US trade group the Natural Products Association (NPA) has hit back at the authors of a New York Times opinion column that appeared to link regulated supplements products with dangerous, untested treatments for Covid-19.
The article, co-authored by four specialists in disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, takes aim at the purveyors of the “increasing number of sham products and nonsense regimens emerging as Covid-19 treatments”.
The authors say that these “snake oil therapies” are part of a long history of sham medicines dating to the 1800s, and the lucrative ‘patent medicine’ industry that took off later in the Century. It took the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 to signal the end of this dubious industry, they add.
The four co-authors then seem to suggest that the modern dietary supplements industry is the direct heir to these 19th Century fraudsters.
They write: “Even now though, products labeled dietary supplements skirt the FDA’s drug regulations by claiming to be food, and therefore not requiring FDA approval to be sold. It is the company’s responsibility to make sure its products are safe and that any claims are true, not the FDA’s. Everyone should be very wary of dietary supplement health claims, particularly those claims of miraculous immunity from viral threats”.
The article then flows seamlessly into a short summary of a plot line from the movie Contagion, before issuing a series of warnings about manifestly dangerous ‘treatments’ for Covid-19 circulating on social media (including drinking the aquarium cleaner chloroquine phosphate and using cocaine).
Replying to the NYT article article, Daniel Fabricant, the NPA president and CEO, said: “We all agree that drinking aquarium cleaner is never a good idea (Covid-19 Has Closed Stores, but Snake Oil Is Still for Sale, New York Times, 3/31/20), and if a product sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. There is no such thing as a magic pill and consumers should steer clear of any product being marketed as a nutritional supplement that says it will prevent, treat, or cure coronavirus or any other illness.
“As the former top regulator at the FDA overseeing natural products and nutritional supplements, I put people in jail who peddled dangerous products to consumers”
“Unlike the miracle cure in the fictitious movie Contagion information about how nutritional supplements are regulated can in fact be found on a government website. Consumers who are concerned about a statement made on a product label can report it to the FDA, and if a claim sounds false or unbelievable, or claims to treat or cure a disease, consumers can tell the FTC.
“There are strict laws in place to punish charlatans who try to use this crisis to take advantage of people. As the former top regulator at the FDA overseeing natural products and nutritional supplements, I put people in jail who peddled dangerous products to consumers. And as the CEO of the largest trade association for the natural products industry, I have worked with authorities in recent weeks to stop the spread of misinformation related to bogus treatments for COVID-19.”