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.

Comments

Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the ones that list their actual ingredients are honest and factual?

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[nobuddy]

This is what an unregulated market looks like. Human nature, no matter how well intended 99.99999% of the participants may be, one bad apple will put greed over doing whats right. And then, in order to compete, the rest have to start following suit.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're going to call misrepresenting your product as a legitimate unregulated market? Wow.
 
There's a gulf of difference between honest unregulated competition and outright fraud. I expect any semi-intelligent person to see the difference.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[Anon-Admin]

1) It is a regulated market
2) They violated the truth in advertising laws
3) The company is now open to untold lawsuits because some of the contents were harmful.
4) Fraudulent activity is not indicative of an unregulated or free market. Just as theft, breaking and entering, and mugging people are not business plans.
5) One bad apple does not ruin the batch. Simple proof, I have seen three people I went to High School with arrested on COP's. That does not make everyone in our class criminals!
6) Your low opinion of Human Nature does not appear correct. In test after test people in general are honest.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[Coren22]

I think the main point of his comment is that the products being sold, even legitimately, have not been proven to have any actual effect on the human body. The whole dietary supplement industry is built on "this might help you" type lies.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[bondsbw]

So you're going to call misrepresenting your product as a legitimate unregulated market?

By what standard does someone judge an unregulated concept to be legitimate? Assuming such judgment has teeth, doesn't that standard become a form of regulation?

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[DutchUncle]

Doesn't matter. If it says "parsley", which does nothing, then the rule is it's supposed to be parsley and nothing but parsley.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[RockClimbingFool]

I think the main point of the GP is that the end consumer has no means to test exactly what they are buying. Whether or not the real ingredients do anything, is at best, subject. Whether or not the product contains what the label says, is not subjective.

Re:Fraudulent herbal supplements?

[Toad-san]

"people in general are honest" .. I think those tests probably did not include lawyers, advertisers, salesmen, corporate CEOs, etc.

Fraud is ok as long as you are honest about it

[sjbe]

But of course it's perfectly ok to sell fraudule...err, homeopathic "remedies" which do not and cannot work any different than a placebo.

Re:Fraud is ok as long as you are honest about it

[Grishnakh]

It's two different issues.
1) Are you selling what you claim you're selling?
2) Does what you're selling do what you claim it does?

Homeopathic "remedies" are probably perfectly legitimate on #1: they're just water, with some ridiculously small amount of some item mixed in and diluted beyond the point of one molecule even being in a dose. They're completely honest about what's in the bottle. Their problem is #2: they actually expect you to believe that purified water will cure your ailments, and people do, because they're told it does and people are gullible fools.

These herbal supplement sellers were failing on #1, which is outright fraud. Ginseng root may or may not help you (it certainly does contain certain chemical compounds which will affect your body somehow, just like many other natural plants contain chemical compounds which can have profound affects on the human body: hemlock and oleander are good examples of this), but if they're selling something they claim has ginseng root and it's just powdered rice, that's nothing more than fraud.

Re:Isn't this all of them?

[swv3752]

500 mg or more of Cinnamon helps insulin sensitivity- close to what the diabetic drug Metformin does. However, a number of cinnamon pills are bogus- sawdust and cinnamon oil often times.

500 mg -1000mg of Niacin (nicotinic acid) raises HDL (even more effective when combined with large doses of fish oil).

Some supplements do work. It is bad enough to try and figure out which supplement contains the right form of Niacin, compared to figuring out if the supplement even contains the ingredients on the label.

im sure the business model is sound

[nimbius]

supplement company: check out our new herbal animal vegetable raw vegan youth potion penis elixer and life enhancer with guanaramalama and bilinko for supported function of your satrogenum B9
AG: this is nothing but brake dust, old chinese newspaper shreds, and windshield glass
supplement company: well its been on the market for 2 years and is completely safe.
AG: yeah but it doesnt do what it says and contains things it doesnt list. pull it.
supplement company: sure thing buddy! let me just step over this large mountain of cash I earned and ill get right to it. sure am sorry about the mixup.
Stores: oh we sure are super sorry too, turns out we got distracted by counting all this money.
Supplement company: who wants to sell this new supplement! its got enhanced vigorators and revitalomic green tea tomato lyzopramic dyloricackles to enhance your penis life
Stores: who are we do deny the customer!
AG: THIS IS JUST SHREDDED PHONEBOOKS AND CAFFEINE
supplement company: it iiiiiis? oh my worrrrd it happened again! goodness gracious.

Objectivity

[Bovius]

I can't decide whether this says more about corporate greed or about the culture of alternative medicine, that these retailers can make such a flagrant mockery of herbal supplements, and apparently get away with it for quite a while.

Re:4 of 5 contained zero of the claimed ingredient

[Motard]

Over-regulation is bad. Selling a bottle that is 100% not what it says on the label, is a reasonable expectation. Call it what you want - false advertising, fraud, etc. It's clearly something that shouldn't be permitted. I don't think you'd get much argument from either side of the isle.

Homeopathy IS fraud

[sjbe]

If some idiot wants to buy 20C whatever that's their business. It's only a problem if the what is in the bottle is actually something different or false claims are made about efficacy.

Homeopathic "remedies" are the very definition of false claims regarding efficacy.

Re:4 of 5 contained zero of the claimed ingredient

[rubycodez]

You are confused, there are already regulations and they were broken in this case. The solution is there already in existing law.

Re:So what?

[barlevg]

Well, if you're allergic to "Useless Compound Y"...