GAO on DSHEA

Sorry about the acronyms; just wanted to keep things brief and to-the-point. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report [PDF] recommending increased oversight of dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) has allowed many pseudoscientific products to hide their fraud behind a disclaimer. I’ve discussed this issue here before.

Orac pointed out, I think correctly, that the GAO’s recommendations, while well-intentioned, are “mere Band-Aids on a sucking chest wound.” Nevertheless, it’s nice to see that the government is paying attention to problems like this one, and I’ll take a Band-Aid for starters.

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March 12, 2009 · Written by
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2 Responses to “GAO on DSHEA”

  1. Me Identicon Icon Me on March 13th, 2009 11:29 am

    And more regulation is going to prevent falsely marketed products from hitting the market? Need I remind people that the following article is talking about FDA-approved drugs?

    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/wireStory?id=7056362

    The FDA is a useless shill, and additional regulation will be change this.

  2. Z Identicon Icon Z on March 14th, 2009 11:07 am

    I’m not sure what you mean when you say that “additional regulation will be change this.” Are you for or against better regulation of food and drugs? It seems like your complaint is that the FDA has made mistakes before, or has been unable to catch people lying to them in every case. This makes them, to you, “a useless shill.” Do you think the situation would be better with no FDA at all?

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