Ephedra weight loss products were banned for a short time. The story shows the FDA in a ridiculous light as determined to ban competitors to the drug industry as long as the product works. Ephedra worked so well that the drug companies patented a refined product called Ephedrine. The only trouble was that more than one person died as a result of using the refined drug.
The FDA leaped to the rescue and banned ephedra which had not been involved apart from giving the drug company the idea for ephedrine, but didn't ban ephedrine. Fortunately there must have been enough sensible people in the government to realise that the FDA was open to ridicule as a result, and the decision was reversed. You can now buy ephedra.
Author: Todd Massey
Ephedra weight loss products used to be a multi-billion dollar industry.
Since ephedra was banned many of those people continued to search the internet for weight loss products with ephedra.
Why did all those people continue to look for a product the FDA said was dangerous?
They continued to search for ephedra because they did not want to be fat. Being fat or overweight is, according to doctors and the government, also dangerous.
It is claimed that being even just a little overweight can lead to an earlier death.
One study, in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported people who were overweight at age 50 had a 20% to 40% higher risk of death than normal-weight people. Overweight was reported as carrying up to 30
