History full circle: 'Novel' sympathomimetics in supplements.

Since the banning of ephedrine in over-the-counter nutritional supplements a decade ago, a plethora of untested and/or unsafe sympathomimetic stimulants have taken its place. This paper argues that these 'novel' stimulants in supplements recapitulate the work of synthetic chemists at commercial pharmaceutical firms during the 1930s and 1940s, all seeking substitutes for recently successful products based on ephedrine and amphetamine. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Pellagra Pre-Goldberger: Rupert Blue, Fleming Sandwith, and The "Vitamine Hypothesis".

The conquest of pellagra is commonly associated with one name: Joseph Goldberger of the US Public Health Service, who in 1914 went south, concluded within 4 months that the cause was inadequate diet, spent the rest of his life researching the disease, and--before his death from cancer in 1929--found that brewer's yeast could prevent and treat it at nominal cost. It does Goldberger no discredit to emphasize that between 1907 and 1914 a patchwork coalition of asylum superintendents, practicing physicians, local health officials, and others established for the first time an English-language competence in pellagra, sifted through competing hypotheses, and narrowed the choices down to two: an insect-borne infection hypothesis, championed by the flamboyant European Louis Westerna Sambon, and the new "vitamine hypothesis," proffered by Casimir Funk in early 1912 and articulated later that year by two members of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, Fleming Mant Sandwith and Rupert Blue. Those who resisted Goldberger's inconvenient truth that the root cause was southern poverty drew their arguments largely from the Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission, which traces back to Sambon's unfortunate influence on American researchers. Thousands died as a result.

[Consumption and Control: How Vitamin C could become a Cure-All]. / Konsum und Kontrolle: Wie Vitamin C zu einem Allheilmittel werden konnte.

Artificial vitamin C has become a bulk product. To explain how ascorbic acid could enter everyday life, one less has to look at medical necessities than at the dynamic interplay of production, promotion, and health care policy. Hence, this contribution focuses on the complex interactions of health concepts, diagnostic instruments and the physician's gaze necessary to endow ascorbic acid with a medical indication. On the one hand, this reveals the differences between a "purely scientific" and a "medical-biological" point of view. On the other hand, as man last but not least is what he eats, this points to the fact that nutrition and parts of it always are soaked with health policy and moral.

How ephedrine escaped regulation in the United States: a historical review of misuse and associated policy.

OBJECTIVE: Ephedrine is not only efficacious in the treatment of numerous ailments, but also has a long history of misuse. Research was needed to examine ephedrine policy over time in order to determine potential regulatory flaws that allowed misuse to continue. METHODS: This review is based on primary literature derived from systematic searches of historical and scientific archives, as well as grey literature. RESULTS: Ephedrine managed to pass through numerous regulatory loopholes within seventy years. Despite warnings of misuse over the latter half of the century, ephedrine, and its herbal source, ephedra, were regulated in a piecemeal fashion and remained easily available to the public. Health authorities have struggled to control ephedrine, as an amphetamine "look-alike," as a methamphetamine precursor, as a dietary supplement, and as a medication. Despite being a potentially dangerous stimulant, under-regulation was perhaps more problematic than the substance itself. CONCLUSIONS: Tighter control of all ephedrine products, drugs and dietary supplements alike, might have prevented adverse outcomes and allowed this substance to remain available in a safer manner. Stringent regulation of all ephedrine products is necessary to prevent misuse and to protect the public's health.