"God Damn the Pusher Man" - Especially when Enabled by the FDA Revolving Door

Who is watching the watchers?  A story this week involving "speed" like drugs added to "dietary supplements" suggests how far the once respected US Food and Drug Administration has fallen.An Amphetamine-Like Drug Spiking "Nutritional Supplements" The story began with a paper by Cohen and colleagues published a relatively obscure medical journal, and then picked up by the news media.(1)  The main points of the article were:BMPEA (beta-methylphenylethylamine) is a compound first synthesized in the 1930s as a "potential replacement" for amphetamines.  Animal tests revealed amphetamine-like properties.  The compound was never tested on humans, and never marketed.But,BMPEA remained known only as a research chemical until early 2013 when the FDA identified BMPEA in multiple supplements labelled as containing ‘Acacia rigidula’, even though the stimulant has never been identified or extracted from Acacia rigidula, a shrub native to Texas.However,More than two years after the FDA's discovery, the FDA has yet to warn consumers about the presence of the amphetamine isomer in supplements.So Cohen et al undertook to identify "nutritional supplements" said to contain acacia rigidula and test them for BMPEA.  They found 21 such supplements, all of which tested positive. The authors then recommended,that supplement manufacturers immediately recall all supplements containing BMPEA, and that the FDA use all its enforcement powers to eliminate BMPEA as an ingr...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: amphetamines conflicts of interest FDA health care corruption revolving doors You heard it here first Source Type: blogs