Why do FDA regulations prohibit labels from saying so?
Strong lobbying by the profitable pharmaceutical industry ..and good old fashioned bureaucracy. If we were in the business of selling garlic, the following sentence could land Viable Herbal Solutions in a heap of trouble: “Garlic reduces cholesterol.” The statement is true! But no Company that sells garlic is allowed to tout its proven health benefits. Welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a topsy-turvy realm where the agency responsible for protecting the nation’s health winds up threatening it. “The FDA knows little, if anything, about medicinal herbs,” explains Varro Tyler, Ph.D., the Lilly Distinguished Professor of Pharmacognosy (natural product pharmacy) at Purdue University. “As far as the public health is concerned, FDA regulations governing medicinal herbs do more harm than good.” The above claim is not a lie: Garlic does reduce cholesterol. Earlier this year, the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London, a prestigious
