[HN Gopher] Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements w...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared
ingredients
Author : mkmk
Score : 424 points
Date : 2023-12-28 15:07 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fda.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fda.gov)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm glad the conclusion says the products lists are not the only
| ones to which this letter applies. Otherwise Amazon could just
| remove the products mentioned and make the FDA play wack-a-mole.
|
| As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory
| agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill
| people and it is impossible for the average person to protect
| themselves.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The FDA likely needs a data team if they don't have one already
| to monitor Amazon for ongoing compliance. Similar to the SEC's
| data team that monitors capital market data flows for anomalies
| that would indicate illegal behavior.
|
| My two cents: good market to be looking for good data folks who
| might want a (potentially remote) federal agency data job with
| shakiness in tech.
|
| https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-science/
| bilbo0s wrote:
| If you've ever been with a startup that needed a 510k, you'd
| know that the FDA regularly monitors everyone for compliance.
| At least in my narrow domain of medical imaging and treatment
| planning devices they do. I'd be surprised if they didn't
| have similar mechanisms in place in every area of their
| 'jurisdiction'.
|
| It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just
| distributors. Doesn't really even hurt me. If RTP is a part
| of my software product I _should_ be under a microscope. It
| 's going to be small people who try to market supplements who
| will get trounced now. Because every report will, by law,
| have to include the source of the product. And that source
| company or individual is in for a long year. Even shutting
| down won't end their legal obligations in a lot of cases.
|
| On the other hand, that was, in part, the original point of
| the FDA. To stamp out the snake oil salesmen. So, yeah. I
| guess they're just carrying out that mandate in new and
| updated ways.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I am not unsympathetic to the disparity you mention, but am
| advocating that distributor gorillas (like Amazon, but
| others as well) need strong controls (both regulatory and
| technical) due to their incentives to not be compliant and
| the potential negative outcomes (illness, perhaps death
| even, depending on material and consumer) from non
| compliance.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| Absolutely. And Amazon should also pay for it!
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just
| distributors.
|
| I'm doing my first FDA-monitored automation project at a
| local brewery, and am quickly becoming familiar with the
| abundant controls that the FDA puts on domestic producers.
|
| But the FDA is an American organization. Amazon or Ebay or
| Aliexpress or whoever may be just distributors, but they're
| international distributors. They're _fully-automated_ self-
| service distributors for manufacturers in China and Russia
| and Indonesia and India who aren 't subject to FDA
| jurisdiction, who sometimes aren't subject to any oversight
| at all.
|
| The only entity that the FDA can go after here is Amazon,
| so this should hurt Amazon.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| The FCC should be going after them too. A lot of the
| wireless stuff they sell isn't registered.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Yes, the FCC should be going after Amazon as well. I have
| more experience with that as an electrical engineer who's
| just getting into FDA-adjacent work.
|
| But the FCC's position is that if I as an electrical
| engineer want to sell my neighbor here in the US some
| custom PCB with an antenna, I need to go through testing
| that costs many thousands of dollars.
|
| If an EE in Shenzhen wants to sell my neighbor the same
| PCB over Alibaba, Aliexpress, Banggood, Wish, Temu,
| Shein, Gearbest, or whatever new discount importer is hot
| I can't keep up anymore, or
| Ebay/Amazon/Target/Walmart.com, they're just going to
| create a listing and import it. The FCC simply cannot
| keep up.
|
| What I don't understand is how they're getting through
| Customs and Border Patrol. If I want to ship a spare off-
| the-shelf PLC digital input card for a machine to one of
| my customers who has a satellite facility in Mexico,
| there's a 50% chance it gets held up for a month or more.
| Meanwhile these big distributors have no issues with air-
| freight shipments of a GPS jammer or raw testosterone
| direct to American doorsteps in 3 days.
| pfisherman wrote:
| They do not for supplements. Supplements fall under the
| office of the Director, which is not funded by PDUFA /
| MDUFA. Supplements are basically the Wild West.
| jacurtis wrote:
| As someone who worked at a startup that grew to a
| significant size in the "Nutraceuticals" industry (the
| fancy name for supplements), I can tell you that the FDA
| has nearly zero regulation or monitoring of supplements.
|
| I'll omit brand names here, but I can tell you some sketchy
| stuff happens in supplement manufacturing all the time.
| During the ~6 years I worked there, only one letter came
| from the FDA after a whistleblower at a competitor's
| company came forward. The FDA sent a warning letter out to
| several of the large competitors in the industry to "don't
| do it or else" and never followed up again. The company
| that got in trouble got a few hundred thousand dollar fine
| for using mislabeled and toxic ingredients. They had one
| follow up inspection about 6 months after the warning and
| that was the end of it. For comparison that company was
| making ~$600M a year at the time of the fine and is now
| making $1B+. We carried on and never heard from the FDA
| again despite being equally guilty in our own company.
|
| The guilt is what eventually led me away from the cash cow,
| where I went on an 18 month sabbatical to get away from any
| corporate greed for a little bit. I legitimately had
| nightmares that I would be complicity guilty of several
| crimes if I stayed there long enough.
|
| I promise you, there is no oversight in supplements. There
| are a handful of posted guidelines. If a whistleblower
| comes forward the FDA might react to that single case, but
| they are so understaffed; the team that manages
| nutriceuticals is marked in the "tens" of people, not the
| thousands dedicated to proper medical equipment and
| medicines.
| thfuran wrote:
| It seems like a bizarre gap between food and drugs that
| shouldn't exist. If it's meant to be eaten, the FDA
| should definitely be regulating it thoroughly.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The FDA still requires supplements to follow safety
| standards and be properly labeled, but you do not need
| approval to make them.
| dataflow wrote:
| > It seems like a bizarre gap between food and drugs that
| shouldn't exist. If it's meant to be eaten, the FDA
| should definitely be regulating it thoroughly.
|
| The FDA _did_ try regulating supplements. They were
| legally prohibited from doing much.
|
| You can thank Senator Orrin Hatch (who was the longest-
| serving Republican senator in history until recently) for
| preventing the FDA from regulating supplements back in
| 1994. [1] [2]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIT5_SMIaHE&t=6m46s
| (watch a few minutes of it from here)
|
| Edit: Posted it here for those interested:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38797162
|
| [2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-
| bill/784
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| > Because every report will, by law, have to include the
| source of the product.
|
| I don't think it's an undue burden that if you're going to
| sell things people are ingesting, you have to know and
| communicate where they came from.
|
| And I feel like small people that try to market supplements
| won't be especially damaged by this. It feels like as much
| as anything this would "hurt" small people that try to
| start a supplement manufacturing cottage-venture on a shoe
| string, over which I don't expect to lose any sleep.
| altairprime wrote:
| If Amazon fails to comply with the auditing requirements
| imposed by law, their entire retail shipping business could
| be closed by the US federal government. The FDA need only
| prove that Amazon has a pattern of negligence in their
| product auditing duties under law, in order to impose severe
| penalties, up to and including shuttering Amazon FBA. The FDA
| is not required to perform inventory assessments as a free
| service for Amazon in order to reach that final outcome. This
| letter is the first, necessary, step towards doing so.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I assume it's still a move with lots of politicking
| involved, so they need to stand on solid grounds, proof and
| all, I don't think they would every take lightly closing
| down vone of the biggest companies of the country (and the
| world).
|
| If it ever happened, I can already see the endless coverage
| by Sean Hannity and similar about how it's governmental
| overreach that risks destroying an important US company
| with X thousands employees...
|
| However, I don't think it will ever happen, in the end it's
| one of the richest men, Jeff Bezos behind Amazon with
| significant influence on news reporting, who seems to be on
| good terms with both the Republicans and Democrats, and the
| regulatory agencies in the US just didn't show a pattern of
| going too hard against US companies.
| altairprime wrote:
| I definitely don't have a well-formed opinion on how
| _likely_ such an outcome is, but I absolutely believe
| that discussing that outcome as a serious concern is
| _necessary_ discussion to have.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I'm certainly in favor of these regulations that require
| supplements and food products to accurately list ingredients.
| I'm also in favor of the FDA coming down hard on violators.
|
| But it seems perfectly reasonable that law enforcement should
| have to play whack a mole. That's kind and of how it works with
| innocent until proven guilty. I'm not a fan of the whole "you
| enforce it for us or we come after you" approach. In reality
| what it means is that gate keepers like Amazon have to put in
| place policies that are much more strict than the actual rules
| in order to avoid even a chance of getting hit. Agencies like
| the FDA know this and use it as a way to put in place de facto
| policies that are much stricter than they could legislate.
| werico wrote:
| I totally get where you're coming from, but the problem with
| enforcement-by-whack-a-mole is that some crimes are very
| cheap and easy to carry out and very difficult to detect and
| prosecute. The asymmetry means criminals are incentivized to
| commit those crimes, and can even become fantastically
| wealthy by doing so. If there isn't an offsetting risk for
| them (or control), then they're going to do it. Some of those
| crimes can ruin victims' lives, and in some cases (like this)
| people can die. We simply can't afford to use no other
| enforcement strategies.
|
| A good example of where we threw out the upfront controls was
| COVID relief money, and that was a disaster in terms of
| fraud. (Admittedly a purely government program, but the same
| principle applies.)
| bumby wrote:
| I think it's a distinction in risk philosophy. The whack-a-
| mole approach is "continue until we find you unsafe" while
| the other approach is "don't start until you prove you're
| safe". I think both approaches can be reasonable depending on
| the level of risk. When it comes to supplements tainted with
| unlisted ingredients that can have harmful or deadly effects
| for consumers, I personally think the latter is the better
| approach.
| fallingknife wrote:
| But the risk level is very low. The stats I see show less
| than 20 hospitalizations and 2 deaths per year due to bad
| supplements. https://time.com/5602125/dietary-supplements-
| kids/
| bumby wrote:
| That article is just a subset of the overall data because
| it only focuses on those under the age of 25. [1]
| suggests there are almost 25,000 ER visits and over 2,100
| hospitalizations per year due to supplements (although
| adverse reactions don't necessarily mean tainted or
| poorly controlled dosage).
|
| [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1504267
| hammock wrote:
| How many of those are due to unknown, unlabeled risks?
|
| I'm willing to be that there are far more than 25,000 ER
| visits a year due to OTC drugs.
|
| Sometimes the risks are labeled. Other times they aren't.
| And still other times people just didn't follow the
| labeled directions.
|
| You can't assume that every supplement ER visit was
| because of off-label ingredients or what FDA is saying
| here. That's too far of a leap.
| bumby wrote:
| > _You can't assume that every supplement ER visit was
| because of off-label ingredients_
|
| I already acknowledged this in the previous post.
|
| However, if you look at the rates of tainted supplements
| it probably isn't a leap to assume a fair number can be
| attributed to unlisted ingredients. Some studies show
| contamination rates of nearly 60%. Again, I think the
| mitigation should be proportional to the risk. We might
| be about to debate what the acceptable threshold is (and
| I think most would agree it's lower than the current data
| suggests) but I don't think accuracy in labels is too big
| of an ask.
| hammock wrote:
| >Some studies show contamination rates of nearly 60%.
|
| And what % of "contamination" is dangerous ingredients
| (when directions are followed) vs harmless? You can't
| assume that every contaminated supplement is dangerous.
| Fraudulent, maybe. Mislabeled, yes.
| bumby wrote:
| Those rates are from prohibited substances. Meaning there
| is the possibility a strong enough effect to be
| concerning (otherwise they wouldn't be prohibited as a
| PED), but you're correct that dosage matters too. But I
| already addressed that in the first post. Regardless,
| there is a truth in labeling standard that many believe
| should extend to supplements. I'm probably in that camp.
| If you're not, I'd be interesting in hearing why.
| callalex wrote:
| Innocent until proven guilty only applies to individual
| people, not corporate entities.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Incorrect, innocent until proven guilty applies generally
| (but, as "guilty" applies specifically to criminal law,
| only there, but to juridical persons as well as natural
| ones; but the concept is not far removed from that of due
| process, which applies even outside of criminal law.)
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _the concept is not far removed from that of due
| process, which applies even outside of criminal law_
|
| Spot on. How much process is "due" is largely a function
| of the potential downside consequences of a mistake by
| the authorities.
|
| _Examples_ (from U.S. law):
|
| * A police officer can briefly stop you on the street to
| ask a question such as "did you see what happened?"
| pretty much at will.
|
| * To detain you or search your person or property, the
| officer (with some exceptions) needs probable cause, in
| most cases confirmed by a neutral, independent judicial
| authority (that's the warrant requirement).
|
| * To imprison you or fine you, the government must
| affirmatively establish your guilt beyond a reasonable
| doubt, to a neutral jury of your peers, using evidence
| that meets established legal standards of reliability.
|
| * In all civil cases, a claimant seeking damages must put
| on admissible evidence affirmatively showing facts that
| legally entitle the claimant to the requested relief.
|
| * In certain grave civil matters, such as claims of
| fraud, the claimant must prove the claim by clear and
| convincing evidence, the highest standard of proof in
| civil law. (The usual standard in civil cases is
| "preponderance of the evidence," i.e., more likely than
| not.)
|
| * In some cases, the testimony of witnesses "having an
| interest" (e.g., an agenda to advance, an axe to grind, a
| score to settle) must be supported by corroborating
| evidence because the law recognizes that such witnesses
| can sometimes be, ahem, unreliable.
|
| _Usual caution to readers: IAAL but not_ your _lawyer._
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Frankly, it is absolutely ludicrous to limit the FDA to
| telling Amazon to remove a product _by name_ and then having
| to do that again each time someone resells the same product
| under a different name.
|
| In this case the FDA is saying everything that includes
| regulated medications in non-regulated products must be
| addressed.
|
| Seems reasonable to me. If a company completely ignores
| regulation, the FDA should have to power to enforce its own
| regulations.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| I searched for all products mentioned in the letter - they are
| all gone. Amazon is quick to react to such public letters to
| pretend that they are a responsible company.
|
| Saying that, the search returns hundreds of other supplements
| in the same category, with similar nonsensical names. They are
| certainly attempting to play wack-a-mole.
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| I think the speed to remove the noted items isn't suspect;
| it's what I would expect a responsible company to do in this
| scenario.
|
| However, I am curious to see how Amazon handles the other
| drugs. Seems like pausing the sale of the entire category is
| the right call
| 1920musicman wrote:
| The category these supplements were listed under is "Sports
| Nutrition Endurance & Energy Products" with some legitimate
| products listed under it. I doubt Amazon would delist the
| entire category. But also, something tells me that sellers
| would just list products under a different category without
| any meaningful consequences.
|
| E.g. these or similar tainted supplements could be listed
| under "Health, Household, and Body Care" (a very broad
| category that already has products like "stripfast5000 Fire
| Bullet Capsules with K-CYTRO for Women and Men" listed
| under it), etc.
| treprinum wrote:
| Amazon bans all sellers that ever attempt to sell/list
| anything Amazon bans even if the ban was not made public
| (unless they pay their "consultants" closely connected to
| managers to unban them of course).
| stickfigure wrote:
| Genuine question: What level of scrutiny do you think Amazon
| should provide here? In vaguely increasing level of
| detail/effort, it could be...
|
| * Checking the published label of items for illicit content
|
| * Checking the contents of one bottle for undeclared
| ingredients
|
| * Checking the contents of all bottles for undeclared
| ingredients
|
| * Checking the contents of all pills in all bottles for
| undeclared ingredients
|
| ...etc. I guess what I'm wondering is, what course of action do
| you think is reasonable for Amazon to take here? It's easy to
| say "don't allow this to happen"; I'm curious about what that
| actually translates to in practice.
| Baldbvrhunter wrote:
| It is an interesting question.
|
| How much cocaine goes via Amazon?
|
| Or ephedrine, or ecstasy... Etc
| giarc wrote:
| GNC (and likely other online supplement stores) have an
| online presence and likely has some QA for the products they
| sell. Amazon just insists on having 1,000,000+ listings for
| supplements rather than a more curated list. Perhaps some
| categories shouldn't have endless list of products.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The only QA in the "supplement" and "vitamin" business I
| know of is USP:
|
| https://www.quality-supplements.org
|
| Although, I have no clue if USP simply rubber stamps it
| once time, or if they do continuous testing of the
| products. If I were to bet, I would say they probably do
| not test often enough after initial certification.
| verall wrote:
| Supplements should probably not be sold in a marketplace
| fashion by fly-by-night distributors by a major trusted brand
| (amazon).
|
| Businesses that sell supplements should create trusted
| relationships with their suppliers to not break the rules and
| to limit their own liability.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| For products like this what you need is some entity in the
| destination jurisdiction responsible for asserting
| regulatory compliance. That doesn't necessarily have to be
| Amazon -- it wouldn't be Visa, for example -- as long as
| there is some domestic manufacturer or domestic importer
| the FDA can go after instead. And the latter is really what
| you want, because otherwise _Amazon_ has to play whack-a-
| mole as the perpetrators just create new accounts, whereas
| the government could charge them with a crime to actually
| deter them.
|
| The only reason you'd need to go after Amazon is if they're
| selling products dropshipped from another country, which
| they could avoid by simply requiring sellers of products
| meant for human consumption to have a domestic presence.
| They wouldn't even have to ship from here, just have
| somebody here who gets arrested if they break the law.
| verall wrote:
| Every brick and mortar store has to assert the safety and
| legality of everything they sell or else risk serious
| liability.
|
| From what I can tell, Amazon does not present itself as a
| farmer's or flea market, yet it tries to limit its
| liability by pretending it does. To the average consumer
| things purchased from it come "from amazon", as compared
| to ebay which makes it much more obvious you are
| purchasing from a particular person or shop.
|
| Amazon really tries to have its cake and eat it too here,
| and it sort of blows my mind that consumer product safety
| regulators haven't clamped down on this.
|
| It's really one thing to have basically anything
| available on ebay/aliexpress/others (consumer trust is
| much lower) and another to be a huge retailer (just like
| walmart) and yet to be able to sell whatever unsafe stuff
| you want (unlike walmart).
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >And the latter is really what you want, because
| otherwise Amazon has to play whack-a-mole as the
| perpetrators just create new accounts
|
| How can they just create a new account to sell
| supplements without thorough testing, vetting, control
| processes, etc. by Amazon, the business actually selling
| the stuff? If Amazon doesn't have such controls in place
| to stop people from "just creating new accounts" then
| hold Amazon liable.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > How can they just create a new account to sell
| supplements without thorough testing, vetting, control
| processes, etc. by Amazon, the business actually selling
| the stuff?
|
| Because they, not Amazon, are the business actually
| selling the stuff. Amazon is a payment processor and a
| warehouse provider.
|
| You go after the person who knew they were breaking the
| law, not their landlord or their bank or the dealership
| where they bought their car by accusing them of not
| thoroughly investigating their customers. Criminal
| investigations are the role of law enforcement, not
| private businesses.
| Animats wrote:
| > Because they, not Amazon, are the business actually
| selling the stuff. Amazon is a payment processor and a
| warehouse provider.
|
| That is legally questionable. When Amazon was losing on
| that issue in Pennsylvania higher courts, they settled to
| avoid having an on the record decision that Amazon was
| liable.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.villanovalawreview.com/post/890-oberdorf-
| v-amazo...
| blagie wrote:
| Whatever level is needed, so that if I'm buying a product
| made be Nestle, I know that it was made by Nestle.
|
| I think the policy mechanism here should be liability:
|
| * If I buy a counterfeit memory card on Amazon, and it loses
| my photos, Amazon should be liable for the cost and effort of
| those photos. If I am poisoned with bad medicine, Amazon
| should be liable for the damages.
|
| * If I spend money on 400TC cotton sheets, and get 300TC
| cotton/poly blend ones.
|
| * If I write a book, and Amazon sells pirated copies, I
| should receive damages.
|
| * If a bad medical product injures me, or doesn't have the
| intended effect, Amazon is liable (with standard astronomical
| damages)
|
| Critically:
|
| * It should be easy to extract those damages (Amazon can't
| tie me up in court or arbitration), and when this happens at
| scale, this should be class action or federal / state
| enforcement.
|
| * Damages should include reasonable costs of enforcement.
| They should also be set at a minimum at treble damages, since
| not all instances will be caught / enforced.
|
| At that point, the actuaries can do their thing on reasonable
| level of effort Amazon should put in. That may be shutting
| down all fulfilment-by-Amazon, co-mingling, and marketplace
| sellers, very different fee structures, inspections /
| enforcement, or something else. I don't know.
|
| I actually think the most likely outcome is a verified supply
| chain, where Nestle (or any other manufacturer) sends to
| Amazon and Amazon to me with no middlemen. Vendors in
| compatible enforcement regimes with appropriate treaties
| (e.g. US and EU) are allowed in, so long as they have
| everything in order (corporate registration, etc.) and are
| selling under their own name. Vendors where the long arm of
| my local justice system doesn't quite reach aren't allowed
| in, at least directly, unless Amazon does a lot more scrutiny
| to the level to the point where I have similar guarantees
| about product safety, quality, environmental impact, labor
| laws, IP, etc.
|
| I would not set a similar bar for eBay or Aliexpress, which
| claim to be marketplaces and not stores. However, when I buy
| from Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc., I believe that I am
| buying from a store (even if the fine print says otherwise).
| I'd want a very clear distinction between the two. Part of
| the way Amazon got itself into deep trouble is by trying to
| mix the two up. If I'm shopping at a flea market, it's
| _caveat emptor_ , and those can be fun for some things. If
| I'm shopping at a store, I expect a certain level of trust.
|
| What is clear, though, is that Amazon isn't self-policing,
| and we need regulatory enforcement.
| zopa wrote:
| > It's easy to say "don't allow this to happen"; I'm curious
| about what that actually translates to in practice.
|
| It translates into "don't allow this to happen," because any
| other standard can and will be gamed. So for instance testing
| a bottle or two at random would work fine if Amazon really
| does test a random and representative sample of what's being
| sold, and to me that's a reasonable level of diligence to
| expect. But if Amazon Testing emails the supplier: "Please
| send over a batch of X MAX SUPER ENERGY so we can test if for
| these substances which we hope we won't find, and make
| absolutely sure what you send is the same thing you're
| selling!" -- then that will work somewhat less well. There
| are endless ways for Amazon and sellers to wink and nod and
| skirt the intent of the rules, if Amazon is just checking a
| box for the FDA, and doesn't actually care.
|
| The way to get Amazon to care is to hold it responsible for
| the outcome. Of course there will be sellers that find a way
| to skirt whatever process Amazon puts in place, but that
| needs to be Amazon's problem. Amazon can survive taking its
| lumps when it messes up.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| They don't need to inspect individual products, but they
| should be able to verify anyone selling supplements is who
| they say they are.
|
| Verification only needs to be good enough to stop low effort
| fraud. This is entirely doable.
|
| They also need to ensure the product you buy comes directly
| from the seller you bought from.
|
| They need to prevent counterfeits from random sellers getting
| added to inventory of legitimate companies.
|
| Separating inventory by seller is 100% doable. My company
| manages it. It just costs more.
| nradov wrote:
| The FDA does some good work, but they have no authority to
| specifically approve or certify most types of nutritional
| supplements. If you want to know what you're actually getting
| and avoid contamination, then only buy supplements when have
| been certified by the NSF.
|
| https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/supplement-v...
|
| https://www.nsfsport.com/
|
| Amazon.com does have their own certification program for
| dietary supplements, but it seems like the rules aren't
| consistently enforced.
|
| https://blog.ansi.org/anab/requirements-sell-dietary-supplem...
| loeg wrote:
| > As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a
| regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This
| stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average
| person to protect themselves.
|
| The mislabeling is certainly a problem, but really these drugs
| (sildenafil and tadalafil) should be over-the-counter and
| cheaply available on Amazon as generics. That they are not is a
| failure of the same FDA. They have a great safety profile and
| limited contraindications, comparable to many other OTC drugs.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a
| regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary.
|
| This isn't what anybody objects to about the FDA. "You have to
| list what's in the product" is a simple rule that every knows,
| is easy to comply with, and doesn't require any government
| interaction even in the case of a suspected violation because
| the FDA can just buy the product to test it and compare the lab
| results to the label.
|
| What people object to is when someone wants to sell an
| _accurately labeled_ product with a risk-benefit trade off, the
| customer knows what the product is and is exercising informed
| consent, and the government says they can 't have it anyway.
| wredue wrote:
| >doesn't require any government interaction
|
| Dude what? Government around the world are constantly
| catching corporations for lying on their product lists.
|
| As for controlled substances, on this topic is a completely
| fine line which I'd probably tend to agree is not treaded
| properly. There are risk trade offs to allowing open markets
| on classes of drugs.
|
| With that said, the massive propaganda campaigns corporations
| get up to completely subvert that risk, and 100% leaves
| consumers uninformed even with the proper information at
| their fingertips: as a major example, the opioid crisis,
| leaded fuels, leaded paints, carcinogenic materials handling.
| I mean, the list really goes on and on.
|
| The issue with the FDA has time and time and time again been
| demonstrated to be how toothless it is. Corporations
| constantly ignore regulation for billions in profits, only to
| receive a sternly worded letter and MAYBE a 0.01% of profits
| fine.
| nickff wrote:
| Governments around the world are terrible at 'catching
| corporations for lying' in any way. There are manifold
| examples in every regulatory field, in every country.
| Examples include Wirecard, Theranos, Volkswagen, Johnson &
| Johnson talc, etc. In most cases, the regulators are handed
| the evidence, and take a long time to do anything about it.
|
| In my mind, the question is whether the massive regulatory
| burdens which protect incumbents and inhibit liberty are
| worth it. This is not an all-or-nothing question, and might
| be answered field-by-field, but regulators have not covered
| themselves in glory.
| wallaBBB wrote:
| The list of caught ones is immensely longer. It's a cat
| and mouse game, it doesn't really stop. Big pharma spends
| a lot of money on training the employees on how not to
| get caught. I worked 5 years in big pharma and it took me
| almost a year to understand why are the constantly
| repeating compliance and fair practice trainings. Giving
| examples how others failed, etc. Those were not there to
| tell you not to do it, but what to watch out for. And the
| sale targets and incentives are there to motivate you to
| cross the lines. I'm just grateful I was not in sales but
| application training.
|
| Btw how is a government responsible for Theranos? There
| was never a product there, just promises burning VC
| money. Wirecard is more a failure of trusted independent
| auditors (one of the big 4) that failed to do a proper
| international audit.
| nickff wrote:
| The FDA was the regulator for Theranos' products, which
| were used by customers, and the SEC was the regulator for
| Theranos' securities.
|
| https://theconversation.com/how-theranos-faulty-blood-
| tests-...
|
| https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-24069
|
| Wirecard was actually a much worse regulatory failure in
| that the regulator _attempted to prosecute the reporters
| which revealed the affair_. Not only did the regulator
| fail to uncover either side of Wirecard 's illegal
| behaviour, they went after the people who did.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/4ebd9032-d3d1-4a9e-976c-d12354
| 48e...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Government around the world are constantly catching
| corporations for lying on their product lists.
|
| Obviously you have to interact with the government if they
| catch you lying. You're not intended to lie.
|
| The point is that you can have a labeling requirement and
| businesses can comply with it without having to make
| regulatory filings or prohibiting products.
|
| > There are risk trade offs to allowing open markets on
| classes of drugs.
|
| Which is why you have labeling requirements. _This is
| cocaine, it 's highly addictive, you probably want to try
| ibuprofen first._
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Having things unnecessarily banned is a trade off of
| enforcing regulations effectively.
|
| Someone has to decide what substances safe and prevent them
| from sold.
|
| The FDA could do better but you'll never fix that problem
| unless you don't allow the FDA to enforce regulations.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Someone has to decide what substances safe and prevent
| them from sold.
|
| No they don't. If a product has a label that says "this
| product is considered unsafe by the Food and Drug
| Administration" and explains why and you buy it anyway, you
| got what you paid for.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Unfortunately all this would result in is everything
| being labeled unsafe.
|
| See California and cancer.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Label the things unsafe that are currently banned. Not
| everything is currently banned, is it?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I don't think you've understood the, very valid arguement
| in my opinion, that everything would end up with an
| unsafe label. In the same way that almost everything you
| buy either may contain nuts or is made in a factory which
| might process nuts - a practise which provides exactly
| zero useful input for the people it's intended to
| protect.
|
| Why would this happen for things which aren't currently
| banned? An abundance of caution - better to claim it's
| potentially unsafe than pay the claims later. Or
| economics - why pay more for a safe sweetener when you
| can use the cheap and cheerful one and just label it
| unsafe.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| You're assuming that people would disregard the labels.
| But people with allergies don't disregard the labels,
| they buy a different product. Most others don't care if
| it has traces of nuts or not because nuts aren't going to
| kill them, so those products find a wide market of people
| who are perfectly safe eating them.
|
| California says that everything causes cancer because
| everything kind of causes cancer and their labeling rules
| are stupid. If the label was only on products with a
| _significant risk_ of causing cancer _from ordinary use_
| , it would be rare and people wouldn't ignore it. In
| other words, if it was only on the products that would
| otherwise be banned.
|
| This would only be a problem if you would otherwise have
| banned lots of things people would still want to buy
| given a free and informed choice, in which case actually
| banning them is even worse.
|
| We didn't ban cigarettes, we informed people of the risk:
|
| https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-
| disease/tobacco...
|
| And that's one of the most addictive products known.
| Around the same percentage of adults smoke cigarettes and
| use illegal drugs. So what good is the ban?
| ben_w wrote:
| > But people with allergies don't disregard the labels,
| they buy a different product.
|
| And sometimes you get people like me, who eat yoghurt
| without checking the ingredients because you shouldn't
| need to, only to then find out that for some crazy reason
| American food companies put beef gelatine into theirs.
|
| For me vegetarian is a choice rather than mandatory, but
| if you rely on "common sense" people will die, and have
| died. It's happened with surprise nuts, despite that one
| being well known.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > And sometimes you get people like me, who eat yoghurt
| without checking the ingredients because you shouldn't
| need to, only to then find out that for some crazy reason
| American food companies put beef gelatine into theirs.
|
| They made a product and told you what was in it. You're
| not required to read the ingredients first but you have
| the opportunity to. Are you proposing that we ban beef
| gelatin?
|
| > if you rely on "common sense" people will die, and have
| died. It's happened with surprise nuts, despite that one
| being well known.
|
| But what are you even suggesting here? That you can't
| make a product with nuts if someone might not expect it,
| even if you labeled it?
| ben_w wrote:
| > Are you proposing that we ban beef gelatin?
|
| Although I would in general, that wasn't the point being
| made in that comment. The point was: nobody expects
| surprises.
|
| People mostly don't read lists to confirm the absence of
| things they think would be crazy to find.
|
| Like _boiled cow bone and skin derivatives_ in _yoghurt_.
|
| > But what are you even suggesting here?
|
| The specific thing that I actually said, with no extra
| hidden implications between the lines: common sense gets
| people killed.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > common sense gets people killed.
|
| That isn't a policy proposal.
|
| If you're in a cornfield next to a farm road that only
| sees one truck every six months, common sense says you're
| not at a busy intersection, but if you step into the road
| without looking and there _is_ a truck, that 's not the
| truck's fault. You can be cautious all the time or you
| can take a risk once in a while; it's your choice because
| it's your life.
|
| It's also not clear how it applies to the topic. If you
| went to the store and asked for some MDMA and they gave
| you some MDMA, you are not going to be _surprised_ that
| the contents is MDMA. That 's not why it's banned.
| Retric wrote:
| > You're assuming that people would disregard the labels.
|
| People _do_ disregard labels including those with
| allergies.
|
| > If the label was only on products with a significant
| risk of causing cancer from ordinary use, it would be
| rare and people wouldn't ignore it. In other words, if it
| was only on the products that would otherwise be banned.
|
| Ahh, but the risks are high enough that companies will
| still put that label on everything unless companies where
| required to only put such a label on products with
| significant risk which then gets back to regulators.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > People _do_ disregard labels including those with
| allergies.
|
| Exception that proves the rule.
|
| The purpose of the law is to protect people who act
| within reason. If you have an allergy and don't read the
| label, that's on you, not the company or the government.
|
| > Ahh, but the risks are such companies will still put
| that label on everything unless companies where required
| to only put such a label on products with significant
| risk which then gets back to regulators.
|
| The entire point is that "regulators say you have to
| label this" and "regulators say you cannot buy this even
| with informed consent" are two different things.
| riversflow wrote:
| > The purpose of the law is to protect people who act
| within reason.
|
| This is just flat out wrong, and pretty gross.
|
| The purpose of the law is to protect _people_. Not
| _white_ people, not _land-owning_ people, not _smart_
| people, not _literate_ people, not _able-bodied_ people,
| not _" reasonable"_ people. _People._ Full stop.
|
| Assuming people are reasonable is a recipe for disaster,
| and ablest. Perhaps one day someone you know will get
| dementia, or have a stroke, or get macular degeneration,
| or any of the number of ailments that can relieve you of
| your ability to read and comprehend long texts, lists,
| and warnings, then maybe you will understand how
| ridiculous this view is.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I hope your argument isn't that only white people can
| exercise reason.
|
| If you have a mental illness you can go to the store and
| buy rat poison and eat it. The law doesn't address this
| by prohibiting rodenticides. If you think you can fly and
| jump off the roof of a parking structure, the government
| can't disable gravity.
|
| Acting within reason in that context is getting
| treatment, which is a whole different set of laws.
| Retric wrote:
| This isn't about extremely dumb behavior, this is about
| extreme consequences for reasonable actions.
|
| If you walk up to a food truck you shouldn't need to
| worry about long term mercury exposure from a single
| lunch. But the same is true if you happen to eat the same
| item from the same truck for 30 years.
|
| The maximum allowable exposure from food is very
| different between those two cases. But the second case
| isn't unreasonable so that's what the standard should be
| set for.
| riversflow wrote:
| My argument is that you are picking a specific group and
| saying the law is only for them.
|
| >If you think you can fly and jump off the roof of a
| parking structure, the government can't disable gravity
|
| The law can make it so you have guardrail on your roof if
| it is publicly accessible. The law can also make you put
| up suicide guards if it's really a problem, all of my
| favorite bridge have them now.
|
| > The law doesn't address this by prohibiting
| rodenticides.
|
| Rat poison has actually been getting more scrutiny
| lately, the traditional pellet form was banned this year
| in favor of bricks in the US, and non-professional
| exterminators are limited to buying it a pound at a time.
| Also, rats are a real pressing problem that is being
| handled with rat poison. Without it, we go back to food
| security problems related to controlling pest
| populations. The same _can 't_ be said in reverse, we
| don't have a real, pressing problem with an overabundance
| of safety.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| You are being extremely naive I'm afraid. People with
| allergies have to disregard labels every day. Almost
| everything edible in the UK had these labels.
|
| I just looked at the back of the chocolate wrapper I just
| ate and it "may contain nuts, eggs and peanuts." None of
| those things are ingredients and the warning is just
| there to prevent a law suit. My friend who has a severe
| allergy to eggs and nuts would eat it - otherwise he'd
| have a very bland diet indeed.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > Someone has to decide what substances safe and prevent
| them from sold.
|
| Why?
|
| If someone buys deadly nightshade, and gets deadly
| nightshade, why should the government care?
| Eji1700 wrote:
| Basically for the same reasons they don't let you buy
| other toxins/dangerous materials with almost no
| alternative use?
| diob wrote:
| I mean, can't you take this to the extreme and see why it
| is a bad point of view. Anything is sell-able as long as
| we slap a warning label on it. That seems like a recipe
| for disaster, right? We sold a highly radioactive
| substance to Jim, and endanger more than Jim.
|
| Consequences are often far beyond the individual, and I
| think folks believe they're too smart to get caught in
| the fallout of someone else's decisions. Oops, Karen from
| HR brought in deadly nightshade muffins to share ("small
| amounts are said to be good for the liver, I heard it on
| my favorite podcast!").
|
| There's a middle ground here, where if it's dangerous
| enough, we don't allow it to be sold. It's not one way or
| the other. That's dangerous thinking in and of itself.
| iakh wrote:
| I'm assuming you agree the FDA shouldn't allow somebody
| to sell deadly nightshade to somebody that doesn't know
| that nightshade is deadly, but then how do you tell the
| person that knows the nightshade is deadly apart from the
| person that doesn't know that the nightshade is deadly?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Is the product's seller paying for the "recipient's" ER
| visit, hospitalization, autopsy, or any other possible
| externalities of the purchase?
| ben_w wrote:
| My mum was a big believer in homeopathy and Bach flower
| remedies.
|
| The homeopathic sodium chloride and silicon dioxide sugar
| tablets probably didn't hurt me, but given how dumb Bach
| flower remedies are it's entirely possible she randomly
| and unwittingly dosed me with a small quantity of ground
| up _something_ in the Solanaceae family.
|
| Governments care because well meaning hippy parents who
| don't know any better feeding snake oil to their kids
| gets headlines in newspapers.
| msla wrote:
| And this is something the "Freedom!"-yelpers don't
| mention: Yes, adults can be "Free!" to do crappy and
| dangerous things to themselves, but when it's parents
| poisoning children, you have to be pretty damned
| sociopathic to only consider how the rights of the
| parents are being infringed by regulation. I honestly
| think some people consider children to be property.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| The Libertarisn view is that children _are_ property, in
| that the gov 't. should not interfere in child-rearing.
| diob wrote:
| Yeah, these folks are basically naive libertarians (I
| know, repetitious). There's a middle ground, yet they go
| slippery slope and think the government is going to take
| their freedoms.
| growse wrote:
| The government's got to pay for the road the ambulance
| drives you on when you stop breathing.
| psychlops wrote:
| "A business should only be permitted to exist if the
| government allows it."
|
| What could go wrong?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| That's a bit of a stretch. You're not allowed to start a
| business selling cocaine.
|
| You're not allow to start an airline without adhering to
| regulations.
|
| You're not allow to sell certain unapproved
| pharmaceuticals or medical devices.
|
| This is a relatively narrow scope.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Pharmaceuticals and medical devices have life and death
| implications. But prohibiting a life-saving product is
| just as deadly as allowing an unsafe one, and there are
| existing mechanisms that punish the sellers of dangerous
| products (it comes out and they lose their customers and
| get sued).
|
| This comes from a facet of human psychology: If you do
| something and people die then you're a murderer, but if
| you do nothing and people die you're allowed to shrug and
| go home. This may be a reasonable heuristic when deciding
| whether you should do something but it isn't when
| deciding whether to prevent someone else from doing
| something.
| davidthewatson wrote:
| The problem is that some medical devices are approved
| despite their being demonstrably deadly as they are
| designed, manufactured, shipped, and used without
| sufficient oversight by the governing body of apologists
| put in place to oversee them. This pattern has only
| worsened since therac 25.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| >>>> Someone has to decide what substances safe and prevent
| them from sold.
|
| That's an odd take.
|
| Where do these uncorruptible angels live ? Who are they?
| Who put them there?
|
| Because we all know you are not corruptible, its always the
| other guy, right?
|
| What about by rights , by the way ?
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Someone has to decide what substances safe and prevent
| them from sold.
|
| Plenty of substances are risky, but can be worth the risk.
| For example, psychedelics, for the wrong person or in the
| wrong situation, can cause psychotic episodes or lasting
| trauma, but psychedelic therapy has already been legalized
| in at least 1 US state, because it can also be extremely
| helpful.
|
| I'm still not able to buy it and take it home (at least
| legally), but in my honest opinion, I should be.
| 2devnull wrote:
| I disagree. I think the best generic argument against the FDA
| is that government isn't very capable of doing the many
| things we want it to. I would love perfect security when it
| comes to foods, drugs and supplements but even with
| regulations a lot of bad stuff slips through. Imo, that's a
| better argument than that the fda keeps us from having nice
| things. The fda fails to protect us because perfect security
| isn't possible, and past a certain point it's all diminishing
| returns if not actually counterproductive (consider the
| effects of prohibition).
| Veserv wrote:
| The problem is that the risk-benefit tradeoff is not
| accurately labeled and presented.
|
| Advertising laws in the US mean manufacturers can and should
| do everything in their power to obscure and mislead about the
| tradeoff. A person purchasing a unverified product should
| have tremendous misgivings. They should only purchase it _in
| spite of tremendous misgivings_. Anything less is not
| informed consent; it is deception masquerading as informed
| consent.
|
| Until you fix that you get companies downplaying risks and
| overstating potential benefits. Fix that and informed consent
| becomes a real possibility and a much more attractive
| proposition.
| Spivak wrote:
| > Anything less is not informed consent; it is deception
| masquerading as informed consent.
|
| Which is why I think the model for such things should just
| be "informed consent." It's a concept that already exists
| in the medical practice with a well-defined procedure.
| Someone who your state medical board has deemed competent
| and responsible has to explain in painfully explicit detail
| all the tradeoffs and answer any and all questions. If you
| still want to do it you sign some forms and go on with your
| day.
| rchaud wrote:
| > accurately labeled product with a risk-benefit trade off,
| the customer knows what the product is and is exercising
| informed consent, and the government says they can't have it
| anyway.
|
| The FDA's regulatory purview is to limit the collateral
| damage (negative externalities) of even accurately labeled
| products.
|
| Informed consent from the customer is one side of the
| equation. Unfortunately they cannot consent to conditions
| like "Don't burden the hospital system if you take the wrong
| dosage".
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Unfortunately they cannot consent to conditions like
| "Don't burden the hospital system if you take the wrong
| dosage".
|
| By this logic the FDA would have to ban Tylenol and
| Robitussin. Tens of thousands of ER visits every year.
|
| The government should generally be concerned with
| preventing deception and coercion and pricing
| externalities, because otherwise people have the incentive
| to do them and they would be prolific.
|
| Things nature punishes directly don't need the state to
| deter them. They happen by accident rather than by motive
| and we choose purposely to spread the cost of this across
| the population as a form of insurance and a cost of living
| in a free society, sometimes even when the misfortune is a
| result of their own stupidity. Other times we send them a
| bill for costs.
| growse wrote:
| > By this logic the FDA would have to ban Tylenol and
| Robitussin. Tens of thousands of ER visits every year.
|
| It's almost like there's a balance of harms to be
| evaluated.
|
| I'd bet the cheap availability of paracetamol etc. saves
| more hospital visits than it causes, but I don't have the
| data to hand.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > It's almost like there's a balance of harms to be
| evaluated.
|
| Which is a highly context-specific evaluation, so is it
| better decided by the person with the most knowledge of
| their own circumstances, or across the board with no
| context at all?
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but the
| closest I can interpolate is that you are probably
| confusing the FDA with the DEA.
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| I don't want to sound like a nut job, but please look into how
| much the FDA hampers drug trails.
|
| If you understand how tough it is in one case, think how many
| trails yearly never get done because of the FDA.
|
| The amount of benefit vs. the amount of deaths caused by the
| FDA being slow likely means many more are deaths at the hands
| of the FDA than you expect.
|
| Cracking down on supplements that people take voluntary hardly
| seems like something I'm pleased they meddle with too.
| neaden wrote:
| You're only taking them voluntarily if they are what they say
| they are, if as in this case they aren't you aren't
| meaningfully taking them voluntarily.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Buying shady penis pills on the Internet is a voluntary
| risk. Play stupid games, win stupid heart attacks and
| priapisms.
|
| Though I do think Amazon should have a share of the blame.
| Buyer and seller are both wrong here.
| hibikir wrote:
| It's possible, and even a good idea, to say that the FDA
| massively overregulates drug trials, while at the same time
| also say that the current supplement market is almost just as
| massively underregulated, and would be far healthier with
| more oversight. Organizations, just like people, can do good
| and bad things at the same time.
|
| I am very happy they crack down on supplements, a kind of
| product that is filled with fraud and that I lack the
| resources to make informed purchases on. I would also be just
| as happy if they started cross-approving drugs with the EU
| and Australia. They are neither angels nor the devil.
| pardoned_turkey wrote:
| Well, on the flip side: the whole reason these are sold is that
| the FDA is _preventing_ the substance from being sold OTC. This
| is not an example of a manufacturer putting something unwanted
| in the product. It 's all just a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of
| a deal with willing buyers. It creates _some_ risk of
| accidents, but I doubt there were any.
|
| I'm not sure the regulation here is great. As with Rx-only
| contraception, these regulations force patients to spend money
| and discuss their intimate life with a doctor for no real
| reason, which many people find difficult. And it's not like you
| undergo thorough screening to get Viagra anyway. A doctor is
| not gonna say "no".
|
| The problem with bodies such as the FDA is that once they
| address grave risks, they seldom reach this point of "OK, we
| fixed the problem of arsenic in patent medicine, so let's scale
| back for now." Instead, the bureaucracies only grow. Today, far
| too many drugs are Rx-only and stay this way for too long. The
| need for prescriptions for equipment such as eyeglasses or
| contact lenses is hard to justify too.
| lwhi wrote:
| It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk.
|
| If wrongly prescribed equipment can cause harm, it's very
| justifiable that a license scheme is put in place.
| bjt wrote:
| > It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk.
|
| Sure, and the parent comment's point was that there's a
| line where further risk reduction doesn't make sense
| anymore. The agency doesn't have the right incentives to
| stop at that line.
|
| Plenty of very significant risks aren't regulated to the
| degree that Viagra and Cialis are. You don't need a note
| from a doctor or a govt-issued permit to buy kitchen knives
| or a table saw or a Bic lighter, for example.
| lwhi wrote:
| Kitchen knives have multiple uses and discretion through
| education is expected as standard.
|
| Viagra and Cialis have a singular use and
| contraindications aren't likely to be understood through
| cultural osmosis.
| adolph wrote:
| A regulatory agency was fine for a world with a finite number
| of trusted vendors working operating in the the agency
| jurisdiction. Reliable consumer owned/operated molecular
| characterization is needed for a future that moves faster and
| farther than an agency or regulation.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Cool! Now do their crappy cords that are likely to burn down your
| house.
|
| Amazon Basics should be terminated with prejudice.
| gruez wrote:
| I checked a random amazon basics powerstrip and there's an ETL
| certification mark on them. As much as it's popular to hate on
| amazon for fakes/subquality products, your particular example
| is a poor one.
|
| https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/...
| noodlesUK wrote:
| Funnily enough AmazonBasics is probably the safest set of
| products on Amazon, as nobody but Amazon is allowed to sell
| those products. A brand name item might be a fake, but
| AmazonBasics is always the original (potentially crappy
| anyway) product.
| floatrock wrote:
| EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The number
| of generic chineesium chargers available that will move
| 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL
| certification is mind-boggingly high.
|
| I've seen some advertise "UL Safety Report", which I assume
| is weasel-words for "We failed UL certification so we can't
| actually say the magic phrase 'UL Listed'".
|
| I've seen some claim to be UL Listed without being able to
| find them on the UL site.
|
| Sure, it's nice to buy a cheap chinesium drone, but something
| moving 40amps of power and heat in your home without accepted
| safety checks? That feels like something that should have
| some liability on the merchant's side when it burns something
| down.
| gruez wrote:
| >EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The
| number of generic chineesium chargers available that will
| move 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL
| certification is mind-boggingly high.
|
| Sounds like you're talking about third party EV chargers.
| What does this have to do with amazon basics? Or are you
| pulling a motte and bailey, going from "amazon basics is
| going to burn down your house" to "third party EV chargers
| are going to burn down your house"?
| neither_color wrote:
| I went down a small rabbit hole of Amazon electrical
| products once. You truly are better off at the big orange
| or blue hardware store for anything electric. Might cost a
| few bucks more but you don't have multiple suppliers
| referencing the same fake certificates and skimping on wire
| gauge to save a few cents.
| dboreham wrote:
| Nanny state socialism! The market should take care of dangerous
| products. Nobody is going to buy such a cord twice.
| risho wrote:
| without regulations the next differently branded unregulated
| cable might also burn your house down.
| voidee wrote:
| Of course nobody will buy a dangerous product twice. You
| can't buy another product after being burned to a crisp!
| astura wrote:
| None of the dick pills mentioned are AmazonBasics brand.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Nothing bought on Amazon should be consumed or applied topically
| or otherwise come into prolonged contact with your body. I
| learned this the hard way a few years back with some counterfeit
| shampoo that severely burned my scalp after a single use.
| enlightenedfool wrote:
| Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for legal
| action.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for
| legal action._
|
| A lot of people don't have time, or money, to risk legal
| action.
| asquabventured wrote:
| I had the similar experience back in 2018... Led to temporary
| hair loss (I remember my hair falling out in tufts) from what I
| believe was counterfeit hair gel (it smelled different from
| same product I've used for years). Stopped using the product
| from Amazon and only ever order from reputable sites like
| Sephora and Nordstrom now.
|
| Amazon has lost all of my business for consumable goods. It's
| not worth the convenience to risk my own or my families health.
| Fuck 'em.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I stopped buying health and beauty stuff on Amazon altogether
| due to the counterfeits or people returning items by replacing
| the actual product with something else which I ultimately end
| up getting. I had too many instances with vitamins and such
| where the labels and seals were sketchy, damaged, or didn't
| exist. Same with shampoos, lotions, face-washes, soaps,
| detergents, hot-tub supplies, etc. Reporting to the seller or
| Amazon was a pointless exercise as often times they'd shrug it
| off.
| blibble wrote:
| or left plugged into the mains unattended
| blagie wrote:
| Here's my list of things I won't buy on Amazon.com:
|
| - Anything which goes in or on my body (foods, medicines,
| etc.).
|
| - Anything which is easily knocked off (SD cards, memory, SSDs,
| etc.)
|
| - Bed sheets (oddly enough, you'll often get lies on materials
| and fabric)
|
| - Thing I need reliably / reliably on-time (I cancelled Prime
| after several shipping issues)
|
| Since I cancelled Prime, things added to this list include:
|
| - Most digital content (they added ads to music I paid for as
| soon as I cancelled Prime, and many newer Kindle books are hard
| to back up into non-DRMed formats)
|
| Most of what I will buy on Amazon are generic gizmos, like kids
| toys, cables, generic keyboards, battery chargers, basic tools,
| and basic clothing (kids pyjamas and that sort of thing).
| However, it's no longer my first source. I'll go Aliexpress,
| eBay, and Walmart first.
|
| I now have Walmart's equivalent of Prime instead. It's not
| great, but it's better. There is zero customer service, but
| shipping times are more accurate than Amazon, generally faster,
| and they'll actually let you know if something is running late
| or early (which is huge, if you're planning a project).
| Walmart's selection is worse than Amazons, but I'm hoping it
| will catch up. I also am starting to go to local stores again.
| giarc wrote:
| Hate to break it to you, but Aliexpress is likely less
| reliable than Amazon (or have the exact same products). eBay
| is likely the same and Walmart allows 3rd party sellers so
| it's pretty much the same as Amazon unless you source the
| products curated by Walmart.
| emayljames wrote:
| From much experience, AliExpress customer service is 100x
| better than Amazon. Very prompt refunds and dispute
| resolutions.
| blagie wrote:
| I agree with the math, but not the spirit.
|
| 0*100 = 0.
|
| Aliexpress is fast, efficient, but completely random and
| automated in resolution. Products from Aliexpress are
| great 50% of the time, non-working or not shipped 10% of
| the time, and somewhere in between 40% of the time. It's
| cheap and complete roulette.
|
| That's okay for a lot of things.
| blagie wrote:
| I think you misread my comment.
|
| I'll go to Aliexpress and eBay first for: "kids toys,
| cables, generic keyboards, battery chargers, basic tools,
| and basic clothing."
|
| I have the exact same list for them as for Amazon. I'll go
| there first for those products since Aliexpress has much
| better prices than Amazon. eBay has better seller reviews.
| I certainly wouldn't buy food or medicine from them,
| though, or even bedsheets or SD cards.
|
| Walmart is a lot better than Amazon. They do have a search
| filter to disable marketplace sellers, and if buying from
| Walmart proper, I do trust them to still get supply chains
| adequately right. Amazon did okay here too, even a half-
| decade ago; it crapped out with Covid and never fixed
| itself. Perhaps Walmart will crap out too, but it hasn't
| yet.
| 1905 wrote:
| > I'll go to Aliexpress and eBay first for: "kids toys,
| cables, generic keyboards, battery chargers, basic tools,
| and basic clothing."
|
| I do too. I don't use Amazon Prime and can usually find
| the same products for cheaper on ebay with free shipping.
| The competition among other sellers is greater on ebay so
| the price will often be lower. It is difficult to do
| returns though
| 1905 wrote:
| > - Bed sheets (oddly enough, you'll often get lies on
| materials and fabric)
|
| It makes you wonder about all those masks people were buying
| online and wearing 14+ hours a day
| blagie wrote:
| I don't wonder. Fakes and knock-offs were rampant on Amazon
| -- for a long time, more common than genuine product.
| People tested them. That's especially true for brand names
| like 3M.
|
| I only bought through trusted supply chains. My masks were
| made in South Korea, and I bought directly from the
| manufacturer's US-based distributor.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > Bed sheets (oddly enough, you'll often get lies on
| materials and fabric)
|
| Happens with clothes too, had to return several linen shirts
| for this reason.
| jetanoia wrote:
| Agreed with your post - except on the "Kids pajamas" - they
| should probably be reclassified under the "Anything which
| goes in or on my body" list you made.
|
| Whether it's undisclosed flame retardants, toxic dyes, or
| other harmful substances, kids bodies are generally more
| susceptible to harm via environmental pollutants. Such harms
| may not be at all obvious in the short term, but could still
| be very harmful over the long-term.
|
| I wish I knew of a vastly superior option (ie, safer option)
| for buying kids or baby clothes. (Anyone have suggestions on
| this?)
|
| That said, I believe Amazon is probably at the riskier end of
| this spectrum vs.traditional stores because of their
| distributor-centric structure.
|
| Basically, if a harmful product were to receive any negative
| press, it would more easily be equated with a single
| company/seller from another country, and probably one with an
| odd-sounding name.
|
| With a more traditional brick and mortar store, the product
| may be sourced from the exact same producer, but the
| reputation hit will be greater to the brick and mortar store,
| because the customer tends to equate the product more closely
| with the the store itself. Often, they present themselves to
| the public as the "seller" of the product whereas Amazon will
| more give the presentation of "distributor" on behalf of
| "(_insert_generic_inscrutably-
| named_foreign_corporation_name)". Fly-by-night seems an apt
| description for these companies most the time.
|
| This seemingly reduced level of accountability is the biggest
| problem I have with trusting them but it's not the only one;
| it's just compounded by the often fraudulent reviews, their
| practice of taking down authentic but critical reviews, and
| of selling counterfeits - even occasionally when one orders
| via a "Prime" option, or fulfilled by Amazon, or seemingly
| buys an item directly via the manufacturer's Amazon 'store'.
|
| Of course there are many other issues as well but these are a
| few that have created headaches for me in the past to the
| point that I now avoid them for most purchases.
| jejeyyy77 wrote:
| what about brand name items?
| Sanzig wrote:
| > FDA confirmed through laboratory analyses that the "MANNERS
| Energy Boost," "Round 2," "Genergy," and "X Max Triple Shot
| Energy Honey" products, purchased on www.amazon.com, contained
| the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) tadalafil; and the
| "WeFun," "Big Guys Male Energy Supplement," and "Mens Maximum
| Energy Supplement" products, also purchased on www.amazon.com,
| contained the API sildenafil. These ingredients are not declared
| on the products' labeling. Sildenafil and tadalafil are
| phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors and the active
| ingredients in the FDA-approved prescription drugs Viagra and
| Cialis, respectively, used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED).
|
| So Amazon was literally selling Viagra and Cialis disguised as a
| supplement. Wow.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Not just Amazon, every time these "ED supplements" are tested,
| most of them turn out to have actual pharmaceuticals in them.
|
| Here's a similar article from 5 years ago:
| https://www.wired.com/story/dietary-supplements-can-contain-...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Can we have an honest conversation about whether there's any
| good reason for Viagra to require a prescription?
|
| The barrier right now is that you have to waste 2 hours and
| $100 to tell a doctor that you have ED. What's the point? It's
| not stopping anyone except people too poor or busy to jump
| through the hoops.
| lokar wrote:
| A middle ground is to let a pharmacist dispense it after
| going over side effects, instructions, interactions and
| existing conditions (without a Rx).
| Sanzig wrote:
| Yeah, I think this is the most reasonable approach. ED
| medication can have some nasty side effects and
| interactions, so a medical professional should be in the
| loop - but that professional could easily be a pharmacist
| who already has a copy of all the other Rx drugs the
| patient is taking.
| peyton wrote:
| Feels a little silly to be forced to have a chat with the
| lady at the grocery store pharmacy about dick pills
| whenever I might need them. I can just order it on Amazon
| apparently.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| That would work. Viagra is a blood-pressure lowering drug
| (that was its original purpose). If you take it with other
| BP-lowering drugs like nitroglycerin etc, you could pass
| out or even die.
|
| So some degree of oversight by a medical professional is
| warranted.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The reason is to check for preexisting conditions and
| negative interactions with other medicines. Also, the barrier
| is even lower than what you say with companies like blue
| chew, hims, etc.
| dahart wrote:
| If we're going to have an honest conversation, Sildenafil
| does have some serious potential side effects and
| contraindications. Googling "why does viagra require a
| prescription?" I get an answer attributed to Healthline: "due
| to these severe (but rare) side-effects, Viagra requires a
| prescription". At least acknowledge that, it is a good
| reason.
|
| A doc visit does take time but it neither takes 2 hours nor
| costs $100 for me, co-pay is still $20 I think (or maybe
| covered 100% once a year), and the visit might be 45 minutes
| when the clinic is pretty busy. There is _plenty_ that's
| messed up and wrong with our health care system and
| insurance, but maybe the minor hurdle of having to require a
| doc to check on the potential for side-effects really is
| justified?
|
| Another decent reason, I speculate, is that the drug is
| relatively new and we don't know the long term effects of
| overuse, nor all of the contraindications. If it's available
| over the counter and many men use it when they don't _really_
| need it, just because it's available and easy, there could be
| dramatic unforeseen consequences. Like a lot of drugs, Viagra
| might be something that people look to as an easier
| alternative to changing habits or doing preventative work.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _maybe the minor hurdle of having to require a doc to
| check on the potential for side-effects really is
| justified?_
|
| Viagra is trivially available on the black market because
| many people don't want to put up with that B.S. Antibiotics
| have a public interest in being gatekept; they harm
| everyone if abused. A similar argument can be made for
| addictive substances.
|
| Merely-harmful drugs, on the other hand, can be disclaimed
| and, where the clinical and fatal doses are close, diluted.
| Beyond that, we're manufacturing busywork.
| dahart wrote:
| Everything is available on the black market, that doesn't
| mean regulations are BS, it means people are willing to
| risk breaking the law to avoid being tracked. The demand
| for Viagra might have more to do with being embarassed
| about ED or other fears than with concern about the
| difficulty of getting it legally. (As another commenter
| pointed out, the bar is extremely low when using online
| remote clinics.)
|
| What does "merely-harmful" mean? What do you mean it can
| be disclaimed? If it were over the counter, how will
| people know when and how to avoid fatal doses? Why do you
| assume it might be either effective or safe if diluted?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What does "merely-harmful" mean?_
|
| Drugs that really only harm the person who takes them if
| abused. Alternatively, drugs which are unproblematically
| sold over the counter the world over.
|
| > _Everything is available on the black market_
|
| Available versus commonly procured.
|
| > _that doesn't mean regulations are BS, it means people
| are willing to risk breaking the law to avoid being
| tracked_
|
| It means they're willing to break regulations to get it.
| We can't impute motivation.
|
| > _how will people know when and how to avoid fatal
| doses_
|
| Same way they do for _e.g._ Tylenol.
|
| > _Why do you assume it might be either effective or safe
| if diluted?_
|
| I don't. Dilution is a common (and obvious)
| pharmaceutical tool for increasing the distance between
| the therapeutic and harmful dose.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > What does "merely-harmful" mean? Drugs that really only
| harm the person who takes them if abused. Alternatively,
| drugs which are unproblematically sold over the counter
| the world over.
|
| In the extreme case where someone ends up being injured
| or dead, friends and family are most definitely affected.
| There are few people this would not apply to.
|
| Aside from that, the healthcare system takes a hit,
| employers do too and a thousand other little ripples
| spread out.
|
| Some drugs are over-regulated and this is why I'm a fan
| of the middle line where some are sold at a pharmacy with
| no script needed and they can partially control the
| purchasing.
| dahart wrote:
| > We can't impute motivation.
|
| Correct, you're right, I was speculating on alternative
| reasons people might avoid the doctor. We also don't have
| evidence that the cost or time of a doctors visit is the
| reason for the existence of the black market demand,
| contrary to your claim above.
|
| Of course, a huge risk for black market purchases is that
| they turn out to be fake and/or have unlisted harmful
| ingredients. It's already happening with black market
| Viagra. You get what you pay for, which is people who are
| breaking the law, are secretive and unaccountable, and
| putting anything they want in those pills. Good luck with
| that. A co-pay and a quick Zoom call with a doc seems
| like a safer choice to me...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _co-pay and a quick Zoom call with a doc seems like a
| better choice to me_
|
| Nobody is arguing it isn't. The point is the forced
| choice is flawed. There wouldn't be a market for the
| adultered stuff if the medicine were OTC.
| dahart wrote:
| > The point is the forced choice is flawed. There
| wouldn't be a market for the adulterated stuff if the
| medicine were OTC.
|
| You haven't convinced me that there's anything wrong with
| the regulation. There might be, but again, the existence
| of a black market is not a valid reason to relax the
| regulation. The black market exists for guns and heroine
| and antibiotics and certain types of illegal porn too,
| not to mention crazier things like bazookas. You wouldn't
| argue any of those should be less regulated just because
| you can buy them on the black market right? What actual
| reasons justify deregulating Sildenafil?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _wouldn't argue any of those should be less regulated
| just because you can buy them on the black market_
|
| I'd use that as evidence there is demand. Then I'd
| consider the harm of looser controls. The harm balance
| for Viagra seems minimal, particularly given so many
| people take it without bothering with a prescription. If
| you think Viagra is in the same harm bucket as guns and
| heroin, then yes, it makes sense to regulate it.
| dahart wrote:
| Demand is not a valid reason to deregulate, that's
| exactly the same argument as the existence of a black
| market argument. And it doesn't have to be in a severe
| harm bucket as heroine to deserve deregulation, it has to
| be relatively _safe_ , and not have big contraindications
| with others commonly used medications.
|
| Better reasons to deregulate would be that it's shown as
| safe or safer than existing OTC products, that many other
| countries offer it OTC, or that Viagra provides a
| compelling health benefit when used safely. The benefit
| is there for some specific cases, but quite questionable
| broadly speaking, given that it often gets used casually
| and to help men who don't truly need it, to party when
| they're drunk or whatever. The safety has been reviewed
| and deemed worthy of a prescription gate, and it's not a
| hard gate to get through at all, the top comment
| exaggerated it. Maybe it'll change and get deregulated,
| but I guess I don't really even see why deregulating
| Viagra would be a net positive for anything other than
| Pfizer's pocketbook.
| sdbrown wrote:
| How, in your view, does dilution change the therapeutic
| index of a chemical? If a drug is effective at 20
| milligrams, but at 60 milligrams has a steep rise in the
| incidence of hypotension, how does taking that same 60
| milligrams in a larger volume of filler (e.g. water, or
| spread across more physical pills) change the fact that
| you've just taken 60 milligrams?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how does taking that same 60 milligrams in a larger
| volume of filler (e.g. water, or spread across more
| physical pills) change the fact that you 've just taken
| 60 milligrams?_
|
| It increases tolerance to mismeasurement and mistake.
| Same reason many pharmaceuticals require multiple pills
| for minimum dosing despite a concentrated form existing.
| A child eating a single pill, or you missing that you
| popped an extra pill into your hand, causes less damage.
| sdbrown wrote:
| That doesn't change the difference between effective and
| toxic doses, it changes the potential scale of off-by-one
| user error. If 20 milligrams is delivered in 1 tablet,
| then 3 tablets is the toxic dose. If 20 milligrams is
| delivered in 5 tablets, then 15 is the toxic dose. A
| single daily tablet is far superior to multiple daily
| tablets in terms of patient adherence and hence disease
| management.
|
| Can you name specific examples where the number of
| pills/capsules/tablets has been increased to improve drug
| safety? Increased pill counts historically reduces
| patient adherence, which worses disease management. This
| is just the first example I found which measured it:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31298592/ This review
| explicitly states it in the abstract even:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30561486/
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Idk what to say, this is established medicine [1]. When
| you have a small TI you dilute to make measurement
| tolerances wider in absolute terms. This is a motivating
| factor behind prescription-strength medicine.
|
| > _Increased pill counts historically reduces patient
| adherence_
|
| Of course. There are tradeoffs. You want to know what
| also increases burden? Requiring a prescription.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index
| sdbrown wrote:
| I don't see dilution anywhere on that page, and
| increasing volume of administration at a lower
| concentration to achieve the same effective dose does not
| alter the dose itself. You are not interpreting TI
| correctly.
|
| Edit: further, to your comment about "prescription
| strength" nomenclature, look at section 14 of the
| Cialis/tadalafil prescribing information, IIRC, table of
| clinical studies, where they have the second two outcomes
| of the clinical studies broken down by dose. Efficacy
| increases pretty directly with increasing dose, and these
| are where the observed side effects show up. It seems
| like patients may well self-escalate. Maybe the OTC
| countries have public data on this?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| NTI drugs, a/k/a critical dose drugs, can avoid titration
| requirements through dilution. It's harder to fuck up a
| 500 mL difference than a 1 mL difference. Again, this is
| why most OTC versions of prescription drugs are different
| in only one way: concentration.
| cheald wrote:
| Aspirin has "severe (but rare) side effects", too. Many of
| the OTC pharmaceuticals we take have potentially nasty side
| effects. The only 100% safe stuff is homeopathic, and
| that's because it's not actually chemically active. I'd be
| a lot more convinced by the argument if it weren't widely
| OTC in most of the rest of the world.
|
| Interestingly, there do seem to be long-term side effects
| of sildenafil/tadalafil - though they seem to be positive.
| There is a possible link between long-term usage of ED
| drugs and cognitive protections in old age:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6705107/
|
| https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-
| alzheimers-...
| beejiu wrote:
| This is how it is in the UK now, it's an OTC drug, so you can
| simply buy it in pharmacy or online.
| eggy wrote:
| But then you cut off the career path of an FDA lackey in
| becoming a big pharma exec after they've served big pharma so
| well. Curious if they went after supplements that don't step
| on big pharma products, but are actually harmful to the
| public they supposedly serve.
|
| Reminds me of the X-Ray glasses and aphrodisiac ads from old
| magazines and comics when I was a kid.
|
| Cosmetics get away with anti-aging and beautification claims,
| but I believe they are not regulated by the FDA for thise
| claims, because a lot if it is hogwash.
| sdbrown wrote:
| Tadalafil (Cialis) is available as a generic in the United
| States. If you think "big pharma" is served by drugs going
| off-patent, you may want to re-evaluate your perspective.
|
| If you want to get more reasonably unhappy with market
| exclusivity, look at Celgene's grip on
| thalidomide/lenalidomide/pomalidomide for the treatment of
| multiple myeloma.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| They are practically OTC everywhere in the world. A huge pain
| in the add to get in the US where the MD cartel engages in rent
| seeking by claiming every pharmaceutical is dangerous and they
| need $200 every quarter to let you buy the meds at hyper
| inflated prices.
| Sanzig wrote:
| Well, sure, but the solution to that is to make it OTC or
| added to the list of medications that pharmacists are allowed
| to prescribe by themselves. That way the medication dispensed
| is still coming from an authorized and inspected facility
| with adequate quality control. Mixing it with dodgy
| supplements is not the solution.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Anyone have an idea of what's likely to happen here? Fines or
| something more serious such as being barred from selling whole
| categories of products?
| pbj1968 wrote:
| Heard a talk once by someone that managed nutrition for an NFL
| team. She said periodically clusters of players would pop
| positive for meth and inevitably it would be some new supplement
| that was giving them results and they told all their teammates
| about it. They'd just tell them to quit using it and move on.
| Interesting story, possibly true.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| And I imagine a lot of nutritionists on teams kind of know
| what's going on, but are disincentivized from looking too
| closely at it unless it could really hurt somebody. Or rather,
| it could hurt somebody enough for someone to notice immediately
| or impact their performance in the short term. This is
| obviously armchair speculation, but I've seen it in other
| industries, time and time again. Everyone kind of knows, but
| nobody wants to be the squeaky wheel that gets the star player
| - or major piece of equipment - out of commission.
| LargeTomato wrote:
| It's possible the nutritionists are also duped. They know
| that giving their athletes X mg of Y gives them better
| performance. They don't know that their particular X
| supplement is really just sugar pills and meth.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| Any even remotely WADA compliant drug testing uses
| chromatography, this story is most likely false.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I don't really know the details, but I assume chromatography
| can detect meth no problem, so I assume that's not the
| problem with the story. The skepticism on GP's part is mostly
| that the meth was consumed unwittingly; perhaps that's just
| the story the players tell. But it seems plausible at least.
| ta988 wrote:
| Yes a 3-5 min UHPLC/MS (and even a UHPLC/UV which is
| cheaper) can tell you that. Cost of experiment? $10 (not
| including human cost) Cost of equipment $200k-$400k for
| this kind of things. One machine and one operator can
| analyze hundreds of samples a day (once the sample is ready
| you don't have to stay in front it is fully automated).
|
| For just detecting Meth there are much faster and cheaper
| methods. But the one I am talking about has the advantage
| to also allow for detection of other things like steroids
| (extremely common in supplements), opioids (same) etc
|
| The only thing it will not work well for is anything
| inorganic, so if they put lead or chrome salts you will not
| see them and really small (solvents for example) and really
| large (proteins, large sugars etc)
| baby-yoda wrote:
| As of a couple years ago the NFLPA doesn't comply with WADA
| (the current CBA runs until 2030)
|
| https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/lawandarts/a.
| ..
| jdietrich wrote:
| The (intentional or unintentional) contamination of dietary
| supplements with performance-enhancing drugs is a widespread
| problem.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5691710/
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2022.8682.
| ..
| stefan_ wrote:
| That's the joke, they are non-WADA compliant on purpose -
| American NFL and other sports leagues are rotten with steroid
| abuse and more. And the reason the teams run their own "anti-
| doping" is so they can know about it before, not because they
| are beacons of purity.
| duxup wrote:
| More and more Amazon just seems like a "you're on your own" scam
| site. I can't figure out what I'm getting anymore.
|
| Half the listings are sponsored ads when I search. I searched for
| "Lego" this past Christmas and on the first page I got a bunch of
| products that were in what looked just like Lego boxes with Lego
| fonts and numbering ... but were not made by Lego and were
| clearly made to deceive.
|
| I noticed some items I get price alerts now will drop low but
| only one vendor is actually offering the low price ... who has
| terrible ratings. But you can't actually know that is happening
| unless you click through the UI a bunch, if you just buy it
| you'll see the overall rating that is fine... but you get it from
| some vendor with terrible ratings.
|
| I bought something last spring that was never delivered, turns
| out it was some random Chinese company. The item even says it
| wasn't delivered and yet I couldn't get a refund if I went
| through the order status page. It just sent me to one automated
| customer service who sent me to a different customer service who
| sent me back.
|
| Someone on HN had to tell me to go to the front page and contact
| "that customer service".... wtf
|
| I used to go to Amazon because it offered better selection and
| quality products that my local stores didn't sell. Now it's just
| low quality garbage and scams.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Your comment made me realize that the gap between Amazon and
| eBay has been steadily shrinking for years now. And it's not
| because eBay is getting better, that's for sure.
| zargon wrote:
| The gap has been widening for years. Because Amazon keeps
| getting worse.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The good thing about Amazon is that they've made it
| increasingly easy to stop buying from them. Finding the things
| you need is increasingly difficult and even if you find it,
| most of it seems like obvious scams. Amazon went from a
| bookstore to the "everything store" and back to being just a
| book store, because those are the only items you can reasonably
| find and trust to not be scams.
|
| It must be rather difficult to be in the US where Amazon is so
| dominant, because I given up and just rely on local webshops.
| enlightenedfool wrote:
| Books cannot be trusted too. I have purchased books which
| have such cheap paper and bad print and cover that feels like
| someone makes them in their garage. It wasn't worth the
| price.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Oh that sucks, I haven't experienced that... Yet.
|
| I worked for a webshop years ago, they wanted to implement
| a "marketplace" and I advised against it, but they went
| forward anyway. A few years later I was contact by someone
| still working there, they had dropped the marketplace
| again. They simply could not deal with the amount of
| absolute shit sellers where shipping and it was damaging
| their brand. This is a store that was really selective
| about which products could be sold and what resellers was
| allowed and they still couldn't do it. So why isn't this
| damaging Amazons brand to the point of them limiting
| marketplace?
| duxup wrote:
| Unfortunately my example of "low price from crappy seller"
| has largely been books :(
| mackatsol wrote:
| It's not a reliable book store either! Counterfeits, cheap
| reproductions, fake publishers, ai generated books, pirated
| content .. as well as co-mingled SKU's. For physical and
| e-books!
| wombat-man wrote:
| It's such a strange assortment of results whenever I search
| for anything on Amazon now. Buying direct from the producer
| or even just walking into a local big box store is less
| stressful if I have the time.
| myaccountonhn wrote:
| I tried buying audiobooks from Amazon, the version I bought
| turned out to so obviously be an AI voice reading it.... Just
| an awful experience.
| jupp0r wrote:
| The customer service is pretty amazing compared to most other
| stores, at least in my opinion. Returns are easy and free, and
| you get a replacement shipped right away but have weeks to
| return the item.
| LegitShady wrote:
| returns are not universally free or easy. I bought a power
| supply for a computer (corsair) and it went on sale a week
| later. I called to get a price adjustment and amazon told me
| they don't match even their own prices. So I said I'd return
| it and order a new one and I was told I'd have to pay return
| shipping.
|
| I don't buy many products on amazon anymore.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I have never had that problem and have probably returned
| ~100 items over the years. YMMV I guess.
| duxup wrote:
| My example regarding customer service kinda makes me feel
| that their CS isn't so amazing.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Yet another reminder that buying so called supplements should
| almost never be done, except for supplements that have been
| widely researched like multivitamins or creatine (and then only
| from reputable suppliers).
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| About 15 years too late. Wonder what they'd find if they tested
| the protein, creatine, etc on Amazon.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I think with the state of things, Amazon should be completely
| banned from selling anything that might be construed a
| supplement. They have such lax controls that your protein powder
| or vitamin pills might contain pretty much anything. Even
| reputable brands bought from their brand storefront might be
| counterfeit [1]. You'd be shocked at the number of things that
| are counterfeit. A friend of mine recently bought a niche optical
| device, and it turned out it was a fake, despite being allegedly
| sold by the manufacturer. Amazon needs to stop co-mingling
| inventory, and it also needs to stop selling things that have no
| safety testing whatsoever, especially in the food and supplement
| space.
|
| https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...
| arcticfox wrote:
| I used to think my wife was silly for spending more at beauty
| stores for her skincare products, but after realizing how
| insane Amazon's quality controls are, I think someone needs to
| actually shut them down. I wonder if there are any grounds for
| lawsuits. The number of counterfeit products they sell, even
| under "Sold by Amazon.com" is WILD. Zero supply chain
| discipline.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| obviously if Amazon sold something that damaged someone it
| would be grounds for suit under tort law, in which case the
| sky's the limit, and guessing the easy to find details of
| their behavior over the years any American jury would punish
| them.
| jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote:
| Only a tiny few Americans can afford filing such types of
| lawsuits, and only a tiny few of those people are
| interested in pursuing such things.
| baryphonic wrote:
| Personal injury is serious business, and many personal
| injury attorneys work on contingency. Amazon has "deep
| pockets," so I doubt this is the reason.
| partiallypro wrote:
| This isn't correct, most personal injury lawyers don't
| charge you directly. They take a percentage of the
| settlement or victory. There's way more money to be made
| with the "no fee" model than charging hourly in these
| instances.
| jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote:
| Time and availability are expensive commodities. Who's
| paying for that?
| partiallypro wrote:
| I literally just said that they make their money on fees
| from the outcome of the cases. That is how basically
| every personal injury case works. If they don't think the
| case will win, they don't take it. Personal injury/tort
| lawyers do not charge clients in the same way as other
| types of law. They especially don't do that because a)
| they'd make less money and b) they are often times
| dealing with people that couldn't afford hourly rates up
| front especially as a case becomes more complicated.
| tikkun wrote:
| Can you elaborate about counterfeit products being sold under
| "sold by amazon.com"? That's surprising to me, I treat that
| as a sign of something being non-counterfeit.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| My understanding is that all sellers, including Amazon
| itself have co-mingled inventory. Therefore you can't
| actually guarantee that what you're getting is from
| Amazon's stock, as opposed to some other random seller who
| gave the FBA warehouse a truck full of fake products.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Amazon commingles[1] inventory. So if there are N vendors
| selling an item, including Amazon.com, all N inventories
| just get mixed together at the warehouses. So if some M of
| those N are counterfeit, there's no way to know.
|
| "As an example, if I sell Duracell C batteries on Amazon
| through their "Shipping Fulfilled by Amazon" -- which I
| must do to receive Prime shipping designation -- I need to
| send my batteries to an Amazon warehouse. After receiving
| my delivery, they will count the number of batteries, then
| slide the whole stock into a generic shelf labeled
| "Duracell C Batteries." Any purchaser receives a Duracell C
| battery from that box, and thus the actual seller is
| unknown."
|
| 1: https://thetriplehelix.medium.com/your-amazon-products-
| could...
| lostlogin wrote:
| This makes it rather attractive for sellers to add in
| some cheap fakes - thanks for the explanation.
| squidbeak wrote:
| It's an inventory management exploit that Amazon seems in
| no hurry to fix.
|
| https://www.redpoints.com/blog/amazon-commingled-
| inventory-m...
| jonhohle wrote:
| I've ordered an Apple-brand Lightning cable from Amazon
| (sold by Amazon), for example, and received a counterfeit.
|
| They replaced it, of course, but had it been a gift, or I'd
| been in a hurry, would anyone have noticed? If Amazon can't
| keep counterfeits out of their own inventory, what chance
| do most buyers have?
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I think the issue is multifold: a lot of the fake products
| are not dangerous, but they are either useless, or otherwise
| inferior. There's essentially no recourse for this as a
| consumer, and you probably won't even notice that you don't
| have an original product.
|
| In some cases the fakes are downright dangerous. This is much
| more the case in supplements, cosmetics, food, and
| occasionally electrical appliances.
|
| People will only sue them when they get actually dangerous
| products. Even then it's a difficult process.
| oooyay wrote:
| Beauty products are in the ballpark but are also a different
| ball game. Unless you're licensed or very educated on what
| chemicals and chemical combinations do to your skin picking
| beauty products can be tough. My partner is an esthetician
| and most of what she spends her time doing is helping people
| pick products that won't adversely impact their skin or just
| do nothing. Beauty is chalk full of fake products and worse
| influencers who push them onto unsuspecting/unknowing people.
| It's given rise to an industry of estheticians who don't make
| money on purchases but who collect a fee to just help you
| sift through the bullshit.
| uniformlyrandom wrote:
| > Amazon needs to stop co-mingling inventory
|
| That alone would solve 99% of the problems, as dedicated
| inventory would allow to quickly weed out the bad actors.
| jonhohle wrote:
| My understanding is that co-mingling was originally a
| distribution optimization. I can't remember if I was there
| under the initial rollout or they had tried it, stopped it,
| and rolled it out again during my tenure, but when I started
| in 2009 it wasn't a thing, and people were opinionated about
| why it wasn't a thing (to protect seller reputation), but it
| was obvious how it could reduce shipping times (if you have
| your inventory on the west coast, but a buyer on the east
| coast, picking from another merchant reduces shipping time
| and cost and wasted warehouse space partitioning everyone's
| inventory).
|
| However, Amazon has abandoned any idea of consistent reliable
| shipping or even delivery "promises", so the only thing co-
| mingling does is reduce shipping costs and warehouse space at
| the customer's expense. That's the antithesis of what Amazon
| delivery used to be. It's sad to see all the work we did on
| Prime and Delivery Experience get washed down the drain.
| Prime used to be a no brained for anyone who used Amazon
| regularly, and now I'm not even sure if there is discrete
| value there anymore, rather than just a mishmash of
| unrelated, mediocre up upsell opportunities.
| dawnerd wrote:
| The solution is to stop allowing third party sellers. The idea
| that any random person can get an Amazon seller account and
| scam their way into being approved for certain categories and
| just send in anything as long as it has a label is insane (it's
| incredibly easy to forge the invoices they request). There's
| zero control at Amazon, they frequently put returned products
| back into new inventory as well which makes buying trading
| cards and Lego a massive gamble. Computer parts get swapped and
| resold all the time too. I can't imagine trusting them with
| anything that goes in your body.
|
| Edit: if anyone hasn't seen just how lax they are, search
| YouTube for FBA. Literally random people driving around to drug
| stores picking up nearly expired clearance items to send in for
| FBA.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| There are a lot of undesirable side effects with that
| solution.
|
| You shouldn't have to be tech savvy enough to host a shopping
| experience that's competitive with Amazon in order to sell
| things online. You ought to be able to focus solely on your
| product and if it's a good one you ought to be able to
| compete with Amazon Basics on a level playing field--even if
| it's a field served by Amazon metal.
|
| I think we need more separation between the part of Amazon
| that handles clicking "buy" and printing shipping labels, and
| the part that comes up with things for sale. So much
| separation, in fact, that the former considers the latter to
| be no more trustworthy than any other company or individual.
|
| Seller reputation should be important, and the medium for
| determining if a seller is trustworthy should be free from
| conflicts of interest.
|
| If the user facing part was adequately adversarial about the
| cardboard facing part it would result in a UI which had no
| reason to encourage the user to trust the contents of the
| cardboard, and instead simply presented facts that enable the
| user to apply their own scrutiny.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Can Amazon even run FBA without comingling? This is the
| root of the problem; tracing an individual item back to the
| seller is apparently not possible, so seller reputation
| doesn't really exist. So either it's not a big enough
| problem for Amazon to kill comingling, or it's not
| profitable to do so at Amazon's scale.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that if we manage to coordinate an
| existential threat to Amazon, Amazon will respond by
| finding a way to do it profitably. The problem is that
| we're not threatening enough because we're uncoordinated.
| lumb63 wrote:
| Calling for Amazon to be banned from selling supplements is
| extreme, IMO. But they should be accountable for preventing
| counterfeit items from being sold or marketed as the items
| they're counterfeiting. In cases where the authenticity of the
| item has not been verified, that should be made clear to the
| buyer. Absence of such an indicator would mean the product is
| authentic (consumers should IMO be able to rely on products
| being what they are marketed as by default). That would put
| them on par with pretty much any other supplement seller, and
| go a long way toward ensuring people get the items they buy.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Defending the right of a company to profit from selling or
| mediating sales of products intended for human consumption,
| without any legal liability for their content or safety, is
| also pretty extreme.
|
| Nevermind the fact that they pay no taxes, at least not here.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Calling for Amazon to be banned from selling supplements is
| extreme
|
| If a physical store near you sold fake everything, including
| supplements, you'd think it extreme to shut it down?
| LargeTomato wrote:
| Step 1: Cease and desist letter
|
| Step 2: Legal action to pursue a change of policy and
| damages.
|
| Step 3: 2nd legal action if Amazon continues to be out of
| compliance with the previous ruling.
|
| There's a process here and jumping to the very end is not
| how it works.
| lostlogin wrote:
| This seems entirely appropriate, but skip step 2, then
| start sanctions or shutdowns if the situation persists.
|
| There is surely a template for this - quite possibly it's
| what you detail?
| lumb63 wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better for all parties involved to keep it
| open and implement regulations requiring they be honest
| about products? The customers could use the marketplace to
| get the products they actually want, and the business gets
| to benefit.
|
| Note that idea isn't mutually incompatible with penalizing
| the company for all the counterfeit products it
| sold/marketed.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| If they sell people counterfeit food and health supplements
| they should be banned from selling those items (at least for
| a period of time) until they can figure out proper inventory
| controls.
| samstave wrote:
| >> _...the state of things..._
|
| If you're not familiar with Skinny Puppy (industrial band)
|
| There is a lyric in a song "... _define... the state of
| things..._
|
| https://youtu.be/sDEhCm0pxCo?t=271
|
| " _...that paper shredder, patent tender, puts us back in time
| again...._ "
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KHDb9xwHvc
|
| Skinny puppy is from an AI cultural perspective, where they
| audience is a bunch of ~50 year old dorks (yes, population, we
| are fucking old - but we built things)
|
| 1. the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEhCm0pxCo
|
| 2. Reference: https://youtu.be/sDEhCm0pxCo?t=271
|
| (about to filter this through AI topaz and see if can get a
| better qual vid - but this song is a Hex on Exxon mobile (in
| response to valdez spills and oil profit demons)
| deeth_starr_v wrote:
| It's been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on
| Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug but
| a feature
| tacheiordache wrote:
| > It's been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on
| Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug
| but a feature
|
| And who knows what else!!!
|
| I'd never ingest anything that has Chinese provenance. Chinese
| garlic comes to mind as the latest thing to try to avoid. Not
| sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage. I'd rather be
| safe and avoid that altogether.
| ta988 wrote:
| A lot of the garlic in yhe US is from China, so if you ate in
| a restaurant you likely had some already.
| gruez wrote:
| >Not sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage.
|
| If that's your concern, you shouldn't be worried about just
| China. It's done in America as well.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/ci.
| ..
| thedougd wrote:
| Do American grocery stores have better controls or does their
| broker model just happen to filter the junk?
| notyourwork wrote:
| I wonder the same thing. It seems like something that at Amazon
| scale we pick on but at physical store scale we discard as not
| possible.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| I haven't hear about these problems at Walmart and would
| think the scale of stuff sold is comparable. I think the main
| problem, as others have mentioned, is that Amazon commingles
| products from various suppliers (so everything that comes in
| from a manufacturer or a true vetted wholesaler + 1000's of
| "flip stuff from china" garage operations get mixed up at
| Amazon warehouses before being sold).
| arrowleaf wrote:
| Right. Walmart doesn't let someone drive up with a semi-
| load of what looks like bags of King Arthur bread flour,
| mark the pallets with a tag, and cut them a check when they
| stock the items from that pallet onto the shelf. That's
| basically what Amazon does.
| toast0 wrote:
| Walmart is known for having a _very_ tight control over
| their suppy chains. IMHO, mostly for cost control, but
| quality control and authenticity are useful side effects.
| wccrawford wrote:
| IMO, there's a couple things going on there.
|
| First, grocery stores work on a 3% margin, so if they have a
| ton of returns on something, it costs them a ton of money from
| credit card fees and wages, and possibly from losing the cost
| of some portion of the product.
|
| Second, grocery stores have limited space and are picky about
| what they'll put in their store. They want quality goods that
| will sell well, and they don't want to cannibalize other
| products that would make them more money. So random supplements
| don't find their way to their shelves.
| arrowleaf wrote:
| Grocery stores typically have an extensive if not integrated
| supply chain they have absolute control over.
| hx8 wrote:
| Some of both. I think it's mostly the model.
|
| * All of a single product is from the same vendor. Very often,
| that vendor is also the manufacturer. (model)
|
| * Grocery stores have limited shelf space, and thus spend time
| getting to know their products. (model influencing qa)
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I don't think Amazon should have any protections for being a
| marketplace. Especially since we all found out about co-mingling,
| and how reviews are transferable between vendors and sometimes
| between products.
|
| They should be liable for any damages caused by these drugs, as
| well as patent/copyright/trademark infringement for any
| counterfeit products.
|
| I don't feel the same for ebay, reverb, or facebook. I'm not sure
| where the line should be, but I'm certain Amazon crossed it. Plus
| their business model infected Newegg and even Walmart, and who
| knows how many others, it just needs to stop.
|
| Maybe it should be that either you're a retailer or a
| marketplace, but never both? I don't know the answer but it sucks
| and has sucked for a long time, and im too lazy to stop using it
| so i guess im part of the problem.
| ta988 wrote:
| Reviews are transferable? I was wondering because many reviews
| I have seen don't seem to be for the product I am looking at at
| all.
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| It's a tactic that's been abused by third-party sellers for a
| long time now. They list a product, organize a bunch of paid-
| for 5-star reviews on another platform (you buy the product,
| submit a 5-star review, and they refund you the purchase
| cost, so you get the item for free), and then once all those
| 5-star reviews are in place, they eventually re-use the
| product page for another item entirely.
|
| It baffles me that Amazon's item listing system ever allowed
| this in the first place.
| rincebrain wrote:
| Nominally, this might make sense with a "people liked the
| v1 of this and now it's a different SKU", with a note about
| it being for something else.
|
| In practice, it seems very likely harm outweighs the
| benefits for consumers here, and it's just that it
| encourages more sales that keeps Amazon allowing it.
| macNchz wrote:
| Perhaps forgivable that it was allowed in the first place,
| but unacceptable that it was allowed to continue after the
| first time they noticed the lack of a review requirement
| for product page changes being exploited in this way.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| That's the biggest Amazon scam that Amazon itself allows and
| encourages (indirectly). In my experience, most inexpensive
| items from unknown brands have transferred reviews.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| The seller often swaps the product description for some other
| product, capitalizing on the reputation of the first to sell
| the second.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| There have been articles about it, I don't remember the
| details, but it is an exploit stemming from wanting the
| review to be about the product instead of the vendor, and the
| process of combining reviews from different listings of the
| same product.
|
| The fact that the reviews are not limited to a single vendor
| is a major part of the overall problem.
| alexpotato wrote:
| A personal example:
|
| - I order a large tweezer for cooking etc
|
| - It works great!
|
| - End up losing it so "order again" a year later and it's
| clearly a different product/manufacturer etc
| asquabventured wrote:
| Reading reviews of Chinese clone items you'll also start to
| see people mention an entire different product in the
| review than what you're looking at.
|
| E.g you're looking at a mattress cover and the reviews and
| pictures are for a folding chair or a slotted spoon.
|
| The internet of today is total trash.
| reubenmorais wrote:
| > The internet of today is total trash.
|
| Because despite this behavior we keep giving them money.
| It's not that hard to stop using Amazon.
| FredPret wrote:
| Not the internet. Just Amazon. Buying direct from the
| manufacturer / a trusted store is better than ever.
| gukov wrote:
| I often see reviews for a model that's similar but still
| different. Not being a seller, I'm guessing the exploit is
| around labelling a different model / product as a colour
| variation of the product they're trying to leech off, and
| voila: now the crappy product has the same rating / reviews
| as the original, better product.
| jacurtis wrote:
| There is a blackmarket of repurposed Amazon Product Pages.
| This is a problem that Amazon knows about and does nothing to
| resolve.
|
| So the way it works is that some company makes a page for a
| stuffed animal for example. They name the product page
| appropriately and start selling their toys. They push hard
| and gets lots of reviews and build up the aSEO (amazon search
| Optimization) for that page. They build up 1,000 positive
| reviews for their stuffed animal averaging 4.8 stars. Cool.
|
| Now they decide to stop selling that toy and instead start
| selling fidget spinners. Why start from scratch and go
| through the work of building up all those reviews again and
| the aSEO that took years on the stuffed animal product.
| Instead they just go in and change the title, the URL slug
| and the images to represent the new Fidget Spinner. They
| publish the changes and now, within seconds of posting their
| new Fidget Spinner is one of the best reviewed fidget
| spinners on Amazon and starts immediately getting sales
| because the page has strong aSEO and high reviews which makes
| it present well in search results. Visitors of the page see
| the high reviews and buy the product. They start selling
| thousands of Fidget Spinners overnight and build up to 2,000
| positive reviews.
|
| Now that company sells fidget spinners and then gets sued for
| using toxic glue in the building of their fidget spinners. No
| problem. THey change their name from
| SpinnyAltodaWidgetCorpIncUnlimitedPlus to
| ShenzenSpinnyWidgetToyPlusUnlimitedCorp. New company, now you
| can't sue them. Then they change the name on the product page
| and keep selling the same product with a different name and
| same reviews, building it up to 3,000.
|
| Now the company goes under. But they have all these high
| performing amazon pages. Here is where the fun begins, they
| literally go up for auction. Companies will page hundreds of
| thousands for a top performing amazon page. They sell the
| page to the highest bidder. Now a new company
| ShenzenShitzuSuperCorpPlusMegaChargerMorePlusPlus buys the
| page and starts selling Fish Oil supplements. They just
| change the name, images, URL, and company information, but it
| is technically the same amazon page. Then they start selling
| Fish Oil supplements with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.8 stars.
| They immediately shoot to the top of the search results and
| start selling thousands of bottles overnight because people
| are overwhelmed by the positive reviews of this product and
| its age and legacy on Amazon tells Amazon to push it to the
| top of search results.
|
| This is the black market of Amazon pages. These pages change
| hands often many times a year. Amazon could easily prevent
| product changes above a certain threshold or even across
| categories to prevent or eliminate this, but they don't want
| to. They are complicit in these behaviors by turning a blind
| eye to what they know is happening.
|
| Here is a detailed article about Hijacked Reviews from
| Consumer Reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-
| reviews-ratings/hij...
|
| For example, in one review they find a phone charging cable
| that has reviews for zip ties, hand soap, shaving cream, and
| gaming headsets all in the reviews for a phone charging
| cable. This page has been hijacked several times by entirely
| different product types.
| pompino wrote:
| Amazon tracks the "wrong item was sent" returns to find such
| items. They outsourced the checking to the customers, but
| they're eating the cost of processing the returns/shipping.
| Maybe that is cheaper in the long run?
| pests wrote:
| You misunderstand. It's the correct item. The old product
| page was rebuilt for the new product. Users aren't confused
| or expecting the original product.
| smith7018 wrote:
| Agreed that they should be held accountable for creating a
| platform that elevates these scam supplements to the same level
| as Apple, GE, Google, GNC, etc. I know some people might argue
| that Amazon shouldn't be responsible for the products that are
| listed on its site but I think we can just as easily say Amazon
| shouldn't be able to offer supplements/vitamins if they can't
| stand by their safety.
|
| All of this is even more troubling when you consider their
| purchase of One Medical. So my Amazon doctor tells me to ingest
| more zinc but buying zinc from Amazon might not actually have
| zinc in it?
| bradfa wrote:
| At least Walmart lets you easily filter search results for only
| things sold by Walmart itself. That makes it fine by me to be
| both a seller and marketplace. Amazon does not make such
| filtering easy at all.
| schemescape wrote:
| Anecdote: I filtered to "sold by Walmart" (I forget the exact
| terminology, but customer support confirmed it was _not_ from
| a marketplace seller), but the item I received had an Amazon
| return label and was shipped from an Amazon warehouse.
|
| That was the last time I bought from Walmart in an attempt to
| avoid Amazon's shenanigans.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| There is absolutely a tier of marketplace seller that
| bypasses that filter. I was trying to buy rechargeable
| batteries just yesterday and noticed this. If you look
| carefully, they are still listed as sold by a marketplace
| seller. Very frustrating, as it's gotten nearly impossible
| to find a retailer that isn't secretly selling me crap from
| the back of someone's van.
| bradfa wrote:
| I've given up buying rechargeable batteries online from
| anywhere except B&H in NYC and then only Panasonic
| branded ones at that. For a short time Amazon Basics
| rechargeables were decent but that was quite a while ago
| and only for a short time.
| bradfa wrote:
| That's frustrating. I've been pleasantly surprised at many
| of my interactions with Walmart when ordering online. Once
| even got same day delivery for free and without requesting
| it. Maybe I'm an outlier?
| 1920musicman wrote:
| I am not aware of any lawsuits against distributors/retailers
| but supplement companies have been successfully sued in the
| past. One famous case is Yoel Romero vs Gold Star Performance
| Products (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2838434-ufc-
| fighter-yoel...).
| Xeoncross wrote:
| I purchased a vitamin c supplement that was pure white and
| odorless/tasteless. I posted a review and photos. Obviously fake
| filler of some sort, Amazon removed my review as inaccurate when
| it's obvious whatever was in those capsules was not ascorbic acid
| of any kind.
|
| They also claimed to have zinc (greenish) and elderberry
| (purple). It's not safe for Amazon to let any random exporter put
| stuff for sale without any sanity checks.
| asquabventured wrote:
| When I reviewed a product as obviously fake they also removed
| my review. The company as a whole really kind of disgusts me
| now.
| wombat-man wrote:
| yeah they are kind of the last resort for me at this point
| when buying online.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Ascorbic acid is cheap in bulk, something like less than $5/kg
| if you buy it by the ton. Maybe cheap enough to _be_ the
| filler.
|
| And it is white and odorless in its pure form. It does have an
| acidic taste though, because it is an acid. I have some of it
| in my kitchen (pure bulk powder, not bought on Amazon) and I
| can tell you by experience.
| nostromo wrote:
| Vitamin C _is_ odorless and pure white, so maybe your review
| was right to be removed.
|
| It's not tasteless of course, it's sour.
| segmondy wrote:
| Don't buy anything from Amazon that you would put in your mouth,
| supplements, food, toothpaste, mouthwash, anything!
|
| I'm even wondering if to do the same for things applied to body
| as well, my wife recently bought a hair cream because from Amazon
| because she couldn't find it in stores. It was obvious the one
| from Amazon was not real when compared with the remaining ones
| she had. Package was perfect, but the color/texture of the cream
| was very different.
|
| It's a big chance buying things from online marketplace.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Well, some stuff you can buy only online.
|
| Anecdote: I tried to market my own dietary supplements in the
| US for a while. Unfortunately I am poor in marketing but many
| customers loved it. I bought all the ingredients from a
| supplier, had it mixed in California and shipped to a company
| that can package it. For a slight taste I needed a tiny amount
| of sucralose. Did not want to buy a huge amount. So I ordered
| it on eBay. I asked the guy to send me a CoA and he did. It
| said Manufacturere Spectrum and Food grade. Unfortunately I
| knew that Spectrum was not selling this as food grade. Sure the
| guy could have made his own tests but how likely is this? I
| just trashed it and bought it somewhere else. Should have used
| Stevia anyway.
| TaylorSwift wrote:
| Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work,
| most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or
| calcium supplement with chalk. Some supplements do work, but
| since they're not regulated, they're drowned out by nonsense and
| noise. OK, so you don't want to be a rube?...you do your research
| and then piece of shit fitness influencers tell you "ohh...that
| vitamin you bought form Walgreens or Costco didn't work?...of
| course not, you need to buy mine...it's CHELATED!!!!! thus is
| more BIOAVAILBLE...or some other random scientific work which is
| either incorrectly used or outright fraudulent.
|
| Half of my family spends a huge fortune on supplements, most of
| which are placebos. If you're young, you may not understand, but
| for us over 40, life starts to suck, physically. When you're
| young, your body is very fault-tolerant...have 6 beers and a
| cheeseburger for supper every day for a week?...nothing a few
| tums can't fix. Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right
| (daily exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like
| shit most of the day....same with most my age...thus we're
| desperate for anything that will make us feel better and not have
| any side effects that make things worse.
|
| Supplements are the dream and an age-old scam. Maybe punishing
| big retailers who tolerate fraud will not only reduce false
| claims, but make the public more aware that so called health
| experts online are ignorant, scammers, or both.
| ta988 wrote:
| If you replace the Calcium with chalk you would still have a
| source of calcium so it wouldn't be that bad :D
| achanda358 wrote:
| With different bioavailability
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's better than that. According to Wikipedia
|
| > Chalk is typically almost pure calcite, CaCO3, with just 2%
| to 4% of other minerals
|
| The supplement I just looked up uses Calcium Carbonate. That
| could just be purified chalk and be in compliance with the
| FDA. In fact, it probably is just that.
| beambot wrote:
| Animals eat naturally-occurring chalk (and other
| substances) to regulate key minerals. It's called
| geophagia.
| dehrmann wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_lick
| FredPret wrote:
| > geophagia
|
| Animals are eating the world
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work,
| most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or
| calcium supplement with chalk.
|
| Whether or not that's true, if you replaced someone's magnesium
| supplement with _viagra_ , you could seriously hurt them.
|
| >> FDA confirmed through laboratory analyses that the [...]
| products, purchased on www.amazon.com, contained [...] the
| active ingredients in the FDA-approved prescription drugs
| Viagra and Cialis, respectively, used to treat erectile
| dysfunction (ED). These undeclared ingredients may interact
| with nitrates found in some prescription drugs, such as
| nitroglycerin, and may lower blood pressure to dangerous
| levels.
| epmaybe wrote:
| holy crap, that's insane. You don't just accidentally add
| sildenafil or tadalafil to your supplements. Unless the FDA
| is misidentifying compounds present in the herbs in these
| supplements, which seems unlikely but I'm no pharmacology
| expert.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think "accidentally" is something that
| happened here. What's the best way to make your "all-
| natural Viagra" actually work? Make it with real Viagra.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'd be surprised if the buyers were expecting any
| different.
|
| With the amount of mislabelled product out there in
| circulation (and presumably a general lack of harm), does
| it still make sense to require a prescription?
| tonyarkles wrote:
| I'm personally pretty torn on that. On the one hand I
| agree with you, especially from a harm-reduction
| perspective (e.g. people who are on blood pressure
| medication ordering "natural" Viagra because Viagra's
| contra-indicated with the medication they're on, not
| realizing that they're getting something that could cause
| a very bad situation). On the other hand, requiring a
| prescription does mean that a physician can ask that
| question ("are you on blood pressure medication?") and
| counsel the patient to look at different options instead.
|
| I mean, even though 50% of these are intentional
| overdoses... the other 50% probably didn't know they were
| doing something that was going to destroy their liver:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's pretty much just an interaction with "nitrates"
| which are typically taken by people with pretty serious
| cardiac issues, and usually educated re: the side effects
| if taken with viagra or similar compounds (cuz you never
| know if someone has Viagra in their drawer from another
| pharmacy or years ago or "natural" Viagra from another
| source).
|
| The interaction with other blood pressure meds appears
| additive rather than synergistic and Viagra alone only
| minimally reduced blood pressure. The cough and cold
| aisle or a cafe presents more dangers.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10078539/
|
| At least over the counter Viagra would be properly
| labelled about these things.
| bumby wrote:
| Although they are most associated with ED, those
| supplements are also performance enhancers. For decades,
| unscrupulous supplement companies have put illicit or
| prescription drugs in their products. Many of those drugs
| (not the supplements) do, in fact, work. The rumor was the
| gameplan was to start with that until you get enough market
| hype and then remove them, but I've also heard some of the
| illicit drugs are cheap enough that they could still
| continue tainting them and make a profit. So even if they
| work, people deserve to know what they're putting in their
| bodies.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| Adding restricted ingredients to generally available
| supplements is a known tactic that supplement producers
| utilize extensively. In the past, this has been a well-
| known "secret" that bodybuilders basically relied on:
| buying tainted pre- and post-workout supplements that
| contain illegal steroids and such.
|
| It's a better regulated industry now, but with the
| explosion in supplement popularity over the last decade I
| doubt there is an easy way to test and punish all
| manufacturers. If you look at the list of supplements
| included in that warning letter, they have classic
| nonsensical names that Chinese companies are known for
| (WeFun, Genergy, etc). None are on www.amazon.com anymore,
| but hundreds of other supplements show up with absolutely
| no way of telling whether any of them are clean (e.g.
| "Endurance 2Nite").
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Are you saying there could be Viagra in my Endurance
| 2Nite?
| exegete wrote:
| >Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right (daily exercise,
| eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like shit most of
| the day....same with most my age...
|
| I'm nearing 40. Are you sure it's normal to feel terrible most
| of the day when eating right, exercising, and getting enough
| sleep? This doesn't sound normal to me.
| thechao wrote:
| I'm 45, walk, weight lift, eat well, sleep well, and feel
| better than I ever have. My dad says he didn't start to
| "feel" his age until 80: it may just be genetics?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Could be genetics, could be low T, could be depression, could
| be some other uncovered issue. Should probably discuss this
| with their doctor.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| It's not normal. None of my over 40 friends have the same
| experience. And in general, I doubt that turning 40 is a
| clear biological threshold regardless of one's lifestyle,
| diet, fitness level, etc.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| Yeah, there's something else going on. If you don't have
| permanent damage from some injury or disease, you shouldn't
| feel like 60+ if you barely hit 40. Maybe it's related to low
| testosterone, but even for that 40 is early.
| jml78 wrote:
| I am an inactive, 45 year old software developer.
|
| Can I overdo things and feel like shit? Yeah but mostly I
| feel great.
|
| My knees are kind messed up but that is from running 500
| miles every summer during middle school and high school.
|
| So no, being in your 40s shouldn't mean feeling like shit.
|
| As to the topic at hand, I use two supplements in addition to
| prescription blood pressure medications. I take my blood
| pressure 3 times daily. I can see in the cold hard numbers if
| I forget to take them.
| jordanpg wrote:
| I think OP was being a little hyperbolic, but I know what
| they mean. Little things add up. Certain minor issues become
| chronic. Waking up with minor aches and pains is somewhat
| frequent. Sleep issues are common.
|
| It falls short of feeling like shit, but there is a kind of
| death by many cuts that changes the baseline for feeling
| normal in the wrong direction.
| libria wrote:
| GP might have an illness/disease and fully aware of their
| condition, none of us know. No need to lose the main point by
| flexing our superior health against them.
|
| That point being: All of us deteriorate. We all reach an
| age/state where conventional medicine has reached its limit
| and snake oil begins to be look attractive. Not all of it is
| proven wrong, none of it is proven right.
| wkjagt wrote:
| One of the things that really bother me being over 40 is that
| my body is no longer immune to injuries. I can now throw out
| my back just my sneezing too enthusiastically.
| malfist wrote:
| It's funny you mention chelation. The most common method
| (cheapest) of chelating some metal is with EDTA, which is such
| a strong bond that it makes it completely bio-unavailable. In
| fact, if your body was somehow able to break the bond and
| absorb the metal ion, EDTA would happily go along and find some
| other metal in your body to bind to. You literally take EDTA
| for lead poisoning, but it'll happily take calcium, copper and
| iron out of your body while doing it, it doesn't give a damn.
| hammock wrote:
| > most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium
| or calcium supplement with chalk.
|
| Minerals and vitamins come from USP, which is tested and
| regulated and everyone in the industry gets the same quality
| (regardless of what they claim). It is what they say it is, if
| it's USP.
|
| Where is gets sketchy quickly is all the other stuff, like
| plant extracts etc
| nick__m wrote:
| USP is an old compendium, it is not an organization! it means
| United States Pharmacopeia, there is an organization that
| manages the trademark but they do not produce pharmaceutical,
| nor do they enforce quality, the enforcement is delegated to
| the FDA.
| phkahler wrote:
| I cured my asthma with magnesium and iodine ssupplements. While
| I agree with you that there are false claims out there, I have
| data to show stuff worked for me. YMMV of course.
| justinator wrote:
| _same with most my age...thus we 're desperate for anything
| that will make us feel better and not have any side effects
| that make things worse._
|
| The issue is that a chronic mistreatment of your body (similar
| to what you describe). The solution is a chronic loving of your
| body. Best time to start was 20 years ago. Second best time is
| today. I wish you luck and I can tell you: it doesn't have to
| be the way you describe, but it WILL take patience and a life-
| long commitment.
|
| And yeah: forget supplements. Focus on good food.
| MarCylinder wrote:
| Chelated supplements are, generally, more bioavailable than
| their oxidized counterparts because they are bound to nutrients
| for which you have transporters. Like amino acids, for
| instance.
|
| Supplements are absolutely regulated. To say otherwise is just
| ignorant of the law. Those regulations are not well enforced.
| That is the fault of the US justice department and Congress.
| The FDA is under-equipped in the way of funding to enforce
| regulations. And they're dependent on the justice department to
| actually follow through on enforcement. The justice department
| is only really interested in enforcement action where harm has
| occurred.
|
| Amazon can do better, but why are we exclusively placing the
| onus on them to enforce federal law? Why is the FDA not going
| after the brands making and selling this shit?
| hammock wrote:
| > Most supplements are garbage...
|
| > My family spends a huge fortune on supplements, most of which
| are placebos
|
| Unless you are just using "most" as a weasel word to hedge the
| chance that you might be wrong, using "most" would imply that
| you are aware of some supplements that aren't frauds. Can you
| share them?
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Have you considered that your expectations of supplements not
| working have caused a reverse placebo effect?
|
| I don't take many supplements but they all work for their
| intended purpose.
|
| creatine for muscle recovery and making me a tiny bit stronger
|
| ZMA (zinc, magnesium, b6). for deeper sleep and overcoming
| multiday hangovers
|
| melatonin for vivid dreams and waking up feeling more
| refreshed.
|
| b12/d3 for energy
|
| i don't take them all every day, but they have consistently
| noticeable effects and have improved my quality of life.
|
| i also just use the store brands from major retailers, and have
| low expectations.
|
| More importantly when I was in my late thirties I also thought
| feeling shitty was just part of getting older, but it turned
| out I had cancer. talk to a doctor.
| pfisherman wrote:
| I had the opportunity to get a peek at the FDA database of
| adulterated supplements and by far the most common type of
| adulteration was people spiking with viagra. I asked why and was
| told:
|
| "Man has been searching for an aphrodisiac for thousands of years
| and we finally found it. Of course they are going to put it in
| everything!"
| lostlogin wrote:
| The product reviews would be interesting to read.
| Blundermuffin wrote:
| The supplements in the letter say they contain the active
| ingredients found in many ED medications...
|
| This has been going on for years with those over the counter gas
| station products as well.
|
| The demand for these products is clearly big enough, and dozens
| of other countries sell these ED medications OTC at pharmacies.
|
| Maybe it's time the FDA approve those drugs for sale OTC and curb
| the madness.
| azinman2 wrote:
| If you did that you'd end up with a lot of deaths. These
| vasodilators are contraindicated for a wide variety of
| heart/health issues as well as other prescriptions.
| pbj1968 wrote:
| Cull the herd.
| oglop wrote:
| Do not buy supplements or anything you put in your body off
| Amazon. Just assume everything is made with fiberglass and dick
| pills, and shop with that mindset.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I bought a lotion from Amazon recently that smells like Windex. I
| need to go to the store and see if the lotion in store has the
| same smell. I have a feeling it could be counterfeit, as I can't
| see this particular maker making a product with that smell.
| MarCylinder wrote:
| Looks like a lot of uninformed opinions in here.
|
| As someone who has made a career consulting for supplement
| companies selling on Amazon, this does not surprise me. When
| Amazon first instituted testing requirements for supplements
| (something that already exists under federal law) they required
| all sellers to provide testing for all of their products. Failure
| to do so resulted in removal of your products from the
| marketplace.
|
| Since then, two things have changed. Certain supplement
| categories have additional testing requirements outside of what
| is expected by the FDA. Companies have to prove the absence of
| certain illegal ingredients. But, Amazon has switched to random
| testing requirements. In the last 3 years, Amazon has not asked a
| single one of my clients to provide any COAs. I have seen other
| brands have to provide some, but the requirements are very
| limited. It is for this reason, unsurprising that illegal
| products are making it into customer hands.
|
| It is my understanding that the individual who drove the campaign
| to get COAs, GMP certificates, etc for all supplement listings is
| no longer with Amazon, and nobody has filled that role since.
| That should be changed.
|
| But Amazon has always been aggressive over enforcement of
| marketing claims, and some claims will always instantly flag a
| COA requirement. Sellers use careful wording to avoid these
| flags. The solution is to make a COA required for the creation of
| these listings.
|
| I mean, let's take this one further. Most supplement companies
| are just marketing companies. They don't formulate the product,
| they don't manufacture the ingredients, and they don't even blend
| the powder. They make a brand. But, the FDA doesn't care. As a
| brand receiving product from a manufacturer, you are still
| required to test it. The manufacturer is also required to test
| the raw materials as well as the finished product. Yet, most
| companies I speak to are not testing product received. They rely
| solely on the manufacturer testing.
|
| So we should be requiring these brands to do their due diligence.
| Show me the COA you are supposed to have for every lot you send
| in. It's already required by the FDA.
|
| As is always the case with supplements, regulation is not the
| issue. It's enforcement
| Flammy wrote:
| This is a really high quality comment you've written here,
| thank you for posting your perspective.
|
| For those of us who don't know about testing, can you explain
| COA/GMP and how robust the testing process is?
|
| The reason I ask I'm a little concerned about Amazon's
| incentives not being aligned with consumers priority for high
| quality and safe product and is letting suppliers choose which
| product(s) to submit for testing rather than doing periodic
| random testing which I fear is too much to hope/ask for...
| pama wrote:
| It is great that the FDA does these random checks and can
| identify supplement and food items that contained erectile
| dysfunction drugs in them. It is a tough call to try and
| completely eliminate such products from all the marketplaces,
| especially when some approved US drugs may be not controlled in
| other countries. I'd trust Amazon as more able to do so than a
| random pharmacy or internet store. Let's see how this story
| develops.
| jrmg wrote:
| Not just Amazon. It's very obvious that much of e.g. YouTube and
| Instagram's funding (and that of creators) comes from ads for
| fraudulent and/or potentially dangerous medical supplements (not
| to mention other things like financial schemes or fraudulently
| described products).
| 1920musicman wrote:
| Since Amazon removed these products already, here is a link to
| one of the supplements mentioned in the letter: "X Max Triple
| Shot Energy Honey" (https://khan-alasal.com/honey-
| product/3-triple-shot-honey/).
|
| The company looks very shady, with no registered address and no
| contact details. They list dozens of "male energy" supplements
| that all apparently have been certified by HAACP (Safe Food
| Alliance, https://safefoodalliance.com/).
| thorncorona wrote:
| They're probably faked certs.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| if only the FDA cared about vitamins this much
| philip1209 wrote:
| I've had so many issues with Amazon counterfeits lately. Most
| recently, it turned out that my Coravin cartridges were fake.
| I've returned to buying direct from the manufacturer for many
| branded consumables (such as fish oils).
| FredPret wrote:
| Amazon is a scam site.
|
| I will buy my books from Indigo (Canada) from now on. Electronics
| and related doodads can come from Costco, Bestbuy, Walmart.
|
| Maybe it's not as convenient, but you know what you're getting.
|
| It's really unfortunate that Audible is in the Amazon family,
| because I'm not cancelling that any time soon.
|
| I know much of the internet runs on AWS, but I'll never really
| trust that either.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > Amazon is a scam site.
|
| It is and I don't understand the downvotes here. With
| commingled inventory, I don't understand how people are ok with
| ingesting stuff they buy from Amazon.
| infamouscow wrote:
| I've purchased quite a few paperbacks and hardcovers from
| Amazon because the author sidestepped the traditional
| publishing industry with Kindle Direct Publishing. I've enjoyed
| a number of book series this way.
| FredPret wrote:
| That is the one light in the darkness that is amazon.com
| siliconc0w wrote:
| This is a real risk and why supplementation is probably not a
| good idea except for like specific conditions as recommended by
| your doctor (e.g pregnancy). In an unregulated space like this,
| it's basically impossible to know what you're getting which can
| range from ineffective to seriously harmful (heavy metals,
| toxins, or active pharmaceuticals). Better to get micronutrients
| from bio-available sources and optimize diet, sleep, and
| exercise.
|
| It's also relatively expensive compared to the usually marginal
| benefit. Most likely you should sock away that spend into an
| index so you can afford the more effective and expensive
| therapies that our healthcare system doesn't give you access to
| (because it generally won't pay for prevention).
| nblgbg wrote:
| Recently, I noticed that Amazon removed the listed ingredients
| for regular items like toothpaste, shampoos, and mouthwashes.
| Initially, I thought it was a mistake for a couple of items I
| regularly buy, but it seems they have removed this information
| for many products. I'm not sure what the intention behind this
| change is. My suspicion now (after this article) is that they are
| doing it deliberately, allowing them to claim that the page
| doesn't list ingredients for any item.
| sameermanek wrote:
| Amazon was a great site! I still remember buying my first
| converse from amazon in 2011. Back then, there were no nike
| stores in my town in India and i badly wanted one. I bought from
| a few local resellers who sold me duplicate products and i wasted
| a lot of my money on that.
|
| Now, the tables have turned. If i want a genuine product, i often
| shop locally rather than amazon. They even messed up my socks and
| sent duplicate versions of fairly common books like harry potter.
|
| The whole site seems to be promoting bad products, placing
| something not even Remotely close to my searches. "Looking for a
| yoga mat? Here's a chinese fitness tracker we think you might be
| interested in".. the fuck??
|
| On top of that, the bad quality supplements they sell are just
| nerve wrecking. Almost no information is factual, No usage
| guidelines, nothing. And the reviews are just another scam by
| themselves!
|
| All in all, it's a really bad product now!
| Tao3300 wrote:
| IMO Cons (at least Chuck Taylors) themselves have been
| counterfeit garbage for a while now. They imbue the soles with
| paper so they can dodge tariffs by calling them slippers. They
| don't pass the savings from this on to the consumer, and the
| traction is terrible.
| NanoYohaneTSU wrote:
| This is so hilariously pathetic. MISBRANDING???? HOW DARE
| YOU!!!!! FDA has been worthless for a long time and only acts as
| a barrier to stop idiots from buying products that lie. Let them
| die.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| So, Amazon sold drugs illegally and all they have to do now is
| send a letter promising that they won't do it again? No fines, no
| lawsuits?
| LanzVonL wrote:
| Amazon is totally jam packed with scams, it's actually pretty
| shocking.
| narrator wrote:
| Lol, looks like these guys the FDA wrote the letter about were
| selling absurdly cheap generic viagra and cialis.
| Groxx wrote:
| Driving food- and medical-adjacent stuff off of Amazon and their
| un-checked mixed-binning insanity would be _fantastic_. They 've
| been allowed to play fast and loose with safety for far too long.
| epgui wrote:
| Biochemist here: for a whole bunch of biology & administrative
| reasons, the supplement industry is more scam than science.
| mberning wrote:
| Big Pharma using their bought and paid for henchmen to protect
| their turf. The mob wishes they were ever this successful.
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