Intravenous hydration spas are a booming business, likely bringing in hundreds of millions per year, marketing saline drips, sometimes mixed with drugs, electrolytes, or vitamins, as cures for hangovers, colds, and other conditions.
Yet despite safety concerns flagged by the Food and Drug Administration, the industry has little in the way of either federal or state-level regulation or oversight, according to a mixed-methods analysis of the industry published today in JAMA Internal Medicine.
These facilities largely evade federal regulation under section 503A of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which consigns most oversight to the states.
The researchers analyzed state laws and statements related to the IV hydration industry for all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine whether states address four oversight aspects: governance, provider credentials, dispensing practices, and compounding practices. As
