There are so many long used natural herbs and supplements - as well as older, low cost or no longer patentable medicines (such as ivermectin, methylene blue, etc.) - that have not been studied or reviewed by the FDA for their potential usages, effectiveness, and safety considerations. There is no good reason why these compounds should not have been thoroughly tested, evaluated and had the results published and information added to the products ‘ packaging by now.
The main reason it appears that this has not been done is that the incentives have all been on the side of evaluating new manmade drugs so that pharmaceutical companies can make a profit from these. (And of course this led to the FDA removing these things almost entirely from their purview.)
We need to change the FDA’s mission to include these types of compounds, and find creative ways to incentivize these types of studies, both within the FDA itself (or related government agency) and via private companies or even qualified private individuals.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but with the brilliant minds we have here in the U.S., I believe we could come up with many excellent ideas to make this happen!
For example, give grants for this purpose, and give large bonuses or rewards for high quality studies that reliably prove or disprove the effectiveness of such a compound for a specific purpose, along with dosing and safety information. In the end, the savings on healthcare would likely far outweigh the cost for any such grants or rewards.
Please put your thinking caps on and contribute ideas as to how we could incentivize this!