Pruning the FDA

THAT a man suffering from constipation should drink prune juice is a truth so fixed in people’s minds that there is only one place where people are still unsure of it: Rockville, Maryland, home of the Food and Drug Administration. However well known the effects of prune juice may be to the public and the scientific community, the FDA does not allow prune-juice manufacturers to print “This product may relieve constipation” on their labels. Manufacturers who do so face civil and criminal penalties.

At least the ban on prune-juice claims does not hurt many people. Other FDA prohibitions are more harmful. Low-dose aspirin consumption, for example, can sharply reduce the risk of a heart attack. A million and a half Americans have heart attacks every year, and over half a million die; an estimated 100,000 could be saved if aspirin manufacturers were permitted to publicize their product’s protective effects. However, although researchers have been documenting the benefits of low-dose aspirin since the mid 1970s, it was not until 1997 that the FDA said it might allow manufacturers to tell health professionals the good news. Even then, the agency said it would continue to ban the information from ads aimed at consumers-although G. D. Searle, maker of Bayer aspirin, recently began to flout this policy in TV commercials, so far without prompting an enforcement action by the FDA.

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Alexander Volokh

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THAT a man suffering from constipation should drink prune juice is a truth so fixed in people’s minds that there is only one place where people are still unsure of it: Rockville, Maryland, home of the Food and Drug Administration. However well known the effects of prune juice may be to the public and the scientific community, the FDA does not allow prune-juice manufacturers to print “This product may relieve constipation” on their labels. Manufacturers who do so face civil and criminal penalties.

At least the ban on prune-juice claims does not hurt many people. Other FDA prohibitions are more harmful. Low-dose aspirin consumption, for example, can sharply reduce the risk of a heart attack. A million and a half Americans have heart attacks every year, and over half a million die; an estimated 100,000 could be saved if aspirin manufacturers were permitted to publicize their product’s protective effects. However, although researchers have been documenting the benefits of low-dose aspirin since the mid 1970s, it was not until 1997 that the FDA said it might allow manufacturers to tell health professionals the good news. Even then, the agency said it would continue to ban the information from ads aimed at consumers-although G. D. Searle, maker of Bayer aspirin, recently began to flout this policy in TV commercials, so far without prompting an enforcement action by the FDA.