[ELI5] How governments allow snake oil “medicine” to sell on TV, light night? Some of these products are dangerous to people, like prostate crap that will do nothing and may prevent the people to survive if diagnosed too late?

Question

[ELI5] How governments allow snake oil “medicine” to sell on TV, light night? Some of these products are dangerous to people, like prostate crap that will do nothing and may prevent the people to survive if diagnosed too late?

In: 1634

Answer 1

Because all those sales inflate the GDP?

I tend to think (but I have no proof so take it with a grain of salt) that a lot of alternative medicine practices are tolerated because they stir away needy patients with minor ailments (typically a cold you just have to wait out) from professional doctors. At least where I come from, there are many people who go to the doctor for the smallest things, or just to get some prescription. But it’s a lot more expensive to train more doctors (8 years of studying and up) versus letting profitable alternative medicine businesses exist. There are many reasons why those exist, but I think one is a byproduct of looking at everything through the lens of profitability.