New York Attorney General Targets Supplements at Major Retailers

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. 

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. 

 Under a 1994 federal law, supplements are exempt from the F.D.A.’s strict approval process for prescription drugs, which requires reviews of a product’s safety and effectiveness before it goes to market. 

The law’s sponsor and chief architect, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, is a steadfast supporter of supplements. He has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the industry and repeatedly intervened in Washington to quash proposed legislation that would toughen the rules.

What’s in Those Supplements?

DYI Comments:  The above article from the New York Times names the names of many of the culprits.  Today it appears that simply nobody goes to prison in the corporate world but if some young kid from the inner city get caught with weed will end up with a multi-year prison sentence. Banking, Wall Street, insurance, real estate industry continues to be fined sometimes as high as a billion dollars yet no one goes to prison.  No surprise that the swamp of deceit has entered the supplements industry and being propelled from campaign dollars to higher levels of audacity.

DYI