Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8650

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Dunn M.
OTC weight loss supplements: time to ban them
AusPharmList (subscription required) 2007 Mar 1
http://www.auspharm.net.au/article.php?type=editorial&article=27

Full text: Some AusPharmers will have seen media reports this week about the NDPSC decision to revoke the S3 advertising permission it had granted Xenical in 2006. This was in response to a complaint brought about by CHOICE late in 2006. CHOICE claimed that advertisements run during the TV program Australian Idol were encouraging inappropriate use of the product. Roche were reportedly furious about the decision with managing director Fred Nadjarian quoted in the Australian newspaper as saying the ban was inconsistent as “products with dubious ingredients largely based on green tea extract, eye of newt, wing of bat and guinea pig tail can be (advertised)”. AusPharm thinks he makes a very good point. Consumers are being ripped off to the tune of millions of dollars a year buying products that, in contrast to Xenical, AusPharm believes do_not_work. Also appearing this week was a story in the The Age newspaper ‘Weight for it’. The story led off with the sentence ‘They make big claims but, with many diet supplements, the only thing lighter will be your wallet.’ The story goes on to make the point that the evidence underpinning the effectiveness of the ingredients in most OTC diet supplements is very thin indeed. The vast majority of these products have Aust-L listings on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods and, unlike prescription and non-prescription drugs with Aust-R listings, they are not routinely evaluated for efficacy by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. In theory, sponsors of Aust-L products are not permitted to make claims about their products that say they do work, rather they are meant to use expressions like ‘may assist in’. They are also meant to hold evidence to support the claims made. In practice, extravagant claims that are not supported by evidence are sometimes (often?) made. As pharmacists, we all know that, in the main, these products don’t work. Achieving a healthy weight in the medium to long term, which is the goal for most, involves changing eating and exercise habits so that ‘what goes out is balanced by what goes in’. The TGA should formally assess the evidence for Aust-L weight loss products and if product sponsors can’t produce good quality evidence showing that their products work, they should not be allowed to put them on to the market. As an immediate interim measure, the TGA should insist that, following the Aust_L number on the packaging, (and all promotional material) the following statement should appear in clear and prominent typeface, “ THE TGA HAS NOT ASSESSED THIS PRODUCT FOR EFFICACY”.