Rob's Rants

I hate conspiracy theories ..... that being said .... The FDA recently pulled Red Yeast Rice supplements off the market at about the same time the effectiveness of two popular cholesterol lowering drugs, Zetia and Vytorin, is being called into question. One has to wonder if this was this done with pressure from the makers of the two drugs Schering-Plough and Merck?

While I understand the safety and effectiveness concerns of natural supplements, we need some sort of independent lab to do clinical trials of supplements. It costs a whole pile of money for a drug to get FDA approval ... no one is going to fund trials for an "open" supplement. I wonder if there is something in the "open technology" community that would translate into the pharmaceutical area?? Open source, community supported drugs??