dshea
oracknows | July 1, 2012If there's a law that I view as a horrible, horrible, law, it's the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA of 1994). It is a law that blog bud and former ScienceBlogs blogger Dr. Peter Lipson has rightly called a travesty of a mockery of a sham, and, quite frankly, I think he has been too easy on it. Clearly, if there is a single instance of a massive triumph of the forces of quackery in the U.S. that I could point to, the DSHEA of 1994 would be it. This particular misbegotten law in essence opened the floodgates for the sale of dubious supplements and turned a relatively…
oracknows | March 8, 2010If there's one law that (most) supporters of science-based medicine detest and would love to see repealed, it's the Dietary Supplement and Health Act of 1994 (DSHEA). The reason is that this law, arguably more than almost anything else, allowed for the proliferation of supplements and claims made for these supplements that aren't based in science. In essence, the DSHEA created a new class of regulated entity called dietary supplements. At the same time, it liberalized the rules for information and claims that the supplement manufacturers can transmit to the public and while at the same time…
terrasig | November 25, 2009
By most metrics, those of us at Terra Sig World Headquarters are liberals. Nevertheless, we often enjoy reading conservative writer, attorney, and American Enterprise Institute fellow, David Frum. Perhaps I have a soft spot for him because he's Canadian and he also writes for my favorite print newsmagazine, The Week.
Well, Frum chose this week to write, "Herbal remedies need real scrutiny," at his FrumForum and the post was subsequently published as a special commentary at CNN.com. The latter version has accumulated about ten times as many comments. The thesis of his essay is that the…
terrasig | July 26, 2009In the United States, herbal and non-herbal dietary supplements can be sold without any assurance of safety or efficacy as a result of a hastily-passed, late-night, final-session piece of legislation put forth by Sen Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). (Aside: Utah has several large dietary supplement manufacturers.) This piece of legislation is named the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA. A FAQ for consumers is provided by the US Food and Drug Administration here.
An unusual aspect of the law is that supplement manufacturers can make a variety of wellness or structure-function…
oracknows | March 11, 2009Advocates of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) frequently make the claim that they are the victims of a "double standard," in which (or so they claim) they are subjected to harsher standards than what they often refer to as "conventional" or "orthodox" medicine, usually because, don't you know, big pharma controls everything and rigs the game. Whatever the sins of big pharma (and they are legion), this claim is, of course, a whole lot of hooey. If there is a double standard (and, indeed there is), it favors CAM. Indeed, CAM itself is a "wedge strategy" to apply a…