Four Retailers told to stop selling herbal supplements

[BurnItDwn]

I will say, Melatonin that they sall at Wags, that stuff is great.

I use it so that I can get sleepy at nighttime.

It is the only way I can fall asleep before like 3amish.

 

[SagaLore]

Health suppliments are such a scam

Health supplements CAN be useful, but this is just flat out fraud:

Three out of six herbal products at Target — ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort and valerian root, a sleep aid — tested negative for the herbs on their labels. But they did contain powdered rice, beans, peas and wild carrots.

 

[DrPizza]

Unfortunately, when you try to regulate these shams, you end up with an unfortunately large vocal crowd of idiots declaring that the reason is "big pharma!"

 

[zinfamous]

We tried regulating supplements many years ago, the industry fought back with ad campaigns and lobbying, and the public bought into it.

but Mel Gibson doesn't lie! D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV2olDA0w8U

so, so fucking shameful.

 

[Jeff7]

Restores vitality.

Makes you "harder than advanced calculus."

They only ban/regulate the good supplements, like Ephedrine.

This story is surprising to me because I would have thought someone would have already tested these.
There are a million health/fitness websites. You would think one would have sent them in for analysis.

"Oh wait, GNC is one of our primary sources of ad revenue."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Manly

 

[waffleironhead]

Thru degrees of separation I hear about the people who use these products.

DVM: Your animal has X infection, 3 days of X antibiotic will clear the infection.
Owner: No thanks, Ive heard oregano mixed with coconut oil added to some diatomaceous earth will take care of it.
2 months later...
Owner: My animal is still sick!!!!!

 

[Exterous]

The products in question are 'store brands.' They damn well better be sure that it is what it says on the label. Quality control procedures should insist on lot testing, maybe not every lot, but probably more rigorous testing than they have now.

My guess is that they weren't randomly testing for ingredients and they got shafted by the manufacturers they were using.

 

[MustISO]

Slap them with HUGE fines and maybe they'll be more carefully about quality assurance.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Ah, so this is how The Market handles things;... they don't.

 

[Brainonska511]

Ah, so this is how The Market handles things;... they don't.

Well, the purchasers should have done their due diligence and occasionally sent off some of their pills for independent testing to verify that their products were accurate. /s

 

[amicold]

People saying supplements are useless are partially correct. Lots of the trendy shit you'd find in a Walmart or GNC for weight loss especially is crap. There are still lots of supplements that are effective. Forskolin extract is great in high doses, creatine/beta-alanine, etc. These are just crappy companies with poor QC buying huge lots off the cheapest Alibaba provider available. I generally try to go with a company that has or uses patented cGMP ingredients. Forslean, Creapure, Carnosyn, etc. At least those pass assay.

 

[Ichinisan]

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/...neral-targets-supplements-at-major-retailers/

The New York State attorney general’s office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves.

The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.

The investigation came as a welcome surprise to health experts who have long complained about the quality and safety of dietary supplements, which are exempt from the strict regulatory oversight applied to prescription drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration has targeted individual supplements found to contain dangerous ingredients. But the announcement Monday was the first time that a law enforcement agency had threatened the biggest retail and drugstore chains with legal action for selling what it said were deliberately misleading herbal products.

Among the attorney general’s findings was a popular store brand of ginseng pills at Walgreens, promoted for “physical endurance and vitality,” that contained only powdered garlic and rice. At Walmart, the authorities found that its ginkgo biloba, a Chinese plant promoted as a memory enhancer, contained little more than powdered radish, houseplants and wheat — despite a claim on the label that the product was wheat- and gluten-free.

I thought this was actually pretty funny

Three out of six herbal products at Target — ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort and valerian root, a sleep aid — tested negative for the herbs on their labels. But they did contain powdered rice, beans, peas and wild carrots. And at GNC, the agency said, it found pills with unlisted ingredients used as fillers, like powdered legumes, the class of plants that includes peanuts and soybeans, a hazard for people with allergies.

The attorney general sent the four retailers cease-and-desist letters on Monday and demanded that they explain what procedures they use to verify the ingredients in their supplements.

Not sure if this should be the retailer's responsibility. Should I have to open up my iPhone 6 Plus to make sure it *REALLY* has an A8 processor before I sell it?

 

[norseamd]

There are still lots of supplements that are effective.

Yah but they will continue to believe what they believe because that is what they want to believe. Truth is meaningless to them.

This despite the fact there is no absolute difference between not only drugs and supplement but also drugs and supplement compared to food.

 

[Ichinisan]

Unfortunately, when you try to regulate these shams, you end up with an unfortunately large vocal crowd of idiots declaring that the reason is "big pharma!"

This.

 

[waffleironhead]

Not sure if this should be the retailer's responsibility. Should I have to open up my iPhone 6 Plus to make sure it *REALLY* has an A8 processor before I sell it?

I think since it is the store brand, they do need to have the checks in place.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Well, the purchasers should have done their due diligence and occasionally sent off some of their pills for independent testing to verify that their products were accurate. /s

Green tea supplements have reduced my wife's cholesterol significantly. What I did was a bit of research on the web and looked for brands which have been lab tested and there is a huge difference between them. So I order the most reliably consistent and it's worked. I doubt 1% of consumers do that.

 

[mmntech]

Herbal supplements should be regulated as any other drug. Any doctor will tell you that.

I'm going to give Walmart et al the benefit of the doubt and say they had no idea what the pills contained. Just because I know how retail works. Stores are just middle men.They just buy them by the container from some shifty factory in China, trusting they contain what they're supposed to. There's too many shipments to possibly test everything, so they get lazy. It's not fraud, it's gross incompetence. :thumbsup:

I don't know why their PR departments always try to dodge the issue though. Just say you're doing an "immediate and through investigation to get to the bottom of this". People like to think you're doing something, and it shuts up the media.

Of course this isn't the first time in the past month that Wally World's pharmacy has been in hot water. How about screwing up your prescription meds?
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2014-2015/pharmacy-error-dispensing-danger

Don't know if the video will work outside of Canada, but it's definitely worth watching. Scary.

 

[jagec]

Well, the purchasers should have done their due diligence and occasionally sent off some of their pills for independent testing to verify that their products were accurate. /s

LOL! Yep, the myth of the informed consumer (with a multimillion dollar testing lab in their basement).

My favorite part was the quote by GNC:

...the New York Attorneys General's methodology is not accepted by American industry standards.

Why, because industry standards for supplements are "never test anything"?:awe:

 

[OverVolt]

Green tea supplements have reduced my wife's cholesterol significantly. What I did was a bit of research on the web and looked for brands which have been lab tested and there is a huge difference between them. So I order the most reliably consistent and it's worked. I doubt 1% of consumers do that.

I doubt 1% of consumers even know what USP means on the label.

:awe:

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Of course this isn't the first time in the past month that Wally World's pharmacy has been in hot water. How about screwing up your prescription meds?

Think of it as bringing down health care costs. You slash reimbursements and staffing gets cut. Here's a little tidbit. In virtually every aspect of health care an interruption adds an 11% additional chance of error. That's cumulative, and there's nothing that comes even close to interruptions in a pharmacy. BTW, they looked at remedial methods to compensate and they found there are non. The only way to lower errors is to reduce interruptions and with the funding trends the opposite is happening. That would be from both private and government insurance. What's impressive is that there's something like a 99.99% rate of correct dispensing, and the article doesn't mention the myriad mistakes prescribers make that are caught. But don't worry, "efficiency" will subvert that.

Herbal supplements should be regulated as any other drug. Any doctor will tell you that.

If any doctor tells you that they have no idea what they are talking about. If treated exactly like prescription drugs there would be no herbal supplements. The testing required to prove safety and efficacy would be hundreds of millions of dollars for a product which cannot be patented and no one can afford that. What should be required is that quantitative and qualitative testing schedules be established by independent labs which themselves are overseen by regulatory agencies. The failure of a company to do so means they can be sanctioned or outright closed. Any testing labs who do not properly perform as tasked have their licenses revoked and any corporate officers are forbidden to engage in any health related field, as practitioners, suppliers, or in any other capacity, however tangentially. You can't even be hired as an accountant by a someone in a health related business.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Unfortunately, when you try to regulate these shams, you end up with an unfortunately large vocal crowd of idiots declaring that the reason is "big pharma!"

And then they gather together to protest you and a new outbreak of measles hits your city.

Well, the purchasers should have done their due diligence and occasionally sent off some of their pills for independent testing to verify that their products were accurate. /s

Why would they? That would cost money and as long as the dupes are buying it there is no need to spend extra money on things like QA. If the dupes stop buying it all you have to do is re-label it, spend a little extra money advertising your new garanteed cure for the medical problem your marketing team made up and sell rice powder at a 10000% markup again. This is how a modern unregulated free market works.

 

[Ichinisan]

... The products in question are 'store brands.' They damn well better be sure that it is what it says on the label. Quality control procedures should insist on lot testing, maybe not every lot, but probably more rigorous testing than they have now.

The store is paying a manufacturer to provide store-branded [X] for them. The store is paying for it. Instead, the manufacturer is giving store-branded [Y]. The store is getting screwed by the manufacturer. Consumers are getting screwed too.

If the store is buying [X] from the supplier, the store should get [X]. If I ran a store, I wouldn't want to build or pay a lab to validate all the products I purchase. I'd hope the thread of legal repercussions would dissuade my suppliers from giving me something other than what they say they're giving me.

Even if it doesn't require FDA approval to sell the individual ingredients, there needs to be some kind of FDA anti-fraud department. Legal repercussions for theft by deception should be severe enough to put offenders out of business and send responsible people to real prison. Making examples of a couple offenders should dissuade the others.

 

[Brainonska511]

Even if it doesn't require FDA approval to sell the individual ingredients, there needs to be some kind of FDA anti-fraud department. Legal repercussions for theft by deception should be severe enough to put offenders out of business and send responsible people to real prison. Making examples of a couple offenders should dissuade the others.

The problem is, supplements are considered 'safe' unless proven otherwise. So if they're using 'safe' ingredients (and simply committing fraud by not including what's on the label), then the FDA might not be able to get involved. But I see your point - the FDA probably could get involved based on the false labeling; I believe they've gone after supplements before that make claims about diseases or contain dangerous ingredients.

 

[clamum]

Ah, so this is how The Market handles things;... they don't.

That's your argument against capitalism/market economics? What a frickin joke.

 

[BoberFett]

While I applaud getting that shit off the market that last bit is problematic. Unless it's private label stuff retailers generally can't be help responsible for the products they sell. If lead paint winds up on a toy or tainted spinach in a prepackaged salad mix the manufacturer is responsible. The retailer can't test every batch of every product they carry.

The end retailer is responsible for the distribution however. They should definitely pull it off the shelf, and should be suing their distributor for fraud. It shouldn't be up to every individual consumer to trace things all the way back multiple distributors and a long manufacturing chain to find out who's responsible for defrauding them.