A front-page news article in Sunday's New York Times blames what a photo caption calls "largely unregulated" dietary supplements for a spike in liver injuries. From the article: "unlike prescription drugs, which are tightly regulated, dietary supplements typically carry no information about side effects."
The implicit argument is for increased regulation of the dietary supplements to prevent the liver injuries.
The article reports, "Dietary supplements account for nearly 20 percent of drug-related liver injuries that turn up in hospitals, up from 7 percent a decade ago, according to an analysis by a national network of liver specialists."
But it never says what accounts for the other 80 percent. Highly regulated prescription drugs? Nor does the article mention all the liver disease caused by highly regulated alcoholic beverages — in fact, the writer of the Times article, Anahad O'Connor, is running around elsewhere promoting his own book by granting interviews to bloggers in which he says, "no great meal is complete without a perfectly paired wine. Barbarescos, Barolos—anything from the nebbiolo grape—and cabernet francs are my favorite."
There's just not much evidence for the unstated assumption in the Times article, which is that additional regulation would decrease the injuries.