[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

There used to be REAL snake oil salesmen who sold all sorts of homemade concoctions, mostly including a combination of alcohol, opium and cannabis. It’s because of these hucksters that the FDA was created.

While it’s FAR from perfect, the odds of the FDA allowing clearly dangerous products to be advertised is not really a thing. Not unless you’re talking about the HIGHLY dangerous drugs being sold by the big pharma companies. If you’re looking for danger look for ads by Phizer, Moderna, Merck, etc ….