Open Season On Quacks

Open Season On Quacks

OPEN SEASON ON QUACKS, Bill Rados

Reprinted from the Dec. 1985-Jan. 1986 issue of the FDA Consumer, a publication of the Food and Drug Administration.

Government and private agencies will wield an array of weapons as they join forces in a step-up war against health fraud. New public education campaigns, an information-exchange network, a speaker’s bureau, state surveillance teams, and special projects directed at Hispanic consumers are among the programs in the anti-quackery effort.

Health fraud, or quackery, robs Americans of an estimated $10 billion annually through worthless and often harmful products, from phony baldness cures to dangerous and useless cancer treatments.

The weapons were unveiled at a one-day conference last September sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the U.S. Postal Service. FDA is responsible for ensuring that drugs and medical devices are safe and do what they purport to do. FTC oversees advertising of consumer products, and the Postal Service seeks to prevent the use of the mails to promote health fraud.

The conference was attended by some 250 representatives of state and local health and consumer agencies, independent public interest groups, and industry associations. The meeting was to encourage an exchange of information among the groups and local efforts to combat quackery.

Addressing the conference, FDA Commissioner Frank E. Young, M.D., defined health fraud as “the promotion of a false or unproven product or therapy for profit” and described it as a disease. “Like any disease,” Young said, “it can be a deliberate, devouring, destroying entity if left unchecked. It’s also contagious. It increases in number of offenders and victims.

“Those who practice health fraud are astute observers of human nature,” Young said. “They know that even the best educated and most rational of us are likely to have a vulnerable spot. We may secretly want to believe that it’s possible to indulge in all sorts of delectable things to eat and then lose weight while we sleep. Or we may want to believe in a secret chemical that cures cancer. And our wish to believe in miracles may conquer our common sense at times.”

While everyone is susceptible to health fraud, Young said that certain groups–the elderly, the terminally ill, and minorities–are particularly vulnerable and should be the special target of anti-quackery efforts.

Young stressed that health fraud can be conquered. “Its cures are education and enforcement,” he explained, adding that FDA would continue to marhsal its limited enforcement resources against those forms of quackery that may actually harm their victims. Schemes that bilk consumers of their money but pose no health risk are so numerous that education is a more cost-effective tool in combating them, according to the FDA commission. And both education and enforcement can be enhanced by cooperative efforts among government and private agencies at the national, state and local levels, he added.

The conference participants discussed plans for a number of cooperative fraud-fighting efforts. Among them:

• Plans by the Association of Food and Drug Officials, an organization of state health officials, for state surveillance and action teams to coordinate regulatory and educational efforts concerning health fraud.
• A program jointly sponsored by FDA and the Pharmaceutical Advertising Council, the organization that represents the drug advertising industry. Scheduled to begin this fall, the program is intended to “vaccinate” the public through use of public service ads on how to recognize, avoid and help stop health fraud.
• A speaker’s bureau consisting of experts from the private and public sectors to talk at national and regional meetings.
• A media alert on diet aids to be issued by FDA and the Council of Better Business Bureaus. The materials will help advertising managers of newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations screen proposed advertisements for quack products. FDA and the council have already issued similar alerts on general health fraud and on arthritis quackery.
• A resource booklet summarizing health fraud-fighting activities and educational materials of many of the organizations participating in the conference. The booklet is intended to encourage cooperation among the groups and avoid duplication of effort.
• Two projects involving Hispanic consumers: A Hispanic health fraud conference to be held in early 1986 in San Antonio, Texas, sponsored by FDA and the National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health and Human Services Organizations; and a survey of Hispanic magazines and newspapers for health fraud promotions involving the use of the mails, cosponsored by FDA, the National Coalition, and the Postal Service.
• A pilot Health Fraud Information Exchange Network, sponsored by FDA and the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators. The network will share information from national, state and local agencies on consumer inquiries about fraudulent products and regulatory actions against quack firms.

The conference also agreed to continue holding regional health fraud meetings across the country.

“From these activities,” remarked FDA Commissioner Young, “it’s clear that we recognize that we can’t do it all. Again and again, we have found that working with other organizations against health fraud adds up to a stronger effort. We seek a partnership between the public and private sectors in meeting the challenge of curing health fraud.”