[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

Worth noting that this is mostly a US thing. You don’t see so many medicine-like adverts in the UK or EU.

I recall that nuerofen got some adverts banned for falsely implying that different tablets could target different areas of the body when in fact the tablets target all pain. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t make a vague claim that a tablet supports your health if you couldn’t substantiate it.