DIETARY SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY

Student’s name

Instructor

Department of affiliation

Course

Date

Dietary supplement industry

The use of supplements is a common practice among many Americans and it gives most Americans the courage and the belief that they are healthy however this is not always true and once a person realizes this then they get to begin worrying. The use of supplements especially is of very concern since it is not controlled and therefore this allows anyone to introduce their products to the market which they always claim to have health benefits. Most of these products are not well researched about and the people who produce them may not have a strong medical background. This acts as a risk factor and the need for more concern to be focused on this area of operation.

Even though I have never been interested so much in taking vitamins or using food supplements which are so common, I have a different view about vitamins and food supplements after watching this video. This is because the video talks of how important it is for a person to be careful and gives real examples affected by the issue of taking supplements and vitamins which they believed were completely safe only later to realize that the supplements were not safe and are affecting their health (Saul, 2003). Therefore this becomes a very great challenge since the people the customer bought the supplement from entrusted his/her health to do not care so much about the health of the individual but rather look at the profits they are making out of the lots of money charged for these supplements and vitamins. Therefore my view has changed negatively in that I hoped that all the vitamins and food supplements were of good quality, tested, and reduced side effects as well as clear instructions on how to use the food supplements but this is not true as of now (Shaw, 1997).

The video talks of the company by the name purity first which makes supplements and it talks of how this company has been making a lot of money and how at the same time it continues supplying their customers with what is wrong and not what is expected or good. Therefore this company is just an example of other companies which might already be existence or which want to establish themselves and begin this production and sale of vitamins and food supplements. This kind of freedom is not good and therefore the FDA should be in a position to bring out the ability and the possibility of regulating these firms, companies, and clinics which produce these kinds of vitamins and food supplements to make sure that the safety of the Americans is first taken care of (Ladipo, 2000).

When it comes to the question of who is responsible for all this we can state that it is not the government or the individuals who are to fully blame for whatever happens. This is because even though the government is willing to increase its protection measures it is still in the hands of the citizens to decide what they want to buy and also for what reasons they want to buy whatever they want to buy. Therefore the responsibility cuts across and therefore it is important for both the government to ensure that all the products in the market are healthy and able to be consumed. On the other side of the customer, it is their role to be good judges and decide what they want to buy and only buy what fulfills their wills and satisfies their needs. Through this way, the population will be better protected from the people whose main ideas and goals are to make cheap money from the naïve and ignorant Americans who are so easy to fools around.

References

Shaw, D., Leon, C., Kolev, S., & Murray, V. (1997). Traditional remedies and food supplements. Drug safety, 17(5), 342-356.Ladipo, O. A. (2000). Nutrition in pregnancy: mineral and vitamin supplements. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 72(1), 280S-290S.Saul, A. W. (2003). Can vitamin supplements take the place of a bad diet?. Journal of orthomolecular medicine, 18(3-4), 213-216.Saul, A. W. Why Vitamin Supplements?.