This personal testimony about health supplements from winstonthorne on today’s earlier post is too good—and disturbing—to leave buried in comments:
One of my friends actually stuffs capsules for a living for a company making an herbal “sexual stimulant” – she literally sits there on her living room floor watching TV, smoking cigarettes, and talking on the phone while handling (with either bare unwashed hands or many-times-reused gloves) the powder and the capsules themselves. It pays well, and her boss gets away with this because there’s no FDA control on herbal supplements AT ALL. God only knows what’s in those pills.
“Hormone-Filled Dietary Supplement Caused Cancer In Two Men, Say Doctors”
(Photo: Getty)
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Anytime there is someone who wants to pay for something, there will be sleezbag’s looking to scam them. Seems to be the way the world works.
And this occurs with prescription drugs also. I think 60 minutes did a story a while back on somebody running an operation down in Costa Rica who was making wholesale drugs in what passes for a house (read shack) there. The drugs all looked real and had the correct packaging but not the real ingredients.
Here’s a story I found quickly:
[www.cbsnews.com]
I’d imagine that a good deal of the stuff manufactured and packaged in places like China, if truly analyzed, might not be up to specs.
@Chaosium: “There a reason why modern hospitals in China practice Western evidence-based medicine.”
Uh, no, just the hospitals that happen to cater to Westerners (and they botch it too- an IV drip for a cold?). Been through a modern Chinese hospital, came out of it just fine and without Western medicine.
But hey, plural of anecdotes is not data and all that.
@loganmo:
Honestly, so long as it wasn’t toxic, it really wouldn’t make any difference. It’s a placebo, doesn’t matter what’s in it.
Put me in the “I’ll take this job” category. Seriously.
@jamar0303: Yeah, but I’ll take my anecdotal evidence (the fact that my knee doesn’t feel like crap anymore) over the multiple doctors that couldn’t fix me. Out of curiosity, did they give you needles or herbs?
From what I understand, a fair amount of hospitals in China practice both Western and traditional medicine. I’ve never experienced it for myself (But I will before I die, dang it.), so I could be wrong. The balance is quite unique and intriguing.
This “article” should be removed. It is from an unverified source and may be inaccurate if not completely false. The original article is informative and important, this use of a comment as information is irresponsible.
I take suppliments and have a empty capsules that I stuff to save money. It takes a lot of time, its a pain in the butt, and after doing it for a while I decided only to do it on the most expensive suppliments.
I looked for automated pill “stuffers”, but found those machines start at $10K and go up.
Please explain to me how any suppliment distributor can “pay well” for people to hand stuff suppliments instead of buying a machine? Using an automated process is more efficient ( you don’t under stuff or over stuff pills – margin is smaller), you don’t have waste or theft, it can be done 10X to 1000x faster, you have a 1 time sunk cost for the equipment and ongoing expense for one operator vs. recurring expense for multiple stuffers, mailing costs ( to ship out materials and get finished prodcuts).
I call B.S. on this “story”. Get some facts, until them take this down.
Just another example of the FDA’s incompetence and unwillingness to put our safety first. It’s never a good thing to try those supplements anyway, because most people who take herbal supplements never tell their doctors about it and their other medications end up being ineffective and causing other reactions.