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Sucks. I just saw the FDA sent a bunch of C&D letters out to people talking about using Vitamin D to reduce COVID-19 risk/severity, which is absurd given the research, but of course that's not really any different from your situation.

Yes, but people know the rules. The FDA has a specific task force right now for COVID-19 claims. So that's the last thing you want to be posting about right now. The FDA's usually slow response time has been turned into a lightning fast one for COVID. If you post COVID-19 claims, you might get an FDA enforcement letter within 2 weeks. That's FAST for the FDA. While I do think it is stupid we can't link valid research, the FDA's position on this is very clear. If you post any COVID-19 research or claims, you will get an FDA letter. They also have a specific team at the DOJ right now helping them speed up prosecutions of COVID-19 issues if people ignore their letters. So anyone talking about COVID-19 in relation to their supplement products right now is playing with fire.

It's really only a problem for people associated with marketing, sales, and distribution, right? Meaning Examine and other sites are safe so long as they never recommend a particular vendor or product?

Yes and no. So the FDA can only enforce their regulations on companies actually selling products. So it is mostly the brands/vendors themselves that need to worry about it. However, Google has done a few "Medic" updates that have changed things for everyone. Google also penalizes talk about unproven medical claims now, and its algorithms hit things with a wide net. Examine actually spoke about this a while back. They lost 90% of their organic traffic overnight. We were in a better place, because we had removed all these claims a while back because of other legal disputes. So when the Medic update happened, we did not lose as much rankings. We still lost 45% of our organic traffic overnight. However, some vendors lost 95%. So while it sucked for us last year, it was a death blow to some other vendors. We are very strategic in what we do, so we can limit the damage from things like this. However, it is still very shitty for us. I won't get into my speculation on why Google did it, but I will say that it is curious timing that Google started reaching out to supplement vendors to do more Adwords advertising, then pulled the rug out from under them with their organic rankings. One might say it was a strategic move to force companies to pay for traffic they were getting organically the month before...

So back to the government. The primary people that need to worry about the claim thing is the vendor. However, you have to also consider civil litigation as well. Affiliate sites may not get FDA enforcement letters, but they absolutely can be roped into civil lawsuits for unfair or deceptive advertising. You also don't only have to worry about the FDA. The FTC are the guys that go after marketing statements, and they are not bound by the rules that the FDA are. If you talk to any businessman that's been in the game in the US for a long time, they will tell you that you never want to get on the bad side of the FTC. Their hands are not tied in any way, and they can come in one day and completely shut your business down. Essentially you never want to fuck with the IRS or FTC. So even ignoring the FDA, you need to be very careful with your business practices because of the FTC and civil litigation. The issue with civil litigation is that they use regulations from all government agencies, including the FDA and FTC, along with any laws passed by Congress. So you can be sued in civil court for violating any of these regulations without those government agencies actually being involved at all. In fact, that is used as leverage a lot. They agree not to rope in the FDA and FTC if you settle with them first. So essentially it is legal blackmail using the broad mandate that these agencies have. Pretty fucked up, but happening every day all around you. I could go on for days about this, but I am always careful about how much I talk about publicly.

What allows Life Extension, for example, to write so much about various supplements and/or conditions? More money for lawyers? This page for example seems like it would be super problematic, since they also sell many of the recommended supplements...

Hubris.

https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/life-extension-foundation-buyers-club-inc-500619-02012017

Life Extension has been dealing with this for years. They have been raided by the FDA and DOJ, and are actively fighting them all the time. They talk about it on their site.

https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/1996/9/freedom

https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2017/03/15/Warning-letter-won-t-change-Life-Extension-s-communication-style

So Life Extension is actively fighting this to this day. I am not in a position to fight the FDA or DOJ. If you are large enough, and committed to spending the money to fight back, perhaps it can be different. We will see how Life Extension fares as time goes on. Trump de-funded a lot of the agencies, including the FDA. So the FDA has less ability to fight expensive fights right now. I do not think that means they are giving up, though. I think that means they are building their case for when they are ready, then they will pull the rug out all at once. I have more important missions to accomplish. I will let Life Extension fight this one.