
Speaker 1: So this disease started popping up and it was occurring
Speaker 1: in people who were taking a dietary supplement that included
Speaker 1: L tripped to Fan, the stuff in Turkey. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: stuff in Turkey and a lot of different foods. And
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard of L tripped to Fan
Speaker 1: in antidepressant and like anti anxiety supplements. Well, that's what
Speaker 1: it was for. So L tripp to Fan was supposed
Speaker 1: to help with depression, insomnia, insomnia like riffing off of
Speaker 1: the Turkey thing out makes you nap add in children.
Speaker 1: That was one of the big claims that was supposed
Speaker 1: to chill you out. Yeah, So what happened with L
Speaker 1: tripped to Fan is that people who had contracted this
Speaker 1: ems they all took L tripped Fan supplements that had
Speaker 1: been manufactured in this same Japanese manufacturing plant. Okay, they
Speaker 1: thought that it was probably, you know, had had something
Speaker 1: to do with an impurity that was in the plant,
Speaker 1: and it did. It was discovered later that there were
Speaker 1: over sixty three different contaminants found in these particular batches
Speaker 1: of L tripp to Fan, and the company eventually paid
Speaker 1: out two billion dollars to the victims. But later a
Speaker 1: professor of neuroscience at both Harvard and MIT testified before
Speaker 1: Congress that it wasn't just the impurities, because what we
Speaker 1: were doing is we were taking this isolated amino acid
Speaker 1: L trip to Fan that say, if it were in Turkey,
Speaker 1: it would be surrounded by twenty one other amino acids
Speaker 1: and it would be a dietary protein. But we were
Speaker 1: just isolating that one amino acid sticking in our bodies
Speaker 1: in really high amounts. And let's see what happens, right,
Speaker 1: what was happening to people? Well, first of all, more
Speaker 1: than fifteen hundred people were affected by the MS outbreak
Speaker 1: caused by l tripp to fan and an estimated forty
Speaker 1: people died. There was a woman named Dorothy Wilson who
Speaker 1: had contracted MS who described the symptoms she was suffering
Speaker 1: from during a congressional hearing in nineteen ninety three. So
Speaker 1: she's having painful muscle spasms. Her white blood cell count
Speaker 1: was really high, and doctors were saying that normally it
Speaker 1: would be caused by a parasitic infection or an allergic
Speaker 1: reaction or cancer. Those were the types of things that
Speaker 1: would bring her white blood cells up that high, and
Speaker 1: they stayed up that high. She had trouble moving, including
Speaker 1: walking or getting up from chairs or even sitting in chairs,
Speaker 1: so she was bedridden. She was having thyroid problems, puitary
Speaker 1: gland problems. She had a complete pause in her minstrel cycle.
Speaker 1: She had a loss of appetite. She was feeling super weak.
Speaker 1: She had extensive nerve damage, bladder weakness, and inability to speak.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that she was still suffering from her
Speaker 1: symptoms when she testified, but she told Congress that she
Speaker 1: had a burning desire to be there and that she
Speaker 1: wanted the members of Congress. She was testifying in front
Speaker 1: of to look at her while she was quote condemned
Speaker 1: to a life of severe pain and disabilities. It was
Speaker 1: a pretty serious thing. I mean, forty people dying is
Speaker 1: a big deal. Yeah. You would think then they would
Speaker 1: just change the law. Yeah, well they did. They were
Speaker 1: never actually able to take l Trip to Fan off
Speaker 1: the market, though, and in nineteen ninety eight there was
Speaker 1: another outbreak from a different form of Trip to Fan.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen ninety Congress went after the health claims
Speaker 1: on the bottles, and this is one of the only
Speaker 1: ways Congress and the FDA has ever been successful in
Speaker 1: holding these companies responsible. In this case, they said that
Speaker 1: because of the health claims on the bottles of El
Speaker 1: Trip to Fan, more people were encouraged to take the supplement,
Speaker 1: and then subsequently more people were harmed. Right, And the
Speaker 1: bill they came up with in nineteen ninety to regulate
Speaker 1: the health claims on dietary supplements was called the Nutritional
Speaker 1: Labeling and Education Act, And that's what led to the
Speaker 1: nutritional panels on the back of remember us. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: reminds me of when fast food places had to start
Speaker 1: posting calories like there was is definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: people being like, this is really great information, and then
Speaker 1: a few people being like, why do we need to
Speaker 1: know that? I don't want to know this at all.
Speaker 1: So when they started debating the nl EA, the Nutritional
Speaker 1: Labeling and Education Act, there were people that were involved
Speaker 1: with the industry really started to push back. It was
Speaker 1: very similar to what happened in nineteen seventy three with
Speaker 1: the Proxmyer Amendment. Yeah. One of those people, and someone
Speaker 1: whose name will keep coming up in this is Orne Hatch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: centator from Utah. Yeah. So, like Utah is known as
Speaker 1: the Silicon Valley of the supplement industry. You know what's
Speaker 1: funny is they're also known as the capital of multiple marketing.
Speaker 1: Ye yeah, yeah. MLMs stands for Mormons Losing money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read that on some memes somewhere. But okay, so
Speaker 1: it was a really big deal. I mean, honestly, in
Speaker 1: the early nineties, supplements where Utah's third largest industry, three
Speaker 1: billion dollar industry, and now it's crazier because now it's
Speaker 1: the state's largest industry. The other thing to know is
Speaker 1: that there's a new head of the FDA at this point.
Speaker 1: His name is David Kessler, So he wanted any claim
Speaker 1: that the industry made to be backed by a significant
Speaker 1: scientific agreement is what he said. Wow. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: a big one, right, I mean that's like they don't
Speaker 1: do that, you know, there certainly isn't significant agreement among
Speaker 1: scientists that these products do what they said, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: do anything. Then everything's kind of exploded because the industry
Speaker 1: was really freaked out that the new ahead of the
Speaker 1: FDA was not on their side. They fought back, of course.
Speaker 1: So here you can really see this pattern start emerging.
Speaker 1: The FDA reacts to something that's going on the public,
Speaker 1: whether it's recommendations for megadoses of vitamins see or whether
Speaker 1: it's a reaction or disease that's triggered by a supplement
Speaker 1: that they have yet to study. They propose regulations, it
Speaker 1: may end up in front of Congress, and the industry
Speaker 1: fights back because they're unwilling to take part in any
Speaker 1: regulatory process. The person who kind of took charge that
Speaker 1: was leading the industry side was a guy named Gerald Kessler. No,
Speaker 1: another Kessler, another Keer No, not a question from a mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, so David Kessler FDA. Yeah, he's fighting the
Speaker 1: n DK FDA. Yeah, there's a d in the FDA, okay.
Speaker 1: And then g K. Gerald Kessler industry guy. Where did
Speaker 1: he come from? What what is his job? He was
Speaker 1: the founder and the owner of Nature's Plus. They're very
Speaker 1: much a CBS vitamin ile supplement. You know, sounds really
Speaker 1: from At the time, they were one of the top
Speaker 1: ten supplement manufacturers of the United States. He saw the
Speaker 1: inn LA as being potentially disastrous for in the industry,
Speaker 1: right because they would have to prove that the products
Speaker 1: did what they were claiming they did. And that was
Speaker 1: so that's what we're talking about here. The FDA wanted
Speaker 1: the manufacturers of supplements to prove that the claims they
Speaker 1: were making about their supplements were true. And the manufacturers
Speaker 1: were like, no, I can't do that. That's going to
Speaker 1: destroy our industry. There was another proposed bill with this
Speaker 1: It would have allowed for district courts to order recalls
Speaker 1: on any products if there was a violation on the
Speaker 1: product that included fraud or significant risk to people or animals.
Speaker 1: But that isn't a thing. No, it's not a thing.
Speaker 1: So what did they What did the industry do? What
Speaker 1: did the GK guy do? He brought several dozen of
Speaker 1: the industry's biggest leaders to his lodge for it, I
Speaker 1: knew it a war council. Yea literally a lodge. It
Speaker 1: was at this little war council that was held over
Speaker 1: a weekend in February nineteen ninety two. The group that
Speaker 1: was there formed the Nutritional Health Alliance, which would be
Speaker 1: a gigantic, powerful, new lobbying group for the supplement industry.
Speaker 1: And their goal was within six months they wanted to
Speaker 1: generate a million public letters to Congress. The other thing
Speaker 1: that they decide is that they're going to use a
Speaker 1: very similar tactic to what was used by the industry
Speaker 1: during the Proxmire Amendment, which is to frame this as
Speaker 1: personal freedom right. They're taking away your rights the government.
Speaker 1: They're coming into your house, they're opening your cupboards, they're
Speaker 1: sweeping their arms through all of your vitamin supplement bottles.
Speaker 1: And during my interview with Catherine, she laces out really well,
Speaker 1: these dietary supplement industry groups did very smart things, like
Speaker 1: they used all the dietary supplement stores in the country,
Speaker 1: which obviously had a vested interest in being able to
Speaker 1: sell more products, as basically little outposts where consumers could
Speaker 1: come in and sign petitions to Congress, you know, fighting
Speaker 1: back against the supposed things the FDA was doing. They
Speaker 1: would give discounts if he wrote to congress members. They
Speaker 1: would shroud you know, certain areas of the store and
Speaker 1: black to supposedly show you what was going to happen
Speaker 1: if the FDA got its way. My favorite example was
Speaker 1: this nineteen ninety three ad that was put on by
Speaker 1: a supplement lobbying in group that starts with this like
Speaker 1: black screen and this swat team jumping out of the
Speaker 1: back of a van with scary music, and they run
Speaker 1: up the stairs of this mansion and then they confront
Speaker 1: this man in his bathrobe, you know, guns are drawn,
Speaker 1: and the man turns around and it turns out that
Speaker 1: it's Mel Gibson, and he's got a bottle of vitamins
Speaker 1: in his hand, and he says something essentially that is
Speaker 1: is vitamin C, you know, like in orangees. Hey, he's
Speaker 1: got it. It's only vitamin C, you know, like an orange,
Speaker 1: and then the screen cuts to black. If you don't
Speaker 1: want to lose your vitamins, make the FDA stop, Call
Speaker 1: the US Senate and tell them that you want to
Speaker 1: take your vitamins in peace. If enough of us do
Speaker 1: that it'll work. And as a result, there were millions
Speaker 1: of letters. Millions that got sent to Congress. I mean
Speaker 1: overwhelming number of letters that got sent to Congress. I
Speaker 1: feel so sad for the FDA at the time, Like
Speaker 1: can you imagine working there and being like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, Also because it feels like the more you
Speaker 1: if you're the FDA at that time, the more you
Speaker 1: start saying, no, we're going to be firm, We're going
Speaker 1: to really take this on because we need to, we
Speaker 1: need to regulate this industry, the more you sound like
Speaker 1: what they're saying, you are right, like, you know, this
Speaker 1: uncontrollable government agency that's trying to take away our basic rights.
Speaker 1: And then, just like with Proxmire Amendment, Gerald Kessler and
Speaker 1: his Coharts and also orn Hatch in the Senate proposed
Speaker 1: a new bill and it was called the Dietary Supplement
Speaker 1: Health and Education Act or de SHAY for short. One
Speaker 1: of the main things that the Dietary Supplement, Health and
Speaker 1: Education Actor de sche was trying to do was really
Speaker 1: broaden the definition of what was a vitamin and supplement,
Speaker 1: because under the Proxmire Amendment, they were talking about mostly vitamins.
Speaker 1: At that time, the supplement industry wasn't as big, so
Speaker 1: they wanted it in writing that most of the same
Speaker 1: things they were asking for in the Proxmire Amendment would
Speaker 1: now apply to a whole new set of product products.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that's so scary about it,
Speaker 1: because we're not just talking about putting synthetic vitamins into
Speaker 1: a pill. We're now talking about all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: And the result was that the d SCHE the Dietary Supplement,
Speaker 1: Health and Education Act, passed the unanimously and got signed
Speaker 1: into law by Bill Clinton in nineteen ninety four, and
Speaker 1: the supplement is usually won, so the FDA has not
Speaker 1: been able to seize back much power since the passage
Speaker 1: of that law, which is really one of the first
Speaker 1: times we've had that happen in American history where the
Speaker 1: regulations around a category like foods or drugs or supplements
Speaker 1: got looser rather than tighter. And I would I seriously
Speaker 1: doubt that's going to happen anytime soon. There were attempts
Speaker 1: by John McCain and some other people in Congress, but
Speaker 1: they all died, and there's a huge, huge amount of
Speaker 1: pressure from the supplement industry. They're very good at lobbying,
Speaker 1: so they broaden the definition of vitamins and minerals. So
Speaker 1: now it was written into law, they would include herbs, botanicals,
Speaker 1: amino acids, enzymes, metabolites, organ tissues, what and gland, jewelers, gross, okay,
Speaker 1: what else? And then also now supplements could take the
Speaker 1: form of not just pills, liquids, powders, gelcaps, teas and
Speaker 1: bars and goose and you know what. That kind of
Speaker 1: opened the door for Monster Energy drink that can now
Speaker 1: be claimed as a supplement not a food. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: other thing it did was it grandfathered in all of
Speaker 1: the dietary supplements that had been on the market as
Speaker 1: of October fifth, nineteen ninety four, So anything that had
Speaker 1: been manufactured prior to that was now grandfathered in and
Speaker 1: required absolutely. They didn't even have to tell the FDA
Speaker 1: who they were, what they were, what it was, not
Speaker 1: like Spanish fly at the party store, man a Okay.
Speaker 1: Another thing that the bill said is that companies are
Speaker 1: only required to send the FDA information that indicates why
Speaker 1: they believe the new ingredients will be safe, and they
Speaker 1: only need to do it seventy five days prior to
Speaker 1: the product going to market. Now it's actually loosened. Now
Speaker 1: you don't have to send anything. You just have to
Speaker 1: have it on hand that you know that you like
Speaker 1: in your own filing cabinet. You need to have a
Speaker 1: piece of paper that says, this is why our product works.
Speaker 1: This is why we believe our products works. This is
Speaker 1: from the end of study, just like you saying I
Speaker 1: think this works, right. I guess it would have to
Speaker 1: be convincing to the FDA if you had gone to
Speaker 1: court or something like that, but no one does, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. This is from the FDA. You are
Speaker 1: responsible for determining what information provides the basis for your conclusion.
Speaker 1: That's terrifying. No one is looking out for you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the main takeaway from du sche is that
Speaker 1: really anything can go into these bottles, right, and all
Speaker 1: you need to prove that they're safe is a piece
Speaker 1: of paper that the FDA might check one day. This
Speaker 1: inability for the FDA to require pre market testing, and
Speaker 1: then I think, because most health officials don't even know
Speaker 1: what dietary supplements are on the market, all of that
Speaker 1: made us really vulnerable. And in nineteen eighty nine, it
Speaker 1: had some devastating consequences. The limits on the FDA to
Speaker 1: both regulate a supplement prior to it coming to market
Speaker 1: and to check products for toxicity would have terrible consequences
Speaker 1: once again. In twenty thirteen, on the island of Oahu
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, Hey everyone, we're back from supplementing dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm Chris and I'm Bill. Today we're reviewing a suppleman
Speaker 1: that's very popular right now. It's a thermogenic fatburner called
Speaker 1: oxyolite Pro. The state is investigating numerous cases of liver
Speaker 1: failure in young and healthy adults with oxyolite Pro. Doctors
Speaker 1: said the company was forced to change the formula because
Speaker 1: it caused heart problems. The new formula came out in
Speaker 1: May and is now causing liver problems. Since May, at
Speaker 1: least ten cases have been reported in Hawaii three more
Speaker 1: cases of liver damage linked to the weight loss supplement
Speaker 1: oxylite Pro. The state Health Department says that brings the
Speaker 1: total number to thirty two. Today, the department confirmed for
Speaker 1: me a prose man will likely be number thirty three.
Speaker 1: Doctors say nearly two dozen oxe Elite customers have been hospitalized,
Speaker 1: while two others have received liver transplants and one person
Speaker 1: has died. Test show Tony Gucci's liver was failing. He
Speaker 1: was a loyal fan of the diet supplement oxy Elite Pro,
Speaker 1: buying the bottles both online and from GNC stores. You
Speaker 1: only see numbers, you don't actually see people like this
Speaker 1: is really happy, This is for real, This is really
Speaker 1: happening to people in Hawaii. Vanessa Stewart Kawen two News,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa, and that is my high school classmate.
Speaker 1: Get well soon. The state health officials in Hawaii were
Speaker 1: caught totally flat footed. I mean they didn't know what
Speaker 1: oxy Elite Pro was. They tried to contact the FDA,
Speaker 1: but the FDA didn't know what was going on with
Speaker 1: oxy elite Pro at that time. So here they are
Speaker 1: with a lack of blood for transfusions, a lack of livers,
Speaker 1: which are healthy livers are hard to come by, and
Speaker 1: people who are dying. And again that was largely because
Speaker 1: of a lack of information, right, not only what was
Speaker 1: oxy elite Pro, what was in it? What were the
Speaker 1: ingredients that were causing harm to people? And they were
Speaker 1: left scrambling trying to figure out what to do. The
Speaker 1: danger isn't just in not knowing what's in a supplement.
Speaker 1: There's another thing the FDA doesn't get to do, make
Speaker 1: sure companies list side effects and drug interactions on the label.
Speaker 1: There's a great example of that in one of the
Speaker 1: most popular dietary supplement products, which seems innocuous from its name,
Speaker 1: Saint John's Wart, which it's an herbal product. Many people
Speaker 1: take it for depression, and what is very well known
Speaker 1: by supplement makers and the medical profession is that Saint
Speaker 1: John's Wort is active. It does have an active ingredient,
Speaker 1: and that active ingredient means that it interferes with upwards
Speaker 1: of fifty percent five zero of prescription drugs on the market.
Speaker 1: I thought I knew of the warnings about Saint John's
Speaker 1: Ward because I take regular antidepressants and my doctors are like,
Speaker 1: please don't take this and Saint John's Ward. But they've
Speaker 1: never told me that it's contraindicated. For other prescriptions like
Speaker 1: birth control. There are stories of like quote unquote miracle
Speaker 1: babies where the mothers like, how did I possibly get pregnant?
Speaker 1: I was taking birth control religiously and it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: because you also were taking Saint John's Ward. Or why
Speaker 1: did my body reject my kidney transplant when I was
Speaker 1: taking my anti rejection drugs? Oh, because you were on
Speaker 1: Saint John's Ward. Saint John's Ward is an obvious one.
Speaker 1: But there are so many, so many products on the market,
Speaker 1: and you can't even know necessarily what's in the products
Speaker 1: because in many cases they have so called proprietary blends
Speaker 1: that is basically like code terminology for secret, because they
Speaker 1: don't tell you what those proprietary ingredients are. So how's
Speaker 1: the doctor possibly supposed to know that? Like the example
Speaker 1: I use in my book, which I thought was very
Speaker 1: funny but also distressing, was this product called Natural Curves,
Speaker 1: which had a prominent photo of a woman's cleavage on
Speaker 1: it and then lots of uses of the word natural, natural, natural, natural,
Speaker 1: and then like its purpose was quite clear, And when
Speaker 1: I looked at the online reviews for this product, people
Speaker 1: were saying it did stuff like they were talked about
Speaker 1: breaking out in pimples like they did when they were
Speaker 1: in high school, and they were talking about what it
Speaker 1: actually did do to their breasts. And then when they
Speaker 1: stopped taking it, like they went back to I don't know,
Speaker 1: like deflated balloons. I forgot the terminology. Nonetheless, they gave
Speaker 1: it like a four and a half star rating, but
Speaker 1: I was like, this is where it gets scary, because
Speaker 1: the best case scenario is that natural curves does not
Speaker 1: do anything to your body, but if it is giving
Speaker 1: you acne, it is doing something to your hormones, and
Speaker 1: who knows what else is doing And nobody really knows
Speaker 1: what's in it because they don't have to. They can
Speaker 1: hide behind a proprietary ingredient list, and the average consumer
Speaker 1: is apparently just not They're just assuming that because it's
Speaker 1: in a bottle and it's sold in the store, somebody
Speaker 1: is a watchdog, and in the case of dietary supplement products,
Speaker 1: there are not many watchdogs. Consumers might want to ask themselves.
Speaker 1: If a substance is so powerful and so miraculous, then
Speaker 1: why is it being sold as a dietary supplement. Why
Speaker 1: aren't companies pursuing that as an actual medical product they
Speaker 1: could get paid a lot more for. And the irony
Speaker 1: being that is taken by people often who have distrust
Speaker 1: in the pharmaceutical industry because they think that there's sketchy
Speaker 1: things going on there. Who think that dietary supplements are
Speaker 1: quote unquote natural again because they're borrowing from vitamin's halo
Speaker 1: and don't recognize it's multibillion dollar companies who don't have
Speaker 1: the same standards or rigor or requirements as the pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: companies flawed. Though the pharmaceutical companies maybe you know, at
Speaker 1: least they had to have a much stricter will. They
Speaker 1: have a drug approval process takes up to twelve years
Speaker 1: on average, and it costs billions with a bee of dollars.
Speaker 1: So even though there can be corruption, and even though
Speaker 1: there can be mistakes, there is a whole system there
Speaker 1: that has greatly improved the safety and efficacy of America's
Speaker 1: drug supply. Here's the disconnect. Who among us would want
Speaker 1: complete deregulation of prescription drugs? Say what about over the
Speaker 1: counter medication cold sirup? I'd be prof and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. We all find it important, super important to
Speaker 1: be able to trust that these products are what they
Speaker 1: say they are, and that the labels have warnings we
Speaker 1: can heed, and that they're basically safe. None of those
Speaker 1: precautions have been taken for the pills in the next aisle.
Speaker 1: Over All of that is left up to us and
Speaker 1: the stretched pretty thin FDA to figure out after we've
Speaker 1: taken them. The FDA does not have enough inspectors to
Speaker 1: go and inspect manufacturing plants, especially abroad. This is a huge,
Speaker 1: huge issue. We tend to think of a vitamin or
Speaker 1: sublemin manufacturer is a one stop shop where they're making
Speaker 1: the raw ingredients and the pills. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: They're the people who package the ingredients into the pills,
Speaker 1: and they get their raw ingredients from all over the world.
Speaker 1: In the case of vitamins, there's no vitamin basically no
Speaker 1: vitamin manufacturing plants in the United States itself. There's few
Speaker 1: in Europe, but not many. Most of them are coming
Speaker 1: from China and India places like that. And in the
Speaker 1: case of the dietary subplemin ingredients like herbals and botanicals,
Speaker 1: I mean, there can be a very long supply chain there.
Speaker 1: Think about all the exotic names of ingredients we see
Speaker 1: in daily supplements here in the US. Take in my
Speaker 1: moon juice, for example, their dusts contain goji berry and
Speaker 1: ashwaganda and jinsing, and a lot of ingredients that are
Speaker 1: grown on the other side of the world. If there's
Speaker 1: no one minding the store at any point in the
Speaker 1: supply chain, that's dangerous. Take the leaded turmeric story out
Speaker 1: of Bangladesh this year. If you mix lead with chromium,
Speaker 1: you get lead chromate and it's a dark yellow pigment
Speaker 1: that was being used to cut turmeric powder for years.
Speaker 1: Some of that powder was being exported and ingested all
Speaker 1: over the world. That was a blatant fraud, but speaks
Speaker 1: to how little we can know about what we're taking,
Speaker 1: and then you could have just honest mistakes. Like in
Speaker 1: the case of an herbal product from a plant, you
Speaker 1: have to know which plants to gather. You have to
Speaker 1: know like what's season to gather them in. Because plants
Speaker 1: are living things, they've got different levels of different substances.
Speaker 1: You have to know which part of the plant that
Speaker 1: you should be grinding up or extracting or whatever. So
Speaker 1: huge problems with these products not having what they say
Speaker 1: they do. And there's actually a website I recommend for
Speaker 1: consumers called consumer lab dot com started Buy an Analytical Chemist.
Speaker 1: It's a subscription site. But if you're someone who actually
Speaker 1: is going to keep taking dietary supplements after this, you
Speaker 1: probably want to consider it where they actually do pull
Speaker 1: products off of the shelves and randomly test them, not
Speaker 1: for safety or for efficacy, but to make sure that
Speaker 1: they actually contain what they say they contain, that they
Speaker 1: dissolve in your body, and the way that would make
Speaker 1: them actually not just contribute to you. There's the phrase
Speaker 1: expensive urine and some other quality checks, and it's amazing
Speaker 1: to read their reports and see how often there are
Speaker 1: issues with overages or underages or substances that shouldn't be
Speaker 1: in there. And this is such a problem that there's
Speaker 1: been letters from the FDA, like open letters to the
Speaker 1: supplement industry calling out the industry and saying there's things
Speaker 1: being found in products like stimulants, antidepressants, anticoagulant, steroids, all
Speaker 1: sorts of scary stuff that's being found in dietary supplement products.
Speaker 1: You think you're buying an herbal thing, like an herbal
Speaker 1: sexual enhancement product from a Chinese medicine, if it really
Speaker 1: works like viagra, there's a high chance that actually has
Speaker 1: viagra in it. And I spoke to one analytical chemist
Speaker 1: who had a great story about that. He said he'd
Speaker 1: been hired to analyze some herbal product, and so he'd
Speaker 1: broken open a couple of the capsules to mix it
Speaker 1: up so that he could analyze what was inside. And
Speaker 1: when he opened up one of the capsules, a piece
Speaker 1: of a viagra fell out, like an actual piece of
Speaker 1: a blue pill. And he was like, well, that one
Speaker 1: was pretty easy. And there's also like seventy if not
Speaker 1: more analogs of viagra, like chemicals that do the same
Speaker 1: thing as viagra, but they won't show up in exactly
Speaker 1: the same way if the substances are tested. So consumers
Speaker 1: really need to be aware, especially as you get into bodybuilding,
Speaker 1: sexual enhancement, and weight loss products. Again, to contrast that
Speaker 1: to the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry, the onus is
Speaker 1: on them to prove that their products are safe and
Speaker 1: effective before they come to market, and they actually have
Speaker 1: to do postmarket record keeping an analysis to make sure
Speaker 1: that there's not an unfesen problem with their drug, which
Speaker 1: we've seen happen with a number of drugs when they
Speaker 1: get recalled or they have problems after they're approved by
Speaker 1: the FDA, because once you have millions of people taking them,
Speaker 1: you start to have side effects that might not have
Speaker 1: shown up in the smaller clinical trials, but that's on
Speaker 1: the company to keep track of and then basically prove
Speaker 1: itself to the FDA to comply with the FDA, versus
Speaker 1: the FDA, with its limited staff, being told that it
Speaker 1: has to somehow ferret out problems from this giant industry,
Speaker 1: and the industry itself doesn't have to really do that
Speaker 1: much work. So I just think it's very dangerous to
Speaker 1: assume that anyone's looking out for your health or safety
Speaker 1: when it comes to these products. One of the interesting
Speaker 1: things that came out of the nineteen ninety four law
Speaker 1: to Shay, is that we ended up with what are
Speaker 1: called structure function claims, which are the little claims basically
Speaker 1: you see on supplement bottles that say things like improves
Speaker 1: regularity instead of prevents constipation. And that's because you can't
Speaker 1: say it prevents something, but you can say it improves,
Speaker 1: and there's always an asterisk, and it always says this
Speaker 1: statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Speaker 1: But I think that everyone on both sides knows that
Speaker 1: there's many cases in which these products are being taken
Speaker 1: in the same way you've taken over the counter drug
Speaker 1: and they're taking as substitutes in many cases for prescription drugs,
Speaker 1: including the labels on Moon Juice, which say stuff like
Speaker 1: targets stress and supports stamina recovery, and a healthy immune
Speaker 1: system targets and supports. These positive attributes are crucial in
Speaker 1: marketing and selling the product, but I wish the manufacturer
Speaker 1: thought that maybe some negative words could be helpful too.
Speaker 1: I actually asked a representative from the quote unquote Council
Speaker 1: for Responsible Nutrition, which is one of the supplement industries
Speaker 1: leading trade groups industry groups, and I asked the man
Speaker 1: point blank, like you know in the case of Saint
Speaker 1: John's Ward, that these side effects are very probable and consequential.
Speaker 1: Why don't you feel some kind of moral responsibility like
Speaker 1: put a warning on the front of Saint John's Ward
Speaker 1: or even on the back that's very specific that says
Speaker 1: do not you know this is known to interfere with
Speaker 1: prescription drugs, so talk to your doctor instead of their
Speaker 1: generic These claims have not been reviewed by the FDA,
Speaker 1: and talked to a doctor before you take it without
Speaker 1: any kind of specificity that would would really make it
Speaker 1: clear that it's a thing you really need to do.
Speaker 1: And he basically said, that's not our responsibility, it's the
Speaker 1: responsibility of doctors to tell you about these potential side effects.
Speaker 1: And it just seemed like a completely, you know, ducking
Speaker 1: responsibility and frankly dumb business decision from my perspective, because
Speaker 1: it's like, this is why the public doesn't trust the
Speaker 1: dietary supplement industry and why they shouldn't trust the dietary
Speaker 1: supplement industry because they are not willing to step up
Speaker 1: and even point out a very real threat that is
Speaker 1: probably not recognized by most people. Medical professionals cannot be
Speaker 1: expected in the twelve minutes that they have per person
Speaker 1: who come in their office to get a thorough history
Speaker 1: of their dietary supplements and then think to tell them
Speaker 1: about any possible interaction there might be. So I just
Speaker 1: thought it was a really infuriating to think that there's
Speaker 1: this giant industry that doesn't really seem very interested in
Speaker 1: policing itself to get rid of some of the truly
Speaker 1: sketchy players on the market, which I think is not
Speaker 1: a smart business decision because it contributes to the erosion
Speaker 1: of trust in their industry, Whereas if they really had
Speaker 1: a strong approach to protecting the quality of the products
Speaker 1: in the industry. I think that would go a long
Speaker 1: way towards improving public health and certainly confidence. Okay, so
Speaker 1: with all of this, what's the best case scenario for
Speaker 1: a consumer? Well, I think the best case scenario is
Speaker 1: that we're spending billions of dollars a year on substances
Speaker 1: that don't do anything, or on substances that don't have
Speaker 1: active ingredients, but the placebo effect makes it so that
Speaker 1: they do have an effect on our well being, which
Speaker 1: is possible. Our concerns should be twofold, first that we're
Speaker 1: wasting our money and then second that we might actually
Speaker 1: be ingesting products that can harm us. You can't discount
Speaker 1: the fact that anytime you take a substance for a
Speaker 1: positive purpose, you also have the risk that it will
Speaker 1: do something negative or that it will interfere with some
Speaker 1: other substance you're taking. And that's where we are right
Speaker 1: The place we're at with supplements is that we don't know.
Speaker 1: And d Shay further cemented what was asked for by
Speaker 1: the industry and the Proxmiron Amendment, and now we're in
Speaker 1: a place where they are protected by law. They are
Speaker 1: not required to tell us what is actually in these products,
Speaker 1: or at least they can tell us what's in the products,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to prove it. Wellness isn't just
Speaker 1: about what we're putting in our bodies. It's also about
Speaker 1: what's coming out next time. On the Dream, when those
Speaker 1: women have to come to the hospital because their labor
Speaker 1: course is not going the way that they thought, they're disempowered,
Speaker 1: and more so than women who are expecting to give
Speaker 1: birth in a hospital. They feel like they did something wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, they surrounded themselves with the wrong person, or
Speaker 1: they weren't in the right mindset. They go through and
Speaker 1: dissect every minute of every day for the weeks leading
Speaker 1: up to their birth and think if they had done
Speaker 1: one thing differently, it would have changed the outcome. And
Speaker 1: it's just not Statistically, that's just not true. The Dream
Speaker 1: is a production of Little Everywhere and Stitcher, written and
Speaker 1: reported by me Jane Murray and Dan Galucci, editing by
Speaker 1: Peter Clowney and Tracy Samuelson, with production by Stephanie Karayuki
Speaker 1: and Lyra Smith. The Dream is executive produced by me,
Speaker 1: Dan Galucci, Peter Clowney, and Chris Bannon. Our mixing engineers
Speaker 1: are Casey Holford and Brendan Burns. Please rate, review, and
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and thanks for listening.