The death of a California woman has been attributed to an Asian supplement, Cao Bôi Trĩ Cây Thầu Dầu, a 'castor oil hemorrhoid extract' that is actually about 4% lead, a “highly dangerous amount.”

California women, and women nationwide who share that anti-science demographic, love supplements, and they think Asia knows something that Big Preparation H is suppressing for evil profit, but in the US if it can pass double-blind clinical trials, it is medicine. If it does not, it is only a supplement and must carry a disclaimer saying that no science is involved in their marketing claims. Even if it's a useless placebo it must still be safe or federal agents will kick in your door like you're a farmer with a pond that the Biden EPA wants to treat like it's navigable Waters of the United States.

Yet overseas companies can not only avoid any labels, they can be dangerous. Like this product.


Image by OC Health Care Agency

Officially, there is 'no known safe level of lead' but that doesn't mean that any level is unsafe, it means that lead, like salt, can't have an individual clinical level based on population epidemiology. Yet 4% is quite high, these Vietnamese grifters had to have created problems elsewhere - if they are even allowed to sell in their own country. It may be that, like kratom, the country that grows it to sell to gullible US customers bans it for their own people as too dangerous.