I wonder how kashrut handles *that*...

[cellio]

Most prepared food requires a hechsher, a certification mark, to be considered kosher. (Things like fresh veggies don't; I'm talking about things like canned soup, frozen breaded fish, stuff like that.) It appears that this rule does not apply to oral medications; I've never seen a hechsher on a bottle of aspirin, for example, and the local source of all things kosher does not carry over-the-counter drugs. If my understanding is correct, I presume this is because the pill passes through your mouth but isn't, properly speaken, "eaten". (If that reasoning is right, I'll leave for another time people who appear to swallow their food whole. :-) )

So where does this leave chewable pills and, the case that sets me wondering, pills that simply dissolve in your mouth, like some Claritin I currently have? Is it still "drugs", or has it moved over into "food"?

(Let me note that if the answer to this question were going to affect my behavior, I would ask my rabbi. I will eat foods with no objectionable ingredients even without a hechsher, so I'll use the Claritin. But it got me wondering.)

Comments

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

As it happens, kashrut.com has an article (http://www.kashrut.com/articles/med/) that may answer your question.

[cellio]

Thanks! Lots of interesting stuff there.

[tidesong.livejournal.com]

You know...that's a really interesting question. Aren't a lot of capsules made with gelatin, which is animal product? Very interesting indeed....

Treyf Pills

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Not to mention calcium tablets, which are frequently made from crushed oyster shells.

(Hmmm....Are any pharmaceuticals colored with cochineal?)

[hopeness.livejournal.com]

I think that it's a consideration but not a "must". I remember when B's mum was sick they found out that all her medications were kosher for Passover but it wasn't like if they weren't she was going to stop taking them. I bet if you're very strict and you can find an alternative med then you might switch, but isn't it that your health trumps the rules of kashrut? Like, if you were dying of starvation and all there was to eat was pork, you're supposed to eat the pork. Of course, I'm just a silly little ger so I might be totally wrong...

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It depends on the pill. For example, Lactaid and vitamin pills (which are considered a food supplement) are supposed to be hechshered. (And, in fact, most generic Lactaid knockoffs do not have a hechsher.) Allergy meds don't need 'em because they're considered drugs (i.e., they have no nutritive value).

[cellio]

Ah! I hadn't considered that the line might be between nutritive and not. I figured the focus would be on how it enters your system.

I assume that kashrut is still bounded by "goes in through the mouth" -- that if you somehow came up with a patch for lactaid or vitamins, that'd be fine? (I can actually think of a limited application for that idea, not that anyone's producing: the caffeine patch for Yom Kippur. Hey, I said it was limited. :-) )

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

This is a fascinating question for me, since it ties into a situation I've been dealing with professionally for a while. A few years ago, Sen. Orrin Hatch (a darling of the vitamin industry) got the FDA to change its classification of many food supplements and herbal products from the "drug" side to the "food" side, a ridiculous move that effectively de-regulated a lot of products -- they no longer have too be proven "safe and effective" -- and resulted in a lot of incongruities and confusion in the market. This, for example, is why a bottle of (say) Vitamin C or E or Calcium or CoEnzyme-Q-10 now has a "serving size" rather than a "dosage" on the label. That's why the "strength" is expressed in terms of the "serving", not the individual pill, so that those aren't really 100 mg pills as the label implies, they're 33 mg ('cause if you look at the fine print the "serving" is 3 pills). And even tho' those pills have a heart and an EKG pulse on the label, there's a disclaimer that "this product is not marketed to treat any disease". So is it food, or is it medicine? It's a question that has implications far beyond just the orthodox Jewish community.
--- Steve Mesnick, RPh

[alice-curiouser.livejournal.com]

Interesting question! Neither my chewable animal vitamins or my fiber chewables are marked. The vitamins contain gelatin, so that makes sense, but the fiber ones don't seem to contain anything questionable.