Comment by derleth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by derleth | Hacker News Reader

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> if the FDA could prevent people from selling harmless food items

No. Supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding.

> But not just actually dangerous supplements, but potentially dangerous supplements too.

Well, yes. Or else you're fraudulently using your customers as test subjects. People get angry enough when video game companies do that.

> This would effectively outlaw the sale dietary supplements

Why would this be a bad thing?

> What's so bad about the status quo, anyhow?

Massive amounts of fraud.

> The author gives a few examples, but almost without exception they are issues which are already solved. That scary story about the NJ factory? Yeah, that's actually ALREADY ILLEGAL. The owners WENT TO JAIL. After being discovered by FDA inspectors, who ALREADY have the power to inspect factories.

Interesting how nobody's found half a rat in a factory that makes actual drugs, as opposed to "officially-not-a-drug" supplements.

We need to raise the standards to make the bad things less common. Getting supplement makers up to the standards drug makers are would be good.

> If that's a reason to effectively destroy the industry, then god only knows what we should do poultry farmers after the various salmonella outbreaks over the years. Shoot them, I guess?

No, just raise the bar. Same as here.

> And finally, to cap the entire piece...the author complains about the FDA not doing a good job of enforcing existing regulations. Which is...an argument for giving them more regulations to enforce. Uh....what?

More and better regulations and more funding, yes.

> Where I come from, serious failure on someone's part is not a good argument for increasing their role and responsibilities.

So, given the failures of the free market to put fraudulent supplement makers out of business, why would we trust it to do so in the future?

> Interesting how nobody's found half a rat in a factory that makes actual drugs, as opposed to "officially-not-a-drug" supplements.

Heh. You don't quite seem to be getting the argument. Supplements are officially food, and we find pieces of rats in food all the damn time. (Also bits of metal, glass, human body parts, bugs, and every other crazy damn thing you can imagine.) (Related: Food is potentially dangerous, but it's not tested. Again, what makes a vitamin C pill need clinical trials, but food not? Keep in mind, modern "food" is often just the product of a test tube, while many supplements are just lightly processed food (fish oil, for example). What's the difference?)

What you need to do is figure out why it's a huge, huge, problem for their to be half a rat ground up in Joe Slob's dietary supplements, but just one of those things for there to be a some rat in his hamburger bun.

So far, your argument for why supplements should be treated differently than food seems to consist entirely of "supplements are not food, legalistic tricks notwithstanding." That's...probably not going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. If that's a goal of yours, you might want to rethink.

(Also: You keep saying "fraud", but fraud is already a crime. Is it your argument that supplement makers aren't being prosecuted due to some massive far-reaching conspiracy at every level of the government? Or when you say fraud do you have some special definition of the word different than everyone else? Just curious!)

> > This would effectively outlaw the sale dietary supplements

> Why would this be a bad thing?

Because people who wish to consume dietary supplements would only be able to obtain them via black markets which would likely expose them to more, not less, potential danger.

But fewer people total would consume them, leading to less damage being done overall.

History disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...

There was and is a major cultural demand for alcohol that just isn't there for supplements.

This is apparently not the case, since a large number of people continue to purchase and consume supplements, and if the article is to be believed, this has resulted in providing the producers of those supplements with sufficient resources to successfully prevent their market from being suppressed by political activity, a feat which even the alcohol industry was unable to accomplish in 1919.

The 'damage' described in the article is the result of mis-labeled products being sold to unwary consumers, not of properly-informed consumers experiencing negative consequences of risk judgments that they've intentionally chosen to make. This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting, in which the protections of law are unavailable, than it is to occur in an open and above-board market, in which participants have recourse against such fraud.

Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use, and it's entirely plausible that the 'overall' reduction in benefit may exceed the 'overall' reduction in harm, so even if we were to use your purely utilitarian criterion as our only decision-making guide, such a policy might still be unjustified.

> This kind of damage is more likely to occur in a black market setting

But less of it, since making it illegal would greatly reduce demand. Unless you can come up with a reason why supplements are similar enough to illegal drugs it wouldn't.

> Consider also that suppressing supplements entirely also equally suppresses the benefit that consumers may enjoy from their use

Empirically, that is a very minor concern, if it is one at all.

> But less of it, since making it illegal would greatly reduce demand

It would reduce the expression of demand, certainly, but not the actual desires of individuals that produced that expression; or to put it another way, will reduce the fulfillment of demand while the underlying unfulfilled demand still exists. This yields a net reduction in total happiness, which is counter to your apparent utilitarian ethos.

> Empirically, that is a very minor concern, if it is one at all.

Empirically? What does assessment of subjective value have to do with empirical data, apart from recognizing that individuals' subjective value empirically exists and is the source of demand?

Apart from that, apart from your apparent utilitarianism - the criteria of which remain yet unsatisfied in this discussion - what's the moral basis your assertion that forcibly denying the extant happiness of many is justifiable in order to reduce the potential unhappiness of few, especially considering that the former is not strictly necessary in order to achieve the latter, and that forcing a single uniform policy indiscriminately upon all is merely a contrivance of convenience?

My moral basis is preventing fraud and punishing people who commit fraud.

> forcing a single uniform policy indiscriminately upon all is merely a contrivance of convenience

No. If you want to claim to promote health, your products need to be shown to promote health. Supplement makers have been able to get around that very basic moral law using loopholes and bought-off politicians. I want an end to that.

> My moral basis is preventing fraud and punishing people who commit fraud.

You appear to be going far beyond dealing with fraud, and instead wish to suppress activity that's being undertaken without any deceit.

> If you want to claim to promote health, your products need to be shown to promote health.

That's fine. Note, of course, that the vast majority of supplement products contain explicit disclaimers on their labels (e.g. "These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA" and "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease") that make allegations of actual fraud quite spurious. And, of course, actual fraud of the kind described in the article - e.g. selling a bottle labeled "Vitamin C" that contains no actual vitamin C - is entirely illegal with or without FDA intervention.

However, if I want to purchase a bottle of foo, honestly labeled as "foo" without making any unsustainable promises, and use the contents of that bottle based upon my own understanding of the properties of "foo", that's entirely my prerogative, and it's entirely my right to assume whatever risks the use of foo entails.

(Of course, there is the issue of defining exactly what it actually means to "promote health".)

> You appear to be going far beyond dealing with fraud, and instead wish to suppress activity that's being undertaken without any deceit.

'Deceit' does not start and end with the technical definition of fraud.

> Note, of course, that the vast majority of supplement products contain explicit disclaimers on their labels

They shout their ads and whisper their disclaimers. Why should we ignore their shouting?

> However, if I want to purchase a bottle of foo, honestly labeled as "foo" without making any unsustainable promises, and use the contents of that bottle based upon my own understanding of the properties of "foo", that's entirely my prerogative, and it's entirely my right to assume whatever risks the use of foo entails.

Why should you be able to sell something that you lead others to believe is good for them when it isn't?

Selling dandelions by marketing them as pretty flowers is fine. Selling them by marketing them as wine making material is also fine, as you can, in fact, make wine out of dandelions. Selling them by claiming dandelion wine is good for what ails you is lying. Can you honestly not see that last step?

> 'Deceit' does not start and end with the technical definition of fraud.

No, but fraud does start and end within the definition of 'deceit'.

> They shout their ads and whisper their disclaimers. Why should we ignore their shouting?

I've not personally seen ads for supplements of the kind you're describing, but if they* were* advertising features that weren't actually available in the products, that is, at minimum, a bait-and-switch ad, which is already a fraudulent practice.

> Why should you be able to sell something that you lead others to believe is good for them when it isn't?

Whether it is or isn't "good for them" is, of course, determined by them - we're in the realm of value judgments here - and while it's entirely unethical and already illegal to sell someone a product on the basis of fraudulent information, selling a product with an explicit disclaimer that states that the product has not been empirically proven to fulfill any health claims made about it is perfectly legitimate.

Selling dandelions in a box marked "dandelions" without making any unprovable claims is always perfectly OK; selling dandelions as a cure for cancer is already a fraudulent activity punishable by law.

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