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Consumer Health Digest #24-11
March 17, 2024
Consumer Health Digest is a free weekly e-mail newsletter edited by William M. London, Ed.D., M.P.H.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/william-m-london, with help from Stephen Barrett, M.D
http://www.quackwatch.org/10Bio/bio.html., It summarizes scientific reports; legislative developments; enforcement actions; other news items; Web site evaluations; recommended and nonrecommended books; research tips; and other information relevant to consumer protection and consumer decision-making. The Digest’s primary focus is on health, but occasionally it includes non-health scams and practical tips. Items posted to this archive may be updated when relevant information becomes available. To subscribe, click here
http://lists.quackwatch.org/mailman/listinfo/chd_lists.quackwatch.org.
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Shocking report highlights deficiencies of U.S. state medical boardsIn a 23-minute video, comedian John Oliver provides a humorous but shocking report on the failure of state medical boards to adequately protect consumers from physicians providing substandard care. He notes according to one study of nearly 900 physicians nationwide who’ve been judged by their peers to be an immediate threat to health or safety, “only 52.1% had ever had any licensure action taken against them.” The contributing factors include: (a) lack of funding; (b) understaffing; (c) slow board deliberations; (d) the reticence of physicians to harshly discipline other physicians; (e) a lack of public representation on boards; (f) overreliance on physicians to self-report their own records of disciplinary actions in other states; and (g) failure of boards to check the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) for disciplinary actions against physicians by hospitals. Remarkably, hospitals underreport disciplinary actions to the NPDB, and patients do not have access to it. Moreover, it remains too difficult for consumers to find complete information about physicians on poorly designed and confusing board websites.
[State Medical Boards: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVIYbgVks7E. HBO, March 14, 2024]
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Marketer of Nature’s Bounty and Sundown supplements ordered to pay back consumersThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending more than $527,000 in refunds to 32,689 consumers who bought certain Nature’s Bounty and Sundown products from Amazon.com. The order settling the FTC’s allegations
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/the_bountiful_company_decision_and_order.pdf of deceptive marketing by The Bountiful Company required the company to pay monetary relief and prohibits it from engaging in deceptive review tactics. According to the FTC’s February 2023 complaint
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/02/ftc-charges-supplement-marketer-hijacking-ratings-reviews-amazoncom-using-them-deceive-consumers, Bountiful abused features on Amazon.com to mislead consumers into thinking its newly introduced supplements had more product ratings and reviews, higher average ratings, and “#1 Best Seller” and “Amazon’s Choice” badges. The FTC’s action against Bountiful was the agency’s first challenge to “review hijacking,” a deceptive practice in which a marketer steals the reviews of another product to boost sales.
[FTC sends more than $527,000 in refunds to Bountiful consumers deceived by “review hijacking” on Amazon.com
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/03/ftc-sends-more-527000-refunds-bountiful-consumers-deceived-review-hijacking-amazoncom. FTC press release, March 14, 2024]
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Patanjali Ayurved advertising temporarily banned in IndiaThe Supreme Court of India has temporarily banned Patanjali Ayurved, one of India’s biggest manufacturers of traditional ayurvedic medicine
https://skepdic.com/ayurvedic.htmls, from advertising its products.
[Khandekar O. Indian judge says billion-dollar ayurvedic company has taken the public ‘for a ride.’
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/03/14/1236533011/ayurvedic-india-banned-advertising-some-products NPR, March 14, 2024]
The Indian Medical Association had brought the case to court in August 2022, alleging:
Patanjali and its brand ambassador, Baba Ramdev, a yoga guru, made a series of false claims against evidence-backed modern medicine and its practitioners,calling modern medicine a “stupid and bankrupt science,” and spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
in July 2022, Patanjali was in violation of India’s Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act with a series of newspaper advertisements claiming ayurvedic products could cure chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases and autoimmune conditions
Patanjali has received multiple notices and warnings from regulatory agencies and advertising watchdogs. A court order in November 2023 forbade
https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-patanjali-baba-ramdev-misleading-advertisements-indian-medical-association-242694#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20on%20Tuesday,against%20modern%20systems%20of%20medicine.
the company from issuing advertisements with misleading claims. The next day, Ramdev held a press conference about remedies for high blood pressure referring
https://www.barandbench.com/news/supreme-court-slaps-temporary-ban-patanjali-medicine-ads-taking-country-for-ride to “lies spread by allopathy,” a reference to science-based medicine, according to the lawyer for the Indian Medical Association.
Critics have alleged the company’s defiance of court orders is related to its proximity to India’s ruling party, the BJP. Ramdev is a vocal supporter of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who glorifies Hindu traditions. Modi inaugurated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhUPlMuZorQ Patanjali’s ayurvedic research facility in 2017. That year, a Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-ramdev/ investigation found Patanjali had received an estimated $46 million in discounts for land acquisitions in states controlled by the BJP. In 2020, Harsh Vardan, India’s health minister at the time, participated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SlVnatfYDo in the company’s launch of COVID-19 pills, where Ramdev claimed the pills showed “100 percent favorable results” during clinical trials on patients. Despite the Indian Medical Association’s refutations
https://www.bbc.com/news/56172784, Pantjali said in just six months it sold
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/patanjali-sold-25-lakh-coronil-kits-worth-rs-250-crore-in-4-months-1737229-2020-11-02 2.5 million kits consisting of the tablets to ward off COVID-19, and bottled oils alleged to boost immunity.
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Ice bathing offers evidence of harm but not benefitIn an article in Skeptical Inquirer, exercise physiologist Nick Tiller, MRes., PhD, has reported:
Evidence is weak, at best, to support claims that “ice bathing improves alertness and concentration” and that “the cold ‘activates’ the metabolism and strengthens the body’s immune response.”
Regular immersion in cold water markedly inhibits recovery from strenuous exercise.
A recent meta-analysis showed “cold-water immersion blunted exercise-related strength gains
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35068365/#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20this%20meta%2Danalysis,and%20control%20for%20muscular%20strength.
.”
Another recent meta-analysis showed that “ice bathing immediately after weight training inhibited muscle growth
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsc.12074.”
Another paper
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594298/ concluded: “Individuals who use strength training to improve athletic performance, recover from injury or maintain their health should reconsider whether to use cold water immersion as an adjuvant to their training.”
[Tiller N. Why are we still ice bathing?
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/why-are-we-still-ice-bathing/ Skeptical Inquirer, Feb 26, 2024]
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JAMA offers concise patient guide to injectable weight-loss medicationsA recent JAMA Internal Medicine Patient Page focuses on injectable weight-loss medications approved for people with obesity who have been unable to reach their weight loss-goals through diet and exercise.
[Kraftson A, Griauzde D. What should I know about injectable weight-loss medications?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2816062 JAMA Internal Medicine, March 11, 2024]
It describes how medications such as liraglutide, semaglutide, and tirzepatide are used and their benefits, side effects, and risks. It also notes these drugs are expensive and may not be fully covered by insurance.
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Stephen Barrett, M.D.
Consumer Advocate
7 Birchtree Circle
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
Telephone: (919) 533-6009
http://www.quackwatch.org (health fraud and quackery)
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