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No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS (bloomberg.com)
From a Bloomberg report:The aloe vera gel many Americans buy to soothe damaged skin contains no evidence of aloe vera at all. Samples of store-brand aloe gel purchased at national retailers Wal-Mart, Target and CVS showed no indication of the plant in various lab tests. The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice -- another name for aloe vera -- as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water. There's no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't approve cosmetics before they're sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe. That means suppliers are on an honor system, even as the total U.S. market for aloe products, including drinks and vitamins, has grown 11 percent in the past year to $146 million, according to Chicago-based market researcher SPINS LLC. "You have to be very careful when you select and use aloe products," said Tod Cooperman, president of White Plains, New York-based ConsumerLab.com, which has done aloe testing. Aloe's three chemical markers -- acemannan, malic acid and glucose -- were absent in the tests for Wal-Mart, Target and CVS products conducted by a lab hired by Bloomberg News. The three samples contained a cheaper element called maltodextrin, a sugar sometimes used to imitate aloe. The gel that's sold at another retailer, Walgreens, contained one marker, malic acid, but not the other two.
If they can't even detect any, that stuff must be super potent!
Unregulated product a sham, news at 11!
No Aloe in non-regulated product? ... BURN
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I see you didn't miss the sarcasm.
In other related news, there is no evidence of babies in samples of Baby Oil, nor of motors in Motor Oil!
Those people should beat it. Seriously, their wits must be scrambled!
If they'd come out of their shells, and let us see the whites of their eyes, we could really give them a carton of grief. But, as they say, these types are cheaper by the dozen!