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Major Retailers Accused of Selling Fraudulent Herbal Supplements
MikeChino writes: The New York State Attorney General's Office is demanding that GNC, Walmart, Walgreens, and Target remove store brand herbal supplements from their shelves after the pills were found to be packed with a strange array of fraudulent—and in some cases hazardous—ingredients. Popular supplements such as ginseng, valerian root, and St. John's wort sold under store brand names at the four major retailers were found to contain powdered rice, asparagus, and even houseplants, while being completely void of any of the ingredients on the label.
What we have here is an entire industry that has a case of the fuckits regarding delivering on promises
Er, aisle.
But the Republican/Libertarian said regulation is bad!
Nope...That's NOT what they say.
The ones I hear talking about this say that government and regulation should be as SMALL as possible; that OVER REGULATION and large government is bad.
There is a MAJOR difference between what they actually say and what you claim they say.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I was curious about point #1, so I looked up what the FDA has to say about regulating supplements:
Manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and dietary ingredients are prohibited from marketing products that are adulterated or misbranded. That means that these firms are responsible for evaluating the safety and labeling of their products before marketing to ensure that they meet all the requirements of DSHEA and FDA regulations. FDA is responsible for taking action against any adulterated or misbranded dietary supplement product after it reaches the market.
Source: http://www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/.
It would appear to me that this is not just a New York State Law issue, but also a violation of Federal laws.
The ACTUAL problem, is that active compound content of herbs is HIGHLY variable.
One valarian rout of equal mass to another valarian root, will contain more (Or less) active compound than the other.
This means to have consisten product, EXTENSIVE, and CONTINUOUS product testing would have to be done to assure correct dosage for the proper treatment of a condition.
That's expensive, and creates liability for when the preparation does not meet the listed dosage of active compound.
It isn't that the compounds in the herbs are not effective-- it is that the efficacy of a certain measurement of herbal preparation cannot be consistently effective.
Synthetic preparations (Like a tylenol), are created under lab conditions. The quantity of active ingredient is tightly controlled, and dosage is easily metered. There are fewer ancilliary compounds in the preparation that can cause upset, and overall the preparations are safer, more reliable, and more potent.
The irrational prejudice against GMO products is like the irrational prejudice against farmed fish. People preferentially buy fish labeled "Wild Caught" because it sounds better, without any thought to the fact that they are contributing to a known environmental problem, depletion of wild fish stocks. For the health of the oceans, I would like to see this label eliminated.
GMO is a breeding technique, not an ingredient. Just like cage eggs and tuna that dolphins died for, it's fine to brag about these things on the packet but there is no reason to make the statements mandatory. If you want to stop cage eggs then campaign to phase out the practice of battery hens under animal cruelty laws, it's pointless trying to force the egg company to campaign against itself via mandatory labelling.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I have a friend who worked for the FDA. She told me that she never takes herbal supplements as pills, but only as tea. The tea is classified as a food, and therefore has to be labeled properly.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes