FDA Yanks HCG Weight-Loss Agents from Market

I would say that it’s about time the FDA got off its ass and did something about the fraud that’s been happening in the diet industry for the last, oh, 60 years or so. When I read this article from my daily MedPage Today email, all I could say was, “About damned time.”

The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission said over-the-counter weight-loss products containing human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) are fraudulent and illegal, and the agencies have told seven manufacturers to stop selling them.

That’s good for as far as it goes, but what about those doctors who are injecting HCG for weight loss? Seems to me that’s also fraudulent and illegal, but nothing in the article says anything about telling doctors to cease and desist those injections.

Noting that the product labels call for the pellets, liquids, and sprays to be taken in conjunction with a very low-calorie diet, an FDA official said it did not appear that oral HCG offers any extra benefit.

“There is no substantial evidence HCG increases weight loss beyond that resulting from the recommended caloric restriction,” said Elizabeth Miller, acting director of the FDA’s fraud unit for OTC products, during a conference call with reporters.

The recommended diets call for daily calorie intake as low as 500 calories, low enough to create a risk of malnutrition, electrolyte imbalance, cardiac arrhythmias, and gallstone formation, Miller said.

Oh, okay, these low-calorie diets in combination with HCG are risky enough to say that malnutrition, electrolyte imbalance, cardiac arrhythmias, and gallstones can happen. So, let’s stop the HCG, because it’s a drug and regulated by the FDA, but these diets aren’t, so you can go ahead and keep recommending them — never mind the risks associated with those very low calorie diets. Those risks are worth the short-term weight loss, aren’t they?

The warning letters sent to manufacturers of the products note that HCG has not received FDA approval for any weight-loss indication. The substance is approved as an injectable drug for certain forms of female infertility and is therefore clearly subject to FDA regulation.

Well, I’m waiting for these companies to start funding studies, fixing the results, and lobbying the FDA to approve HCG as a weight loss drug (why, no, I’m not cynical, I’m a realist, why do you ask?).

HCG weight-loss products are typically sold over the Internet, often promoted with unsolicited “spam” emails, with such claims as “Lose 26 pounds in 26 days” and “Resets your metabolism.”

According to one of the letters, sent to HCG Diet Direct of Tucson, Ariz., “The claims made on your product labeling and website … clearly demonstrate that this product is a drug as defined” by federal law.

Yep, they’re using it as a diet drug, they’ve been using it as a diet drug for how long now? I’ve been getting these emails for at least a year now, so why is the FDA just now getting their panties in a bunch over this? Why weren’t they getting their knickers in a knot when companies first started selling HCG as a weight loss product? And why aren’t they going after doctors who are injecting this into women for weight loss?

The companies have 15 days to inform the FDA of the steps they have taken to correct the violations. Theoretically, the firms could seek FDA approval for the weight-loss claims, but the agencies expect that they will simply stop selling the products.

If the companies do not do so voluntarily, the FDA and FTC threatened to forcibly halt their operations.

Fifteen days? Yeah, right, FDA and FTC, don’t hold your breath waiting for them to stop selling their products. Your threats don’t mean much to those companies. After all, you told the companies selling acai berry and hoodia for weight loss to cease and desist or you would shut them down. You were real successful at that, weren’t you? Sorry to inform you, but thanks to Congress, you’re all bark and no fucking bite.

Officials from both agencies were unable to estimate how many people have bought HCG weight-loss products, but Cleland said they were the current hot item in the lose-weight-fast category.

“Four years ago, the miracle weight-loss ingredient was Hoodia gordonii, and then it was acai berry, and now it’s homeopathic HCG,” he said.

“Almost more than any other, the weight-loss industry is fad-driven,” he added. “Unfortunately, all too often, it is also fraud-driven.”

And why is it fad-driven and fraud-ridden? Could it be society’s insistence on all women fitting a cookie-cutter mold “ideal” of beauty? Could it be the greed of corporations willing to feed into, and off of, that ideal by coming up with more and more off-the-wall ideas/compounds/ingredients to tease and tantalize us with? And because we’re bombarded with so many messages on a daily basis that unless we meet this “ideal” we just aren’t worthy, no matter how much we’ve accomplished?

So we buy into it, in more ways than one, and waste our time, our money, and our health chasing a dream, a phantasm of success that can never be. And who is there who will protect us from the charlatans? Not the FDA, the toothless barking dog.

The only ones who are protecting us are those of us who are speaking out against this kind of propaganda — those of us who say that all bodies are beautiful, no matter their size, shape, or color, that all bodies are deserving of love and respect.

One day, these companies will go out of business because there will be no one to buy their products — everyone will be happy with the body they have and will see no reason to buy some charlatan’s snake oil to change their body.