{"id":1285,"date":"2011-06-23T22:47:19","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T05:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2014-09-27T17:59:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T00:59:22","slug":"is-ftc-censorship-trying-to-divert-the-nutritional-supplements-industry-to-big-pharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/?p=1285","title":{"rendered":"Is FTC Censorship Trying to Divert the Nutritional Supplements Industry to Big Pharma?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine was recently prescribed a fish oil product by his doctor for high triglycerides. He didn\u2019t have a drug plan that covered the product; it cost a fortune \u2013paid for it out of pocket, it was about $200 for a month\u2019s supply. He was told by his doctor that the prescription-only product was more pure than the fish oil nutritional supplements you can buy off the shelf in health food stores.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Since I was familiar with a few companies that sell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/?page_id=55\">high quality fish oils<\/a> \u2013 fully tested and guaranteed for purity, freshness and potency, with excellent testing for mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, dioxins, furans and PCBs, but costing about 10 times less than the FDA-approved prescription only product \u2013 I decided to investigate the validity of my friend\u2019s doctor\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1289\" title=\"fish oil - MP900448160\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/fish-oil-MP900448160-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/fish-oil-MP900448160-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/fish-oil-MP900448160.jpg 426w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/>I contacted the drug company that offers a leading prescription-only product and a leading company that offers fish oils as nutritional supplements. Here\u2019s what I found out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> The Norwegian      processing of fish oils is recognized as the industry standard \u2013 the best      in the world. They supply the companies using their products and services      with guarantees of purity, and so on. The nutritional supplements company      said they use Norwegian suppliers for their fish oils. The drug company      refused to give me information on their processing, but the nutritional      supplements company told me they believe that the prescription-only      product also gets their fish oils from the Norwegian suppliers. <\/li>\n<li>Companies that      supply high quality fish oil exceed FDA standards \u2013 which are lower than those      of the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega 3 (GOED) voluntary      standards, the standard in California and required by Prop 65. With PCBs, for      example, the FDA standard is 2000 parts per billion; the GOED standard is 90      parts per billion. Since PCBs are persistent and bioaccumulative \u2013      meaning, basically, that they accumulate in the body faster than the body      can eliminate them \u2013 the 90 ppb standard seems to be more sensible. <\/li>\n<li>Fish oil      companies that comply with the voluntary GOED standards are listed on the GOED      site \u2013 and they include the fish oils nutritional supplements company I      contacted. The list is long but considering there could be 500 companies      offering fish oil supplements in one form or another, relatively few are GOED-compliant. <\/li>\n<li>The drug      company that sells the prescription-only product was not listed on GOED      and their representative would not give me the information when I asked. I      did find out that if a product is FDA approved, that overrides Prop 65      and, therefore, GOED. So, whether or not the prescription only product is GOED-compliant      is up in the air. However, the nutritional supplements company, which is      very familiar with the prescription-only product, believes that the purity      standards for the prescription-only product are very high. <\/li>\n<li>In fact, the purification      processing for all <em>high quality <\/em>brands,      including the prescription-only product, is basically the same. They all test      for and are relatively free of heavy metals \u2013 including mercury \u2013 as well      as PCBs and other toxins and impurities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Long and short of it: the prescription-only product is no better, and is as good as, the high quality natural supplements. Bear in mind that we are talking about <em>high quality<\/em> fish oils \u2013 not <em>every<\/em> brand. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/?page_id=55\">Even the nutritional supplements company agreed that the prescription-only product is a good one.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, there are two major drawbacks to the prescription-only variety:<\/p>\n<p>First, it costs about 10 times as much as the high quality fish oil supplements on the shelves of your local health food store. If the patient is lucky enough to have insurance that covers the prescription-only product, their co-pay would be about equal to the cost of the product in the health food store. However, many patients are paying for it out of pocket. And if they\u2019re not, they may be soon. The prescription-only product is so expensive that some of the insurance companies that used to cover it are wondering why they should shell out all that the money for prescription-only products when they\u2019re no better than the high quality nutritional supplements at the local health food store.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the specific prescription brand I checked out is only FDA approved for lowering triglycerides, and only for people with triglycerides higher than 500. According to the American Cholesterol Education Program, normal fasting blood triglyceride levels in adults is less than 150, borderline high is 150-199, and high is 200-499. Above that \u2013 500+ &#8211; is \u2018extremely high\u2019. So, you\u2019re not likely to get a prescription unless you\u2019re really in trouble.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, doctors can recommend them to anyone at their discretion, which is fine if you\u2019re not concerned about using a product based only on FDA-approved criteria.<\/p>\n<p>As an aside, high triglycerides are not the only indicator for fish oil supplementation. Studies have shown them to be beneficial for many conditions: depression, lowering cholesterol, reducing inflammation, reducing joint pain, improving brain function, increasing mental focus and improving vision, as well as helping patients with Crohn\u2019s disease, colitis, Alzheimer\u2019s and ulcers.<\/p>\n<p>According to the American Association for Cancer Research, they even help slow tumor growth in women with breast cancer.<\/p>\n<p>So, why did the manufacturer of the prescription-only product spend millions of dollars getting FDA approval? Looks like they\u2019re trying to corner the market. And every time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/?page_id=55\">FTC censorship<\/a> of nutritional supplements casts doubts on the safety and efficacy of supplements and refuses to allow the general public to find out what nutritional supplements can do for them, we move one step closer to that takeover. In the process, healthcare costs for patients, insurance companies and the American taxpayer continue to skyrocket.<\/p>\n<p>It costs a lot less and takes a lot less time to verify the purity of high quality fish oils than it does to get FDA approval for a new prescription-only product. If the healthcare industry focused on that rather than finding ways to make more money for Big Pharma, we would all benefit.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Wellness Truth Network and a clickable link back to this page. Wellness Truth Network was founded to protect your right to natural health remedies as well as enlighten readers on FTC and FDA censorship<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine was recently prescribed a fish oil product by his doctor for high triglycerides. He didn\u2019t have a drug plan that covered the product; it cost a fortune \u2013paid for it out of pocket, it was about $200 for a month\u2019s supply. He was told by his doctor that the prescription-only product [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,3],"tags":[284,108,283,282,55,271,263,287,274,279,281,280,276,273,64,272,277,278,286,275,285],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-ftc-censorship","category-health-and-the-ftc","tag-alzheimers","tag-breast-cancer","tag-colitis","tag-crohns-disease","tag-depression","tag-fish-oil","tag-fish-oils","tag-ftc-censorship","tag-high-quality-fish-oil","tag-improving-brain-function","tag-improving-vision","tag-increasing-mental-focus","tag-lowering-cholesterol","tag-mercury-and-pcbs-in-fish-oils","tag-nutritional-supplements","tag-prescription-only-fish-oil","tag-reducing-inflammation","tag-reducing-joint-pain","tag-slow-tumor-growth","tag-treatment-for-high-triglycerides","tag-ulcers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellnesstruthnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}