[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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I’ve seen commercials selling a drug that doesn’t even say what condition it treats. Basically, just your standard over saturated stock footage clips of waaaay too happy people, and a clip at the end “Ask your doctor if _________ is right for you!”
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 ….
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.
If America actually had Healthcare people wouldn’t be so susceptible to scams to save a dollar.
The vagueness is part of it, but there are also some really, really dumb pieces of legislation on the books in America, including laws that you don’t need to list ingredients with “supplements” or “vitamins.”
Say, how do you define a supplement or vitamin? Why, that’s easy! The manufacturer does!
As such, you get snake oil products that don’t legally have to list anything. Like that dumb head on product that was literally just a stick of wax and the placebo effect.
BTW, those prostate supplements are making claims to treat enlargement (benign hypertrophy) and/or the symptoms it causes, which is unrelated to cancer or cancer risk.
There are only two countries that allow for the free advertising of medicine on TV. US and New Zealand
Check out some countries besides the US. Many of them do not let companies sell dangerous products to people and many more heavily regulated what can be advertised to people.
In the US, the FDA regulates things that make specific medical claims, such as “[reduces the risk of heart attack](https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090513/fda-warns-on-cheerios-health-claims)” or “makes your pp bigger.”
So, instead these products just make general claims alluding to “wellness” or “male enhancement.”
Basically, if they don’t advertise like they are *treating a specific medical condition*, they can say whatever they like. Until they run afoul of the FTC, but that’s not very common.
Free speech. As long as they don’t make direct claims, they can sell the items.
Nutraceutical products are notorious for this.
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