For a long time I've known (hopefully along with everyone else who takes lifting seriously) that the supplement industry (legal supplements, the products GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, etc carry) is different from the food industry because they do not have to get their products tested by the FDA. The FDA has to prove that the product is harmful in order for them to take it off the market.
As such, the health industry is full of misleading advertisments with doctored photoshoots, products claiming daily pound muscle gain, and misleading label ingredients which conceal what goes in the product. Open any health/bodybuilding magazine and look at the advertisements. They put normal advertisements to shame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfTnVCh0dKE&feature=related
Heres a short clip from a Steroid Documentary called Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which talks about the American culture and how it relates to Steroids. The whole clip is good, but the supplement part starts around 1:40, and the end shows the relative easieness of obtaining HGH (Human Growth Hormone).
Now I'm not talking about whether things should be legal or not, as in Steroids, supplements, drugs, etc. I know that Libertarians stress government prohibition of drugs creates more problems than it solves. But how do we respond to something like this? The supplement industry seems to have its problems such as the ones listed above, (including the fiasco of Hydroxycut and how it was taken off the market). Do we advocate environments like this, or is there something wrong that makes them different from an ideal libertarian scenario?
We advocate letting people make their own decisions. If they find they've chosen wrongly in the sense that they received no benefit from the item--lesson learned. If they find that they were sickened by the item when it was claimed to not do such, a tort can be brought. But we cannot save people from their own buyer's remorse.
BlackNumero:The supplement industry seems to have its problems such as the ones listed above,
So I think that there is more than enough information out there for people to rely on. I chose my supplements by reading articles and cross checking them with reviews. I think most people on BB.com do this. Even less savvy consumers who go into GNC and say I WANNA GET BIG FAST usually get handed something like sizeon by gaspari. I think regulating the industry would shut down a lot of the more efficient brands and stop them from entering the market. I mean gaspari is new but they've really taken off. How lost would we be without this kind of competition? It would be an oligopoly and we'd be paying 100 bucks for 5lbs of whey :P.
p.s. this thread just kills me. I have a shoulder injury so I haven't lifted in 3 months ><
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." ~Dream
Good to see someone else on Mises who lifts too!
Sorry to hear about your shoulder pain, I had something like that happen two years ago.
The solution is for consumers to find the ignition key to their brain...
To darkness I condemn you...
How do we feel about some of the blatant misadvertisements that go along with the products?
government law is partially responsible for the gullibility in certain consumers, who naively believe the statist myth that magically the state protects.
its said on TV it must be true, since if it was not true, the TV people would be in jail for false advertising since the government monitor truth in advertising and the government are infallible therefore the advertising that we see must all be true.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
BlackNumero:How do we feel about some of the blatant misadvertisements that go along with the products?
How do we feel? lol
If the claim is fraud, that is one thing. If it is not fraud, then what is the problem?
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
BlackNumero: How do we feel about some of the blatant misadvertisements that go along with the products?
Fraud is a crime, and should be sanctioned as such.
Periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me like the fiasco surrounding Hydroxicut is the market at work. They've got a new formula out now. Now I bet they're a lot more diligent in making sure they're product don't kill people.
"For a wounded man shall say to his assailant: 'If I live I will kill you. If I die, you are forgiven.' Such is the rule of honor."
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