I think that's an overly negative view of the article.
People are more interested in how he got where he is, not the product itself.
Just because it's not FDA approved yet, doesn't mean its garbage. Not to mention the countless harmful and down right useless products that are pushed and approved by the FDA every year.
Tesla connection is important because people have been on an anti-Tesla tear lately, and this paints them in a pretty good light as far as big companies go.
He is being praised for his cautious and systematic approach to building a start-up, versus the rockstar/reckless founder meme that is prevalent these days.
FDA approval is actually relatively lax as it is. To pass the FDA, you pretty much have to do better than a placebo.
There's no comparative studies, there's no cross-drug studies, there's no major side-effect studies. FDA testing is almost purely Drug vs Placebo.
So if things aren't FDA approved or otherwise are avoiding FDA studies, you need to be cautious with those products.
The reason why so many "harmful" products get past the FDA is due to the lack of testing btw. Its a known problem, but no one wants to make FDA testing harder for some reason. I guess the drug lobby has done a good job at making people distrust the FDA.
For more details, look up "Phase IV Clinical Trials", which are the studies people want to standardize that go above and beyond the FDA minimums. (Including cross-drug interactions, better studies into side-effects, comparative studies, cost-benefit studies, patient-centered surveys, etc. etc. There's a LOT of studies that simply aren't done)
> FDA approval is actually relatively lax as it is. To pass the FDA, you pretty much have to do better than a placebo.
That's the D part of the FDA. The article specifies that he was advised not to call it either of a "cure" or a "drink".
Drinks fall under the FDA's core F responsibility. But he's ordering this drink from a factory that already produces enormous quantities of the same drink for consumption by Koreans. I'm not really worried that drinking it is unsafe, so the dietary supplement branding seems fair.
As to drug testing, doing better than placebo in a trial the FDA will accept is incredibly expensive regardless of how effective your drug is.
People are more interested in how he got where he is, not the product itself.
Just because it's not FDA approved yet, doesn't mean its garbage. Not to mention the countless harmful and down right useless products that are pushed and approved by the FDA every year.
Tesla connection is important because people have been on an anti-Tesla tear lately, and this paints them in a pretty good light as far as big companies go.
He is being praised for his cautious and systematic approach to building a start-up, versus the rockstar/reckless founder meme that is prevalent these days.