No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS | Hacker News Reader

No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS

bloomberg.com

472 pointsabakker418 comments

“You have to be very careful when you select and use aloe products,” said Tod Cooperman, president of White Plains, New York-based ConsumerLab.com, which has done aloe testing.

-- And how am supposed to be careful? Should I run my own lab to test every product I use?

Much easier to just grow an aloe plant in your bathroom

This is exactly what I do, it's fairly easy compared to other plants. As well as it feels much more soothing without all the extra additives for keeping freshness.

> it's fairly easy compared to other plants

For a few months, I've tried killing an Aloe Vera plant that shared a place with some other species. That is a hard task.

In the end, after every other plant died, I dug it up, and made it into pieces with a saw, so I could move it. I gave 3 pieces to a friend, that now owns 3 fully healthy Aloe Vera plants.

My thoughts exactly. It's a fairly set and forget plant and looks pretty cool as well.

I think that misses the point of the comment. You don't establish confidence in a system by just ignoring it and doing it yourself. If you take your logic to its natural conclusion, we should all just farm our own food as it's the only way to trust it.

Exactly. Branding is devaluing itself. Distributed systems in which you interact personally become less complicated than verifying an unknown substance. If every plant was as easy to grow as an aloe, this would totally scale, unfortunately this is not the case. It's a succulent so you never have to water them, use very little nutrients and require little light. I haven't watered mine in like 3 months, it's fine.

> Should I run my own lab to test every product I use?

Subscribe to one of the companies that do independent lab testing of consumer products and/or supplements.

Also, buy some field guides. You should be able to find medicinal plants for almost any condition within a couple miles of wherever you live. Wild Edibles Forage is the best app in this category for iOS. (In this case whether or not the plant/mushroom actually treats the condition is irrelevant if you were already planning on purchasing the same thing from the store.)

where do you live...?

I live in the Bronx and work in Manhattan. You're obviously not going to find aloe growing in central park, but there are at least half a dozen other plants there that can be used to treat minor burns and other skin conditions. E.g. plantago, jewelweed, witch hazel, etc.

According to at least one prominent American zen buddhist, the secret to the good life is, "stay together, learn the flowers, go light." This isn't some sort of metaphor, go outside.

Surely you aren't suggesting that New Yorkers should forage in Central Park...it's a public space, not your privately-owned backyard.

People have foraged in Central Park since it was first built. Yes foraging can cause problems, but it hasn't ruined the park, and there are benefits.

> It's a public space, not your privately-owned backyard.

If you're collecting invasive plants then you're basically doing free community service. Obviously you shouldn't uproot native plants, although picking taking fruit from them isn't harmful, nor is taking foliage when done in limited amounts.

I am personally giving them my blessing to do it, and do it boldly.

One of the failings of the libertarian ideal. There's no way for even an informed consumer to have any idea what most of their purchases contain, what safety issues they have, how effective they really are, etc.

In the EU if something is called "Greek yoghurt" it has to come from Greece. Otherwise it's "greek-style yoghurt". Similarily, if something is called "aloe vera juice" it has to contain aloe vera. Really simple, yet I've had many comments on HN opposing the idea of making it law(especially from US, weirdly).

> I've had many comments on HN opposing the idea of making it law

It's common here(in the US) for "Greek yogurt" to mean Greek-style yogurt, and we would all ask "why!?" when confronted with that regulation. However, when you read stories like this - maybe that kind of regulation is needed. I've been buying aloe from walmart/target/etc for ages, and always assumed that the ingredient list wasn't a lie - now I realize that is not always true.

edit: typo

Wait. It's trickier than that because you have to get your product acknowledged by the EU then you get to be authorised to use that name (if your product is compliant with the rules ofc). It's not automatic.

Among other things it was one of the point of contention regarding CETA/TTIP.

No, you're thinking of regional products. So for example, there's one specific type of cheese made in one region of Polish mountains that is called "oscypek" and no other cheese can be called "oscypek", even if it's made by the same methods(or I guess a more well known example is that only sparkling wine made in Champagne region of France can be called "Champagne" legally).

What I am talking about is that every product in EU has to be what it says on the label - so Greek yoghurt has to be from Greece. French wine has to be from France. Apple juice has to contains apple juice, not just apple flavouring, etc etc.

Oh, I thought it was the same legal package (regional products and naming). You are right though: labels can't lie about the origin of the product.

I go out for Italian food all the time, and I don't expect it came from Italy. At least here in the US, saying "I'm going to eat some Chinese Noodles/Greek Yogurt/Indian Curry" implies you're only talking about the style. I think it's a slightly different situation.

I've never heard of that law applying to restaurants. But if you buy a ready meal in a supermarket and it's, let's say, "italian sausage pasta" - you can be 100% certain that the sausage in it is from Italy, guaranteed.

Hah, you picked a rather odd example, cause "Italian sausage", in the US at least, isn't "sausage from Italy", it's a specific kind of seasoning.

Here in the US, "Italian X" or "French Y" just means that's the style. There's plenty of space on most labels to indicate a country of origin, and that's exactly what they do: foods made in Italy clearly state on them "Product of Italy" or similar. In fact, some food being made in Italy or France or anywhere in Europe is generally a plus over here, so they're not shy about putting that on the label.

In short, we don't need laws limiting what you can call things, with regard to country of origin, as long as product labels clearly indicate the country of origin. I know full well the $1.00 Chobani "Greek yogurt" isn't actually made in Greece, but some Greek-named expensive yogurt at the fancy grocery store I can guess probably is, and then after checking the label a bit more closely and seeing "Product of Greece" or "Made in Greece", I know it is.

Now, if some lotion says "Aloe Vera Lotion", I expect it to be made with real aloe. I really shouldn't have to check the ingredients list (if it even has one; it's not a food so I'm not sure that's required).

What if I order "French fries?"

I haven't seen a lot of people in the US defending companies passing off mislabeled products.

As for your yogurt example, perhaps it's because it's less important to those of us who live really far from Greece. It might not even be desirable to have yogurt that was shipped halfway around the world!

Is it yogurt made from Greek people? Is it yogurt made by a Greek company located in Spain? Yogurt made from Greek dairy, outside of Greece? Yogurt made in Greece from Italian milk? Yogurt made in Greece from Greek milk, but in the Australian style? I can think of all kinds of reasons folks half a world away would care much more about what style the product is, than would care about where, precisely, it was produced.

Of course, when you're in a trade union with a country that has a vested interest in having a monopoly on a product, obviously they're going to be pushing semantics in order to come out on top.

For those of us not so close to Greece, having to call it Greek-style yogurt is just more word soup. (also, this happens all the time in the US; the 'Greek' would be written really large and then 'style' in much smaller letters)

OTOH, it's pretty clear-cut in the case of a product that claims to contain a natural ingredient, but have none of it, and not even have any semblance of the benefits of the actual product.

Ok, but if someone was selling "Arkansas beef jerky" that was actually made in Texas, I imagine that would be a problem,no?

Probably not, unless they are claiming it's a product of Arkansas. Like your example above about Italian sausage, it's a categorization of style of food, not a product from a specific locale.

Yeah, there are things out there that are called "Philadelphia Cheesesteaks" that amuse and alarm people from Philadelphia, but no one has (sincerely) suggested outlawing them.

Is it a problem if Buffalo wings are made outside Buffalo, New York? Do you expect Canadian bacon to be made in Saskatchewan? Should Manhattan clam chowder be made in Manhattan? Are french fries imported from France?

(I always thought "Greek" was a style of yogurt.)

> perhaps it's because it's less important to those of us who live really far from Greece

I'd argue this isn't true. Greek yogurt has distinct style and ingredients which, when I buy Greek yogurt, I expect in my yogurt. Anything else is not what I want to spend my money on. It's like feta cheese. Real feta cheese is made from sheep's milk and not cow. It's completely different if made from cow's milk (not the same taste nor texture).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feta#Certification

But you're not disagreeing. You're saying that the recipe is important, not the geography. That's the same thing rconti said.

"Italian sausage" -> no one assumes it was actually made in Italy

"French wine" -> everyone would assume it was actually made in France

I don't know if there's a hard rule that anyone can come up with about this sort of thing.

> In the EU if something is called "Greek yoghurt" it has to come from Greece.

As a counterexample, these "Greek yogurt" [1], "Turkish yogurt" [2] and "Yogurt of Bulgaria" [3] are all definitely made in Finland.

[1] http://www.valio.fi/tuotteet/jogurtit/valio-kreikkalainen-jo...

[2] http://www.valio.fi/tuotteet/jogurtit/valio-turkkilainen-jog...

[3] http://www.valio.fi/tuotteet/jogurtit/valio-bulgarian-jogurt...

While I do not care if my Greek yogurt comes from Greece anymore than I care if my Italian sausage comes from Italy, I do care that my Greek yogurt actually is very low in lactose as someone who is lactose intolerant. Most brands are fine, some are not and I question if they're really Greek yogurt.

It's maybe just differing semantics between regions. In the US, no one would reasonably expect "Greek yogurt" to come from Greece -- "Greek" would be a category or style, not an origin.

If a yogurt was labeled as "made in Greece" then it would be expected it came from Greece and would be pretty uniformly agreed as fraud / false advertising if it was learned the yogurt wasn't made in Greece.

I would imagine in a libertarian world, these companies would all be sued in court. Why is this not happening now?

Edit: I broke my own rule, and hadn't finished the article. They are being sued. Hopefully if the facts hold up, the case succeeds. This seems like something that should have criminal punishment as well for the supplier.

How would a uneducated/non-expert jury parse this claim?

Tim Meadows, president of Concentrated Aloe Corp., said that nuclear magnetic resonance isn’t reliable for cosmetics because the presence of multiple ingredients can cause interference and there’s no way to test for aloe in finished products. He added that maltodextrin isn’t an adulterant because it can be used in the drying process, and while some ways of processing aloe remove acemannan, that doesn’t mean the aloe isn’t real, he said.

---

In other words, we don't really know the answer here and if consumers just ran to the nearest courthouse over every perceived slight in this Libertarian utopia, expect questionable jury settlements to be the norm, much like how our East Texas patent courts seem to have outcomes that are near random and demand settlements sometimes in the billions of dollars. I don't think "run to court" should be our first instinct here.

He's saying that just because they're selling caffeine-free, sugar-free diet Pepsi, that doesn't mean it's not Pepsi. That their cheese might be just canola oil and milk solids, but it's still orange. Just because the "aloe" (maybe call it "alow") they use has been eviscerated of all of its aloe-ness, that doesn't mean it didn't start out as natural aloe, and is that really what's important here?

If you take an aloe plant and remove every quality and chemical that distinguishes it as aloe, it is no longer aloe. Homeopathy has no scientific merit. There is no distinguishable difference between pure, distilled water that has been sourced from clean lake water, or from seawater, or from urine, or from aloe plants. An H2O molecule has no capacity to store even a single bit of memory.

It is theoretically possible to perform organic synthesis with petroleum feedstocks to produce an artificial chemical mixture indistinguishable from natural aloe juice. But that would not be aloe, either. It would be imitation aloe. There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about imitation products, provided they are not presented in commerce as the genuine article. It might, after all, be an inferior and imperfect imitation, which would not be acceptable to consumers at the same prices.

The important issue is that people may believe that the bottled product is substantially similar to cutting a leaf from an aloe plant and squeezing out the juice from it. It is whether they are getting what they thought they paid for. If no chemical can be found in the product that can only economically be sourced from an aloe plant, clearly, the consumer has been cheated.

Yep.

If the medicinal action of Aloe is preserved I doubt anyone would feel "cheated."

You either trust the courts, or you don't.

If you do, then your takeaway from this article would be that the system is basically working as intended, at least so far.

If you don't, then you must be in favor of getting rid of the current jury system in favor of something else. What are your thoughts on how the replacement institution(s) should work?

The idea in such cases should never be that every single consumer sues the product seller.

Once we actually have suspicion the court or some private person can find another way to prove it. Since proving such a thing might be very value, there is lots of Incentives to do it. Whistle blowing might be interesting in this context.

One could also just look at their production, ask former employees and so on.

Does not seem impossible to handle.

> I would imagine in a libertarian world, these companies would all be sued in court. Why is this not happening now?

Or we could decide that it's in our collective best interest to hold companies to certain standards and avoid frivolous lawsuits?

Politics exists on a spectrum. It is possible to be pro business but also have a strong state that acts in the best interests of its population. A government is meant to represent the people ("by the people, for the people")...

This was in the top Google results for "best countries to do business in" - http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, UK, USA, Sweden, Macedonia, Taiwan, Estonia, and Finland were the top results. Most of those have a healthy government.

Why should we spend tons of money on regulating every single item? That are cost that have to be payed by somebody.

Also its incredible difficulte to design these standard. Its almost impossible to remove bad ones because the burocracy has a clear interest in having asany as possible.

There is a clear insentive for regulatory capture. If you do it the libertarian way you just have universal courts that are much harder to be captured by interest groupes.

This system is superior to regulation because once you have, you have little ongoing cost. New products don't have built in extra cost as it would in a regulatory system and only if somebody bother to actually sue that person, one would have to spend money.

The money spent on the investigation is largly spend privatly. This means that the investigation is done effectivly, while a burocracy usually has the opposite insentive.

Also,any of the countries you mentioned are some of the most libertarian in the world. Look at the economic freedom index (doing buissness index is part of that).

Difficult to design a standard?

Here's a good start: If your product doesn't contain enough of X, you can't call yourself X.

That's why ice cream that is not real ice cream is called 'frozen dairy dessert' and cheese that's not cheese is a 'cheese product'.

I'm not for regulating all the products, but I'm also not going to carry a MRI scanner around and determine exactly what is what.

A extremely generalisiere law like that is exactly what you would get out of a common law approach. If somebody sued somebody else about something the judge makes a judgment call about it, establishing a quasi standard. This quasi standard can then be revisited if needed.

The system that actually exists and many people here want is that every new product has to go threw a state facility that does testing and finds errors. Such a system actually exists and performs badly.

If a system of law is in action you can trust what you buy because you have trust that mass products are at least up to a minimum of standard. Sure, such a system probably does not find every detail. No system is perfect, a law based approach is generalized and low cost.

> only if somebody bother to actually sue that person, one would have to spend money. > The money spent on the investigation is largly spend privately.

This is why hardline libertarianism needs to revisit history and check with reality. Hundreds, thousands or millions of people shouldn't be injured or die before someone with enough money / evidence can sue or a class action lawsuit is brought before a court. Thousands of people shouldn't become addicted to or overdose from their laudanum infused snake oil. Children shouldn't have to die because their food, medicine or toys have easily prevented, harmful or deadly flaws. That was the norm before the FDA. People have a history of harming others for their own gain. Gone unchecked, it will happen regularly because the market will allow it. That is why we have regulatory agencies: we cannot rely on the market forces for absolutely everything.

Actually back before that FDA that was true because people were generally poor and could not buy quality. Evidence quite clearly shows that with growing wealth you also get improved quality. Product quality was rising steadily in the US way before the FDA, and when the FDA came along it did not radically improve, it continued on much the same path as before. Correlation is not Causation.

> That is why we have regulatory agencies: we cannot rely on the market forces for absolutely everything.

We have regulatory agencies because somebody thought regulatory agencies were a good idea. That something exits, is not prove that it works. Its not like these agencies get closed when they are doing a bad job.

Generally these bureaucracies just keep growing and attempting to ever increase the amount of detailed regulation in order to justify higher budget.

This is basic, well documented and tested political economy.

> This is why hardline libertarianism needs to revisit history and check with reality. Hundreds, thousands or millions of people shouldn't be injured or die before someone with enough money / evidence can sue or a class action lawsuit is brought before a court.

I have argued in other posts that the legal system is what is most important. In the case of the US the class action lawsuit has lots of problems, legal scholars and legal historians have designed and found much better ways of doing it.

Also, lets not ignore the millions of people who did because of the FDA. They have (actually had) a long history of waiting a long time to let dying people have medicine. In some cases they band useful medicine.

There is a hole history of such things that is often ignored.

We already have these problems... The current system, and more socialized/communist systems aren't working any better.

When any of that happens it's a nationwide scandal and huge recalls are in order. That alone should tell you the system works quite well at making those situations very rare. Imagine what would happen without it.

That's simply a assertion. Recall cost a lot of money, companies have every intensive to avoid them. Just saying that everything happens because of regulation simply does not hold up as a argument if their are other or better explanations.

Oh, like this national scandal regarding Aloe Vera that probably won't be on any major news network TV station, and there aren't any recalls happening?

Aloe vera based cosmetic products aren't regulated. Per the article, Bloomberg had the products analyzed independently and are reporting on the findings. It is unknown for how long this has been the case and, before this article, what the exact composition for each product was despite their labels.

This is pretty much the libertarian solution: let the market handle it, maybe someone with the means to will care enough to look into it. Millions of people applied a mystery gel to their skin, some in an attempt to treat an ailment, for what could be years or decades.

There could still be truth in advertisement and labelling requirements that take civil suit for a court to award and fine, then gov't action if they don't comply with court rulings. This wouldn't take a bunch of specific legislation, committees or investigation teams from the govt.

The Libertarian ideal also says "do what you want as long as it doesn't harm someone else". Multiple companies causing financial harm to citizens by deceiving them through fraudulent products actually goes against the Libertarian ideal.

In other words, it's not black-or-white, just like any other political ideal. If the world operated on such a strict "Libs/Dems/Cons must only do exactly what their parties' ideals say" then we wouldn't have had Obama's administration targeting innocent civilians with drone strikes, and Bush Jr. wouldn't have increased federal spending by 60% during his term.

Definitions of harm are very subjective. And biased when there is a commercial interest.

This is effectively lying and fraud... That would still be illegal under libertarian ideals. The current system isn't the libertarian ideal and still isn't working... And while civil actions may be limited, that doesn't exclude the Govt coming in with more teeth when it comes to systemic fraud.

Also, with more clear marketing and without unfair advantages, competing products and companies should be able to enter the market.

How does libertarianism deal with shell companies and dumping?

It only takes five minutes to setup a shell company under a false name, sell your toxic waste to it for $1 (or some amount that "looks real") and just dump it all under the new company's name.

You can't really sue to recover damages in such a situation and you can't assume that a paper trail will be accurate or even kept.

You could hold the people at the tail end of the pipeline responsible but they may have been deceived as well. Also, what do you do when it's all robots?

Well, first of all, with the exception of anarchist libertarians still support policy. This seems to be a case of illegal dumping. If the person that is harmed needs to go to the policy and they need to investigate. Once you find out who it was, they need to pay.

Also in cases such a pipelines and rivers, everybody can sue the person higher up and you will eventually arrive at the source.

For rivers this system has actually worked quite well. River property rights system were quite common in Britain and in the US. There is also direct comparison of rivers without such system and rivers with such system, and the property rights based once were much cleaner.

This of course changes when we are talking about dumping in the ocean. That another problem.

You seem to believe everyone has infinite time to spend in court.

The hole point of a legal system is to prevent people from doing something because they fear being sued. So by definition you only sue in special cases.

Also if somebody dumps huge amounts of waste on your property, or waste flows threw your river, then you have a intensive to go to court.

Also, in a well designed legal system you can do much better. Take the river example. If I don't like the waste flowing threw the river but I don't care all that much since I just use it as a cooling source, I might never bother to actually sue.

However if somebody wants to make a water sports related thing, he has a huge incentive to sue. So he sues the guy who uses the water for cooling. The cooling guy will say, he 'its not my waste, how about I give you my legal claim'. In some cases you might sell the legal claim for money.

The cooling guy improves his situation and makes a small amount of money for little effort and then does not have to be involved anymore. The water sports guy now has double the incentive to win the lawsuit, because if he wins he has two claims.

This is actually historically quite common. Most of the time you don't do much yourself, you just hand of your claims for a specialist.

...and the shell company that has no assets doesn't even show up in court. That's the problem I wanted to know how to fix.

Courts can't solve everything and they certainly can't prevent a great many things. Especially when there's such a simple way to avoid responsibility (shell corporations).

I'd rather have the government use its power to proactively prevent rivers from being turned into toxic waste dumps rather than let it be a free for all and end up with a toxic waste dump and maybe a few dollars if I'm lucky. You're assuming that you'd actually be able to collect on that judgement. You can't if the plaintiff doesn't have the funds. For a real life example, a civilian shipyard worker named Casey Fury intentionally set a fire onboard the USS Miami that destroyed it. Part of his sentence was paying back $400 million to the Navy. Do you think the Navy is going to ever get anywhere near $400 million from some dude who will spend 17 of his life in jail and is stupid enough to set a fire onboard a submarine? The only chance of collecting even part of that is if he wins the lottery.

You're basically giving a company who is tanking permission to do whatever the fuck they want. Companies bankrupt and go out of business all the time.

There's going to be enforcement no matter what. I'd rather be proactive than reactive.

Pollution to a river usually can't just be undone like that. "Water sports guy" still cant do water sports even if he wins a lawsuit. Look at the Hudson River for a real life example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_of_the_Hudson_River

You're metaphorically asking how to make things fall at 9.8 m/s^2 on Mars.

Shell companies are an artifact of how government courts assign legal liability. As courts would work differently in a libertarian society, unethical and criminal actors would almost certainly have different circumvention methods, tailored to the established rules of each different system. It's like asking how libertarians would deal with patent trolls. Patent trolls are an artifact of the existing system. They would not exist in the same form under a different system. The people who currently operate patent troll businesses would still exist, and they would undoubtedly still be opportunistic locusts, but threatening some other crop.

So how do you stop clever assholes from committing a series of offenses without meaningful consequence, in any system of civilization?

Most libertarian schools of thought are very heavily dependent on public reputation systems. A shell company with no established reputation, and no reputable person to vouch for it, would likely be entirely unable to rent or buy the boat or truck necessary to perform significant quantities of dark-night dumping in a manner that is not easily traceable.

And no matter how many fictitious name intermediaries you have, eventually a warm body has to do the dirty deed. If you can catch that guy in the act, you can hold him personally responsible unless he can provably pass the buck to someone else to share his blame.

In any case, I'm not certain how useful it is to say that libertarian theory does not solve a problem that is already not effectively addressed by existing social systems.

What if the boat and truck company are also fly by night operations?

What if? They certainly could be. You can change variables in the hypothetical as much as you please. But you'll have to explore that new thought experiment yourself.

What if all of civilization is one giant scam?

How does libertarianism deal with shell companies and dumping?

The easiest way would be: No corporations. If the owners of a business are liable for the debts of that business, then they will have much more of an incentive to behave themselves.

Granted, I'm not a libertarian, but I can't see how the concept of corporations (a government entitled class of investors with special privileges) could emerge under libertarianism.

That actually makes sense. Or maybe there should be prison sentences for corporations. If you mess up you are closed for a few years.

My thought is that a corporation would not be an entity. It would simply be a partnership of individuals, so the penalties would fall on the individuals. They could have some sort of a contractual arrangement with one another for things like mutual support if someone sues them.

I also suspect that without corporations, businesses would be a lot smaller, limited to whatever the owners can personally monitor and control.

Makes sense. I just thought if a corporation would be taken out of business for a while instead of just paying a fine as they do now, a corporation couldn't grow very big either because the risk of somebody doing something wrong would be too high. Your approach is probably simpler.

I'm not a libertarian either but that would kill businesses. Who wants to trade when all possible variables can are ALL of their life. Or maybe there is an insurance :))

I think that without liberal institutions such as corporate regulation and entitlements, and the money system, great ventures such as energy and food distribution, transportation, semiconductors, etc., would be impossible.

Even despite the recent election results, I still have faith that society would not voluntarily accept an ideology that necessitates a cataclysmic drop in prosperity. Thus, a "libertarian" society would probably accept at least a bare minimum number of liberal institutions.

Good luck getting anyone to ever start a business then.

The difference between ideals and reality is that in the real world, the "as long as it doesn't harm someone else" part flies out of the window. If you can't enforce good behaviour through some mechanism, it takes a single bad actor to start behaving badly to either dominate everyone or force them to misbehave in order to keep up.

Ideal libertarianism is like ideal communism and - like every other ideal concept - works perfectly in theory, falls flat on its face in reality.

> Ideal libertarianism is like ideal communism and - like every other ideal concept - works perfectly in theory, falls flat on its face in reality.

That's exactly what I said: In other words, it's not black-or-white, just like any other political ideal.

Stop making utopia arguments. No libertarians believes in what you claim. Libertarians believe market and legal based system perform better not perfect.

Your argument is simply terrible.

"Assume bad player wins, other players have to go along"

I could make the same argument for any system. It would still have no argumentative value.

One of the failings of the libertarian ideal.

Did you actually read the article before you posted this comment? You do understand that these findings were brought to light by Bloomberg, a private organization, and not by a government agency, right?

This is a flawless example of libertarian market regulation in action.

I think a lot of people believe (rightly or wrongly) that in a "true" libertarian ideal it is "buyer beware" - the idea that bad companies will go under because people will stop buying their products - however there is collateral damage while they are sinking :/

At some point you have to trust that most people and organizations are basically ethical. If that weren't true, then government would be no solution either.

Unfortunately it's true that there will be some "collateral damage" before fraudulent dealings come to light. But the only sure way to avoid it would be to bind the market with so much regulatory red tape that nothing new would ever be created. This is why we have one set of regulations for people looking to sell hand cream, and another for people looking to build nuclear power plants.

> If that weren't true, then government would be no solution either.

The idea behind modern democratic government is quite literally that this isn't true and that an organization that holds people's lives in its hands must be accountable to those people in a fair and equitable way. I have a vote in government. I do not have any reasonable sway over the behaviour of a multibillion dollar corporation. In so far as I place my trust in any organization (which I believe is prone to corruption), I place it in the one I have more voice in.

The idea behind modern democratic government is quite literally that this isn't true...

Sounds like Benjamin Franklin would agree, at least superficially. ("Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.") But if you read a little more carefully, what he's really saying is that a free society depends on the sort of people who don't need an immensely powerful government to micromanage their lives.

... and that an organization that holds people's lives in its hands must be accountable to those people in a fair and equitable way.

Which it is. Have you read the article?

I have a vote in government. I do not have any reasonable sway over the behaviour of a multibillion dollar corporation. In so far as I place my trust in any organization (which I believe is prone to corruption), I place it in the one I have more voice in.

Yes, I think we've all seen how much of a "voice" we have in government.

I'm not replying to the article, I'm answering a very specific statement in the comment I'm replying to. Hence why I quoted it.

My voice may be limited in government, that still doesn't mean the alternatives are better. If you want to convince me otherwise have at, but aimless disappointment doesn't make things better.

> Yes, I think we've all seen how much of a "voice" we have in government.

And as a Canadian, I feel that it is pretty reasonable.

Maybe governments can only be effective at a certain scale. But also, some systems are more effective than others. And also "how much of a voice I feel I have in government" is a group-psychology question that is difficult to consider objectively.

shrug!

Have you ever studied political science, political economy, voting theory or any of these subjects?

Government is not automatically fair and equitable because you vote. That's 1 grade level analysis.

> I do not have any reasonable sway over the behaviour of a multibillion dollar corporation.

Actually that is false. You spend all your money and you can choice not to spend on any particular object. For many companies, your $$$ are a bigger share of their profits then the share of your vote (consider that lots of products you buy are from the same company).

Additionally, something that you ignore, is that you share most of the same demands with all other consumers of the same product. While with voting you have totally different needs.

Plus, you can vote only a very limited amount of times and you have to consider 1000s of issues to consider. Can you tell me what the presidential candidates positions on Souther California Bean subsidy program are? Did you no that this program existed?

Government spends about 30-50% of the GDP and you get to vote a couple of times per year at most. While with the rest of your money, you are literally making more choice every day.

Lets get back to the shared interest point. All buyers of a product the same demand for correct labeling, good quality and so on. Thus collective action happens automatically without coordination. In case of fraud collective action is far easier as well. Coordination for collective action is also possible in the form of legal action.

What do you do if the FDA does you wrong? Send out letter of complaint?

Just imagen if all the products you want to consume in the next 4 years, you get two shipping containers and you have to pick one. Neither of the containers has much you like in it, but if you don't pick you will just get one at random. Also when you pick one, about 50% of the time you will not get that one anyway. Have fun eating eating vegan gluten free hamburgers the next year.

Your comment is odd considering this flaw is occurring in a system that is not 'the' libertarian ideal and the solution is close to the libertarian ideal and is working.

Consumers are being informed right now. A scandal can kill a company or a private inspector in a way that it can't kill a corporate oligarchy or bad regulation. Private inspectors have to compete for consumer dollars. Government regulators, at best, have to compete for less than half the votes of registered voters; or they are simply appointed.

In the system we have now, there will be lawsuits, but they will be capped and won't mean the death of these corporations, so will largely be meaningless and likely the entire thing will still be overall profitable to these companies. Any attempt to regulate will be met with lobbying efforts to make that regulation competition-restricting and corporation-protecting while giving lip service to protecting consumers.

Scandals and regulations aren't mutually exclusive, you seem to be saying they are?

I think the real lesson of the story isn't that the system is "working", it's that we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case. How long has this been happening? For how many other products is this the case?

It's certainly better that we know and (hopefully) some corrective action is taken, but overall I'd read it as a signal of dysfunction. And I don' think macintux is suggesting that we're presently within the libertarian ideal, rather we're in the universe where it's considered a responsibility of the state to prevent these kinds of things from happening, yet they are still happening. So look what happened here, and imagine what would happen with even fewer failsafes...

I think one of the reasons this particular situation went on this long is that aloe is kind of a bullshit product in the first place. What do you use it for, sunburn? Can you honestly tell the difference between some putting some jelly with aloe in it on your sunburn vs some other jelly? I don't think it's obviously effective in the way that Tylenol is on a fever or headache.

FWIW, aloe isn't really a good remedy for sunburn. A sunburn, like any other skinburn, should be treated quickly with lots of running water slightly colder than lukewarm; i.e. a cold shower. That's a lot more efficient due to basic physics.

Could you spell out the basic physics? I am having trouble connecting it to anything I learned in school. Biology/chemistry seems substantially more relevant.

To help heal the sunburn you must cool the skin. Aloe can only cool by a very small amount, as compared to running cool water.

Sunburn has nothing to do with temperature. You can get a third-degree sunburn in sub-freezing temperatures.

It has to do with UV-irritation, I believe. This guy might be talking about getting burned by the sun, perhaps by being too close ;)

Sunburn is inflammation of the skin. Inflammation is typically treated by cooling (e.g. when you put ice on a sprained ankle).

It's that first step that isn't clear to me. It may be the case, but it needs something other than physics to tell us that - and it doesn't tell us why slightly-cooler-than-lukewarm water is better than ice water.

You generally treat mild inflammation by cooling. The reason why you don't want to use ice water is because that will cool the outer layer of your skin to the point of pain before it's cooled the deeper layers significantly. Using slightly cold water means you can stay in the water for fifteen minutes easily, cooling all the skin layers well.

I thought this was common knowledge, i.e. basic first aid for burns in general?

My point was merely that "basic physics" doesn't tell us much here. You have to know that it's really inflammation that you're treating. You have to assume that cooling is the only contribution of the aloe (clearly, cooling isn't the only thing that can treat inflammation).

I mean, I know what's recommended as basic first aid for burns, and maybe that's common knowledge. The why of it, in enough detail, almost certainly isn't. Note also that aloe is quite commonly recommended as a part of "basic first aid for burns in general" following cooling.

I feel very confident you don't live in a tropical climate and have never experienced the application of fresh cut aloe plant.

Aloe in plant form is the real deal, and more so than any commercially processed aloe product (w/added pain relievers) or other after sun product I am aware of. It significantly defies pain/discomfort, keeps the skin moisturized and in many cases can prevent peeling from burns.

Plus you can eat/juice the gel and it has hydration and anti-toxin benefits.

> I feel very confident you don't live in a tropical climate and have never experienced the application of fresh cut aloe plant.

I feel very confident that this is irrelevant since lotion you might buy at Wal-Mart is definitely not fresh cut aloe regardless of whether it contains small amounts of aloe juice.

> Plus you can eat/juice the gel and it has hydration and anti-toxin benefits.

Whenever someone makes a generic reference to "toxins", I immediately doubt anything else that they say with respect to health or medicine. There are many things that are toxic to humans but there are no things that are generically "anti-toxin" except maybe water. I cannot imagine that aloe has any effect on mercury exposure, or cyanide consumption, or even tobacco smoke inhalation.

>I feel very confident that this is irrelevant since lotion you might buy at Wal-Mart is definitely not fresh cut aloe

Well it isn't irrelevant because in tropical climates you are much more likely to have experienced sunburn, have ready access to aloe plants and personal experience with its benefits. For example, processed aloe gels aside Walmart's in South Florida generally will have fresh cut aloe vera plant in their produce section, not sure if that is true in non-tropical climates. Nevertheless, my point is clearly not address the aloe lotion in the article but rather claim of the comment that aloe vera itself is bullshit.

> I cannot imagine that aloe has any effect on mercury exposure, or cyanide consumption, or even tobacco smoke inhalation.

Just because I didn't go into detail doesn't mean I am making a blanket claim anti-toxin benefits means you pick any toxin you like and aloe is the answer. That is on par with losing faith in anti-biotics because people discuss anti-biotics generally but we know a given anti-biotic may not be appropriate for any and all bacterial infections. Anyway because I didn't label the toxins doesn't erase the decades of scientific studies which are pretty conclusive toxic heavy metals, including mercury and lead, readily bind with aloe vera. For example, when plants grown in polluted environments where heavy metal toxins are present other plants might not even show traces but the aloe plants will be off the charts. In the human body this binding process allows you to expel some of the heavy metal toxins. I believe studies show cilantro have a similar effect with heavy metal toxins in the body particularly mercury.

> my point is clearly not address the aloe lotion in the article but rather claim of the comment that aloe vera itself is bullshit.

Fair enough, but you were responding to a comment specifically talking about aloe in lotion (or "jelly" as the nsxwolf put it).

Personally, I'm not very convinced about the value of aloe, in lotions or fresh cut. I think it has therapeutic value, but I'm not at all convinced in has more value than other modern lotions that also sooth and protect the skin. I think aloe gets a free ride on the modern "natural" train, where people tend to assume that "natural" is better without any proof.

> Just because I didn't go into detail doesn't mean I am making a blanket claim anti-toxin benefits means you pick any toxin you like and aloe is the answer.

There are two problems with the term "toxins". One, it's a generically huge category, akin to "illnesses". Saying that aloe is good for "illnesses" is meaningless. Even if it's good for some particular illnesses or toxins, it's not a general solution and referring to it as such is misleading. No medical professional would say that antibiotics are good for "illnesses" because it's misleading to the point that it's nearly a lie.

Second, the people talking about "toxins" are generally snake-oil salesmen pushing "natural healing" practices with no scientific evidence. By referring to toxins in a general sense, it associates the subject of the statement with fraud. If aloe is good for dealing with "toxins", it's good for specific toxins that can be discussed directly. The reason frauds talk about "toxins" is because it sounds scary and is virtually impossible to refute directly because the category is so broad that it's meaningless.

> Anyway because I didn't label the toxins doesn't erase the decades of scientific studies which are pretty conclusive toxic heavy metals, including mercury and lead, readily bind with aloe vera.

Can you provide any evidence for this claim? I did a quick search and found nothing except "natural medicine" sites making vague claims about its benefits with no citations.

Meanwhile I did find evidence that aloe itself may be dangerous when ingested, as it's known to cause tumors in rodents as well as kidney, liver, and other problems in some humans.

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/aloe/index.cfm

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-607...

>but you were responding to a comment specifically talking about aloe in lotion (or "jelly" as the nsxwolf put it).

In the later part of his comment yes, but I took this part to be a more blanket statement of aloe:

>I think one of the reasons this particular situation went on this long is that aloe is kind of a bullshit product in the first place.

>but I'm not at all convinced in has more value than other modern lotions that also sooth and protect the skin.

I am not here to convince, but recklessly on this issue tell people in this thread, if you do not believe in aloe plant, then I know you don't live in the tropics (where sunburns and aloe plant are common place). Basically what I am saying is deniers have no personal experience with aloe plant and yet it is a very simple thing to test. So far everyone who denied I have asked refuses to acknowledge they have zero personal experience with aloe plant. The problem if what you call failure of proof, someone like me with over 30 years of personal sun care experience is called anecdotal evidence, and yet the people with no proof believe their gut. So I encourage you to get your own proof, not saying get a sunburn, but it is no more difficult to test than sunscreen itself in terms of obvious proof.

>Can you provide any evidence for this claim?

The very reason you have found evidence of aloe being dangerous is because as I said it binds to heavy metal toxins...not just in the human body but in the earth. Moreover, yes if it is grown in polluted areas it will show more signs of those heavy metals than other plants.

The present investigation shows that the A. Vera plant is effective and inexpensive adsorbent for the removal of Pb, Cd, Ni, Cu, Cr (III) and Cr (VI) from contaminated soil by heavy metals. See: http://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol9no2/removal-of-selected-h...

The aim of this study was to assess the accumulation of heavy metals (Na, K, Ca, Mg, P, Fe, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb) in Aloe vera leaves grown in different geographical locations of India. The results also showed that Aloe vera plant can also be used as a good Phytoremediation agent as it absorbs heavy metals from the soil in high quantity. See: http://www.ansfoundation.org/Uploaded%20Pdf/22/300-304.pdf

General health benefits, including active ingredients and burn applications. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92765/

> Basically what I am saying is deniers have no personal experience with aloe plant and yet it is a very simple thing to test.

You don't need to live in the tropics to have a sunburn. I have had sunburn. My grandmother used to grow aloe. It's not magic and I'm not convinced it's at all better than other treatments for sunburn.

> someone like me with over 30 years of personal sun care experience is called anecdotal evidence

It is anecdotal evidence.

> The very reason you have found evidence of aloe being dangerous is because as I said it binds to heavy metal toxins...not just in the human body but in the earth.

Again, provide evidence of this. You're making baseless claims. The idea that aloe is healthy to consume and simultaneously unhealthy to consume because it absorbs heavy metals from the soil is fundamentally unsound.

Moreover, if aloe binds heavy metals in the body, then consumption of aloe would not release heavy metals into the body. Your health claim is based on the premise that it will bind to heavy metals but your reasoning for why aloe can be unsafe is that it will release metals rather than bind to them in the body. These are contradictory claims.

> The present investigation shows that the A. Vera plant is effective and inexpensive adsorbent for the removal of Pb, Cd, Ni, Cu, Cr (III) and Cr (VI) from contaminated soil by heavy metals.

In no way does evidence that aloe leaches metals from soil constitute evidence that aloe will bind to heavy metals in a human body. Wheat will pull nitrogen from the soil, but doesn't pull nitrogen from a human consumer.

The medical benefits of Aloe are actually fairly shaky scientifically.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1313538/ CONCLUSION: Even though there are some promising results, clinical effectiveness of oral or topical aloe vera is not sufficiently defined at present.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/aloe/evidence/hr...

> Aloe in plant form is the real deal

FWIW, a quick review on wikipedia indicates that there is no scientific consensus on the effectiveness of aloe in the treatment of burns.

Maybe, but according to wikipedia/the internet there is no scientific consensus that sunscreen works either or that global warming exists. Yet entire island nations are disappearing and the deniers just call that anecdotal.

Despite no scientific consensus of sunscreen, have you ever seen someone who forgot to apply sunscreen to a certain part of their body and its the only area that gets burned? That is one hell of a placebo.

Alternatively the same is true of aloe, you can witness people who already have a burn and apply aloe to certain areas and not others and the burn will clear up quicker and even potentially the skin will not peel where aloe was used and may peel where it was not utilized.

Now whether there is scientific consensus or not, if that is what you bring to the table, I will go out on a limb like I did with the parent post and say you have no personal experience using aloe plant for sunburn.

Sunscreen not working is news to me. I burn easily. You can see burned finger marks on the areas of my skin that I miss.

This seems trivially easy to test.

Exactly, I am not claiming sunscreen doesn't work, I am just saying you can find such claims on the internet - same as claims aloe does not work - sunscreen obviously works and is easily testable as you point out -which was my whole point as well - and same is true of easily testing aloe on sunburns. That is why I claim anyone who denies aloe effectiveness on sunburns doesn't have personal experience and I would make the same claims about people who doubt sunscreen.

But this is not some random guy lying about lack of scientific consensus. There actually is a lack of scientific consensus.

And it's harder to be sure about aloe from anecdotes. The question is not whether aloe does anything, the question at hand is whether it's better than any other kind of thickened water. Most people are not doing this comparison.

I am not exactly sure why everyone in the thread gets to argue aloe doesn't do anything more than water or its "bullshit" without evidence, but based on a single study citing "no scientific consensus" despite the conclusion of aloe claims being "promising." Everyone does realize "no scientific consensus" and "promising claims" isn't evidence of aloe being bullshit right?

It would seem to me without scientific consensus and only the existence of promising claims, all we are left with is anecdotal evidence, and it is no coincidence to me, not a single person denying the benefits of aloe in the thread has any personal experience with aloe and sunburns. To be honest if I didn't have 30+ years living in tropical climate (e.g. getting sunburns) and experimenting with a number of after sun skin care products I wouldn't take a side one way or the other, but that doesn't seem to stop any ones else from apparently siding with their gut in the face of a lack of scientific consensus. Yet when I ask a simple question to be denying aloe benefits (have you used it?) I am bombarded with studies citing no scientific consensus.

>And it's harder to be sure about aloe from anecdotes.

Harder than what? If I told you sunscreen works and you called it anecdotal evidence and claimed sunscreen might do something but no more than thickened water (whatever that may be) it would be very easy to test correct? Rub sunscreen on half your body and the water solution on the other half and lay out in the sun. Well aloe is no different, lay out in the sun a little to long and get a burn, then rub aloe on one side of your body and water on the other half.

> Harder than what? If I told you sunscreen works and you called it anecdotal evidence and claimed sunscreen might do something but no more than thickened water (whatever that may be) it would be very easy to test correct? Rub sunscreen on half your body and the water solution on the other half and lay out in the sun. Well aloe is no different, lay out in the sun a little to long and get a burn, then rub aloe on one side of your body and water on the other half.

No, the thickened water comment was in reference to aloe, not sunscreen. As for what "thickened water" is, it's what it sounds like: water that has been thickened. Aloe gel is thickened water. Lotions are basically thickened water (often with some oil added).

There's no scientific debate about whether sunscreen prevents or reduces sunburn. It clearly does and it's not hard to find many studies demonstrating this. Wikipedia has several citations and you can find more without looking very far. e.g. There are piles of citations here: https://www.aad.org/media/stats/prevention-and-care/sunscree...

The question about sunblock is whether it actually prevents skin cancer, which is a much harder thing to test or prove. From what I can tell, the general consensus is still that sunblock use reduces the incidence of certain cancers.

>Maybe, but according to wikipedia/the internet there is no scientific consensus that sunscreen works either or that global warming exists.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_...

The scientific consensus is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and that it is extremely likely (meaning 95% probability or higher) that this warming is predominantly caused by humans. It is likely that this mainly arises from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as from deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, partially offset by human caused increases in aerosols; natural changes had little effect

You don't have to live in the tropics to grow aloe. They can survive a winter in a sunny window. And yes, it most definitely does work on sunburn straight from the plant.

When I was a child I got a very bad grease burn. Fresh aloe cut right from the plant was applied it to the burn. Didn't seem to do anything.

The enzymes in aloe reduce inflammation, increase blood flow to the damaged tissue, provide antibacterial compounds to avoid infection and stimulate cell production to speed up healing.

Now I understand the above can be both read fairly (i.e. similarly honey has antibacterial properties and has been used to treat wounds from ancient times through the Civil War) or unfairly (magical claims aloe is a cure all). Moreover, I am not claiming a single application is going to magically make a burn disappear. However, the same way one might continually apply neosporin, a burn cream and/or vitamin E to a burn to obtain certain benefits one might see similar benefits of those three from an aloe plant.

Certainly it is a lot more difficult to test the benefits of aloe on a grease burn rather than a sunburn where aloe can be continually applied in certain areas, sparingly in certain areas and not at all in others. Think of a sunscreen where someone uses sunscreen on half their body and nothing on the other half, then in reverse advertising aloe, by no means am I saying its a 1:1 but the difference would be no less noticeable.

You'd probably get the same effect if you applied lotion.

Well you will get the same effect if, as I said, if your lotion is some combination of neosporin, Vitamin E and burn cream. Though cutting free aloe plant is more cost effective. Anyway good luck rubbing lotion on your grease burns and sunburns...maybe try that instead of sunscreen too.

Evidence of the effectiveness of Tylenol on fever or headache is very, very weak. It's similar to the evidence for aloe.

Mostly Tylenol is administered as a placebo. Fake aloe is at least useful as a moisturizer.

Really? I found several double blind studies showing the effectiveness of acetaminophen on headaches:

http://www.neurology.org/content/48/1/103.short

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/10...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2006....

> we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case

Also, whenever this happens, one should stop and consider:

"Why are we buying aloe vera products in the first place, when millions of people using the product for years are unable to detect that it's fake?"

If this happened with something tangible, say replacing all regular coke with diet coke without changing the labels, it would be noticed immediately.

Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?

> Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?

Yes.

I think the point was that the real thing is just as much (or as little) of a fraud as the fake is.

Especially because, if someone's been buying fakes all their life, how could they possibly know what real Aloe is like?

What if it was something like soap? How could you possibly tell if you were buying fake soap? If you get sick, do you immediately suspect that your soap supplier has defrauded you?

There is a difference between fake and dangerous.

Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?

You are seriously confusing the placebo effect with ignorance of the expected effect.

It is fraud not because the user perceives the expected effect but because the user has been told that the perceived effect is the expected one.

> Whenever people buy something which they are completely unable to differentiate from a fake, are they really being defrauded when someone sells them the fake?

Yes.

I see it as an example of both market and government failure.

Edit: FTFA "There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve cosmetics before they’re sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe." OK so I'm wrong, it's just market failure, the government isn't even involved in this.

Not entirely wrong. You're proof that people have the expectation that products are being well regulated. I think most people do assume this, even if they can't name a law or regulatory authority that would do so.

In a way, we're getting the worst of both worlds. The lack of oversight from an unregulated environment with the consumer complacency of a regulated one. If we could downplay the amount of oversight on products, people might be more skeptical as consumers. Putting analytical technology or services in the hands of consumers would be even better.

It's weird that there's no general law covering this in America.

In Australia we have the Australian Consumer Law which covers basics like, "It has to do/be/contain what it says it does," otherwise you get a refund or replacement.

I... don't know how anyone can survive without this most basic protection.

When there's such a blatant and obvious breach of the law, in this case a fraud, against a large number of citizens (all the people who bought the product), then shouldn't the government themselves wade in and initiate legal proceedings - with an independent judiciary what's the problem with that?

Surely there is a government department that covers product fraud? In the UK we have Trading Standards (and the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) [which might be a NGO?]) that would both be in part responsible to take action on the consumers behalf ... presumably there's some action needed in the UK now, can't imagine this is only in USA.

Mind you from the article it sounds like the fraud is in quantity of Aloe Vera added; that these products may have 1ppm of Aloe Vera or something??

> Consumers are being informed right now. A scandal can kill a company or a private inspector in a way that it can't kill a corporate oligarchy or bad regulation.

I'm not convinced. Scandals don't scale. How many scandals per year do people actually have the attention and outrage to push through into action? 10? 100?

It's my opinion that we need regulation to set the ground rules of our interactions with companies, which will always ALWAYS be tempted to deceive us. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't spent 2 minutes in any corporate marketing department.

I agree. scandal is not enough. If somebody is guilty of fraud he should be sued by everybody.

In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale.

Its also not a new idea, there are historical examples of this.

>In a good legal system many small claims should be bought and then somebody could sue the company for money. This would be a superior version of a class action lawsuit. A version that is actually practical and would scale.

This exists, it's called small claims court.

That goes in the right direction but there are many problem that hinder it from scaling.

A organisation can not buy millions of claims from consumers and the fight a full class action lawsuit without any of these people being involve.

You make no sense.

If you want to sue CVS for selling you fake aloe go ahead, it costs less than $100 to file a small claims case in my state and CVS will very likely settle with you outside of court because it's cheaper than sending someone to court to defend the company.

Today you can not buy up a hole group of claims and make a collective action suit on behave of the other people. That is not legal.

There are many other problems with the courts that make the system I proposed currently impossible.

In what way is your proposal meaningfully different than a class action suit?

Class action suits are actually legal.

When you can buy and sell a legal action like that it strikes me as a super bad idea. Wouldn't there be some legal equivalent of the patent trolls who today purchase outdated patents and then go around filing nuisance suits based on them?

lol yeah, corporations are constantly shut down when they betray consumer trust. The Chicago stockyards went belly-up when "The Jungle" came out.

"The Jungle" is a work of fiction, in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle

Saw this article and just ran with the title, eh? https://www.libertariannews.org/2012/11/15/meat-packing-lies...

Turns out it doesn't actually "expose the fiction of 'The Jungle.'" It cites "a 1906 report by the Bureau of Animal Industry" -- and nothing else. It then runs headlong into a classic libertarian diatribe against regulations.

And even if "The Jungle" /was/ pure fiction (instead of just fictionalize) -- readers didn't know that. And, despite their revulsion, the stockyards kept chugging along.

"Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[4] In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. "

> is close to the libertarian ideal and is working

Working to some extent, right? There are whole categories of products that are heavily faked or adulterated.

These companies are being sued which is the libertarian solution. However, clearly that did not prevent this from happening because running a business that will eventually be sued to oblivion is still profitable now.

So, best case nobody notices and they win, worst case someone notices and they still win. Much like large companies use 3rd party's to have undocumented people clean their toilets without being exposed to any real risks.

The libertarian solution is appeal to a higher authority? Is this one of those turtles things?

Just because there is a higher authority doesn't require that infinite higher authorities exist.

One possible libertarian replacement of courts are Stefan Molyneux's Dispute Resolution Organizations, but that's probably not the only way it could be done.

You know what I don't get? How would regulations (the bane of the libertarian existence) be burdensome in this situation?

The regulation could say something like, products labeled "aloe vera" must contain mechanically extracted aloe vera without chemical alteration. I would guess that that's what most people who're trying to buy aloe vera are actually trying to buy. They're probably not trying to buy aloe vera with sugar added or with various additives replacing the aloe vera bits or whatever. (And isn't this who regulations are for? The buyers?)

People who want the sugary aloe vera could still buy it, but it'd have to be called something else. "Burn liniment with aloe vera in it somehow," maybe.

How would that burden manufacturers?

(By the way, I do agree with the libertarian angst around regulations, but mostly where those regulations are used as weapons against historically disadvantaged communities. Like the regulations around hairdressing that make people do some ungodly huge number of training hours to be able to braid cornrows for money. The law often gets crafted to keep poor folks or minorities down, and that pisses me off. Get rid of that shit yesterday!)

The existence of a regulatory structure means that if it's on a shelf, 99% of consumers trust it (see also nutritional supplements). The defacto assumption is that if it wasn't safe / correctly labeled, the government has done or will do something about it.

The libertarian ideal would see consumers lose that fake safety net in favor of private organisations finding and providing that information; the specific mechanisms would vary but likely be not very different than what the government does now. The important piece is that people would stop assuming that words on a package are imperically true.

It's a bit like the argument that Trump would have won the popular vote without the electoral college... because it existed, he campaigned differently than if it hadn't. Whether or not he actually could have gotten the popular vote is impossible to know at this point, but it's a hypothesis just the same.

Wait but then why wouldn't the private organizations be the "fake safety net?"

We actually have a data point: this is exactly what happened during the financial crisis, when ratings agencies sold fraudulent ratings on mortgage-backed securities. There is no way to structure a compensation structure so that reliable ratings information can be provided on the open market because there is no way to restrict the flow of information only to those customers who have paid for it. Perverse incentives of some form are thus inevitable.

See ratings agencies during the financial crisis. They are the perfect example for private organizations that should have uncovered problems but instead were corrupt. Of course hardcore libertarians will say that they didn't do it right....

I assume they would be? If a store stocks two "Aloe Vera" products, and one has the seal from the private organization, then customers will know that the private organization vouches for the product with the seal.

The theory is that if the seal adds value to the product insofar as it accurately assesses some quality or standard of the product.

Why wouldn't a company just lie about having the seal? Or a slightly modified one if there is still remnants of trademark law in our libertarian thought experiment.

I'm not sure removing trademark law is a libertarian thing as much as an anarchist thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_in...

But it seems like the extent that copyright/trademark law is needed is still under debate. I think there's an argument that if you can own a parcel of land legally, you can probably own some data you produced, but there should be consideration for things like expiration date so it enters the public domain eventually.

They are, but would engender less trust than if the government had approved it. Ergo, more critical review of their approvals / marketing.

For consumer goods, companies would hold each other accountable- no company would advertise "X approved" once X was discovered to commit fraud or otherwise misrepresent their reviews.

As for sibling comments on ratings agencies, I disagree.

On the one hand, ratings agencies alone were not solely to blame; though they were ill equipped to understand the complexity of the new structures. As a result, the big three settled at least 14 lawsuits, suffered stock losses and other harms.

Tell me, what can you do when the government fails? You can't sue the EPA when their inspectors accidentally cause a slurry retention pond to spill massive amounts of toxic waste. You can't sue the FDA when their safety inspections fail to catch conditions which allow spoilage and food poisoning. You can't sue the FDA when lobbyists push through unsafe medications.

Guess who you can sue for damages? Private organisations (until the government interferes even more by declaring them too big to fail)

Oh really? Right from the horse's mouth

https://www.epa.gov/noi

>Many of the environmental statutes that govern EPA actions contain provisions that allow citizens to sue EPA when EPA fails to perform an act or duty required by the statue.

Right now there's a few lawsuits against the FDA to try to prevent them from regulating e-cigs.

I'll admit my examples were poor, but both of those you cited are apples to oranges comparisons.

First, the lawsuits against the FDA are for over extending their regulatory reach, not for incorrectly asserting the qualities of a product.

The note on the EPA is likewise allowing suits when it fails to act, not when it causes harm by acting. Even the Navajo lawsuit over the golden kings mine incident is based on years of neglectful oversight. The gold king mine corporation and some contractors are being named in the lawsuit for the actual damages.

Edit: for what it's worth, I'm not personally in favor of ending ALL regulation in favor of creating a market for ratings companies; there are plenty of places in the economy where it wouldn't work as well as others. I'm merely playing devil's advocate, since the question was asked. The best places for this sort of thinking are really limited to consumer goods, if that.

We've been here before:

http://sippncorn.blogspot.com/2014/01/false-advertising-and-...

We explicitly excluded supplements and cosmetics from fda regulation in 1994, at least in part due to industry lies culminating in ads featuring Mel Gibson showing militarized police breaking into a house to take away vitamins.

This flaw is occurring in a system for which the products in question are unregulated. Imagine how much worse it would be if the libertarians had their way and deregulated everything else.

> Private inspectors have to compete for consumer dollars.

No they don't. They just have to compete for 'dollars', not 'consumer dollars'. Big industry will quite happily pay for favourable reports.

And seriously, who is going to individually pay for an inspector of a bottle of aloe? A big ticket item like a house, sure, but a cheap bottle of goo?

You are wrongly assuming that libertarians are atomistic and think that every consumer has to do everything. That is however not the case.

Libertarians have actually thought about this stuff quite a bit.

All society relies on a system of law. How this system is created or enforced is a seprete question. In almost all systems of law ever, there is a clause against fraud. Theirfore this company has defrauded everybody who has bought their product and therefore can be collectivly sued.

I must also mention that we have primitive collective suing systems in place. Many legal schooler have long advocated to change this.

It goes further then that, because the person that sold you the product and the producer might not be the same. The seller is also partially responsable and can be sued by the consumers, the seller must the sue the producer.

Its the same idea with river pollution, the lawcase goes up the river and expands.

As for discovering such cases. There are hole number of possible options if the options mentioned above are enforced.

First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.

Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.

> First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.

Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.

> Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.

This touches on one glaring problem with libertarian utopia. Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.

> This touches on one glaring problem with libertarian utopia. Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.

Which is kind of the point. Institutions can be functional or disfunctional. The only way to prevent disfunctional institutions bogging down the government is by not having the government run them in the first place.

The easiest way to deal with a dysfunctional institutions is by letting them die. Which is a lot easier when government is not involved.

Last but not least, there is also the element of freedom. One cannot opt-out of government and its institutions - without having to move or worse. While as proposed above - the possibility of opting out of institutions - is necessary for having any hope of not being stuck with corrupt institutions.

It's funny how you worded this because, "letting them die" is basically how an anti-Libertarian would sum up libertarianism.

Yes, that is what dishonest, ax grinding anti-libertarians do constantly.

So, if government didn't do anything, it would be functional, but only because private actors would stand in and provide incompetent bureaucrats or self-interested bureaucratsof their own?

I don't give a damn if Oracle is stupid, incompetent, malicious or all of the above. I decided to have no business with Oracle and they have no way of forcing me into a relationship with it.

If, however - Oracle were a government institution - then it could leverage its monopoly over violence to get me to do its bidding - regardless of what I thought of its services.

And as one goes through history, one notices that most if not all of the institutions that governments provide - have started outside of government, yet have been included into the scope of government. Either because the ruling party at the time saw it as a means of expanding their reach OR because people have observed that it would be cheaper/more effective to run these institutions "collectively" - where the state pops up immediately as an endeavor that is already done for the "good of all".

Unfortunately - no institution is ideal. And as we have seen time and again through history, all institutions succumb to corruption eventually. And being stuck with corrupt institutions is no fun at all.

I have no idea, how you maligned my argument into the garbage you presented. But I would argue, that you are actually presenting an excellent case for striving towards preventing dishonest people such as yourself from getting power over others. Thus while you undoubtedly think yourself an edgy cynic - you are merely solidifying my point.

Unless your branch of libertarianism also gets rid of contracts, there are many scenarios where contracts between parties can and will affect you, and without the ability to petition the government for redress, you are screwed. Private parties are generally motivated by their own private interest -- we have democratic government at different levels to represent the interests of the people.

This kind of stuff happens every day between property owners. That's why we have things like zoning, permitting and environmental regulation. Nobody wants government intervention until their neighbor puts up a big ugly fence.

In my personal experience, I've been in disputes with government bureaucracy, and was able to get a reasonable resolution because we have elected representatives who care about constituent issues. I've also been party to disputes with large corporate bureaucracies, and your ability to push the needle as an individual is very limited.

If characterizing me as dishonest makes you feel good, go for it. But I'd return the favor by saying that like most libertarians, your position reflects an immature, self-centered and unsophisticated understanding of the world and how it works. I encourage you to take a few hours and study the history of how the negative outcomes of industrialization in 19th century America re-shaped societies thinking about regulation and property rights.

I have put forth an argument. It may be a bad argument, but it is the best argument I have.

In response - your first post was snark and condescension. Now you are doubling down with vague anecdotes and sending me to "go educate myself".

How about showing some good will and trying to present a honest critique or counter argument in 1-3 sentences.

I accept that you are morally and intellectually superior - no need to exert yourself asserting your dominance. Now put up, please.

Its funny, whenever somebody makes a libertarian argument, somebody throws 'libertarian utopia' back. I don't believe in utopia, a libertarian system would not be perfect, misery and suffering will not be eliminated. Not everything you buy will be perfectly labeled. No libertarian I have ever met in my hole live believes the market/legal based system is perfect, just that it usually outperforms a regulatory system

> Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.

So what, you manufacture 10 bottles of creme and then vanish into the shadows?

Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.

Also, I think the idea of legal person has gone to far. Im not against the idea of big cooperations but the legal system has clearly gone to far into the direction of none accountability (something that was actually often the case in common law legal systems).

> Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.

I have nothing against big organisations per se. That has never been my criticism of regulatory agencies.

The groups have much more intensive to actually provide value because they relay on people to be their costumer. Also, you have pluralism, different groups have different demands.

I honestly only care if stuff is not poisonous, and Im happy to pay for the lowest level of testing. I however don't really care if the meat is actually beef, Im fine with horse as long as it is tasty.

Other people, like vegans are willing to pay way more for exact information.

How about a suggestion that can make both of use happy? We keep the FDA, they do everything the do now, only that other products can still be sold, but they need to have a reasonably BIG label on it, that they are not FDA approved. We put a tiny tax on all products actually approved by the FDA to fund the FDA.

This way we the people who care about the FDA fund it. If you are not happy with that, how about we fund 50% of the FDA that way and the other 50% threw taxes? How about if its still fully tax funded?

Would that not make everybody at least reasonably happy?

Historically such system usually prove that the state is not needed, and rather then excepting that the state monopolises it.

When government isn't involved a "dysfunctional" organization will sell you air and tell you its medicine because there's no regulator checking him.

Its like people are aching to be poisoned and die

What what a insightful comment. Thanks for all your arguments.

It already pretty much happens with the supplement industry.

One option would be to turn FDA-approved into a service mark. No product that has not passed FDA approval testing could bear the FDA's service mark.

This is in line with logos like the UL service mark or service marks indicating kosher products. Products that bear a service mark usually have to pay the mark owner a licensing fee for use of the mark, which may be partially recoverable with higher prices to the customer.

If people trust the FDA, they will look for their mark, and not buy products without it. Service mark counterfeiting would have to be dealt with through civil court cases.

This leaves the market open for a competitor to the FDA to service different consumer needs or for specific product categories.

>Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.

Fly by night operations are already a problem on Amazon. Sure actual companies have an incentive establish themselves but fly by night operations aren't actual companies, their business model is dump and run.

Sure. There will be problems with that, just as we have now.

There are ways we are already dealing with it, and we will continue to do so. I don't see what a state can do. If you want security always go to the same company that has done well by you in the paste.

It you want security you have to pay a little extra.

I don't see how a state can do more. If people are actually doing illegal stuff, then there is the policy, just as now.

Most purchases are one time. I'm not going to have an "aloe Vera gel company" that I trust. Even if I did I wouldn't know I could trust them, I only know what they tell me.

That does not even cover the problem of if "people only buy from established companies" then how does any company ever become established?

> Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.

Companies have huge incentives to act altruistically, but individuals within those companies sometimes have huge incentives to maximize short-term profits.

There's an asymmetry in the way companies and their employees operate. Employees can endanger the life of the company at a negligible-- or even negative-- cost to themselves. It's why banking executives might reward the opening of millions of fraudulent accounts, for example.

I've yet to see an example of a company that can completely prevent this problem. Given the lack of evidence, I have to continue to believe in regulations that protect consumers.

But we are living in a system of literally exploding banking regulation. The amount of regulation bank have are so astronomically high that no human can actually read it. There are huge organisations that try to enforce these regulation but for some reason this does not solve the problem.

Each time there is a issue, there is a new movement for anther Basel. This time things will be different. But they are not. For some reason many people just keep yelling 'more regulation' without any evidence that they actually do or change much.

Yes, individuals do suboptimal things for the long term of the company, but I don't see a massive amount of cases were companies get created for a short time to defraud everybody and then leave. Every company has a intensive to set up a structure so that they can prevent this sort of stuff, its in the responsibility of the owner, who has the most to lose.

Interestingly enough Adam Smith had invested in a bank that went down. In this system you had companies with double exposure. That means that if you had a stock of a failing company you could lose the value of the stock plus pay that much into the bank.

This actually had the effect that banks when failing would try to fail early, now failing banks try to make high risk investments to get everything back and then ask for bailouts if it fails.

I would highly suggest you study historical bank systems. Compare the highly regulated US banking system (US banking was highly regulated from the very beginning, usually requiring a special charter, no branching and so on) to the hardly regulated banking system of Canada. During the Great Depression the US had about 3000 bank failures, Canada had 0-1 depending on how you count. Canada during that time did not have a central bank, but rather competitive note issue by a group of banks (the US had taxed this heavily during the Civil War and reduced it, then finally getting ride of it in 1913 with the Fed).

It must also be said that Canada suffered very heavily economically, but the banking system was stable. Canada was famed for its banking system on to this day have a far superior less regulated system. In the US many people actually wanted to adopt the Canadian unregulated system, but JPMorgan and friends did of course not want to lose their monopoly on the international market (small banks had to use a partner in New York).

You can also go back to England and Scotland. Scotland probably had the freest banking system that ever existed and it was one of the best performing system that we have historical evidence of.

> How about a suggestion that can make both of use happy? We keep the FDA, they do everything the do now, only that other products can still be sold, but they need to have a reasonably BIG label on it, that they are not FDA approved. We put a tiny tax on all products actually approved by the FDA to fund the FDA.

Sure, with two small changes. One, we make the FDA tax progressive. Use whatever argument you like to justify this, like rich people's lives are more valuable, and therefore they can pay more to stay alive, but the key is that everyone will buy into the system in a way that they can both afford, AND be emotionally invested in.

Second, all non-FDA labeled products will have a MASSIVE tax applied, to pay for the externalized costs of bad food, such as emergency room visits, death, sickness, etc.

Of course we need a state to enforce this system, and it won't work any better than the existing one, but hey, it's a market solution!

A fixed tax is already progressive since rich people consume far more, but I don't really care. Also the tax would be so small that it really would not matter (as long as many produces have this stamp). Only if nobody cares about the FDA it will be expensive.

> Second, all non-FDA labeled products will have a MASSIVE tax applied, to pay for the externalized costs of bad food, such as emergency room visits, death, sickness, etc.

That's another problem with government. Once it does everything, everything has effect on everything else. You can force any health measure on the population with the argument that others have to pay for you if you don't do something. You might as well require that everybody does mandatory sports and eat the state approved diet.

If you as a state want to make a commitment to universal health care then you have to accept people being people and doing unhealthy things. If you as a state don't want to do that, you have two options, don't do it or put a totalitarian policy state in place so people follow your rules.

Even so, there is no way to prove that these MASSIV externalisiere exist. That's simply your assertion. It could also be that these people are exactly the same on avg. It could be that because they abuse products they die faster and thus cost less money to the state.

> Of course we need a state to enforce this system, and it won't work any better than the existing one, but hey, it's a market solution!

You are contradicting yourself. Its not a market solution, its a state run system either way.

What this idea is about is testing if products that are not FDA approve really are worse in the longer term. Because if it turns out that it is the case that they are not, then we can just all agree to drop the FDA.

As long as the FDA has monopoly we have know way of knowing what there actual effects. Seems to me more people should care about stuff like that.

> As long as the FDA has monopoly we have know way of knowing what there actual effects. Seems to me more people should care about stuff like that.

While we may not know exactly the actual effects of the FDA or any other governmental policy, we can have a pretty good idea. We do this via econometric analysis of countries with and without entities like the FDA. Ideally we can get time series data where a country created an FDA. We'd throw in a few control variables as well. Then we see the effects of the stuff like the FDA - and even if this isn't perfect, we'd know in general the likely effects of it.

The evidence shows that having an agency regulating drugs and food increases safety. For example, England had a massive issue with a drug which impacted their newborns. We didn't have the issue because the FDA rejected it for use.

>Even so, there is no way to prove that these MASSIV externalisiere exist Well, actually we can prove externalities exist via various quasi-experiments and math. That's kind of what economists do in order to justify intervening in a market. There are measurable externalities in healthcare - which are at least a certain size and probably larger.

Healthcare in general is interesting because of stuff like the herd effect. If someone takes a bunch of sub-par antibiotics and the bacteria they have evolve around that pill all of society is negatively impacted. The disease is more resistant (kills more people) and society needs to pay for a new antibiotic to be researched and produced. And we don't know what these potential adverse effects are initially - what if we accidentally expose a bacteria to enough weak anti-bacterial agents that it becomes immune and kills millions of people? What if a sub-par untested drug turns all of it's users into homicidal maniacs? Or, like England, we could have years of birth defects.

The companies usually don't know the risks either - because before the FDA medical tests were usually very rushed.

So, as a society we have two options to fix these externalities.

One was listed above: charge producers/consumers of poor drugs a tax equal to the costs they impose on society. The government would then redistribute the tax to injured parties. The problem here is in pricing the externaities properly. Also, how do we know what a poor drug is without testing them? We can't, so we'd have to tax all drugs the same. As a result, if we tax too high we have fewer drugs produced and society suffers. If we tax too low then bad drugs slip in and possibly we didn't guess the cost of compensating people properly. So we don't have enough to pay the widow of a man who took a pill and then died four minutes later.

The second option is to regulate away the possibility of poor drugs as much as is plausible. Here we don't need to guess at how much money the externalities would cost. We also don't need to figure out optimal tax rates to get new drugs produced. In the case of healthcare clearly regulation is the best way to deal with possible negative risks.

> Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.

Case in point: try to sue anyone in Shenzhen for anything. Good luck finding who to sue first. And they build pretty much all our electronics.

They seem to have some sort of system where good quality is produced even if nobody can sue them. Otherwise other nations wouldn't buy all their electronics.

They seem to have some sort of system where dirt cheap shit quality products ignoring international copyright laws, are pushed by assembly line workers wearing no safety gear and dying from poisoning, to consumers who then have no legal recourse when a significant portion of the products they buy fail

Are you living under a rock? Dollars speak much louder than words.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/business/worldbusiness/...

>First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those.

That's actually what government is for. You pay it money, and if you have a good government it includes a branch to make sure consumers aren't ripped off/poisoned/injured/killed/etc.

Some governments, like the EU, are actually quite good at this.

A commercial consumer group can always be bought out, infiltrated, or threatened with bankruptcy by someone with superior spending power.

A government can only be taken over from the inside - often by those who pretend to support libertarian ideals, but in practice simply want to operate at various levels of criminality without challenge or oversight.

But a government can never be taken over completely. There are always people who believe that market forces are a naive and unworkable ideology, and are willing to work against their excesses. They have a natural role in government regulation, but no natural role in markets.

> That's actually what government is for. Y

Im happy that you believe this. I however don't. So where does that leave us?

> You pay it money, and if you have a good government it includes a branch to make sure consumers aren't ripped off/poisoned/injured/killed/etc.

I pay the money because I don't really have the option to only pay for the government I like.

If you feel that way how about a tax on all products that are FDA approved that pay for the FDA. Other products can be sold with a stamp on it, not FDA approved.

> Some governments, like the EU, are actually quite good at this.

I would disagree.

> A government can only be taken over from the inside - often by those who pretend to support libertarian ideals, but in practice simply want to operate at various levels of criminality without challenge or oversight.

> But a government can never be taken over completely. There are always people who believe that market forces are a naive and unworkable ideology, and are willing to work against their excesses. They have a natural role in government regulation, but no natural role in markets.

I don't really understand your point.

Its defiantly not libertarians or people who claim libertarian ideals who create, run and push for more of these regulatory agencies.

Actually, the EU have pretty good legislation for cosmetics on this point and do do a good job. I get that you disagree, but any reason why you disagree?

At least, in the EU, manufacturers are held to a standard and are fined/prosecuted if they breach those standards. It's not an 'honor system' as bloomberg report. Lets face it, if there's an honor system, and you could buy maltodextrin powder instead of real aloe powder, the bulk of companies would probably do it to make a profit.

I disagree because the EU does not allow me to buy what I might want to buy. I value having option hand making my own choice. I am even ok with paying taxes for them to do their job. I would be happy if only people who buy 'EU approved labeled' products had to pay for the service, but that not the most important.

There is nothing about honor in the system that I want. If you are found to be fraudulent you should be suit for a lot of money. That money should go to the person/people sued you. Even better would be a system were you can make collective action law suits by buying up small claims.

In general such a tort based system is better because it does not require every product to go threw a cost adding regulatory step, reducing prices. Cost only happens if suit is needed, and in the waste majority of cases there will never be a case. Thus the overall system is cheaper, faster to market and gives the consumer more options.

I don't know anything about cosmetic regulation, this applies to all consumer product regulation equally. Im happy to trust you on this. I am not impaling that all regulators are bad, or always wrong and Im not saying that the US system is better then the European one. I probably rather have the EU system, but Im happy to stay in the Swiss system for now :)

> I disagree because the EU does not allow me to buy what I might want to buy.

This is not true. What they are trying to ensure is that you buy what you think you are buying and it is reasonably safe. If for example you want to buy a fake aloe product you can, it is just not allowed that it says aloe on the packaging.

> There is nothing about honor in the system that I want.

The honor system in this case means that the company is responsible for controlling itself and not defrauding consumers. They can still decide not to obey it and there is always the possibility that someone might check.

See public transportation in many cities as an example. You don't need to prove that you bought the ticket to get on the bus (the company trusts you), but if someone checks you pay a fine. I would say that this is not very far from what you want.

> If you are found to be fraudulent you should be sued for a lot of money

Well the problem with this is the "if" and the "when". It might take years for the fraud to be discovered and not all damages are easily fixed with compensation money (e.g. medical problems may arise). There is also no way to make sure that the money is recovered. Companies do go bankrupt. For the managers of a company, a 5% chance of a company-killing lawsuit in the next 10 years may even be worthwhile, if the profit is high enough and they (personally) can get away with it. And then there are those companies that are too big to fail anyway (too many workplaces lost, too many people directly affected, etc.)

> consumer more options

I'd rather have two options for which I am fairly certain that they are safe and not fake, than ten or twenty that could be anything. Leaving the checking to private initiatives and/or self-control is at least blind optimism. The incentives are not really there. At best it will be done only for things where the potential for large compensation sums is high.

I may not be speaking for every individual whom considers themselves libertarian when I say this; Libertarian-ism is synonymous to Constitutionalist, here in the USA, so with that in mind I reference you to the U.S Constitution. Specifically, the 10th Amendment and the power it gives you the individual withing your state to make the laws of your concern so as long as they do not infringe on civil liberties; each state is a democracy of its own. In other words stop generalizing Libertarian-ism in a negative way, for it would only reflect on the failure to perceive the power the people have. I care for food regulations, environmental laws, and even social programs, just not the one's ran by the Federal Government.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. --Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. --Robert Louis Stevenson

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. --whoever

I think it's really important to understand in order for a truly free market to succeed, is to have absolute transparency. The libertarian ideal of a free market includes transparency.

I believe that the most important thing to regulate is transparency itself. It is almost as if market regulation as we know it causes gaps in regulation in other parts of the market, and things like this happen. The consumer should be able to verify the complete supply chain of every product they purchase.

How can you enforce transparency without regulation? The market has decided that supply chain opaqueness is acceptable. Regulation exists because market forces incentivize things society has deemed negative.

That is a tough one! I honestly am not sure, I imagine some sort of framework for corporate responsibility and transparency. Something like GRI [1] is a good start.

The way I see it, the transparency itself would probably need to be regulated. If an organizition is not following transparency requirements, regulators sanction or whatever that particular organization. I have no idea what that would look like or how it would be implemented. That is still a long ways a way.

The market has decided that opaqueness is acceptable because consumers are uninformed and transparency is not required. The market has taken advantages of holes in regulation.

I believe a free market is the ideal market, but the only way it is ideal is if it is completely and truly transparent. Regulation exists in part because of lack of transparency. If the market was transparent, it would (in theory) regulate itself.

I'm curious on your thoughts of what sorts of things market forces incetivize that are negative, I'm just trying to get a slightly better grasp of some of those things.

Clearly we are not ready for an economy like this yet. But someday. I honestly think transparency plays a huge role in humanities survival. Maybe I'm crazy, who knows.

https://www.globalreporting.org

The thing: market optimizes itself too. It's a dynamic system. So the real question to consider is what is market's fixed point. Or at least what's its phase portrait.

In other words - start with a perfect, transparent market with full and unbiased information available to all participants. Press the "Play" button. What happens? How soon will the market degrade itself, eschewing transparency and perfect information, because it's a more optimal point in the state space? Personally, I predict this is exactly what will happen.

The libertarian ideal isn't no regulation, it's regulation that ensures transparency and leans towards increased competition not less.

I know that further from the political mainstream you go, the harder it is to get people to agree on specifics, but I've yet to see a sect of libertarianism that is for market regulation of any kind for any reason be it safety, transparency, increased competition etc.

Call me pragmatic...

Who would regulate the market? What powers would they have to enforce their regulation?

Things would have to be case by case in terms of moving from the federal government today vs closer to constitutional libertarian.

The FBI and DOJ probably would not go anywhere any time soon... removing certain limits on class action and civil suits would be a start combined with truth in labelling and marketing regulations. Reducing IP protections and trade secrets would help too... as well as transparency requirements. Civil suit, with enforcement action if non-compliance would be a start.

Like I said, I'm pretty pragmatic about it, but would prefer to move towards more civil action, and less govt.

---

Also, lets be real... even with more libertarians elected, the bulk of the govt won't be thrown out any time soon... but the goals should be, minimizing govt, encouraging competition and transparency. This can be done through more strategic legislation.

> Also, lets be real... even with more libertarians elected, the bulk of the govt won't be thrown out any time soon... but the goals should be, minimizing govt, encouraging competition and transparency. This can be done through more strategic legislation.

This sounds more like Goldwater Republican ideals than the libertarianism I've been exposed to.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather the vast majority of govt be significantly reduced or removed... but its about a direction towards that ideal... Also, My stances on a few issues wouldn't hold up in the republican camp, same for Dems....

Im a libertarian and I disagree with you on this point. A market system should be efficient, our hole argument is based on efficiency.

What you propose is not efficient and no consumer would want to pay for this level of information, thus it would not happen.

The important thing is that if somebody claims something that is not true, its fraud, he can be sued, during a lawsuit investigation have to be made to verify and judge the case.

Voluntary groups could start labeling products that have all information available. Shops could require producers to do it.

There are many ways a free society can handle these problems. We don't know exactly what would happen, but we have lots or reason to assume that something along these lines would happen.

Not libertarian -- laissez faire.

You have the "freedom" to test Aloe Gel.

If you or your friends get sick, don't eat the same berries.

i think this is moreso the flaw with a hybrid libertarian system where, for some things we can trust the government, but in others, we can't. this is usually pretty obvious but it's incredibly ambiguous when it comes to things we ingest. there's piles of regulations, but few deal with the integrity of the product vs its claims (see homeopathy...).

if we were in the libertarian ideal, we would scoff at the fact that we hadn't chosen a brand vetted by the consumer product testing lab that we're obviously already subscribed to.

and practically directly contradicting you claim is the fact that a private entity is what unveiled this mishap, no government involvement. ,

Yup. Everything seems fine until you realize that companies are willing to absolutely anything to make a buck. If you see a law that forces tests to keep companies from poisoning rivers, it's because companies have poisoned rivers. If it's a law about cutting up and selling the meat of a sick animal which is found dead, or what have you, it's there for a reason.

Consumer Reports, for one.

I think they mean you're supposed to look for the unnatural fluorescent green color that so many of these manufacturers add to these products to show how natural it is. (even though the natural aloe juice is nearly colorless)

In the specific case of Aloe it's not out of the question to grow your own or at least buy unprocessed aloe leaves in a supermarket.

"“Acemannan has been misinterpreted,’’ Meadows said. “The cosmetics industry requires highly processed aloe. How that affects acemannan is anybody’s guess.’’"

You work for a company that supplies aloe to the cosmetics industry. The 'anybody' in 'anybody's guess' is ... you.

It becomes entirely a brand thing and is the original value proposition for brand names. By offering trade mark and trade dress protection for brand names it allows a manufacturer to make available test results, and to periodically inspect/test product for compliance with those results, so that the customer's expectations will be met.

These days people buy the "kirkland signature[1]" product and two things are true, the person most responsible for putting that product on the shelf in front of you is motivated by cutting manufacturing cost and maximizing profit above all other concerns, even whether or not the product resembles at all what the packaging says it does. They are not aligned with your desire for a quality product.

If you are a discerning customer you will find that the actual ingredients of, and quality, of a product with a house brand varies from state to state and year to year. That is an effect of the 'buyer' shopping around a contract to manufacturers, domestic and abroad, who will maximize their profit.

Of course that doesn't mean that if you buy a "brand name" that you are getting the best product. But at least the manufacturer is invested in the quality when it has their name on it and reasonably aligned with the consumer's interests. That goes out the window when it is someone else's name on the end product.

[1] This is the CostCo "house brand" for products they have sourced through a variety of manufacturers.

As a counterexample, Kirkland Signature's extra virgin olive oil fares really well in independent lab tests, while still being low cost:

http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/best-bargain-extra-virgi...

But you're right, brands are supposed to promise consistency, not quality. A McDonald's burger should be basically the same at any rest stop, that's one of the reasons they took off. Some brands don't even offer that though.

You might not need to be careful.

I find it pretty disgusting that the products don't seem to contain the stuff they claim to contain. So avoid some products on this principle, certainly, and hope the others hold up to their ingredient list: Alternatively, an aloe plant will help a little or for sunburns, something with lidocaine if you aren't opposed to that will actually work (FDA drug label and all those protections with that variety).

However, it seems that the article mentions that a food additive seems to be the preferred substitute - it is likely that the products are safe, even if they weren't the aloe they were claiming. Furthermore, they probably work for immediate relief and moisturization (though possibly not in the healing bit found in some studies [1]). Unless you've skin sensitivities, buy away if whatever happens to be in the product meets your needs.

[1]https://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/aloe

I figure before I'm too old the breathe there'll be someone selling a tricorder to rich people to do exactly that.

Is that real crab in your crab Rangoon? Does it have mercury? How much? Red tide toxins? You can never be too sure!

1) Always assume that you are being lied to. 2) Gather evidence that can be used to prove whether claims are true or not. 3) Make your purchasing decision.

If you think about it this is not that crazy.

When you buy one of these products from the store you are entirely relying on the manufacturing claiming it has Aloe. Evidence? Absolutely zero. Do they publish anything on the bottle certifying it has aloe?

If they did then you'd want to be able to look up fact sheets and such about where, how, and when it is tested. If the company doesn't provide them it's because they're lying. If they do provide them, it may still be falsified, but you have a higher degree of certainty than you do reading the bottle.

So you don't buy it.

"But I have to put something on my skin! I might be missing out! They could all be lying about something!" isn't much of an excuse. Coming from the POV that they're all lying, you aren't missing out, until they prove otherwise.

With every purchase you're actually taking a losing gamble on the possibility that they're telling the truth, when they've got no reason to do so and provide no evidence to the contrary.

> Should I run my own lab to test every product I use?

no you just look at the mandated ingredient list which is required to say "Aloe Vera x%" is it has one of the ingredients as part of the name of the product.

mind you that x is probably less than 2 or so.

I kind of wonder, since this apparently isn't mandatory in the US, are people aware that if you buy fruit juice of say pomegranate or cranberry or acai or mango, it's almost always more than 75% apple or white grape juice, and probably less than 5% of the fruit listed, yes? I mean it's clearly on our labels and I still think it's a scam, but what if you can't even know.

Uh... No. The whole issue here is the ingredients list says it contains aloe but the label is lying.

"The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water."

Whenever I see an article like this, I lose another bit of faith in all of the products in these supermarkets, fair or not. I get the sense that all of our modern 'health products' are nothing more than shams that induce the placebo effect in people. Unless a doctor prescribes it, [edit] or it's an OTC drug [/edit], I tend to think it's bologna.

Does anyone else feel that way or am I being unreasonable?

About cosmetics/supplements? Sure. I think there's basically a 0% chance that I'm not buying Ibuprofen when I try to, though.

Good point, I should have been more clear. I do trust OTC drugs to be labelled correctly.

There have been occasions where manufacturers of generics turned out be making hmm... crap (best wording I can think of) instead of the medications in question. :(

Do you have evidence that defective drugs made it to customers?

Do you have evidence that defective drugs made it to customers?

I've ranted about this before on HN. The global pharmaceutical supply chain in a Cluster Fuck race to the bottom. Here are a few articles that Bloomberg wrote a few years ago:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-06/flies-foun...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-03/indian-lab...

IMO you're being deliberately naïve if you don't think that those sorts of manufacturing practices don't result in "defective drugs" reaching consumers.

Edit: here's a link to a Pfizer website. They make the claim that "VIAGRA is one of the most counterfeited drugs in the world." Do you expect us to believe that none of that counterfeit drug ever gets to consumers? https://www.viagra.com/getting/avoid-counterfeits

Counterfeit != defective

I agree though that those bloomberg stories indicate that defective drugs are in fact reaching consumers :(

Look at what Pfizer claims they found in counterfeit Viagra:

    Blue printer ink

    Amphetamines, also known as “speed”

    Metronidazole, a powerful antibiotic that could
    cause an allergic reaction, diarrhea, or vomiting

    Too much active ingredient (or not enough),
    which may cause you harm

    Binding agents, such as drywall, that prevent
    the tablet from breaking down in your system

And look what Pfizer claims they found in other counterfeit medications:

    Toxic ingredients, such as boric acid, floor wax,
    brick dust, rat poison, and road paint

    Ingredients that can have dangerous interactions
    with other medications you may be taking

    A completely different medication with
    potentially harmful side effects

Yes I know that Pfizer is hardly a disinterested party. But I still get the impression that there's a lot of defective product out there.

Not just counterfeit, but indisputably defective!

There are a few instances of generics manufacturers being shut down expressly due to this. eg the fake drugs were being sold to consumers

It's very easy to find specific instances via standard Googling/DuckDuckGo/etc.

Note - that's not me being hand wavy, I'm actually saying "Google it" because in-depth results DO show up.

I agree, yet I don't like the doctor perspective either. So much of what they prescribe is fueled by economics. In addition, the fact that most doctors aren't deeply trained in nutrition completely destroys my faith in that aspect entirely.

Drs. Cifu and Prasad have done research on what they call medical reversal (when a particular therapy is found to be worse than the previous therapy or does nothing at all) and have concluded that the rate of reversal is 35-40%. So your doctor isn't doing fantastically in actual medical therapies either.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/02/adam_cifu_on_en.htm...

If it isn't in the "Drug Facts" or "Nutrition Facts" label, it's probably bogus.

Also if it includes "These statements have not been evaulated by the Food and Drug Administration" it's probably bogus.

Your own research and reason can override these rules of thumb, but only if you really trust yourself to read and interpret scientific literature which isn't something most people can truly do.

Well the problem specifically in this case, is that the ingredients stated they included aloe vera while they chemical analysis says that they don't. So you can't even trust the "Drug Facts"

It isn't clear that any of those products have an actual Drug Facts label.(an example label [1]) The CVS product listed in the article definitely does not[2]. If it doesn't have a label like this, it is likely not regulated by the FDA and therefor quite a bit more likely to be nonsense. Having ingredient lists not on the Drug Facts label doesn't count.

1. http://flexapro.com/images/flexapro_drug_facts.jpg

2. http://www.cvs.com/bizcontent/merchandising/productimages/la...

Not just health products. Some time ago I saw one of those consumer advocate TV shows where they were testing chicken salad. They found that many products had laughably little chicken inside, and that the manufacturers were lying on the labels.

That was when I realized that the people who prepare our food have an incentive to decieve us. It's a tug of war between consumers' and producers' interests. They want to make it as cheap as possible with as little real ingredients as possible. It reminded me of something I read by Karl Marx (!) - how in his time the bakers in London would adulterate their bread with all kinds of nasty things.

> Does anyone else feel that way or am I being unreasonable?

Not at all. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the current situation with lack of dietary/cosmetics product regulation in the United States is the result of a Mormon conspiracy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/politics/21hatch.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/opinion/the-politics-of-fr...

I have enough libertarian sympathies that I'd be ok with people selling dietary supplements for human consumption, no clinical trials necessary, as long as it's all correctly labeled. Like, I really doubt that taking dried garlic capsules is going to affect your LDL cholesterol, but I'm fine with people trying that as long as all the sellers clearly and correctly label the product. But if some company is filling those capsules with dried onion instead of garlic, and trying to excuse it with "the real thing doesn't behave any differently," then I want the regulator-hammer to drop on them.

The same goes for fraudulently labeled seafood, pet treats, honey, etc. These frauds should be policed better. It boggles the mind that some libertarians want the individual to make smart choices for themselves instead of the government pre-empting those choices (which I support in many cases - drug consumption and other risky behaviors) but also want to let fraud run rampant by gutting inspections and labeling requirements.

Is there a reason you used the term "Mormon conspiracy"?

It detracts from the rest of your point. You hopefully wouldn't call Bernie Madoff's scheme a "Jewish conspiracy" just because the principal in that scheme was Jewish. If you had called something a Jewish conspiracy people would most likely have reacted very negatively - mostly out of the prosecution Jews have and do undergo, but also because it was very immaterial to his actions and seems bigoted prima facie.

Unless you are describing a literal conspiracy by a religion it generally sounds terrible to describe an event by members of that religion by the title of the religion.

Hatch is a morally bankrupt person, obviously. But that's on him.

> Is there a reason you used the term "Mormon conspiracy"?

The vast majority of supplement scam companies (and their closely related scam cousins, multi-level marketing) in Utah are run by Mormons and have their origins in traditional Mormon herbal healing: http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/5117547...

It is important to note that Judaism is different from Mormonism, and most other religions, in that being a Jew is an ethnicity as well as a religion - you can be Jewish and be an atheist. Religion is a choice, and I consider all religions to be morally wrong and an impediment to rational thought and human freedom. The fact that most supplement scams in Utah are run by Mormons but most Utah Mormons are not scammers is correct and I hope apparent to everyone, and I did not mean to use hyperbole to imply otherwise.

Supermarket aloe vera is a product that changed my life. Seriously.

With my cheap Irish skin, I'm sure to get a severe sunburn once a year. I've had one so bad it started to bleed; that one almost stopped me from going to highschool prom.

I had tried Noxzema moisturizing gel, cold shower, hot tub, and several other anecdotal remedies for sunburns, but nothing worked - for about five days following a sunburn I was basically handicapped.

A year or two after the big one I tried the [fake] aloe vera and it finally seemed like something worked. Ever since then, I'll use roughly a bottle a day of the stuff following an intense burn. This has reduced the discomfort to the level that the average Joe expresses as in "Ahh, extra sensitive right now" not "Can't put on clothes right now"

Sunblock?

Sure! That's why I don't get brunt everyday I'm outside between April and September.

There's some tricky failure modes to sunscreen though, and inevitably you'll find one of those failures if you expose yourself to dozen of chances for it to happen.

The absolute best sunblock is physical long sleeves, wide brim hat, tree covering.

Did it have any actual Aloe Vera in it?

Does it matter if it works? (i mean, legally, of course... and morally... ) ... but as a solution, if it works, it works, right?

Uhh, if I bought a bottle of Aloe and was smearing it all over myself, and then I was told "That's not actually aloe", I'd want to know what I was applying to my skin before I applied any more. Sure, it works, but maybe it's carcinogenic, or has a side effect that I don't want to risk, or I have an allergy to whatever mock-aloe-substitute they used.

Im in agreement... im saying if someone has been using it for years... and it works for them, they might not care whats in it...

I buy the cheapest CVS or Walgreens bottles that say "Aloe Vera [After Sun Moisturizer] ". Sometimes they're clear, sometimes green, sometimes blue. If this article is correct they probably don't have actual AV. But I'm not sure that matters, the key seems to be how quickly you get a first layer on, and how consistently throughout the next three days you baste the area affected with whatever it is I'm buying.

Please just wear sunblock though. Compared to the USA I'm shocked how prevalent on these isles it is for people to just accept a big burn is obligatory on a sunny day. If you need aloe your exposure means your greatly increasing your risk of melanoma.

Anything that's marketed as a health or dietary supplement (basically, anything that falls under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_... ) is unregulated by the FDA--no efficacy studies, not even safety studies are required for marketing.

They are required to list active ingredients, but unlike drug manufacturers, there is no regular inspection to make sure that they're actually producing the things they say they're making. And judging from the several reports I've seen, the manufacturers are so lazy that they can't be bothered to actually acquire the active ingredient.

Whatever you think about Big Pharma, they are saints compared to the supplement industry.

Combine this with an increasing trend in grocery and drug stores to only stock 1 "name brand" and everything else is house-branded and we're in for a rough time. For now you can still use brand loyalty, but what happens when the whole world is Wal-martified (we're on our way) and Safeway only sells Safeway brand, Costco only sells Kirkland, CVS only sells CVS products, etc.? You can say "go somewhere else" but selecting a different store isn't even a realistic option for many people in the US - there are no alternatives.

We rely on retail establishments to provide choice as part of their value add. Now that that's disappearing in favor of the retailer controlling everything, what happens next? I honestly don't know.

> You can say "go somewhere else" but selecting a different store isn't even a realistic option for many people in the US - there are no alternatives.

You can order online and it will kill off the brick-and-mortar stores even more if they don't vet their products. Amazon's been trying to convince people to do more home grocery shopping with them for a couple years already. If people lose confidence in Wal-Mart and their local grocery stores' products, Amazon will kick their butts.

Unfortunately, Amazon is not immune to fake products. For me, after being burned too many times, the honeymoon is over with Prime. If you read the reviews, you'll see this is a big problem on Amazon.

Not to mention comments for similar brand products but not the product you are ordering.

> read the reviews

That's another problem though. I don't want to spend an hour researching reviews for every product I want to buy on Amazon. It's ridiculous how infected they are now. The last thing I wanted to buy was a regular bottle of American Crew shampoo. Half the reviews say it's fake. Half say 5 stars. There is no other seller. What do you do?

I can say this as someone who knows for certain, most of the products on the shelves are the same, regardless of the label. They came off the same line from the same factory. Want to know how they are different? The line operator stopped for 10 minutes to change out the packaging. The amount of variety you see is an illusion. The generics are exactly the same as the expensive name brands. Walk into any store and compare the manufacturing codes on similar products. And before you get too pedantic, I'm not saying they are _all_ exactly the same. I'm saying a choice of 10 "brands" likely all come from 3 or less factories of origin.

Price discrimination at its finest!

20 years ago I worked for a major gasoline refiner in Canada, who supplied the gasoline for all of the gas stations in Toronto. Esso, Shell, BP, Petro-Canada, Sunoco - all bought their gas from the same refinery. The whole WORLD is branding.

You can still find this in small communities. I get my gas from a small community because it's cheaper on that side of the border. There's like 5-6 gas stations and one supply truck company. The locals all know to buy from the cheapest one and yet the Shell, Chevron, and others are still in business.

I think this finally hit me when I saw on display a tiny bottle of high-end "high performance surfer sunscreen" for $35, complete with beautiful packaging and a poster with attractive models.

>" You can say "go somewhere else" but selecting a different store isn't even a realistic option for many people in the US - there are no alternatives."

In New York City there is basically Duane Reade(on every other block) and CVS. As the diversity in stores and brand selection decrease the unit prices seem to increase. I think this largely explains $5.00 for a single roll of dental floss.

Yep, that's why for a lot of things like that, I try to buy it in bulk from Costco or someplace online.

I am curious do you have any recommendations for replacing the brick and mortars for grocery/drugstores online other than Amazon or?

Not specifically, just shopping.google.com. I try to check there if I don't think the prices at my normal outlets are good enough. For instance, I needed some bags for my vacuum cleaner a while ago, and they were too high at both the manufacturer's site (Bissell) and at Amazon. There were off-brand bags at Amazon for less, but the reviews were terrible. So I think I looked on Google shopping, and ended up finding a great price for the OEM bags at target.com. While I was there, I got some dental floss that works well for me, because it was also really cheap there.

In another example, my now-ex wife wanted some specific sea salt from Italy that she likes a lot for some reason. Amazon's price was very high, so again I used Google (I think, this was probably a year ago) and found a site that specialized in Italian food imports. They had dirt-cheap prices for the stuff if you bought it by the case, so that's what we did, plus a bunch of other pasta stuff that was really cheap.

There's tons of specialty stores out there like that that you just have to look for, depending on what you're looking for. shopping.google.com frequently points me to good places, but also just a regular Google search, or a search on DDG will frequently be productive. Even other big-name retailers will frequently have good deals, better than Amazon: walmart.com, target.com, etc. But it all fluctuates and varies a lot, so it is a bit of work to find good deals. But generally, once I've found a good supplier for something I repurchase at some interval, it usually works out best to keep buying from them, so it's frequently worth the time investment to find a good supplier. Then I just keep all my email receipts tagged "Purchases", and then do a search through those when I need to re-order something.

Thus the death of local stores and rise of Amazon and other online stores.

Id never buy computer parts locally. Only online. Perhaps this is beginning of I only buy x (E. G. Aloe) from online as well. Where we have more choice. Reviews. Vetting..

You are making more of a drama then this is. If it would be a huge problem there are a hole host of possible solutions. From small many small stores to delivery network.

A company could buy on mass with different stores and sell standard packages to small stores and home owners directly.

Also other product producers who are getting pushed out are probably searching for solutions to reach costumer right now.

These doom and gloom prediction almost always turn out to be wrong. I have actual read your exact argument before, that was before the korean immigration when the opened stores everywhere.

> Safeway only sells Safeway brand, Costco only sells Kirkland, CVS only sells CVS products

This seems to work pretty well for Trader Joe's. I trust their stuff.

So as it turns out regulation is good for us, and free market forces don't solve all problems.

I don't think you'll find too many people who oppose investigating and prosecuting fraudulent product labeling. This is not the sort of thing that's usually being debated when one talks about the cost/benefit of regulations.

In plenty of cases "they" don't need to debate or oppose anything, they just need to oppose any new funding of the agencies that would look into the fraud in question. Go look up the counterfeit olive oil articles from several years back and consider that things haven't improved at all on that front.

> This is not the sort of thing that's usually being debated when one talks about the cost/benefit of regulations.

Yes it is, at least when Conservative party leaders talk about it. You might have a different definition but it isn't the one that will be enacted in reality.

For that matter how do you suppose product labeling regulations could be enforced? It would require tests and objective standards. And what happens with an entirely new substance that doesn't have a known safety profile or valid test criteria?

tl;dr: Everyone likes regulations when they're buying safe and accurately labeled products. Everyone hates regulations when they're asked to prove their own claims. The circle cannot be squared.

> I don't think you'll find too many people who oppose investigating and prosecuting fraudulent product labeling.

The large number of ethusiasts for "tort reform" suggest that the idea of making companies immune to the consequence of malfeasance would suggest otherwise.

Maybe true, but not libertarians.

Regulation is one way to try and solve this problem, but the courts are another.

As mentioned in the article, the retailers of this product are already being sued based on the findings.

The average consumer does not have money for attorneys: hence, the need for government regulation. That's why all of us pay taxes.

Or class-action lawsuits.

It's also that the fraud is incredibly diluted. Is the solution a class-action lawsuit? If so, is it even worth it to me to fill out the postcard for a tube of bogus aloe I bought 2 years ago? Let's say someone actually told me it was fake. Was it the "Wal-Mart Premium Aloe" or the "Wal-Mart Organic Aloe"? I would happily pay $0.20 more for real aloe over fake, but I'm not going to spend 20min on my phone then pay $0.20 more for each item I put in my cart.

Which brand of olive oil isn't the fake one, again?

Legal scholars have actually found many elegant solutions to this sort of stuff.

The simplest one is that if you find out that you were the victim of small scale fraud. You should be able to sell your claim to a third person. This third person can then gather many small claim and do the lawsuit for profit. Your claim might only be worth 10$ in this case (since this is just wrong labeling and not anything worse) but its still free money.

This system would also give consumer groups for example a better financial situation. Currently, fines usually go to the government if some group detects that some law was abused. In the system im talking about a consumer group could ask for the data of all the people, should the find something they inform everybody of this and ask them to sell their claims. Then they sue the producer and make a profit. Such system could essentially be automated. Selling a claim should not be harder then making online bank payments (in Switzerland we have E-Bills, pops up, 1-click, done). If you trust the consumer group you could just automate it completely (in Switzerland you can actually give access to your bank accounts companies you trust).

This is also not some new idea, there are historical systems that worked exactly like this. Those system were found to perform quite well.

As mentioned in the article, the lawsuits will be class-action which are generally free to the consumer and funded by the resulting settlement.

That's a simplistic conclusion. If the legal system is the right answer, but the existing legal system does not perform the function, then it might be important to reform the legal system and not change everything else.

In a better legal system it should be easy, for all defrauded people to somehow make money.

Libertarian and other people have actually studied these issues quite in depth and there are many good proposals. A simply version is that if you are victim of fraud but you don't want to take action, you can sell your claim to somebody else. In this case we have many small claims, one actor can buy them up and then make a collective action lawsuit without everybody else having to care.

This would be a far superior system to regulation. I have made arguments to that effect here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13017446

That would make sense if you had free representation in court. If you've got to pay for your representation, the ones with the most money tend to determine which laws are actually enforceable.

Courts are also very slow comparatively - that and american style "class action" cases are not applicable to many countries, where it may be the case that each individual must file a separate case.

The problem here is that of course it is only the retailers that are being sued, i.e. the company itself. If the salesperson who bought the stuff and everyone up from there to the CEO was on the line plus all shareholders of the company, those people would very quickly make very sure that they don’t defraud their customers.

You mean by the way it is Bloomberg who did the investigation ?

So it turns out, people love to make overly simplistic arguments don't actually win any debates

My first thought upon seeing the headline was well duh, there are 500+ species in that genus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe#Species) But then in the article, "Aloe's three chemical markers—acemannan, malic acid, and glucose—were absent in the tests[...]."

Yikes.

There was some humorous homeopathic reasoning in the article where a weasel claimed that the extensive processing cosmetic products require might remove the components that make aloe, aloe, but its still an aloe product, which is kind of like claiming I'm still drinking orange juice if I extensively process it to remove everything but the H2O molecules. Sure chemically speaking its distilled pure water now, but once upon a time it was orange juice.

You joke, but the fruit juice industry LOVES filtered white grape juice because it's clear, colorless, and essentially just sugar water.

Reminds me of the "what's the color of your bits" article that came up again when the Illegal Primes wikipedia article made the front page.

"What's the color of your molecules?".

http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

We've seen this same issue with supplements like St. John's wort, and products like honey. And then who knows what's going on with Amazon lately.

I see a pattern. I think we're seeing a breakdown of the concept of brands. Every few generations society forgets important lessons it learned in the past and has to relearn them. I think the importance of brands is one of these concepts.

If a company can build a rock solid brand that people really trust I believe they're going to be extremely sucessful. That's one reason Apple has done so well. You completely trust that Apple would never sell you garbage. (although they're also starting to forget this lesson.)

I'm going to start looking for strong, loved brands as part of my investment strategy going forward. Unfortunately I'm having trouble thinking of any at the moment.

> That's one reason Apple has done so well. You completely trust that Apple would never sell you garbage. (although they're also starting to forget this lesson.)

Also word-for-word true about Amazon.

... but Amazon is full of garbage, fakes, and counterfeit goods.

Yeah, now.

They spent the first 10-15 years building a pretty fantastic reputation for customer trust, and then the floodgates of junk opened.

If a company can build a rock solid brand that people really trust I believe they're going to be extremely sucessful.

Well, yeah: Coca-Cola, Disney, Fererro (Nutella), McDonalds, isn't 'having a trusted brand' how big companies got big in the first place?

What do you define as 'strong' and 'loved'? Because 'loved' -> 'popular' -> 'big' is the jump I'm making; small and loved brands are the kind of thing that get bought by Google and shut down, or only appeal to a niche audience and won't grow enough market share to be a worthy investment.

Yet more corporate erosion of the trust that makes society work.

This is why restricting trade isn't as crazy as it sounds: when the aloe vera cream is made down the street, you can go beat the guy up if he defrauds you. And he knows that.

Not really. It's not like they bought it thinking it was Aloe Vera, they either didn't verify and then claimed it was, or gave specific orders detailing its production and ingredients, wherever it was made. Good luck "beating up" the CEO or product development manager at CVS or Walgreens regardless of where they placed their factory, anyway.

No, this is an example of why government regulation is important.

I was about to comment the same.

It isn't like everyone in any one country or restricted area is honest nor does everyone have the means to verify the contents of every item they purchase.

Exactly. Regulation does not come out of thin air--but in response to abuses. Complaining about regulation in the abstract is akin to bank robbers complaining about the laws against bank robbery.

"Complaining about regulation in the abstract is akin to bank robbers complaining about the laws against bank robbery."

Amazing analogy, and unfortunately all too close to reality for many companies fighting reasonable regulations.

Disclaimer: Not all companies fighting certain regulations are crooks.

And in cases where the company fighting against regulation aren't crooks, the people fighting for them likely are.

I don't see the two as mutually exclusive.

If you support regulations in cases like this, you're not going to enjoy the next 4-8 years in the USA.

We just voted the anti-regulation group in power.

God help America!

No, this is an example of why government regulation and free market economic are important. In places where there's fierce competition, a scandal like this will cost the player to lost the battle against other competitors, so deregulate those markets to boost competition. In places where competition is not possible by reasons other than regulations, government should regulate the shit of the industry. However, US is heading to a place where most markets are gonna be dominated by monopolies yet the regulations not be there.

But isn't this the ultimate commodity? I understand that reasoning in heavily regulated industries like drugs, where high costs of development encourage monopolies. But the cosmetic industry is poorly regulated already.

And enforcement. Often the regulation is there but the enforcement is lacking.

While companies should be fined, but there always seems ot be a lack of individual accountability and repercussion for people responsible.

RTFA. The supplier for all the tested products is in Texas.

Excellent. Let's get him.

I guess all the class action law suits are the free market way or regulating this? Not sure how efficient that is but at least there's some kind of pain for lying on ingredient lists.

Most countries don't have class action lawsuits (at all). So it's not really a free market way of doing things.

The folks you really have to pity are those in Africa and South America and other areas of planet Earth that receive those products where their citizens can't sue these companies.

They might not even be aware of a product-recall, if any.

Should the warehouses full of the products from TFA actually be recalled, I wonder where they'll end up...

Product recalls are usually done by the government in the US. The CFPB in the US.

I don't understand your point. How does 'most countries' have any relevancy for what 'the free market way' of doing something is? Most countries are not and don't claim to be 'free market' countries.

Those that advocate free markets usually also advocate changes in the legal system.

Legal scholars have many solutions for this kind of stuff. Libertarians have actually spend a lot of time and effort studying this stuff, because its so relevant for free market systems.

Consider this easy idea, you can sell your claims. In a case (non harmful wrong labeling) such as this, you sell your claim for 10$ and then you don't have to care anymore.

Some bigger buyer of this stuff can buy the claims and fight the lawsuit. This is simple and effective.

Also, this is not a new idea, its very old idea that has been done in many places. It performs quite well historically.

Nope. Assault is no more legal than fraud.

"Acemannan has been misinterpreted," Meadows said. "The cosmetics industry requires highly processed aloe. How that affects acemannan is anybody’s guess."

Even the cosmetics industry admits that they don't have a clue (not even a guess) about what happens to Aloe after it's been processed for inclusion into their products, so it may not have any of the original properties. (acemannan makes up about 15% of aloe)

And if it doesn't contain any after it's processed then it's not an Aloe product anymore.

Go outside, find an aloe plant, take a cutting of it (make sure to ask the owner.....) and transplant it into a pot of soil.

Water, and keep your friend alive.

Succulents make good desk plants :)

They are very prolific too. With a little space and the right conditions you'll have to be giving them away to everyone you meet.

Go outside, no aloe to be found.

It's still easy enough to get a plant or cutting though.

If you come over I can give you some <:p, I've had the same plant for almost 10 years, Once my mother and I were deep frying some fish and she kicked the oil over into her shoe, that aloe plant was used to help sooth the burns... interestingly no scars on her feet from that incident.

This article reminded me of the story about snake oil. At one time it was considered a traditional medicine. In the early 1900's products were sold claiming to contain snake oil but didn't. This lead to the modern usage of the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil

The term "blowing smoke" has a similar origin. There is an outdated and defunct medicinal practice of blowing smoke up one's rectum as a sort of cleanse. The of course turned to be of, uh, dubious effectiveness for curing ailments. Hence the modern term, blowing smoke, which means someone is bullshitting you.

In modern times smoke is replaced with coffee. And it can be deadly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_enema

So these products are made of Aloe Falsum then?

Possibly Aloe Verum

verum is singular

vera is plural

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself about this joke but now the grammar mistake has ruined it for me.

ack, I got burned by an error in google translate. oh well

Wow.

I wonder if the products were always lacking Aloe Vera, or if this is an example of "quality fade"?

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poorly_Made_in_China)

As he discusses in the book, I suspect that this is a combination of quality fade, and willful ignorance (also known as poor/no testing). Testing costs money, and budget products mandate cost cutting.

This book is exactly what came to mind when I read the article.

They don't do aloe vera products, but http://www.labdoor.com is a great site that does chemical analysis of supplements and determines if their labels are actually accurate and if they contain any harmful impurities.

False advertising should be punished severely. The consequences are always bad.

Unless your fraud involves dietary supplements, then there's almost always no consequences.

In Germany and many places if not all of west and central Europe products get detailed labeling of ingredients. For instance if you buy what's supposedly a brand name syrup of plums and therefore should be 100% the result of cooking plums and nothing else except maybe conservatives, what you actually get according to the label is 99% various forms of industrialized sugar and then a little bit of plum flavor. This is great because I've also found such syrup which was what you'd expect and pretty much the same thing you get when you do at home, but it wasn't from the most famous brand in Germany, which is disturbing given the price you have to pay for the brand. Same with stuff that's supposed to be honey or all those fancy teas which have no trace of what the label says if you look into the ingredients list. Most people do not bother to read it, and I don't blame them, but if you do, you start to put many products on a personal blacklist of fakes.

That said, do US products not carry detailed ingredient lists or is this product discussed in the article part of a group of products that are exempt?

> The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water.

In that case it's clear fraud and will be dealt with, I assume. Given the comments here about a liberal market, I assumed labeling requirements are less strict over there.

These products are required to list ingredients. The problem here is the ingredient lists is a straight up lie.

"The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water."

I always suspected this! The products felt so different from when you break off an aloe leaf and use the goo. Feeling so vindicated right now :p

I don't know that that's a great test. Bread feels pretty different from wheat plants, but it's still the same thing.

Are you sure?

Barring a bit of water and salt, yes. Bread's (generally) made of processed wheat. As with aloe vera gel, processing can change the texture a bit.

Not a proper comparison... The beneficial chemicals in the aloe have no need to be processed at all, cracking a leaf and squeezing out the gel is sufficient.

Crack wheat, sure the kernels are edible and quite healthy - but that's a far cry from bread.

The article indicates aloe vera gel is typically produced by drying and powdering the aloe, which seems like it'd change the texture significantly. It may contain other stuff like a mild local anesthetic, colorants, preservatives, etc.

Often things need to be processed or treated to make better and more consistent products. Consumers are also fickle about appearance. You can make powdered sugar by grinding up confectioner's sugar, but the stuff you buy in the store has cornstarch added to prevent clumping. Shredded mozzarella has a powder coating to prevent it from sticking together.

Fresh aloe from the plant doesn't need to worry about mold or spoilage. Something shoved into a bottle, shipped on a truck, and expected to consistently squeezed out of a tube (without drying out or getting gunky) probably needs additives or treatments that change it in order to be safe.

Truth. The American consumer is very sensitive, especially to consistency. If your product changes color, or settles out weird or does anything to shatter the belief that one bottle is exactly like the next one, you've got a big problem.

Case in point - I had a friend who was recently trying to be all organic and stuff (like, crazily) ...

He got mad because he came home with a jar of peanut butter that was organic.. and natural... (and delicious) but he was actually upset because the oil separated... like, actually upset, and wanted to take it back, and did not want to eat it... he thought it was gross...

Yeah... natural is gross and processed is good... 'Murica

Yup. I remember reading about a smoothie like product that had some additive, a known inflammatory, that did nothing but keep it from settling out. It's only purpose was to save the consumer from shaking it before opening the bottle and had some obvious downsides (it also made it look prettier on the shelf). After a/b testing it the consensus was to leave it in.

We’ve been in the business a long time and we know where the raw ingredients come from,’’ John Dondrea, Fruit of the Earth’s general counsel, said in a telephone interview. “We stand behind our products.

Did I hear somebody say that regulating companies is bad for business? And the incoming administration have said that cutting regulation is a top priority.

This would be so illegal in the EU it's not even funny.

Also, Aleo Vera is a plant. So "no Aloe Vera in the Aloe Vera" doesn't even make sense. Is it hand cream? Shampoo?

> Tim Meadows, president of Concentrated Aloe Corp., said that nuclear magnetic resonance isn’t reliable for cosmetics because the presence of multiple ingredients can cause interference and there’s no way to test for aloe in finished products.

This type of science is out of my scope of knowledge, but the skeptic in me thinks, "how convenient."

Maybe there could be a data format/protocol for reporting ingredients in products electronically so they could be easily analyzed. And make that open for the public (or companies) to view.

This gets at the issue of externalities and the general inadequacy of trying to track everything with one number ($).

There already is a basic data format & protocol: the ingredients are listed, in order. The problem here is that the ingredients were lies. Being more precise isn't going stop the lies.

There is no electronic format that is easily accessible.

An electronic format won't make the lies go away, why the fixation on it?

You can buy original aloe products from Tribals in India http://onlineshop.apgirijan.com/product/aloevera-soap/

I buy the Aloe Vera leaf for $1 from my local grocery store and use it whenever I want. Don't rely on off the shelf products unless you know the founder is very passionate about the product and it's benefits.

Is there a third party that tests products for their legitimacy? Consumer Reports? The government? Seems like a market need.

Try the jars of "pesto sauce" they sell at Walmart. Its literally pickled basil stems with garlic.

Aloe Vera is very easy to grow at home. There's literally no reason to buy this at a store.

Say...you go on vacation to the beach and fall asleep to the soothing sounds of waves. You get sun burned. Then what.

Go to a beach vacation to a place where aloe plants grow all over the place; pick some tentacles and keep in your hotel room fridge.

Aloe is tenacious; it will keep growing and growing. If you cut the sprouts, you can plant them and they will grow. I started with a tiny plant and now have four planters, not counting ones I have given away.

Some things don't work at scale. I guess squeezing leaves into bottles is one of them.

I wonder how many other products are completely fake.

Blueberries are often fake! http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/01/20/13308914...

Contains post-truth Aloe Vera.

"That means suppliers are on an honor system"

In other words, abuses will be rampant as having an honor system for corporations is like asking your cat not to eat that delicious fish or bird they just caught. Only idiots would think that could possibly work. That's why it's a dominant theory of economics in the US.

so its like Chocolate then? I guess all that evil EU regulatory burden serves some purpose after all

http://www.thefoodieentourage.com/2011/10/should-bad-chocola...

Where on Google Maps are these vast aloe vera plantations which are required to produce these millions of liters of products? There must be hectares and hectares, visible from the outer space.

Not sure about the locations, but you'll find images about quite big plantations if you do Google image search for: aloe vera plantations

It's terrible that the FDA is interfering with free association between these gigantic conglomerates and consumers. It's a sin.

They should also try to find evidence of grapes is crappy wines to which a cork is too expensive.

Crappy wine is made from crappy grapes, or good grapes handled poorly, not fake grapes. There is no reason to use fake grapes because there is so much supply of real grapes (see "wine lake"). And most wine is not meant to be aged for a long time so there is no reason to use a cork and risk cork taint.

Better wine comes with a screw cap because there is no risk of corkage. New Zealand makes some fantastic "new-world" whites, and NZ doesn't use corks.

Crappy wine comes in a bladder or tetrapak.

I don't much care whether it's aloe. The real question, I think, is whether the substitute product (maltodextrin) works the way aloe works, to solve the same problem aloe solves. If it does, and it's cheaper to stick in a bottle, then I'm all for it. If it doesn't, then it's a problem.

When you buy "aloe extract" in the cosmetics aisle, you're not buying it for its particular organochemical structure (unless you're planning to spread it on toast); you're buying it for the effect it has. You're looking for a chemical that supports aloe's API contract for its interaction with your own biophysiology. You're looking for, essentially, an "IAloe".

This is the problem with a lot of organic->synthetic transitions: people know the effect by the name of the organic substance that produces it, and thus, to get any mind-share, you have to market the synthetic by making it appear similar to the organic. Pure synthetic capsaicin is still marketed as "Ghost Chili oil" or similar, because people don't know or expect "capsaicin" to be spicy, but they do expect chili peppers to be.

Really, it's a miracle (of a mega-conglomerate marketing machine) that aspirin isn't just called "willow bark extract."

---

ETA: okay, apparently people are really very upset by the idea that a company "lying" about a product could be okay.

Every company that produces a product that isn't under government mandate to be a certain way, lies about everything they can get away with! That is the world we live in. 90% of products on the market are this way. You should not believe a single ingredients list if a product isn't in the FDA-regulated classes of "food" or "drugs." Most products outside of these categories don't even bother to have ingredients lists; this should tell you everything you need to know about the incentives that caused the products that do to put one on there anyway.

When I say "I'm okay with this", I mean that "I can deal with this, because I was already dealing with this in every purchasing decision I make, and this doesn't change anything." Everything on a drug-store shelf other than the actual FDA-regulated "drugs" are unadulterated bullshit that you have to comb through yourself to verify claims.

Guess what? That's the optimum! Empowering the FDA to fact-check the labelling claims of every single product would cost insane amounts of money, slow the whole economy down to the glacial FDA-approval pace of the pharmaceutical industry.

I'm okay with the world being this way, because all alternative worlds (reachable via anything less than a complete restructuring of government and maybe the human psyche) are worse.

So you're all for falsely stating that something is in the product if it's not, as long as the company thinks it's sorta the same thing? Or do you mean like generic drugs say "compare to the active ingredient in Tylenol(tm)"? I'm all for the latter, the former is just fraudulent.

See my sibling comment. Lying is a problem with drugs—that we solved by creating the FDA—because drugs contain things that can hurt people when people take them who shouldn't be taking them. We classify everything with such ingredients—"active" ingredients—as a drug. Nothing that's not a drug is allowed to have any "active" ingredients; only "generally recognized as safe" ingredients.

It would be a public health problem to lie and say that something is acetaminophen when it isn't, and would also be a problem to lie and say that something isn't acetaminophen when it really is. Both would hurt people.

Lying about whether something contains the chemical compound "aloe vera" hurts (in the literal health sense of "hurts") no single human being. Therefore, it's not illegal.

It might be bad behaviour, but so is 90% of advertising. It's not particularly worse than e.g. orange juice that says it's "made from real oranges" when it's really made from a mixture of extracts distilled from oranges.

Again, as I said in my sibling comment: the only real "simple" thing that would make this better is to disallow the non-FDA-regulated product classes (things other than "food" and "drugs") from making ingredients claims at all, since nobody's checking them anyway. That'd interact in really strange ways with product names that are simply ingredient descriptions—as in this case—but using phrasing as in your example would probably give them an out.

The issue is false advertising. It doesn't matter if it works the same (according to whatever tests that are testing for whatever criteria that I might not share) if it's not what you were advertising and what I bought.

Allowing companies to advertise X but really sell Y because "testing says they work the same" is not a good idea. Very quickly artificial tests can be created that prove anything you want.

Pyrite works the same as gold for being shiny and yellow according to my tests!

Very quickly artificial tests can be created that prove anything you want.

I've had colleagues in the past who had previously worked for a product testing lab, and the impression I got was that the lab would devise whatever test they could to tell the client whatever they wanted to hear.

This is the market abusing an assumption, that if you're paying a lab to perform a test, that the lab is providing the test or that some standard exists to compare against. But of course the lab will run whatever test you want, or they think you want, to get a repeat business customer.

People hear lab test and think FDA approvals, an episode of CSI, or getting your blood work done, but these are different types of animals, some fictional.

This isn't about substitute products, the products in question actually claimed real aloe as an ingredient.

> The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water.

Er, no, that's what I'm saying: who cares about the label. It's a cosmetic. It just needs to do what it says it does. What the cosmetic "aloe extract" 'says it does' is to do what you think of when you think of aloe. It's describing its behaviour using a metaphor, like grape-flavoured cool-aid is describing its flavour using a metaphor. Yes, it's lying, but my point is that it's fully allowed to lie and there is no inherent problem with cosmetics lying.

Remember, if something isn't a "drug" according to the FDA, then it's not allowed to contain any "active ingredients" (i.e. anything anyone in some subgroup could potentially be harmed by and thereby need to be on the lookout for on an ingredients label.) Any cosmetic product is just a miscellaneous goop of generally recognized as safe substances. That's why we don't bother to require labels on them.

Now, if you're bothered by the lying as some inherent ideology rather than a means to any particular end, then there is something you could fix here: you could get the FDA to ban non-drugs from having ingredients labels at all. A non-fact-checked label is worse than no label—so get rid of them all.

What it says it does is "contain aloe vera". It doesn't do that.

That's not a "does." That's an "is." My point was that "is" does not matter for GRAS products, for anything other than ideological reasons; only "does" matters.

Unless you've got an allergy. Or any other reason to care what chemicals go into the products you consume.

Reasons which I'm sure you're able to completely and unambiguously enumerate for all people everywhere?

Either way your distinction between "does" and "is" is fundamentally incompatible with how the world works. It's a fiction. Things are what they do, and what they do is determined by what they are.

Furthermore, you're basically stating that the problem of changing the label is (for no good reason) significantly more important to avoid than the problem of degrading the trust across your whole customer base and handling every possible ethical conundrum that could result from this confusion. And that's just plain stupidity.

If something contains any chemical that anyone can be allergic (or sensitive, or etc.) to, the FDA gets involved and issues labelling mandates. The FDA is still sort of "distantly" monitoring the non-food, non-drug product category, to make sure products don't use any chemicals that would require them to become classified as food or drugs.

Which, if you think about it, means that everything that isn't FDA-controlled is still FDA-controlled (in a vague, gets-in-trouble-after-the-fact sense) such that it won't have anything in it that would causes trouble, health-wise, for some random subset of people; anything, in other words, that would be useful to know the existence of on an ingredients label.

Think about this carefully: products that aren't FDA-regulated don't require ingredients labels. Most of those products don't have ingredients labels. (No, seriously, go look if you don't believe me! You want to know what's in your shampoo? Too bad! You think you get to at least know what the "medicinal ingredient" is in your toothpaste? Nah, they could say whatever they wanted there, that bit is just advertising!)

Thus, if someone is sensitive to some substance, and the product has that substance, it's not required to disclose that fact at all. It can, in fact, be completely silent about it, and about everything else it contains.

The world you're imagining, where people get in trouble because they have no idea what's in cosmetics that can hurt them? It's already the world we live in, and yet people aren't being rushed to hospital left and right. People are, in fact, not getting in much trouble due to cosmetics at all. Because—once you have a blacklist of chemicals people could possibly be sensitive to, and require that non-food-non-drug products don't use those chemicals—it turns out that they can get away with just throwing in whatever else, and everyone is fine.

---

P.S. I am getting the sense, here, that I'm being pursued for taking the "practical discussion on how to cope with making a sacred tradeoff" stance that seems to always get people in trouble. You know, the stance where you e.g. tell people how to better avoid sexual predators, and then get yelled at because "people shouldn't have to avoid sexual predators, we should get rid of sexual predators." There always seems to be a contextual chasm, there, between the person with that stance assuming that the point of the discussion is "how do we best cope with the world we live in", and everyone else assuming the point of the discussion is "there is an out-group and we should hate them!"

I don't have time in my life to hate on any out-groups. I'm only really here to talk about how to cope. (My whole point here was just "you don't need to be anxious about how to cope with this new problem, because it's not much of a problem at all for you personally.") Maybe HN is not for me.

You want to know what's in your shampoo? Too bad! You think you get to at least know what the "medicinal ingredient" is in your toothpaste?

A bottle of shampoo from my bathroom has this list of ingredients on it:

aqua, cocamidopropyl betaine, coco-glucoside, disodium lauryl sulfosuccinate, glycerin, panthenol, glyceryl oleate, hydrolyzed wheat protein, sodium benzoate, parfum, citric acid, denatonium benzoate, tocopherol, hydrogenated palm glycerides citrate, lecithin, ascorbyl palmitate.

A toothpaste has this list on it:

aqua, sorbitol, hydrated silica, PEG-8, xanthan gum, sodium lauryl sulfate, aroma, sodium monofluorophosphate, calcium glycerophosphate, sodium sacharin, methylparaben, propylparaben, CI 73360.

Granted, this is in EU...

Edit: a funny typo, there's bound to be more.

aqua, parfum

Nobody said the ingredients had to use their common name, or readable by ordinary humans. :)

(sodium saccharin)

Don't forget that we use a gazillion languages here. They'd have to either produce separate packaging for each country / language region or attach a brochure to each tube of toothpaste. These Latin/English-based names are the lingua franca of the ingredient lists on this kind of products specifically. I'd say it's better than having absolutely no idea if the shampoo you bought on vacation contains stuff you're allergic to.

> there is no inherent problem with cosmetics lying.

I think I get your point - that as long as the consumer cannot qualitatively perceive a difference, then there's no harm. But thats incorrect for the following reason:

What about competitor products ? Presumably this product contains no Aloe because its cheaper not to. But what if XYZ corp wants to make real Aloe lotion ? Their product will cost more, but to the consumer the two will look the same. XYZ will lose money to their competition's lies, which is an undeniable consequence.

That's not a harm, that's a benefit. That's the market driving all the competitor-producers toward the cheapest way to make something that still satisfies people's needs.

I mean, I see what you're going for there; the other competitor should have a way to differentiate themselves for the top of the market who want real aloe and are willing to pay more to get it (even if it does do the same thing; irrational rich people are a good market.)

But this is already a solved problem, I think. Look at orange juice. "Made from real oranges!" is on the label precisely because the other one is allowed to say "made from oranges" when it's made from orange concentrate. But even then, the one "made from real oranges" is made from a mix of extracts piped through a factory that happens to take "real oranges" as an input at one end. Because that's still cheaper than making something out of "real oranges, made the way you'd expect."

Presumably, if there was a market you could capture by making orange juice "out of real oranges, made the way you'd expect" some company would advertise exactly that, and thus defame its competitors by implication, gaining in the process. The advertising market sorts itself out, this way.

You are going to great lengths to defend the kind of lying that you think is okay.

Which is fine as long as the effect is the same as that of defending truth.

> [lying is] not a harm, that's a benefit.

> you could capture by making orange juice "out of real oranges, made the way you'd expect"

no, you couldn't do that, because your lying competitor could write the same thing on their box of orange Tang.

If it was sold as "burn cream" I would agree 100%. But it is sold as "aloe Vera", which is false.

Tell that to jewelers with gold. Really, what is the "real difference" between gold and 75% gold?

>> This is the problem with a lot of organic->synthetic transitions: people know the effect by the name of the organic substance that produces it, and thus, to get any mind-share, you have to market the synthetic by making it appear similar to the organic.

You mean lie and say that it IS the organic - in this case. So in the world of computer products, you'd be happy with a knockoff laptop marketed with an Apple logo then? That's trademark infringement and it's illegal precisely because someone could otherwise market crap under another companies good name.

Trademark is a whole separate issue; product classes are not trademarks. (Except in the cases of "protected cultivars" of things like fruit and wine.)

But to try to use your example to make my own opinion here clear: yes, I would be happy with to receive a "knock-off" laptop with an Apple logo on it... provided it looked and functioned identically to an Apple laptop, including Apple's willingness to take it in for warranty repairs. (Tangent: such things exist! They're called "ghost shift" products, produced by the same factory-workers that produce the real ones, when nobody's looking.)

And that's what we're talking about here: chemical analogues that have the same effect on the body.

Note that this is all contingent on the idea that maltodextrin is a chemical analogue to aloe vera extract. If it isn't, then my argument here is moot.

There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are.

Start teaching honesty in universities along with "how to make money".

They do. I had to take an ethics class in college. And every business class I took had a section on ethics as well. But you learn what you want out of everything that's taught to you. I know people who got an A in biology but still reject evolution and people who have majored in environmental science but don't believe in climate change.

It's very rare that whatever you learn in school changes your consciousness. Very rare.

You mean "conscience"

My ethics class was basically "how to get away with unethical behaviour without getting in trouble." Perhaps most of them teach actual ethics?

This is just for Aloe. What's in that coconut water that you're drinking?

After taking a sip of one brand of 100% coconut water a couple of years ago, my body complained bitterly, which is how my body tells me that what I just ate/drank contains an artificial ingredient.

So now if I want to drink coconut water, I go buy the real thing itself.

> which is how my body tells me that what I just ate/drank contains an artificial ingredient

This guy is the solution to all our product testing problems!

Nope!

That guy, moi, is his own solution to product testing.

Between two identical experimenters, each having the same harmless test material, the one participating as a willing guinea pig is much more likely to realize subtle effects compared to the one that does not.

A carefully selected variety of Aloe is my only current gardening effort. The fresh gel of the living plant has benefits to the skin not possessed by lesser forms. Commercial formulations are (at the least) thousands of years less advanced than the natural plant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com