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Herbalism
rusty_blackhaw

A crackdown on phony Ebola cures

rusty_blackhaw
9 years ago

Several companies selling herbal and other products claimed to prevent or cure Ebola infection have been warned by the FDA to stop their promotions.

"Natural Solutions Foundation, Young Living, and dÃÂTERRA International LLC all produce products that were promoted on the Web as cures for a variety of ailments, all without FDA approval. The products in question, the letters note, are not FDA-approved drugs, yet their marketing makes the sort of claims that only approved drugs may make -- that they can be used to treat, mitigate, prevent and cure diseases."

According to the three letters, those promotions -- either on Web sites owned by the companies or on sites and accounts used by paid "consultants" promoting and selling the products -- included Pinterest messages, Facebook postings and blog posts claiming products such as "CBD Organic Dark Chocolate Bars," "Clary Sage" essential oils and the "Family Protection Pack" can do what has not yet been done: Treat, cure or prevent the deadly Ebola virus."

One of these companies used online "consultants" (spammers) to promote their essential oil products not only for Ebola infections, but to treat other infections, cancer, autism, endometriosis, Alzheimer's disease and various other conditions.

Attempts to cash in on a perceived public health crisis last occurred with the H1N1 influenza virus.

As for essential oils combatting Ebola, such oils don't seem to have helped the people most at risk for Ebola:

"Essential oils have not shown any evidence of effectiveness against viruses, and certainly not against the Ebola virus, said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and a professor of medicine at New York University. The low value of such oils in fighting infectious disease is evident in a simple comparison, said Weissmann: While American diets are not, on the whole, rich in the use of essential oils, African diets are.

"We don't have Ebola," said Weissmann. "They do."

Here is a link that might be useful: Supplement companies try to cash in on Ebola fears

Comments (3)

  • chervil2
    9 years ago

    The worldwide public consensus along with the blessing of the FDA is showing us that a drug treatments for ebola with weak or absolutely no clinical data are better than no treatment at all. For sure there is a strong opportunity her for herbs with antiviral properties and strong nutritional support for ebola victims. In the end herbs are likely to have an even better reputation and more respect from Western Medicine.

  • rusty_blackhaw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    The experimental drug currently being used to treat Ebola patients has a good rationale behind it (it's a targeted therapy using genetic modification techniques) and some early positive clinical results.

    The essential oils and herbs currently being sold by unscrupulous marketers don't have any evidentiary backing. These people are taking advantage of consumers scared of contracting the disease, including a potential market in African countries (some of these products may be sent there by well-intentioned relatives in other nations). It's possible that persons with early Ebola infections could take these products, thinking that they'll be curative, but wind up delaying diagnosis and getting more of their contacts infected.

    There are plenty of herbal remedies available in Africa. They don't seem to have had any impact on the epidemics there.

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  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    a drug treatments for ebola with weak or absolutely no clinical data are better than no treatment at all.

    This was not a case of "making stuff up". The various experimental therapies had good results in lab animals that had been deliberately infected with Ebola and had passed the "Phase 1" trials (that's where you give it to healthy volunteers and see what the best tolerated dose it) successfully.

    The other therapy - transfusing plasma from people who have had Ebola and recovered - has a long history of actually working against a wide variety of diseases. Tetanus, diphtheria, and rabies treatments currently use a refined version of immunoglobulin therapy.

    The problem with the essential oils, the probiotics, etc is that they have had absolutely ZERO testing for a protective effect against anything in lab animals ... against anything. There may be a study or two showing they work in a petri dish, but it's a long way from there to working in live animals.

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