Anti-vaxer gets smacked down - hard!

As my one or two readers know, I am greatly opposed to the anti-vaxers and their lies. I've always found their promotion of unproven, often dangerous treatments to be particularity vexing - basically, they sell substances of little or no value (often harmful) to desperate parents. They are the snake-oil salesmen of our day.

Finally, the FDA seems to be cracking down on these thugs. Boyd Haley - second only in infamy to the king quack Andrew Wakefield has for the past few years sold an industrial chemical called N1,N3-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide (Boyd calls it ORS1 to make it less scary to his patients victims). OSR1 is an industrial chemical whose purpose is to remove certain metal ions from chemical preparations.

Boyd sells it as a mercury chealator - yes, Boyd is one of these "the mercury in vaccines cause autism" dudes, despite the fact that mercury has been removed from all childhood vax. He sells it despite the fact it has established toxicities beyond that acceptable for drugs, and despite the fact it has not ever been tested in a clinical trial for efficacy or safety. He tried to get around the law by claiming it was a "nutritional supplement".

The FDA shut him down this week. Orac, over at Respectful Insolence, has a detailed breakdown of why. But the long and short is:

1. OSR1 does not meet the definition of a dietary supplement, therefore it is illegal to sell it as such
2. Boyd makes specific biochemical claims (i.e. helps maintain a healthy glutathione level), and since the compound is intended to modify the bodies actions, is classified as a drug
3. This compound has not been tested as drugs need to be (clinical trials and all that), therefore it is illegal to sell it to people
4. Boyd claims OSR1 can treat a variety of conditions which cannot be self-diagnosed. Therefore even if OSR1 was a valid drug it would be illegal to sell it over-the-counter
5. Boyd conducted some animals tests, which showed OSR1 to be toxic to the immune system, pancreas, and to show general signs of whole-body toxicity. He falsely represents this in his adds, saying "OSR#1 is without detectable toxicity". It's illegal to lie about side effects.

Long story short - Boyd is illegally selling an untested drug for treating children, is illegally advertising it as a nutritional supplement, is illegally hiding known toxicities, and is illegally selling a compound by mail-order which if it functions as advertised would be a prescription drug.

With luck, he will go to jail for his illegal activities.

One down, 50,000 to go...