Why was Ephedra banned?

There are no studies indicating that Ephedra is a dangerous substance when used at the correct dosage. So one must turn to the high profile it has taken over the past several years. Was it competing with diet drugs?

L-tryptophan was linked to a serious illness called eosinophilic fasciitis in the early 1990's. L-tryptophan was a wonderful amino acid that helped with everything from Depression to PMS to insomnia. And guess what - they weren't all eosinophilic fasciitis. Some were 'an illness RESEMBLING eosinophilic fasciitis'. Regardless, l-tryptophan was yanked off the market.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Abs...

OK one could argue that if the link to 'an illness resembling eosinophilic fasciitis' was strong enough, then even the history of years of safe usage would be enough reason to ban its use. But then they found the real culprit - a single contaminated factory in Japan.

http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/textbook/papers/Boynett.pdf

It was the cause - not the L-tryptophan. Yet L-tryptophan is still banned today. You cannot legally get it without a...prescription! Coincidentally another treatment came on the market that helped with everything from Depression to PMS to insomnia right after Tryptophan was banned - Prozac.

Ephedra has been used safely for thousands of years. Only recently has it been promoted in its concentrated form (ephederine) as a weight loss product. 9 times out of ten ephederine is combined with caffeine and aspirin (which blocks its uptake). Of course it is going to logically have more adverse reactions then the whole plant taken by itself for a cold or flu. Combine all these stimulants together and give them to some fat guy and you have a recipe for a problem. But guess what? Even used in this haphazard way - it has a good track record!

"Virtually all of the data for any of the adverse effects and their severity, as represented in the AERs, are anecdotal." That's what and FDA report, Safety of Dietary Supplements Containing Ephedrine Alkaloids, said. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-ephe3.html

Ok - well surely there must have been further study that indicated there was a STRONG problem and a STRONG correlation to the ephederine causing it. In February of 2003 a complete review was submitted to the FDA.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/ephedra/summary.html

Here, they incorrectly refer to ephedra and ephederine as one in the same, "Even in aggregate, the clinical trials enrolled only enough patients to detect a serious adverse event rate of at least 1.0 per 1,000. For rare outcomes, we reviewed case reports, but a causal relationship between ephedra or ephedrine use and these events CANNOT be assumed or proven. "

This sounds like an acquittal of ephedra, doesn't it?

It is followed up by, "The majority of case reports are insufficiently documented to make an informed judgment about a relationship between the use of ephedrine or ephedra-containing dietary supplements and the adverse event in question. For prior consumption of ephedra-containing products, we identified two deaths, three myocardial infarctions, nine cerebrovascular accidents, three seizures, and five psychiatric cases as sentinel events; for prior consumption of ephedrine, we identified three deaths, two myocardial infarctions, two cerebrovascular accidents, one seizure, and three psychiatric cases as sentinel events. We identified 43 additional cases as possible sentinel events with prior ephedra consumption and seven additional cases as possible sentinel events for prior ephedrine consumption. About half the sentinel events occurred in persons aged 30 years or younger. Classification as a sentinel event does not imply a proven cause and effect relationship."

Again - benign. And NONE of these reports takes into consideration one important factor - OVERDOSE! Any substance, even water, can hurt the healthiest of individuals in copious quantitites.

So - why is it coming off the market, out of the hands of herbalists - no longer in Dr. Schulze 's Cold and Flu formula? I'd look for a new weight loss drug soon. Or the reimergence of an old one. Or perhaps even the approval of a current drug for a second or third purpose.

The entire process stinks. We are being stripped of a very important botanical without any due process. This is a scary step for all natural healers. And one of the biggest problems is - Congress. Try looking through this:

http://wwws.house.gov/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&VdkVgwKey=http%3A%2F%2F...

Did you representative support the ban? But would that have even mattered?

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=H04

Bob Mantz

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