How many times have you wondered what exactly is in the medicines you take? Or how many times have you seen "propriety blend" or "and other ingredients" on food or vitamin packaging?
There is a movement underway to replace those phrases with exact ingredients and more to make administering medications and nutrition safer.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he's considering the possibility of calling for a single nationwide standard for ingredients listings on packaging and in advertising, rather than the current patchwork of laws governing labeling.
And Dr. Bill Hennessey of TrueCharge.Sumhealth.org (where you can go to see if your hospital bills are accurate) says anyone who's read drug labels and especially food labels still doesn't have an idea what many ingredients might be and how they affect the human body.
"Why would we put anything in our mouths, how could we trust anything without knowing what it is?
"I literally want to see the ingredients so I can make up my own mind whether it's good or bad for me," he says.
Many people have the assumption that a list of ingredients in food, for instance, can help us identify what effects the ingredients might have on us, but currenlty labels only inform us of the ingredient name, not its health aspects or whether it's considered safe.
And while it's presumed that ingredients in commercial foods and drugs are safe, Dr. Hennessey says we should still have the right to make fully informed choices among foods based on their ingredients.
"You've got to be able to read labels for specific effects, manufacturers shouldn't be just labeling some a "dye," you gotta say what kind of dye it is and spell it out, no abbreviations."
"We need to understand whether any ingredient is proven safe or not proven safe, and then that needs to be marked on the label too," Dr. Hennessey added.