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.

Comments

government regulations

[jriding]

If only they would remove government regulations than this would never happen.

Re:government regulations

[Motherfucking Shit]

Sans regulation, the fraud was discovered.

Yes, but after how long? How many consumers have spent how many millions of dollars buying something that was not what it claimed to be, because "proving our product contains the ingredients we say it does is burdensome and anti-American?"

Re:government regulations

[The-Ixian]

You just need to make it illegal to [...]

So... a regulation?

Re:government regulations

[nine-times]

I get the joke, but I wonder if you see what's significant here. Sans regulation, the fraud was discovered.

It was discovered, but now who's going to make sure it doesn't continue? Even knowing this fraud has occurred, how do I know what's in the "Aloe" when I go to buy it? (assuming I don't have the resources or inclination to do my own testing)

Re:government regulations

[Anonymous Coward]

So... a regulation?

"Over-regulation" is the problem for conservatives. Nobody is suggesting there shouldn't be "regulations" prohibiting murder, or theft, or fraud.

They're saying that there shouldn't be a government agency dedicated to "ensuring that the content of products that bill themselves as aloe-vera products must contain at least 2% of their mass as aloe-vera derived chemicals, and file production process affidavits describing their production process, which must also include the consumption of raw, processed, or dried aloe vera plant leaves, roots, stems, flowers, and/or fruit."

What you can (and should) say are - "What you write on the label for ingredients must be an accurate listing of ALL of the components of the product, or you are defrauding the public, and you are liable for the financial impact of that fraud, plus damages."

You don't need to create a "Federal Aloe Vera Products Commission" which is charged with regulating the purity and production of Aloe Vera based products. THAT is over-regulation. A broadly applicable law saying that you can't claim your product "contains X," when it does not, in fact, contain any part of X, is perfectly legitimate regulation - just like we don't need a "Federal Murder Prevention Commission" which is charged with generating a new regulation prohibiting every possible circumstance for murder, it's easier to simply declare the killing of another human being to be a crime.

You don't have to have a specific law prohibiting each of these:
- shooting someone in the head;
- shooting someone in the foot but they bleed to death;
- shooting at someone but missing, but they have a heart attack and die anyway;

You can simply say that killing someone else - with a knife, with a gun, with your hands, or with a goddamned feather duster, is illegal.

Re: government regulations

[theycallmeB]

The government didn't discover this because they are literally not allowed to. If it is not an FDA regulated product then the FDA can't just decide to test it of their own accord because their budget doesn't cover testing of products they don't regulate. It covers little enough testing of what they are charged with regulating as is. Complaining that the FDA didn't find this is pretty comparable to asking why Scotland Yard isn't catching bank robbers in Wyoming.

Re: government regulations

[Miamicanes]

Probably, but someone would have to file an official complaint with the FTC.

The FTC's role is to keep companies honest, so wronged consumers won't have to personally seek recourse by individually suing companies that engage in wrongdoing.

If companies know the only recourse consumers have to being defrauded is to personally sue them (and probably spend more to do it than they can actually receive in damages), they'll increasingly come to regard fraudulent behavior as falling somewhere between "a norm" and "a best practice for maximizing shareholder value".

Just look at the practices of, say, the Cable TV industry, which has trained consumers to think it's OK for companies to advertise prices like "$19.95/month" even if the cheapest bill any real customer could EVER see is $36.47/month (after fees, taxes, and surcharges are added).

Or the way it used to be common for credit card companies to make your bill due on a Sunday, but treat payments received after 9am Friday as if they were made on Monday.

Or the way banks used to process the day's payments from largest to smallest, and process deposits AFTER payments (so they could charge more overdraft fees). A few years ago, either Chase or Citibank got nailed HARD for policies where you could deposit a thousand dollars cash into your checking account at 9am, then get dinged $30 in overdraft fees for a $7 debit card purchase at McDonald's or a $20 ATM withdrawal a few hours later EVEN THOUGH the "available balance" printed on your deposit slip might have been "$1003.47" (because they'd ALLOW you to withdraw $1003.47, but would charge overdraft fees if you withdrew more than $3.47 before the end of the day when they officially credited your cash deposit).

And yes, I do think there's abundant evidence from the past 10 years that large public corporations owned by institutional investors can EASILY become detached from things most people would regard as self-evident social norms (ie, openly sociopathic), and will BRAZENLY do things that are just plain EVIL unless the government makes it clear (with penalties) that it's not acceptable behavior and it's watching them.

Regulation

[Punko]

Our government officials are screaming that regulation is killing our economy. And those of use that don't live in the USA are constantly told that in the future we will need to align our current regulations to that of the USA, regardless of how valuable they are, all in the name of the race to the bottom.

The supervolcano explosion or extinction-sized meteorite strike can't happen soon enough. We've proved beyond a reasonable doubt that we aren't worthy of surviving.

Re:Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not but it goes to show that companies self-regulating themselves is bullshit.

Re:Regulation

[another_twilight]

Which is cheaper;
a) testing a competitor's product and discovering that they are using a cheaper ingredient, then publicising same and defending claims in court/media whilst continuing to use authentic ingredients
OR
b) testing a competitor's product and discovering that they are using a cheaper ingredient and switching your manufacturing to the same ingredient and continuing to compete based on who has the best celebrity endorsement.

Hoping that competitors will spend money monitoring each other ignores a wealth of examples of collusion, kickbacks, price-fixing etc. and has the same sort of simplistic assumptions that a lot of 'free market will solve X' examples exhibit. Too much regulation is bad. That doesn't mean regulation is bad.

Makes you wonder

[nehumanuscrede]

Just how much of the stuff we buy / consume / use isn't what it claims to be.

Re:Makes you wonder

[93 Escort Wagon]

Just how much of the stuff we buy / consume / use isn't what it claims to be.

Actually, it makes me wonder - WHY IS THIS STORY ON SLASHDOT?

Re:Makes you wonder

[JoeMerchant]

Nerds care when people lie to them.

Politinerds care about regulation/deregulation and the consequences.

Pasty white nerds are easily sunburned and Aloe gel is a product they have used before and will use again?

I don't know, I'm having real trouble coming up with a car analogy- but, wait: VW to the rescue!

SO...

[argStyopa]

....let there be ACTUAL consequences, maybe?

Charge Wal-Mart with fraud for selling falsely-labeled products. One count per bottle on the shelves.

That's a big fine, yes? Well, Wal-Mart, if it didn't know about the fraud (and I expect they didn't actually) should be able to go after the producer for the fines they had to pay on their behalf.

Oh, I'm sorry: their producer is some untraceable company in some faraway land (because they were the cheapest, natch) that doesn't feel like it needs to behave according to laws and skips out on paying Wal-Mart back?

Huh. Almost like that's a reason one would want to buy from - I dunno - a DOMESTIC company where one has at least reasonable surety they they're going to behave within the law (or face consequences of same if they don't)?

Let me be clear: I'm a staunch Republican and free marketeer. But I recognize that the government DOES have a role in consumer protection and labeling, and needs to act aggressively to ensure that consumers in a capitalist marketplace can make free choices based on reliable information.

One might also notice that this exposure alone would either incentivize the spread of the rule of law, or bringing back more industry to the US. All without a new government agency, new powers, or a bevy of new laws - but instead government just DOING WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE DOING in the first place.

Re:SO...

[Pfhorrest]

This. We don't need some kind of special regulatory committee for aloe products specifically to address products like this. Claiming to sell one thing and then actually delivering something is already a crime, one of the most elementary crimes out there next to things like murder or theft: fraud.

Even without levying a specifically punitive fine for that crime, at the very least restorative damages would mean returning the money for everyone whose money was taken without delivery of the agreed-upon goods. Having to refund every fraudulently sold bottle is probably punitive enough even without adding specifically punitive damages on top of it. And like you say, Wal-Mart etc can go after the producers, and if for some reason they can't, then it sucks to be them and they should make sure that doesn't happen again, by whatever means necessary.

Re:SO...

[JoeMerchant]

>Next time they'll choose a more reliable supplier.

Ya think? WalMart is known for leaning on all their suppliers, hard, to cut costs. I'm 99% sure the suppliers wouldn't have quit buying Aloe altogether for their formulation except that it costs more money than maltodextrin and they couldn't keep the WalMart contract without cutting that last 0.5% corner.

I suppose that WalMart et.al. are the labeling retailer and that the consumer is putting their faith and trust into these dubious corporate entities when paying $2.99 for some gel to smear on a sunburn - there should be liability there.

I also feel that there should be liability and accountability at the supplier level, if the supplier represented to WalMart that they were still supplying product "worthy" of the Aloe gel label, they should be held accountable for that, preferably at the same time that WalMart settles for their fraud and negligence.

Wrong

[s.petry]

False advertising is a crime, it does not need additional regulation.

Re:Careful?

[JoeMerchant]

Don't buy cosmetics and toiletries from Dollar General and the like?

Really, these places should be like "off license" restaurants in England, everybody knows they sell crap, but there's not really an official notice posted anywhere.

Re:Unregulated

[Falos]

That bugged me. Do you want me to lift it off the shelf gently? Do you want me to read the label slower? My bullshit meter is flickering, but it's not all because of aloe vera labels.