In 1994, United States President Bill Clinton fulfilled a campaign promise to his constituents by exempting supplements from any real FDA oversight. Scientists objected on the grounds that heavy marketing of alternatives to medicine would undermine confidence in actual medicine.(1) 

Strangely, despite Republicans being in power three times since then, only President Bush undid one of those things - he gave NIH a fantastic boost in funding. Until President Trump overruled his HHS Secretary, former Democrat and Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Robert F. Kennedy who wanted all solar energy at any cost, nuclear energy was political theater in both the Obama and Biden administrations - approving programs for press releases sent to the New York Times before quietly canceling them six months layer.

Supplements remain untouchable, thanks to Clinton creating a $35 billion industry with well-paid lobbyists who share common cause with the $120 billion organic industry he also boosted; that science is a corporate conspiracy.(2)


When Robert F. Kennedy defected to the Republican party, he handed the conspiracy theorists who went with him a new tagline; and new ways to commit dangerous fraud.

Yet scientists got one small concession in return for supplements being able to suggest they are medicine by mandating a tiny, fine-print disclaimer that no scientists agrees with their claims; they couldn't actually do anything.

And the only supplements that do anything to date do nothing; unless they illegally contain actual medicine. That is why "customer testimonials" about Boner Bears Chocolate were so prominent in their marketing; they worked because they contain actual Viagra, the thing customers say they don't want to buy because it's Big Science.

That got them busted by FDA but FDA is nearly as plodding and slow as the of the last 17 years, so look for some new heavily-marketing shingle to be thrown up soon doing the exact same thing; breaking the law. It is what supplement companies do when they want a competitive advantage.

NOTES:

(1) His response to scientists who criticized him was a funding cut for the NIH and NASA, diverting remaining science funding to provide a 300% boost for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, effectively banning nuclear energy, and forcing the US Department of Agriculture to create a government "Organic" seal, and criteria to buy the sticker from 80 groups that immediately popped up to sell them would be determined by a special panel of marketers and lobbyists; no scientists needed.

(2) Though staunch Democrats because they hated everything in science, like vaccines and energy, a large swath defected to the Republican party when Kennedy did. Politics of science today are like European politics of the 19th century; there is always a war and someone is always changing sides.