$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found

[The Spartan]

Link

$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found
Big, government-funded studies show most work no better than placebos
The Associated Press
updated 11:15 a.m. CT, Wed., June 10, 2009
BETHESDA, Md. - Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.

Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The lone exception: ginger capsules may help chemotherapy nausea.

As for therapies, acupuncture has been shown to help certain conditions, and yoga, massage, meditation and other relaxation methods may relieve symptoms like pain, anxiety and fatigue.

However, the government also is funding studies of purported energy fields, distance healing and other approaches that have little if any biological plausibility or scientific evidence.

Taxpayers are bankrolling studies of whether pressing various spots on your head can help with weight loss, whether brain waves emitted from a special "master" can help break cocaine addiction, and whether wearing magnets can help the painful wrist problem, carpal tunnel syndrome.

The acupressure weight-loss technique won a $2 million grant even though a small trial of it on 60 people found no statistically significant benefit — only an encouraging trend that could have occurred by chance. The researcher says the pilot study was just to see if the technique was feasible.


"You expect scientific thinking" at a federal science agency, said R. Barker Bausell, author of "Snake Oil Science" and a research methods expert at the University of Maryland, one of the agency's top-funded research sites. "It's become politically correct to investigate nonsense."

Many scientists say that unconventional treatments hold promise and deserve serious study, but that the federal center needs to be more skeptical and selective.

"There's not all the money in the world and you have to choose" what most deserves tax support, said Barrie Cassileth, integrative medicine chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

"Many of the studies that have been funded I would not have funded because they seem irrational and foolish — studies on distant healing by prayer and energy healing, studies that are based on precepts and ideas that are contrary to what is known in terms of human physiology and disease," she said.

In an interview last year, shortly after becoming the federal center's new director, Dr. Josephine Briggs said it had a strong research record, and praised the many "big name" scientists who had sought its grants. She conceded there were no big wins from its first decade, other than a study that found acupuncture helped knee arthritis. That finding was called into question when a later, larger study found that sham treatment worked just as well.

"The initial studies were driven by some very strong enthusiasms, and now we're learning about how to layer evidence" and to do more basic science before testing a particular supplement in a large trial, said Briggs, who trained at Ivy League schools and has a respected scientific career.

"There are a lot of negative studies in conventional medicine," and the government's outlay is small compared to drug company spending, she added.


However, critics say that unlike private companies that face bottom-line pressure to abandon a drug that flops, the federal center is reluctant to admit a supplement may lack merit — despite a strategic plan pledging not to equivocate in the face of negative findings.

Echinacea is an example. After a large study by a top virologist found it didn't help colds, its fans said the wrong one of the plant's nine species had been tested. Federal officials agreed that more research was needed, even though they had approved the type used in the study.

"There's been a deliberate policy of never saying something doesn't work. It's as though you can only speak in one direction," and say a different version or dose might give different results, said Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired physician who runs Quackwatch, a web site on medical scams.

Critics also say the federal center's research agenda is shaped by an advisory board loaded with alternative medicine practitioners. They account for at least nine of the board's 18 members, as required by its government charter. Many studies they approve for funding are done by alternative therapy providers; grants have gone to board members, too.

"It's the fox guarding the chicken coop," said Dr. Joseph Jacobs, who headed the Office of Alternative Medicine, a smaller federal agency that preceded the center's creation. "This is not science, it's ideology on the part of the advocates."

Briggs defended their involvement.

"If you're going to do a study on acupuncture, you're going to need acupuncture expertise," she said. These therapists "are very much believers in what they do," not unlike gastroenterologists doing a study of colonoscopy, and good study design can guard against bias, she said.

The center was handed a flawed mission, many scientists say.

Congress created it after several powerful members claimed health benefits from their own use of alternative medicine and persuaded others that this enormously popular field needed more study. The new center was given $50 million in 1999 (its budget was $122 million last year) and ordered to research unconventional therapies and nostrums that Americans were using to see which ones had merit.

That is opposite how other National Institutes of Health agencies work, where scientific evidence or at least plausibility is required to justify studies, and treatments go into wide use after there is evidence they work — not before.

"There's very little basic science behind these things. Most of it begins with a tradition, or personal testimony and people's beliefs, even as a fad. And then pressure comes: 'It's being popular, it's being used, it should be studied.' It turns things upside down," said Dr. Edward Campion, a senior editor who reviews alternative medicine research submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine.

That reasoning was used to justify the $2 million weight-loss study, approved in 2007. It will test Tapas acupressure, devised by Tapas Fleming, a California acupuncturist. Use of her trademarked method requires employing people she certifies, and the study needs eight.


It involves pressing on specific points on the face and head — the inner corners of the eyes are two — while focusing on a problem. Dr. Charles Elder, a Kaiser Permanente physician who runs an herbal and ayurvedic medicine clinic in Portland, Ore., is testing whether it can prevent dieters from regaining lost weight.

Say a person comes home and is tempted by Twinkies on the table. The solution: Start acupressure "and say something like 'I have an uncontrollable Twinkie urge,"' Elder said. Then focus on an opposite thought, like "I'm in control of my eating."

In Chinese medicine, the pressure is said to release natural energy in a place in the body "responsible for transforming animal desire into higher thoughts," Elder said.

In a federally funded pilot study, 30 dieters who were taught acupressure regained only half a pound six months later, compared with over three pounds for a comparison group of 30 others. However, the study widely missed a key scientific standard for showing that results were not a statistical fluke.

The pilot trial was just to see if the technique was feasible, Elder said. The results were good enough for the federal center to grant $2.1 million for a bigger study in 500 people that is under way now.

Alternative medicine research also is complicated by the subjective nature of many of the things being studied. Pain, memory, cravings, anxiety and fatigue are symptoms that people tolerate and experience in widely different ways.

Take a question like, "Does yoga work for back pain?" said Margaret Chesney, a psychologist who is associate director of the federally funded Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland.

"What kind of yoga? What kind of back pain?" And what does it mean to "work" — to help someone avoid surgery, hold a job or need less medication?

Some things — the body meridians that acupuncturists say they follow, or energy forces that healers say they manipulate — cannot be measured, and many scientists question their existence.


Studying herbals is tough because they are not standardized as prescription drugs are required to be. One brand might contain a plant's flowers, another its seeds and another, stems and leaves, in varying amounts.

There are 150 makers of black cohosh "and probably no two are exactly the same, and probably some people are putting sawdust in capsules and selling it," said Norman Farnsworth, a federally funded herbal medicine researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Even after a careful study, "you know one thing more precise and firm about what that agent did in that population with that outcome measurement, but you don't necessarily know the whole gamut of its effectiveness," as the echinacea study showed, Briggs said.

The center posts information on supplements and treatments on its Web site, and has a phone line for the public to ask questions — even when the answer is that not enough is known to rule in or rule out benefit or harm.

"I hope we are building knowledge and at least an informed consumer," Briggs said.

On the one hand, I'm disappointed, if not terribly shocked, that so many of these supposed remedies turned out to be nonsense, but on the other, I'm appalled that certain "treatments" are even being given the credibility of a study, like energy fields and distance healing. I'm even more disgusted by the lack of control; both the apparent lack in the studies themselves and the outright lack on these herbal supplements.

[Simon_Jester]

I can confidently predict that "energy field manipulation" won't cure cancer, but it is at least worth doing one or two good double-blind studies in a peer-reviewed setting to make sure. After all, the way we know superstitious junk is superstitious junk is by taking the time to debunk it. Until you've debunked the practice formally and thoroughly, there's always the off chance of getting a pleasant surprise and finding out that it actually works. Not likely, but worth checking just the once.

But it becomes a problem if the government keeps throwing good money after bad when you've already done a study that ought to have picked up the value of the treatment if the treatment actually worked.

[Broomstick]

Solid studies debunking claims - even outrageous ones - can have the effect of convincing fence-sitters that they should stick with proven medicine. It won't move True Believers but then nothing will. If you steer the uncertain back to actual medicine, though, those studies can potentially still save some lives, or save someone from avoidable harm.

However, two debunking studies (one to debunk, one to confirm) should be sufficient for maximum gain. After that move on.

And, really, things like saw palmetto and ginko were worth looking at. Some of the herbals weren't outrageous to study, but at a certain point you have to admit your disappointment and look at something else.

[Darth Wong]

Is it really necessary for medical research studies to cost such huge amounts of money? I think it's a fine idea to test alternative therapies to either confirm or debunk them, because then we have studies we can point to instead of appealing to ignorance. But $2.5 billion? How much did each individual study cost?

[Broomstick]

That's a good question, Mike, how much did each study cost? And how many studies total? That 2.4 billion wasn't all in one year, either, I believe it's the total cost of the program over time.

[The Spartan]

And, really, things like saw palmetto and ginko were worth looking at. Some of the herbals weren't outrageous to study, but at a certain point you have to admit your disappointment and look at something else.

To be more clear, those I understand. It's like testing a drug.

It's the powerfields and the like that blow my mind. Of course, I'm probably giving the average person somewhat more consideration than they deserve when it comes to things like this. After all, people keep buying magic crystals and so forth.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Is anyone really surprised? The Pentagon has funded studies in such things as teleportation and telepathy before, why not this?

[Simon_Jester]

And, really, things like saw palmetto and ginko were worth looking at. Some of the herbals weren't outrageous to study, but at a certain point you have to admit your disappointment and look at something else.

To be more clear, those I understand. It's like testing a drug.

It's the powerfields and the like that blow my mind. Of course, I'm probably giving the average person somewhat more consideration than they deserve when it comes to things like this. After all, people keep buying magic crystals and so forth.

We know that magic crystals and energy fields don't work. But the reason we know is that we can test this the same way we test things that do work, such as aspirin or blood transfusions. We can afford to dismiss the pseudoscientific nonsense with immense confidence, but only because we actually took the trouble to check.

The people who were convinced that they could cure cancer with intriguing arrangements of semiprecious stones in the first place won't change their minds. Usually, this is because they consider the cases they personally know where their method "worked" (as in, the patient got better because of the placebo effect, or would have gotten better anyway and they attribute it to the technique) more important than the study done by strangers on other strangers that didn't work.

But as Broomstick points out, studies do have a useful effect on people coming to the situation without knowing whether or not magic rocks work. If you can actually say "Look, we tried magic rocks on a thousand people and cut glass fake-magic rocks on a thousand people, and the 'real' rocks don't work any better than the fake ones," that's worth something.
______

Is anyone really surprised? The Pentagon has funded studies in such things as teleportation and telepathy before, why not this?

This is another example of the same thing- it isn't true, but the reason we know it isn't true is because we spent the money to study... and if there were anything to it at all, it would be incredibly valuable. If you don't walk into the situation convinced you know the outcome of the study in advance, it's worth spending a modest sum on telepathy research. Once or twice, at least.

After that, anyone rational enough to merit power over a budget should stop throwing good money after bad.

[tim31]

Is it really necessary for medical research studies to cost such huge amounts of money?

The local med research institute attached to the University of Tasmania apparently had so much extra funding that they were able to pay for the demolition of their existing campus, as well as the drafting and construction of a huge piece of architectural wank. I grant that it's nice for them to have new and improved facilities, but the packaging seems a bit frivolous.

[Covenant]

I had expected that nearly all of them are entirely worthless, I think people give far, far too much credit to non-regimented medicine. Even unusual things like accupuncture have had many years of study on the part of the people who developed it, with books and diagrams and previously bogus theories for why it did what it did. It may not look like Western medicine but it's the closest to scientific investigation of health that you saw on the list. Using it for weightloss, however, is nonsense. What I find troubling is that medical groups would be so complicit in trying to sell this snakeoil despite findings that it actually doesn't work. Once more, it's ignoring the evidence.

[Tolya]

What boggles me is that someone actually spend 2,5 FRICKING BILLION DOLLARS to try and prove that Go... I mean alternative medicines do or do not work.

I always thought that if you submit a new cure you should be the one to pay for the tests that prove it works. But of course alternative medicine is not subjected to controlled clinical trials or publications in peer reviewed journals, and the usual stupidity follows.

So, having spent 2,5 bn proving that something doesn't work, I wonder how many people will lay off their chakras, ouiji boards and sugar pills and go see a real doctor.

That money would be better spent elsewhere. Researching stem cell theory, funding hospitals and free vaccinations just to name a few.

[Broomstick]

I always thought that if you submit a new cure you should be the one to pay for the tests that prove it works.

For-profit pharmaceutical companies do, indeed, do this. However, mounting a clinical trial large enough to be meaningful isn't cheap and many researchers do not have the personal resources to do so - hence the existence of grants and charity funding.

But of course alternative medicine is not subjected to controlled clinical trials or publications in peer reviewed journals, and the usual stupidity follows.

I'm sorry - do you not understand that this 2.5 billion was, in fact, spent on controlled clinical trials?

So, having spent 2,5 bn proving that something doesn't work, I wonder how many people will lay off their chakras, ouiji boards and sugar pills and go see a real doctor.

Judging by the disappointment I've seen expressed in some quarters, and the suddenly diminished presence of some of these items on shelves in stores, they have had an effect. As I mentioned before, there does remain a group of hard-core believers you simply won't convince, but people who were uncertain before are less likely to pop herbal pills. Also, the bottles of this stuff sold are no longer as prominently labeled with claims - saw palmetto bottles used to prominently feature "good for prostate health!" but I haven't seen that for quite a while. With a few clinical trials disproving that claim they can no longer make it. They used to get around some of the rules by saying things like "traditionally for prostate health, this statement not evaluated by the FDA" or the like, but they can't do that anymore. The lack of such claims (excusable only because research hadn't proven or disproven the claims) acts as a barrier to it's use as the bottle sits there and the average Joe doesn't know what the heck it is for and frequently can't be bothered to actually look into it on his own. People self researching alternative cures now also have real evidence against some of these things

That money would be better spent elsewhere. Researching stem cell theory, funding hospitals and free vaccinations just to name a few.

Except that during the years this research was being done government funding of stem cell research was largely banned due to have a fuckwit administration, and likewise those same assholes were against such "socialist" ideas as the government funding hospitals or free vaccinations. The "elsewhere" such money would have been spent would have been on the military or on "abstinence-only" sex education or the like.

[dragon]

I assume by energy fields they mean stuff like aura's and such and not MRI's.
As for alternative medicine I like acupunture as it blocks the pain from the messed up disk in my back, granted it's only temporaly relief.

[Stuart]

Judging by the disappointment I've seen expressed in some quarters, and the suddenly diminished presence of some of these items on shelves in stores, they have had an effect. As I mentioned before, there does remain a group of hard-core believers you simply won't convince, but people who were uncertain before are less likely to pop herbal pills. Also, the bottles of this stuff sold are no longer as prominently labeled with claims - saw palmetto bottles used to prominently feature "good for prostate health!" but I haven't seen that for quite a while. With a few clinical trials disproving that claim they can no longer make it. They used to get around some of the rules by saying things like "traditionally for prostate health, this statement not evaluated by the FDA" or the like, but they can't do that anymore. The lack of such claims (excusable only because research hadn't proven or disproven the claims) acts as a barrier to it's use as the bottle sits there and the average Joe doesn't know what the heck it is for and frequently can't be bothered to actually look into it on his own. People self researching alternative cures now also have real evidence against some of these things.

Well said. In my opinion, considering some of the things that the Government wastes money on, spending USD2.5 billion over a period of years discrediting some of this quackery is money well spent. Another interesting example of this is that health insurance plans are beginning to drop coverage of "alternative medicine/treatments" from their coverage. Five/ten years ago, providing such coverage was all the rage with the insurance companies making a selling point of covering such treatments. Now, they're quietly dropping them.

Your point on sueprmarkets is very well made. One of the things that gets done in such places is that sales-per-square-foot of shelf space is calculated on a daily basis. Items that generate a lot of revenue per square foot (or where the trend in such revenue is upwards) are allocated more shelf space and moved to more prominent positions; those that are poor or declining earners have their shelf space cut and are moved to less prominent positions. Just walking around our local supermarkets over the last year, I've noted that "alternative health products" are losing shelf space and prominent positions.

[Stuart]

Is anyone really surprised? The Pentagon has funded studies in such things as teleportation and telepathy before, why not this?

One day, your Grace, I'll tell you where most of that money was really spent The big problem with the 1980s defense budgets was finding things to waste money on; we had all those allocations for black projects that didn't exist and the money had to be spent or the whole charade would have collapsed. We had the other side convinced we had access to ****technologies they could not dream of**** and were furiously weaponizing them. So we had to get rid of the funding in order to create a big black hole in the accounts that was supposed to be funding said weaponization

[Darth Wong]

I always thought that if you submit a new cure you should be the one to pay for the tests that prove it works.

Actually, I always thought this was a conflict of interest: if you're paying the researcher who will declare that the drug works, then he has a vested interest to say what you want to hear ... which is that the drug works.

[Darth Wong]

Judging by the disappointment I've seen expressed in some quarters, and the suddenly diminished presence of some of these items on shelves in stores, they have had an effect. As I mentioned before, there does remain a group of hard-core believers you simply won't convince, but people who were uncertain before are less likely to pop herbal pills. Also, the bottles of this stuff sold are no longer as prominently labeled with claims - saw palmetto bottles used to prominently feature "good for prostate health!" but I haven't seen that for quite a while. With a few clinical trials disproving that claim they can no longer make it.

They were allowed to make them before? In Canada, they're not supposed to make health claims without positive clinical trials. The absence of a negative clinical trial is an unacceptable justification for a health claim.

They used to get around some of the rules by saying things like "traditionally for prostate health, this statement not evaluated by the FDA" or the like, but they can't do that anymore.

Why not? That claim would still be completely factual: if the product was traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>, then it is completely accurate to say this, even if the scientific evidence suggests that it does not work.

I would actually be curious just how many of these cures and therapies they tested. Quite a few have been subjected to clinical trials elsewhere and yielded some positive results (many pharmaceutical drugs originate that way, after all), and the article is confusing. In the headline, it says there were no positive results whatsoever, but in the body it lists a few exceptions.

[Surlethe]

Why not? That claim would still be completely factual: if the product was traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>, then it is completely accurate to say this, even if the scientific evidence suggests that it does not work.

I suppose they're not allowed to do that because of the dishonest connotation. Your average Joe will read that and assume "traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>" implies that it must be an effective treatment for <insert health problem here>; it's essentially a veiled appeal to tradition.

[Darth Wong]

Why not? That claim would still be completely factual: if the product was traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>, then it is completely accurate to say this, even if the scientific evidence suggests that it does not work.

I suppose they're not allowed to do that because of the dishonest connotation. Your average Joe will read that and assume "traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>" implies that it must be an effective treatment for <insert health problem here>; it's essentially a veiled appeal to tradition.

That doesn't make sense. If would only have that connotation to people who are inclined to believe in alternative cures anyway, and besides, since when do we outlaw connotations? Do you have any idea how much connotation and innuendo are employed by the advertising industry? How many beer commercials imply that if you drink beer, you will party with beautiful half-naked girls? How about all of those fucking "Axe body spray" commercials which imply that women will literally jump you in the street if you're wearing the stuff?

[The Spartan]

In related news.

FDA orders Zicam pulled from store shelves
Zicam pulled from shelves; consumers urged to stop using products
The Associated Press
updated 6:21 p.m. CT, Tues., June 16, 2009
WASHINGTON - Consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products because they can permanently damage the sense of smell, federal health regulators said Tuesday.

The over-the-counter products contain zinc, an ingredient scientists say may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell. The other products affected by the Food and Drug Administration’s announcement are adult and kid-size Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs.

The FDA says about 130 consumers have reported a loss of smell after using Matrixx Initiatives’ Zicam products since 1999. Shares of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company plunged to a 52-week low after the FDA announcement, losing more than half their value.

“Loss of the sense of smell is potentially life threatening and may be permanent,” said Dr. Charles Lee. “People without the sense of smell may not be able to detect life dangerous situations, such as gas leaks or something burning in the house.”

The FDA said Zicam Cold Remedy was never formally approved because it is part of a small group of remedies that are not required to undergo federal review before launching. Known as homeopathic products, the formulations often contain herbs, minerals and flowers.

A warning letter issued to Matrixx on Tuesday asked the company to stop marketing its zinc-based products, but the agency did not issue a formal recall. Instead, regulators said Matrixx would have to submit safety and effectiveness data on the drug.

“The next step, if they wish to continue marketing Zicam intranasal zinc products, is for them is for them to come in and seek FDA approval,” said Deborah Autor, director of FDA’s drug compliance division.

The agency is requiring formal approval now because of the product’s safety issues, she added.

Growing homeopathic market
The global market for homeopathic drugs is about $200 million per year, according to the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists. The group’s members include companies like Nutraceutical International Corp. and Natural Health Supply.

Matrixx has settled hundreds of lawsuits connected with Zicam in recent years, but says on its Web site: “No plaintiff has ever won a court case, because there is no known causal link between the use of Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and impairment of smell.”

The company said in a statement Tuesday that the Zicam Cold Remedy’s safety is “supported by the cumulative science and has been confirmed by a multidisciplinary panel of scientists.”

But government scientists say they are unaware of any data to support Zicam’s labeling, which claims the drug reduces cold symptoms, including “sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing, coughing, congestion.”

Matrixx said it will consider withdrawing the products, which accounted for about 40 percent of its $111.6 million in sales last year.


Facing multiple lawsuits
Health officials said they have asked Matrixx executives to turn over more than 800 consumer complaints concerning lost smell that the company has on file. A 2007 law began requiring manufacturers to report such problems, but FDA regulators declined to say Tuesday whether the company broke the law.

The 130 reports received by the FDA came entirely from physicians and patients, not the manufacturer.

Regulators said the relatively small number of complaints accounted for the agency’s lengthy investigation.

“FDA doesn’t take action against drug products without evaluating all of the circumstances surrounding the issues with the product,” Lee said.

Shares of Matrixx Initiatives Inc. plummeted $13.46, or 70 percent, to $5.78 Tuesday.

I used Zicam once, though it was the tablet form that dissolves in your mouth, not the kind that you rub on the inside of your nose.

If it does work, maybe I was using it wrong because, if anything, I was sick longer that time than any illness I've had in recent memory.

On the other hand, maybe it just doesn't work.

[Broomstick]

Judging by the disappointment I've seen expressed in some quarters, and the suddenly diminished presence of some of these items on shelves in stores, they have had an effect. As I mentioned before, there does remain a group of hard-core believers you simply won't convince, but people who were uncertain before are less likely to pop herbal pills. Also, the bottles of this stuff sold are no longer as prominently labeled with claims - saw palmetto bottles used to prominently feature "good for prostate health!" but I haven't seen that for quite a while. With a few clinical trials disproving that claim they can no longer make it.

They were allowed to make them before? In Canada, they're not supposed to make health claims without positive clinical trials. The absence of a negative clinical trial is an unacceptable justification for a health claim.

>sigh< Well, there is the US and there is Canada, and while there are many similarities they are certainly not the same country. There are categories of products where one may sell them if one does not make a health claim at all. There is also a bunch where you can talk about "traditional use" but as long as you don't go further than that you can sell it - at least until people start getting hurt. It's that insidious "self responsibility" meme, where you're supposed to know all possible consequences of what you do, and if you don't, well, it's your own damn fault. Not to mention that there's money to be made selling snake oil and traditional remedies, and money talks.

There are some herbal things that do have some use. In many cases, someone has already made an OTC formulation that is much more consistent and reliable. For example, ephedra really does have some use in treating allergies and asthma, but the OTC compounds like pseudoephedrine are not only much more consistent in dosing but also have fewer undesirable side effects because they aren't a stew of chemicals but rather one purified active ingredient. And, hey, coffee and tea could both be considered herbal stimulants, and they are both effective at delivering caffeine. There are others as well, but almost all of them, as I said, either have OTC variations already or have side effects or both.

They used to get around some of the rules by saying things like "traditionally for prostate health, this statement not evaluated by the FDA" or the like, but they can't do that anymore.

Why not? That claim would still be completely factual: if the product was traditionally used for <insert health purpose here>, then it is completely accurate to say this, even if the scientific evidence suggests that it does not work.

They can still say "traditionally used for prostate health" but can no longer say "not evaluated by FDA." It HAS been evaluated by the FDA and found useless, which is not going to work as an advertising jingle. There are some rather byzantine labeling laws on the books here, what else can I say? It's not the way I would have done things, but no one asked me.

I would actually be curious just how many of these cures and therapies they tested. Quite a few have been subjected to clinical trials elsewhere and yielded some positive results (many pharmaceutical drugs originate that way, after all), and the article is confusing. In the headline, it says there were no positive results whatsoever, but in the body it lists a few exceptions.

It's not just a matter of getting one study that shows a positive result, the results must be something that can be duplicated by others.

And, of course, part of the problem with herbal remedies is that herbs, being biological products, are not consistent. Different growing methods, different soils, different seasons, different processing, different varieties... these all add variables. So an herb grown in a region of Germany with a particular soil profile might, indeed, have different potency than the same herb grown in Argentina.

Personally, I have no problem with fools being parted from their money when what they're buying is harmless but with herbals and the like that's not always the case, either when they harm humans or harm the sources of whatever is being sold (like shark cartilage capsules encouraging further depletion of sharks, which are being killed faster than some species reproduce, or killing endangered species for such purposes). It is also harmful when effective remedies are passed by in favor of the useless.

So, definitively discrediting an ineffective remedy does have use. As for labeling laws - I wish for some definite changes in them, but I don't anticipate seeing those changes any time soon.

[Broomstick]

I used Zicam once, though it was the tablet form that dissolves in your mouth, not the kind that you rub on the inside of your nose.

The oral formulation apparently does not cause nerve damage. The thing is, olfactory nerves are pretty exposed in the nose so you're effectively applying a chemical directly on top of them. It's the difference between eating hot peppers vs. applying the juice directly to your eyeball. Ingesting zinc orally provides a buffer between those nerves and the chemical whereas smearing the chemical directly on top of them is much more likely to cause a problem.

If it does work, maybe I was using it wrong because, if anything, I was sick longer that time than any illness I've had in recent memory.

On the other hand, maybe it just doesn't work.

There have been some decent studies showing that oral zinc does somewhat reduce cold symptoms but not greatly, at most it only shortens the illness by a day or two, it must be started within the the first 24 hours of infection, and it has to be taken pretty frequently around the clock. Not a lot of people can hit all those marks, and if you don't it doesn't do squat, so in the real world it may be more effective as a placebo than as a real treatment.

[Surlethe]

I just split off nickolay1's little hijack.

[ExarKun]

With the money spent in Iraq, we could fund research for several hundred years. This is really peanuts, and I don't mind money being spent on science whatsoever. Alternative or not, it needs to be researched.

[SirNitram]

The OP absolutely shocked me.

I mean, media giving attention to real medical research, and not the anti-vacciners, homeopaths, and other charlatans? I'm beside myself.