It’s not that consumers ask for one thing and get another, it’s that they get what they want but we think what they want is bad for them.
I think it makes sense to distinguish three situations:
the consumer wants X, the company sells Y in a bottle labeled “X”
the company sells X, telling everyone using advertising and bribed experts: “science proves that X makes you healthy, and lack of X makes you sick”, but that is a lie
the company sells X, everyone knows that X is bad for you, but the customers buy it anyway
The first is clearly a problem, most people would agree with that. The last probably cannot be avoided—if you don’t allow the customers to buy the product legally, they will buy it illegally—plus there is a chance that the government is wrong.
It is the second case that bothers me. I don’t think it is completely fair to say “customers want it”, even if they kinda do, because they only want it because they are lied to. I wouldn’t want the government to stop me from getting what I want, but I would want to be told clearly when someone is lying to me. (And yes, there is also a risk that the government would be wrong. But I don’t think that it is a good solution to let the lies unaddressed, or to let various people—scientists and scammers alike—say different things and expect the average person to sort it out without any more hints.)
So, I would like to see some sort of “scientific authority” that would have a monopoly on providing official medical recommendations, which would be clearly displayed on health-related products, or their absence would be obvious for everyone. Something like, each actual medicine contains a red rectangle with a logo saying “this is actual medicine”, and no one is allowed to put anything similar on their product, unless FDA allows them. You are allowed to buy and sell stuff without the red rectangles, but everyone is told, repeatedly and unambiguously by media: “if it claims to have medical benefits, but it doesn’t have the red rectangle, it’s fraud—always check the red rectangle”. (The test criterion for “repeatedly and unambiguously” is that an average person with 80 IQ can tell you what the red rectangle means.)
I think it makes sense to distinguish three situations:
the consumer wants X, the company sells Y in a bottle labeled “X”
the company sells X, telling everyone using advertising and bribed experts: “science proves that X makes you healthy, and lack of X makes you sick”, but that is a lie
the company sells X, everyone knows that X is bad for you, but the customers buy it anyway
The first is clearly a problem, most people would agree with that. The last probably cannot be avoided—if you don’t allow the customers to buy the product legally, they will buy it illegally—plus there is a chance that the government is wrong.
It is the second case that bothers me. I don’t think it is completely fair to say “customers want it”, even if they kinda do, because they only want it because they are lied to. I wouldn’t want the government to stop me from getting what I want, but I would want to be told clearly when someone is lying to me. (And yes, there is also a risk that the government would be wrong. But I don’t think that it is a good solution to let the lies unaddressed, or to let various people—scientists and scammers alike—say different things and expect the average person to sort it out without any more hints.)
So, I would like to see some sort of “scientific authority” that would have a monopoly on providing official medical recommendations, which would be clearly displayed on health-related products, or their absence would be obvious for everyone. Something like, each actual medicine contains a red rectangle with a logo saying “this is actual medicine”, and no one is allowed to put anything similar on their product, unless FDA allows them. You are allowed to buy and sell stuff without the red rectangles, but everyone is told, repeatedly and unambiguously by media: “if it claims to have medical benefits, but it doesn’t have the red rectangle, it’s fraud—always check the red rectangle”. (The test criterion for “repeatedly and unambiguously” is that an average person with 80 IQ can tell you what the red rectangle means.)