On May 1, 2009, the FDA issued a recall of 14 different types of Hydroxycut products made by Iovate Medical Sciences. All these products were marketed as assists for weight reduction, fat burners, energy enhancers, and low cost diet products in grocery stores, drug stores, and bargain stores all over the United States And in seventy other states. This Hydroxycut recall was based on reports turned into the FDA concerning serious liver problems as well as a death that have been associated with the drugs.

Some internet sites will tell you that the Hydroxycut recall was fully voluntary on the part of Iovate; however, keep in mind the the FDA was pivotal in making it occur. Many reports of issues related to diet drugs are never passed along to the FDA, as the agency isn’t set up to monitor products like these which technically are not medicines. However, when enough reports of health problems filter into the organization, they do take notice and proceed to deal with it. After all, public health is their first concern.

Reports of twenty-three cases of serious liver damage and 1 death, all related to Hydroxycut, were sufficient to get the FDA interested. Sadly , it requires a few years for enough cases to reach the agency in order for it to act. The 1 death they looked into was of a teen-aged boy back in 2007. The Hydroxycut recall didn’t happen until 2009, however, which which authorized for time for the FDA to analyze the difficulty and react. In the meantime , it’s hard telling how many additional health problems resulted from people continuing to use the diet supplement.

All of this information might cause you question whether the system is set up the way it should be. Should the FDA policies be modified so that they have more control of the diet product industry? Is it right for the firms that make these products to be allowed to advertise that their diet drugs are safe and made only of natural ingredients? This type of so-so advertising lulls the public into a false sense of complacency. The general public believe that if a product is sitting on store shelves and available for widespread public use, it could have been tested and proven safe. Sadly, this isn’t necessarily the case.

The Hydroxycut recall brought the problem into public focus, but if there’s a problem with the product, should not the company making the drug be held in charge of safety issues? Should the people be the subject of a barrage of products that will essentially be unsafe to their health? Of course, prescription medicines, and even many kinds of over-the-counter drugs, are required to pass stringent scrutiny by the FDA. Why then are other products which are equally-capable of damaging someone’s health being allowed on the market without these safeguards in place?

Apparently you can put any sort of preparation into a shiny carton and call it a diet supplement. We all know that this is true, because everybody’s seen masses of products that have been offered as helping people to lose weight which basically do not work at all. The diet drug industry is booming to the tune of billions of dollars every year, and people are risking their health taking uncontrolled chemicals. The recent Hydroxycut recall has brought this fact to the public attention like never before making people realize that changes need to made in the system.

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