Comment by vertexFarm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vertexFarm | Hacker News Reader

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“Nothing illegal, no medical advice offered, I've always been incredibly careful about this.”

The article then goes on to name several videos with titles like "increase energy," "improve concentration and memory," "improve sleep," etc.

Are there any lawyers around who know of a legal definition for "medical advice" or "medical claims?" Because these videos sound a lot like medical advice despite his insistence that they aren't.

Youtube censorship sucks sometimes, but this guy experimenting on himself is not nearly rigorous enough to figure out what's really happening when he is taking these supplements. When a person sets out to improve themselves with drugs, test the process on themselves, and interpret and analyze those results themselves, it's a viper's pit of biases. Obviously the experimenter has a huge personal stake in the experiment (arguably the largest; his person is the experiment!) and that generally is great for motivation but bad for science.

I like playing with nootropics but I'm also relatively healthy and I can't imagine how damaging it might be for a seriously ill person who is taking advice from youtube in a desperate and futile attempt to improve their condition and survive. The ethics are pretty complex, above my pay grade for sure.

> a legal definition for "medical advice"

If you're talking about the FDA, the basic rule is that you can't claim a product treats or cures any diagnosable condition it hasn't been certified for. Claims like "improve concentration" and "improve sleep" are generally permissible, where specific statements like "helps with ADD" and "cures insomnia" are not.

Based on those video titles, I don't see anything which constitutes medical advice in the narrow sense. Someone could well have decided the overall effect was tacit medical advice, but these titles in isolation aren't clear violations.

Those are called non-functional claims and are allowed in the US.

Any time you see something non-specific like "boosts the immune system" or "increases energy" it means the product is likely worthless because those claims don't actually mean anything.

How do those claims not mean anything? They sound pretty clear to me.

Because the FDA has very specific rules as to what constitutes medical advice and what doesn't. The claim of "helps you sleep" is not medical advice and not regulated.

It's the reason so many "nutrition" companies can get away with claiming all kinds of things such as "burn fat faster". That statement means something to you and I, but it's not a medical statement.

The comment I was replying to said the claims had no meaning, not referring to the FDA.

They might be "meaningless" to actual medical professionals or people with decent knowledge of the ways that companies skirt product labelling laws. But the average layperson who might buy these products is probably neither of those things and is more likely to interpret them literally.

Because if the products actually worked they'd be allowed to claim they work for actual diagnoses (e.g. "Fixes Insomnia from dose 4" vs "Promotes sleep")

I agree with the other two replies, but I wanted to add: the claim is going to be the strongest they think they can get away with. If they’re not making specific claims about specific outcomes, that implies they know they can’t get away with it. And, if they could make those claims, it would no longer be a “supplement,” but a “drug.”

While I disagree that the titles are medical advice, I do see your point. It's funny because actually my YouTube mentor suggested use titles like that so people who didn't know what the products were could get an idea for what they were used for. I still made disclaimers in my videos.

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