Amazon Appeases FDA Removes Sulfur-Based Dietary Supplement From Online Offerings Because It Cures COVID-19 And Threatens Vaccine Emergency-Use Provisions.

Late last year (2020) the FDA issued a warning letter that a sulfur-based dietary supplement couldn’t be lawfully marketed because it was first studied as a drug in 1963 and marketed in that same year under the trade name Mucomyst to break up mucus accumulation in the upper respiratory tract (bronchus, lung).

The dietary supplement industry legally challenged the FDA over this categorical restriction for use solely as a drug to treat disease to the exclusion of its use to promote health, which is the what dietary supplements are permitted to claim.

In May of 2021 Amazon.com, obviously the major online marketer of dietary supplements, caved in to the FDA and removed the sulfur-based pills, called N acetyl cysteine, or NAC for short, from its online offerings. The dietary supplement industry is advising its members to continue selling NAC supplements.  The FDA and supplement industry are in a standoff.

The FDA holds that any marketer of a dietary supplement like NAC cannot make any claim that their products prevent, treat or cure any disease.  The first use of the molecule determines whether it is classified as a prescription-only drug or commercially available nutraceutical without need for a doctor’s prescription.