Balanced Immune Health

The flu season will upon us in the next 6 months. It’s a good time to watch out for supplements, herbal remedies or over-the-counter products that claim they can treat, cure or prevent H1N1 flu. The FDA and FTC have been pretty active lately in sending “warning letters” to the parent companies of these products, telling them that they are making non-allowed claims on their product packaging and/or consumer promotions. (FTC/FDA joint warning letters).

Just remember this: there is no FDA approved cure or preventive treatment for the flu or cold. There may be a number products that are effective against symptoms, or may provide proven immune health support, but at this point that’s about as far as any product can go in talking about efficacy. And, those symptom improvers should have some legitimate published, peer-reviewed clinical trials behind them in order to talk to consumers about the topic.

Social media is a big and growing forum where non-prescription health products get discussed. Within several of the forums I’m active in, I’m constantly amazed at the conversations about things such as “cancer prevention” or treatment.  And of course weight loss is the king of the hill when it comes to wild health claims.  Sometimes, these treatment and prevention discussions are coming from natural health physicians or even M.D.’s (or those who claim to be such). Sometimes those claims are connected to a product promotion. Sometimes they are not. Either way, these  health experts should know better.

What is legit in the social media world?  I’m not a regulatory professional. My take is that if someone is taking a certain product and is experiencing certain benefits, by all means, that can be talked about on a blog or other forums.  But that person should not extrapolate his or her experience to the general population, inferring that because something worked for them individually, it will work for everyone.  And any discussion about efficacy across the board, if supported by research, should still be presented in terms of ”possibly reducing risk”  or “may be associated with…” blah blah blah.  And if a blogger or health community high-volume commenter is being compensated by a product company for their writing, that must be disclosed. The FTC has some relatively new rules about social media and health products.

Just remember, even the celebrated medical breakthroughs in our lifetimes were not preventive cures. Mumps,  measles, tuberculosis were illnesses that many thought had been eradicated from the face of the earth, only to show up again years later. The vaccines that helped change the health outcomes of an entire planet were products that greatly reduced risk of these diseases to an extraordinarily minuscule level, but did not absolutely prevent or cure them.  So any consumer health product that talks about disease prevention, treatments or cures–even if the spokesperson’s last name is Salk– should be highly questioned or possibly ignored.

Filed under Flu, Immune Balance, Immune System, Research, Supplements, cold, immune