Nutraceuticals and nootropics for anti-aging

FDA seizes autism supplements

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration carried out a raid on Kirkman Laboratories, the developer of a line of nutritional supplements for autistic children, and seized bottles of a supplement called “HypoAllergenic Taurine”. The FDA justified the raid by saying that Kirkman falsely claimed taurine to be useful in treating autism.

It is true that there are no medical research reports showing directly that taurine is an effective treatment for autism. But it is easy to find medical studies that show taurine to be effective in treating seizures, which are symptoms common to autism and other neurological conditions such as epilepsy. Apparently this doesn’t matter. The government’s right to control your decisions is what matters.

We should also note that the lack of medical research studies of many substances that are useful in treating diseases is due almost entirely to the government’s having made such studies outrageously expensive to perform. No company can afford to spend $50 million or more to do clinical studies on a substance that cannot even be patented. Much of the cost of doing a clinical study is the result of huge amounts of paperwork and regulatory procedures imposed by the government.

LINKS

Reuters news story about the FDA’s raid

The FDA’s own announcement of its raid

Website of Kirkman Laboratories, whose products the FDA seized

(Warning: the pages in Kirkman’s website load extremely slowly. Besides, Kirkman seems to have removed the page about the product that was seized.)

A web page about taurine and epilepsy