What is up with "prescription supplements"?

[curly_kate]

Now I have seen commercials for 2 difference medications that are just supplements (omega-3 and niacin) that a drug co has given a fancy name and are selling as a prescription med. It looks like they tweaked them a bit (Niaspan is "extended release" niacin), I guess so they could claim it as their own product. What do you make of this?

 

[Wifezilla]

Greed. Deception. Evil...

Take your pic.

 

[mandieg4]

I haven't seen the commercial, but I take a couple of "prescription supplements" I get them over the counter, but my doctor writes a prescription for them so that I can write them off on my taxes because I don't have insurance. I suppose if I had insurance then the insurance company would pay for them since they are written as a prescription.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I have seen the one for niacin and wondered. Seems to me that maybe the drug companies don't like the idea of losing business. They will soon be trying to convince people that the version they haven't "improved" either doesn't work as well, or is downright dangerous ...

 

[curly_kate]

I haven't seen the commercial, but I take a couple of "prescription supplements" I get them over the counter, but my doctor writes a prescription for them so that I can write them off on my taxes because I don't have insurance. I suppose if I had insurance then the insurance company would pay for them since they are written as a prescription.

These are ones that actually require a prescription. Niaspan is "extended release" niacin, and Lovaza (I think) is omega-3 that they've tinkered with in some way. It just seems weird that they should now require a prescription. I guess it's a sign that the rx industry can see that they are losing $$$ to homeopathy.

 

[valmom]

Well, Lovaza is a processed fish oil that they actually ran cardiac studies on. Guess what? It helped! (so does fish oil) The Niaspan is really just time releast niacin, but in a large dose- which can cause flushing and liver damage, so they time released it to help with cholesterol. Not many people use it, though, because there are less problematic meds for cholesterol, including psyllium and fish oil.

Greed. Deception. Evil...

Take your pic.

Basically.

 

[freemotion]

It is absolutely a money decision. Big Pharma has been trying for years to get supplements regulated so that they can control them. They know that people who eat right and take good supps need fewer...or no....meds and that hits their pocketbooks. They would love to make all supplements require a prescription so that they could get all the money, and even phase them out.

I suspect that they are also behind the "studies" that show that "supplements are dangerous," like the vitamin E study a few years ago that supposedly was linked to heart failure. The study was done on nursing home patients who took a synthetic vitamin E.

Nursing home patients dying of heart failure? Well, whatayaknow? Whodathunk? That evil vitamin E!

Duh.