Tag Archives: fda

FDA Reviews Three NEW Weight Loss Drugs

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I don’ t know if this newspaper article offered lousy reporting or what,  but the topic has been noodling in my mind all day.

This week dieters, doctors, and investors will all get their first extensive look at a trio of new weight loss drugs

The hope is that these new drugs can succeed where others have failed by delivering significant weight loss without side effects.

Hmmm read on folks

Obesity is nearing 35% of the population.

How’s that for a staggering statistic ??

expectations for the drug are high

no new drugs have come out in over a decade

the modestly effective drug has blockbuster potential

hmmm moderately effective, so does that mean the blockbuster potential is for the drug companies ?

Not one of the drugs represent a breakthrough in research

seriously?

drug makers have made little headway in understanding and treating the cause of overeating

oh my gosh don’t get me started

two of these nifty weight loss drugs simply combine an anticonvulsant and an amphetamine and have worrying side effects

did i just read that right? how does an amphetamine and an anticonvulsant stop someone from eating McDonalds?

oh and please give me some of those worrying side effects

the third drug is safer but less effective

what about something totally safe and completely effective ?

Weight Loss drugs over the years have had safety issues for years. These drugs get approved by our governing agency only to have them pulled off the market when gee – they find links to heart valve damage and lung problems

HELLO –  these drugs should not have gone to market in the first place!!!!

So the pending drug  Qnexa…

who picks these names?

Qnexa may have met guidelines for a % of weigh loss while on this drug, but had the highest rate of drop out due to memory and concentration problems

hmm lets lose our mind while getting slightly thinner

another drug Contrave shows minimal weight loss and offers you nausea on the side

Lorcaserin messes around with your serotonin, a brain chemical  so you might “feel” groovy, however the incidence of weigh loss is much much less – the FDA calls this weight loss drug that barely helps you lose weight one that is truly novel

I read this and think to myself — do people really buy into this stuff?????

How about safe healthy weight loss?


Death By Teflon.

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I remember the first teflon skillet my mom bought.  It had rules.  We were never supposed to use metal utensils when preparing food in it.  Or  immerse the pan while hot into cold water.  It was officially the skillet we made eggs in.  I also remember that somehow my younger brother or someone started not following the rules and the pan started to peel.  I thought to myself, I don’t think pots and pans are supposed to peel. I personally didn’t like making my eggs in that pan because they just didn’t taste right.

When I moved out I was supposed to be grateful for whatever someone gave me along the way, but the teflon stuff – uh – uh – I wasn’t going to use it.

I was teflon phobic even 30 years ago.

Teflon is a so called heat resistant plastic.  Discovered by accident ( hmmm not by design ) by a Dupont chemist in 1938.  They began using the stuff in the 50′s as a low-friction coating for bearings and gears.  In the 60′s it was approved by the FDA for use in cookware.  Not the EPA, the FDA.  A chemical coating used in manufactoring was now going to make pots and pans slippery and easy to clean was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  Does that make sense to you? Things we were going to cook/heat food in and then and eat, are now coated in plastic.  Plastic that as far as I know melts when it gets hot.

Don’t mind me if I am simplistic in my thoughts here.

A small detail was later discovered – gee,  if we get the pan hot enough it will release a lovely chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA – The fumes of which are fatal to pet birds.  The company also further acknowledged that in humans there is a flu like condition called polymerfume fever, mostly noted in the company’s labs.  In animals the lovely chemical can cause cancer, immune system damage and oh – I especially like this one – death.

Death by Teflon!

Here’s an absolutely amazing statistic: 95% of all Americans have traces of this chemical in their blood.

Excuse me?  Ninety Five Percent?

Dear EPA and FDA,

What is it about langauging like — fatal, cause of illness, cause of cancer, damaging to the immune system and death, don’t you understand?

Dear Consumer,

WHY are you continuing to consume these harmful chemical products ?

While no study actually proves that Teflon is harmful to humans, wonder who would actually pay to conduct a study like that. Dupont paid out a 107.6 million dollar lawsuit in 2005 brought to their attention by 50,000 people along the Ohio River near it’s West Virginia Plant.  These people claim they had health challenges and birth defects from PFOA contamination.  While the company admits no liabilty they did pay for 8 EPA based violations, one of which was failure to disclose what they knew about the harm this chemical could cause.

Non-stick users from 15 states have similar concerns and an EPA advisory board labels PFOA as a likely carcinogenic

Hmmmm carcinogenic

EPA has asked Dupont to phase out the chemical.

I don’t understand this request.

Whatever happened to stop making this stuff?

Dupont won’t.

Although by 2015 (that’s 5 years from now folks) they say they will reduce the amount of PFOA used, and they will guarantee that the chemical won’t be released into the environment from it’s manufacturing plants.  In the mean time it is being released into the environment just loads.

It’s OK to do that now but won’t be OK in 5 years?

Further the EPA says, oh go ahead and use these carcinogenic pots and pans, under normal use there is really little harm.  Forget the the part where it says in microscopic print on the teeny tiny sticker label on the plastic you rip off—  promise not to heat an empty nonstick pan to high heat and do not put a hot pan in cold water cuz if you do it releases Dupont from any liability?  

Wonder how many people actually read their packaging labels ?

I have this image of mass production of these slippery convenient carcinogenic cooking items, enough to fill warehouses across the country from floor to ceiling.  So that when someday when the EPA has the gumption to actually enforce some real action and regulation.  Dupont will have made enough to last an eternity.

That along with marachino cherry’s banned ever so long ago for it’s carcinogenic red food dye – duh – again when supplies run out.  That’s the thing – they will never run out.

There are secret tunnels all over the world filled with jars and jars of these harmful cherries, it’s some sortof hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top plot.

above sourced partly from an article in Time – June 2006 ( not the cherry part – ha! )

Regarding which pots and pans to use, and what’s  safe?

I personally choose glass, stainless steel and cast iron.


retro teflon ad flickr image credit

How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

PCB Found In Fish Oil Supplements

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Hey consumers we forgot to tell you!!

That stuff we bottle to help you with your well being?

It’s got PCB’s or Polychlorinated Biphenyls – a carcinogenic,  liver dysfunctioning agent/ environmental pollutant in it!

You know that stuff that was banned in the US in the 70′s but is still being illegally dumped into our waterways?

Do me a fav and ignore the fact that our label says otherwise – we don’t really test for contaminants – our industry just doesn’t require that we do so.

When the news of this lawsuit came my way I shook my head.  MORE deplorable manufacturing practices.  I don’t know how the folks at these large companies can sleep at night

I like the way our Dr Chaney verbalized the news and the difference our company offers and has offered for a very long time.  I feel remarkably proud that I sell quality.

I especially enjoy his commentary on the FDA – shouldn’t this stuff be taken off the shelves?  What does the FDA do anyway?

He said:

It’s so tempting…

You’ve been getting your supplements from a company that you know and trust – a company that does clinical studies on their products and performs rigorous quality controls.

You know their products are pure, safe and effective…

BUT…

You’re shopping in your favorite drug store or discount store and you see the same supplements for just a couple of dollars!

You can’t help thinking…

“Wow! Here’s the same stuff I’ve been taking for a lot less money”…”Why not save my money?”…”They must have run some quality control tests on their products”…

“After all, how bad can they be?”

The answer is – pretty bad!

The events of last week illustrate just how bad.

On March 2nd, 2010 the makers and sellers of fish oil supplements were sued by the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation in California for not telling consumers that their products contained toxic levels of PCBs.

I find it amusing and somewhat scary that the FDA did not initiate this action and force the manufacturers to take their contaminated products off the shelves.

Instead an environmental consumers group had to sue them for not including PCBs on the label! They sued them under California proposition 65 which requires a warning label whenever a product contains toxic ingredients.

The defendants in this lawsuit were Omega Protein, a Houston-based company that is the world’s largest producer of omega-3 fish oil, and the many companies that they produced fish oil for – companies like Rite Aid, CVS, GNC, Now Health Group, Pharmavite, Solgar and Twinlab.

And those aren’t the only ones. The Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation only tested 10 omega-3 supplements manufactured by Omega Protein to date and have found PCBs in all of them. They plan to continue testing and to add other companies to the lawsuit if their products are also contaminated.

Even scarier is that many of labels on these products said that the omega-3 supplement was treated to reduce or remove PCBs. As a consumer you were lead to believe that they were safe!

The bottom line is that the manufacturer probably didn’t test for PCBs and neither did the companies selling their omega-3 supplements to the consumer

The alternative – that they tested the products, knew that they were contaminated with PCBs and sold them to the public anyway – is even worse.

As if that weren’t scary enough the FDA announced a massive recall of products containing textured vegetable protein manufactured by a company called Basic Food Flavors because of salmonella contamination.

The problem is that there are at least 56 different kinds of consumer products containing this company’s textured vegetable protein – including salad dressings, dips, packaged snacks, potato chips and soup mixes

(Who knew that salad dressings contained textured vegetable protein?).

That means that this recall will be huge. It will affect many foods that most people buy and use every day.

Once again, the problem is that neither the manufacturer or the companies using the textured vegetable protein had run the basic quality control assays that would have detected salmonella contamination.

So what can you do as a consumer?

Here are my recommendations:

1) Get your supplements from an established company with a reputation for quality and integrity. I would recommend choosing a company that has been around for a number of years so that you know that their reputation is based on their track record over the years rather than just on hype.

2) Make sure that they run rigorous quality controls on their products.  I would choose a company that requires pharmaceutical grade quality controls on their products.

3) Make sure that they have published clinical studies on their products that prove both safety and effectiveness. Again I would recommend choosing a company that has many published clinical studies on their products rather than just one or two.

To Your Health!
Dr. Stephen G Chaney

P.S.   These supplements are my personal recommendation because this company  insists on rigorous quality control tests on every one of their ingredients and on their finished products.  For example, they import ultra pure, triple distilled fish oil from England and test it for PCB contamination after they receive it. They also have published over 70 clinical studies on their products in peer-reviewed scientific journals. They are unique in the industry.

flickr image credit – thank you