[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?
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The “Unexplainable” podcast recently had a good half-hour episode – “Vitamin X” – That covered why the supplement business is largely unregulated in the USA.
Worth a listen.
https://www.vox.com/unexplainable/archives
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vitamin-x/id1554578197?i=1000569756830
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.
Governments that dictate what’s “allowed” are authoritarian, it’s not the right frame of mind, government doesn’t “allow”, a government should put reasonable restrictions to obvious society hazards, and always treading carefully when doing so.
As for your specific question, u/cikanman has offered a pretty good answer.
When you decide the purpose of civilization is to serve money instead of serving people you get this and a whole lot of other negative effects. Next time something doesnt make sense ask yourself, is it profitable to the wealthy? Youll have your answer.
Governments don’t allow it one government allows it, nearly all countries around the world complete ban prescription medicine advertising and in addition ban all items claiming however loosely to be a medicine without having approval.
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It’s so wrong that even “misleading” ads are allowed. I really hate how in the U.S. “not impeding business” is the ultimate concern.
A “medical claim” is very, *very* specifically regulated in the US.
If you:
* Call a product a “supplement” and never use the words “medicine” or “drug”,
* Say it “supports” or “promotes” something but never say it *does* anything,
* Include a disclaimer saying “This product has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”,
…then you can sell anything you want with any marketing strategy you want.
If your product is ever found to be actively harmful, then there’s a chance it will be investigated, and then there’s a chance that you will be fined. The amount of the fine will probably be much less than you made by selling the product.
If your product isn’t actively harmful, then there’s no law to stop you.
This is an excellent point. People go nuts over “misinformation” which is often just debatable opinion, but give a pass to the phoney and sometimes deadly pseudo-medical advice that is rampant.
Because the people making the laws have monetary benefit in doing things that harm others and loose enough morals to not feel remorse or empathy for the people they harm as they have gotten their pie
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