One Craze I Hope Won’t Catch On

Okay, so they found a stimulant, a long-named never tested member of the amphetamine family a body building type supplement; not listed on the label, never studied in humans.  I can’t count how many laws were broken.  So they can throw the responsible party in jail and stop this sort of thing, right? Wrong.

This guy has no credentials except for a history of doing the same thing and getting nonsuspecting users in trouble, including death and close to it, chronicled on this page in such lurid detail I would rather not report it in more detail. They quote Amy Eichner of the U.S. anti-doping agency as saying that in this industry there are “a lot of bad actors.”  A speaker for the supplement industry says “150 million Americans use supplements, “with very few side effects. One victim of this supplement is now working as something athletic in the Oakland Schools where he tells kids not to take supplements; in particular, nothing that is not “FDA approved.” I have previously called FDA a toothless lion; I surely do not trust them enough not to dish out things they have not approved, for I regularly recommend marijuana. Maybe they are not just toothless, but headless and brainless as they were not quoted in this article and I would not expect them to do anything. No amount of research based on the label can help when the offending ingredient, which seems to have been in therapeutic doses, is not even on the label. This is criminal, pure and simple. Natural stuff you buy off the shelf does help a lot of folks.  Maybe a larger company, with a lot of products on the shelf, that you find in a large chain store, may have a better chance of not having been adulterated, but it is hard to be sure of anything. Maybe people are making emotional decisions about having a body for building.  Or a thinner body, based on the assertions of colleagues at a girls’ school .  That one sounds all too familiar. Maybe anything that feels too good should be suspect. Our policy, any sham that masquerades at protecting athletes, let alone citizens who take supplements, is so ridiculous, so dangerous in this country, that I cannot even derive any rational rules to tell people to follow. I am not going to give up my probiotics or vitamin based products sold by those whom I believe to be trusted suppliers.  I think they help, although I certainly am no athlete or bodybuilder and can only measure things slowly. The gaping vacuum in protecting citizens is scandalous.  America ought to be able to do better, by putting teeth (and heads and brains) in regulatory commissions, and valuing human life and well being as promised so long ago. America has fallen short on too many promises; this is one of them.