I have been seeing a commercial lately on cable advertising the latest snake oil quackery, “Bloussant.” The commercial absolutely guarantees that taking their pills will increase your breast size. I thought the FDA had a long standing policy of stomping on quack patent medicines for breast enlargement. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but AFAIK, there isn’t any pill you can buy from a TV commercial with an 800 number that will increase your breast size, maybe you could get hormone therapy from a doctor, but those would all be prescription medicines. So isn’t Bloussant totally illegal?
I know that some vendors have skirted the drug issue by selling these products as herbal supplements. But this product doesn’t use any of those disclaimers. I noted these claims:
Absolutely guaranteed to increase breast size by 2 sizes.
Absolutely guaranteed 100% safe (that’s quite a trick, even placebos aren’t 100% safe, some people always report adverse reactions).
Money back guarantee. Doesn’t this conflict with claim #1? Do they think this absolves them of liablility, if they just refund your money when they discover the product doesn’t work?
Now this sort of quackery and exploitation really riles me up. Isn’t the FDA supposed to stop this? How do you get the FDA to stomp on these quacks? Is there some way they’ve managed to skirt the law successfully? I note that I mostly see this commercial on the BBC America channel, do they think that they can claim it is legal in England and that makes it OK to broadcast the commercial in the US?
I think you hit it when you mentioned “herbal”. The magic name in the 1990’s and beyond. It may or may not be legit, but the government is powerless to stop them.
These companies can make a lot of money because they will sell something that is dirt cheap to them (perhaps herbs in capsules) for some ridiculously high amoung (like $19.95) + a substantial ‘Shipping and Handling’ charge ($6.95 of so). It doesn’t cost them that much to ship the item to you (usually it’s small and light, and they are usually sent through regular parcel post, 4 to 6 weeks) so even if you return the product they make money. A lot of people won’t bother to ship the item back for their refund even when it doesn’t work so they make even more money from them.
Badz, its worse than that even. This stuff sells for about $250.00 for a 2 month supply.
The government isn’t entirely powerless to stop them but it isn’t necessarily an easy task. What they have to nail them on is deceptive advertising but then they have to demonstrate there is no scientific basis for the claims. You may recall a recent cecil question on ceramic laundry discs. Charges in that case were dismissed because the prosecution didn’t enter expert scientific testimony that they were garbage.
Herbs are not regulated by the Food & Drug folks. Thus, they can say pretty much whatever they want.
BTW: Most herbal stuff you see at the store often does not contain more than 50% of the herbs. No one is loooking to see if they put the complete amount in cause they aren’t regulated.