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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

I once read an inspiring post from a european user who explained why these companies generally succeed. Namely, that formal treatment and healthcare for the underlying condition targeted by the "wellness" product is prohibitively expensive for American customers, and so snakeoil thrives in the absence of legitimate medical science.

you could literally bankrupt these companies in less than a fortnight with single payer healthcare.

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>you could literally bankrupt these companies in less than a fortnight with single payer healthcare.

You'd certainly rob them of people who have legitimate and treatable complaints. But that does nothing to eliminate the people who think they're smarter than their doctors or don't trust them which ranges from Steve Jobs to ivermectin users. There are always those who view themselves outside the system, don't trust it, or simply don't want to accept their diagnosis and/or treatment.

Anecdotally I have a sister who was biopsied for cancer twenty+ years ago, and the result was negative. She's been telling people she has (not had) cancer ever since. With her it could just be a play for sympathy, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her buying anything that purported to "cure cancer", regardless of what any doctor tells her.

A large part of the problem is that dietary supplements in the US are basically exempt from truth-in-advertising laws:

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

I'm not sure I agree. For pretty much any supplement you want, you can find a good vendor that declares exactly what it is and provides third-party testing to confirm.

If we get specific to the sort of combos like what are sold on Infowars, then yes that's a problem, especially that they can hide behind "proprietary formula" without having to disclose exactly what it is. But the supplement market is way bigger than just that

Stating accurately what's in it is not the same as it doing something beneficial when ingested.

Of course it's not. I don't see that I made any such claim. I'm not seeing where the complaint is defined anywhere above, so we may be talking about completely different things. GP specifically said that the current law is what has caused this problem, and I dispute that. I think there's more to it than that. That doesn't mean the law is perfect, but it doesn't mean it's completely responsible either.

The whole point of a "supplement" is that it's something you can normally get from diet and foods which are already available. If you create some new thing, under the current system you can't just call it a supplement and sell whatever it is, let alone sell it while making medical claims about it. If I buy a head of broccoli at the grocery store, should that need a label on it that describes health benefits when ingested, and this must be approved by the FDA? Or should it be enough that they're selling "broccoli" and it really is "broccoli"?

Also pretty much every supplement I've ever bought has text on the label like "These statements have not been reviewed/approved by the FDA," so there's a chunk of people

> Also pretty much every supplement I've ever bought has text on the label like "These statements have not been reviewed/approved by the FDA,"

And this is exactly what was meant when it was said supplements are essentially exempt from truth in advertising laws. They can and do regularly make health claims with little to no evidence to back them up.

American media as a whole is exempt from truth, quite literally. In Canada, you cannot knowingly lie on air. It's illegal. Why do you think we don't have FOX

>Canadian media isn't allowed to lie

I dunno, check out the Y axis on this chart the CBC posted: https://media.assettype.com/westernstandard%2Fimport%2Fweste...

Got any numbers on US sales for these sorts of products vs. in the EU or elsewhere? I spent two years in the Czech Republic and Czechs seemed just as likely to believe in all sorts of woo as Americans. In fact the irreligiousity of Czechs seemed to make them more likely to believe in new age mumbo jumbo (while Americans seem more likely to favor sketchy faith-based alternative healing methods, at least if they're religious).

Herbalife operates in the EU. I don't think the EU is some magical land free of morons, it's just marketed differently.

> Namely, that formal treatment and healthcare for the underlying condition targeted by the "wellness" product is prohibitively expensive for American customers, and so snakeoil thrives in the absence of legitimate medical science.

The issue with that explanation is that plenty of Americans who have health insurance still buy lots of that snake oil.

A great number of the ailments that afflict Americans are related to practically inescapable aspects of our built environment: sedentarism, cheap and high sugar/salt processed foods, car-bound living environments. Those things are hard to change, and there is a ton of resistance to change because those things are very comfortable/convenient in the short term.

Science-based medicine itself struggles to treat these environment/lifestyle induced conditions. While single payer healthcare would help, it can't on its own fix the structural problems with how we live.

This, coupled with superstitious and/or pseudo-scientific beliefs and entertainment being part of American culture, results in many people putting stock in shortcut "solutions".

The Goop demographic can absolutely afford healthcare. People just prefer to throw money at their problems.

As opposed to the massive Homeopathy industry in Germany? I think the overall healthcare industry plays a part but I would bet that this is more of a human problem and less of an "american healthcare system is bad" issue. Germany has a massive homeopathic industry including brick and mortar stores, you could go to Asia and look at traditional chinese medicine. People love the idea of easy fixes where you can drink something or apply a herbal cream and your problems go away.

Xi Jinping wants to promote TCM as superior Chinese tech (saving your lives using tech that's worked for millennia!), their doctors were even giving out TCM to fight Covid: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/04/asia/china-tcm-approved-c... (ah, but the Emperor is wearing the most magnificent garment!), I can imagine the CCP funding TCM practicioners all over the world (like the Thai government with Thai restaurants)...

Ah, the irrationality of humans strike again.

On homeopathy, I will say that when my mother in law's cancer got to the point where no more treatment was possible, she went home and diligently took her homeopathic "medicine" sent by her German health insurance. At first I thought it was 100% nonsense, but I realized it gave her a sense of agency over her situation, which was good for her (until she got too sick to do anything for herself). So only 98% nonsense.

German health insurance does not send out any medication, it also will not pay for homeopathic medicine anymore, but that's very recent and is not yet finalized

This was around 2004, but I should have said "paid for". Also the Diakonie came by twice a day to change her dressings, make sure she was fed, etc. SHe didn't have two pfennigs to rub together and the system made things go about as well as they could. Here in the US it seems barbaric by comparison.

What? The homeopathic market in Germany is not what I would call big, it's well below 1% of the medical budget from all numbers I can find

I saw numbers that its a over a billion dollar industry. Lots of homeopathic practicioners and from my sample size of news articles, seems to be a hot topic in recent German history. Perhaps "massive" creates too much of a spin, my only point was that alternative medicines and pseudoscience exists out of the America and its not accurate to paint it as an American problem.

This is the kind of “I’m 14 and this is deep” thing that gets passed all over Reddit or twitter, because it sounds good and aligns with political dogma. But doesn’t make sense if you actually think about it, at all.

Why doesn't it make sense?

Is it a lack of access or a lack of faith in "big pharma" and the bureaucratic medical industry? If a large part of the motivation is a distrust institutionalized medicine, then trying to use this as justification for government run healthcare isn't going to win you any additional support.

Not saying these "wellness" treatments are legitimate, but your response has the smell of a beltway elitist pretending to represent the interests of the scammed without understanding their motivations or views.

This is such a bad and wrong Americentric take. Folk cures and medicine absolutely still exist in other countries, even ones with better QOL than us (see Japan). And pseudoscience like homeopathy is actively thriving in Europe.

The only difference is the FDA doesn't have the prerogative to regulate supplement manufacturers whereas in places like the EU counterparts (generally) regulate any product that tries to make medical claims.

Any examples of such underlying conditions?

this is just the general european disdain for america masked as an intellectual analysis

There is an unbelievable amount of medical quacks in germany, respected and supported by insurance companies[1].

[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilpraktiker

That's the kind of thing that sounds very good and logical and is also completely wrong.

> that formal treatment and healthcare for the underlying condition targeted by the "wellness" product is prohibitively expensive for American customers

This just isn't true. The vast majority of Americans are either covered by pretty decent employer-subsidized healthcare plans OR are poor enough to receive all of their medical care for free.

These companies thrive because many people have a (reasonable) distrust of big pharma.

I agree that single payer healthcare would pry be more efficient, but other than allowing pharma companies to advertise, our system really isn't that bad. We lead in almost every area of medical research, the standard of care is quite high, wait times are low and we have some of the best outcomes in the world.

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