No Approved Therapeutic Claims

[radames 0]

Is it safe to take any food supplement that have a tag of ?No approved therapeutic claims??

[sheepdog 10]

Is it safe to take any food supplement that have a tag of No approved therapeutic claims?

In order to be "approved" a product/substance has to pass tests that are viewed by the Food and Drug Administration. And just like every other government organization, it is a huge bumbling beauracracy filled with miles and miles of red tape and road blocks that make getting approval take a huge amount of money and a very long time. In some cases, the manufactors could not recoup the cost of testing and approval and would go broke before their product ever made it to market.

As to safety of non approved products, it would of course, depend on the product. For example, everybody knows that if you have a kidney infection, you should drink cranberry juice. Look all you like on the cranberry juice bottle, I guarantee you won't find any statement proclaiming it can cure a kidney infection, but it does work.

[iGuest 3]

Dubious Products and Its AdvertisingNo Approved Therapeutic Claims

 Lately there have been products which claim to aid vital organs from harm caused by lifestyles that are characterized by excessive indulgence in eating, bohemian living and other unsafe and immoderate diversions.The frequency of the advertisements by which these products are aired are just a little less intense than those applied in detergents and shampoos. With this kind of incessant repetitions I would presume that the claimed and speculated medicinal efficacy of these products have been drummed in effectively in the audiences? minds. They are now happy in the belief that they can indulge just a bit more on things that are high cholesterol, carcinogen suspect, high sodium, and the overly sweet. Worst, they may even think that these products would be sufficient to substitute for the physician prescribed expensive maintenance medicines.Note that at the end of these advertisements a phrase is flashed in a split second saying ?No approved therapeutic claims?. (Recently one these products even had the temerity to render the caution unintelligible by putting the audio at fast speed) Does it mean that whatever is claimed or what has been the intrnded perception of the advertisement does not pass the scrutiny of the vettors and is meant to be a caveat to the market?I do not understand why there is a need for such a caveat. Shouldn't they have disallowed the marketing of the product outright?Shouldn?t the Food and Drug Administration and/or the Ad Board (self regulatory body of the ad industry screening advertisements prior to airing) have disallowed the airing of advertisements of products with unsubstantiated claims in an area that is potentially harmful to people?It seems that one marketer tested the waters and not getting rebuffed by the authorized screeners became emboldened to launch a media intensive campaign. So many products of the same ilk and bearing the same caution followed soon after. We now have what I would call snake oil cure alls for ailments of the liver, the heart, the kidney and other common ailments. Our poor consumers are prone to these panaceas because of the prohibitive cost of conventional medicines these days.

Banning these type of products would have a big economic impact on the wellness (pharmaceutical?) industry, the advertising industry and the commercial media houses. They are the beneficiaries of the existence of these products. As always, the Filipino consumer's interests take a backseat. 

-reply by ed roa

[Misanthrope 0]

In the recent past, the United States government, in all its wisdom, enacted a policy that any vitamin or mineral health supplement that has not been tested by the FDA has to carry a label on the packaging saying that it hasn?t been proven to have any therapeutic benefit. This was a ploy by the large rich drug companies to try and cast doubt over their competitors? claims for natural supplements from ingredients that have been used for ages (literally) to treat symptoms that Big Pharma can?t synthesize in a laboratory somewhere. There are numerous examples and one that comes to mind is Valarian Root Extract, used as a muscle relaxant. You can overdose on this herb and probably cause a wreck or damage yourself if you decide to operate heavy machinery when you use it, especially if you add a glass of alcohol to it (my favorite combination..hehe). But, that?s really a good way to get the best effect from it too, just as long as you?re in bed looking for a good night of sleep. It?s safe if used per the label, but no one?s going to spend millions of dollars just to get the fascist FDA to put its stamp of approval on the bottle. It?s really a matter of common sense. Before this inane rule took effect, those same products were safe. Nothing has changed inside the bottle, it?s what?s outside the bottle that?s changed.

[sheepdog 10]

Unfortunatly, there are people on both sides of this issue, the snake oil salesmans to the true herbalists that understand how the proper herbs and supplements can and do help our health. I would truely hate to see the good thrown out with the bad and the elimination of the many various supplements that personally I do take and do believe that I feel better because of them. I really don't think the snake oil salesmans are a big problem, though I could be wroung. I tried that juice that was being heavily promoted not too long ago, magnastine, or something like that, I forget the exact name now. So I was out a few bucks for a bottle. It didn't exactly break me and send me into mass poverty. And just because it didn't help me that doesn't mean that for another person it could work wonders. I would not want the government regulating me out of the products I do want to use, so I am happy to tolerate the occasional snake oil salesman. One just needs to use a little common sense. I am sure the big drug companies would love to see an end to all supplements that are now keeping peoople healthy. After all, sick people are what make them rich. Every so often you see a big push to discredit herbal supplements, and force more regulations on the suppliers of them. It's all big business and greed, nothing at all related to keeping the general population healthy. A person would be very wise to actually do their own reasearch into the benifits of herbs. Study the ancient ways of using them, back in the days before we had HMO's and million dollar hospital bills. Sometimes new is not always better.

[Parubilla 0]

I don?t think that just because the label says that it it not approved then it?s bad, because just to get the product to the market they should have made a lot of tests I guess, sometimes I just go with the laboratory who?s producing it, to see if it?s a... not mean legal but well established laboratory, and maybe if you can find out a person who has been taking the drug to see how it goes. You can see also if the drug is approved somewhere else in the world, like the FDA has not the last word on drugs, so maybe another countries have more research on the kind of drug you are looking for and help you decide if buy it or not.