Posted on 02/03/2015 5:07:03 PM PST by Mount Athos
DNA testing on hundreds of bottles of store-brand herbal supplements sold as treatments for everything from memory loss to prostate trouble found that four out of five contained none of the herbs on the label. Instead, they were packed with cheap fillers such as wheat, rice, beans or houseplants.
Based on the testing commissioned by his office, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday he has sent letters to the four major store chains involved — GNC, Target, Walmart and Walgreens — demanding that they immediately stop selling adulterated or mislabeled dietary supplements.
Nutritionist David Schardt of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the tests show that the supplement industry is in urgent need of reform, and until that happens, consumers should stop wasting their money.
Schneiderman said tests found no echinacea or any other plant material in bottles of Walmart's Spring Valley Echinacea. He said no ginseng was found in 20 tests of GNC's Herbal Plus Ginseng, which is taken to boost energy.
DNA tests found such substances as rice, beans, pine, citrus, asparagus, primrose, wheat, houseplant, wild carrot and unidentified non-plant material — none of which were mentioned on the label.
The store chain with the poorest showing was Walmart, where only 4 percent of the products tested showed DNA from the plants listed on the labels.
The DNA tests were done on three to four samples of each supplement purchased. Each sample was tested five times. Overall, 390 tests involving 78 samples were conducted.
But Arthur Grollman, a physician and pharmacology professor at Stony Brook University, called the study "a well-controlled, scientifically based documentation of the outrageous degree of adulteration in the herbal supplement industry."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
When you buy from China, look out!
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I have to get kelp and chlorophyll at GNC or The Vitamin Shoppe, because my Walmart doesn’t carry them. I don’t know if that gives me a better chance of having real kelp, or not!
And Noory never had a guest that he didn’t agree with 100%, and never had a guest that didn’t have a new book to sell.
I like to buy supplements, multiple bottles at a time. I sit on them and don’t open them for a year so as to see if there is a recall or otherwise develops an issue.
The thing about Noory is that he lets the interviewee dig his own hole. George is smart like that. I like Noory.
He has a cushy gig. He just lets the oddballs foam at the mouth and he could not give a rat’s ass.....
who knows what to believe on this subject. When lies and deception are the norm in both govt and the market, who do you believe?
I do agree the Pharmacy Industry does have a very apparent interest in having us pop their pills.
I also think that herbs can offer health benefits even though that market is filled with charlatans too. But what type of herbs and how much - hard to say. I’d hope in the future honest testing can shed light. To scoff at what nature can provide is foolish and egotistical.
Art Bell was the same way, and I heartell he is coming back on in various ways...
I for one concur sir.
great points. Sadly, I suck at gardening.
Now if weeds, plant disease, fungus, and tomato bugs and worms were found to cure ailments, I’d be rich in product.
question is, who can we trust? especially with this type of product.
just bought some detox tea from Swansons.
I’m the last guy in the world to drink any kind of tea other than Lipton Iced tea in the summer.
Good to hear Swansons is legit.
I'm showing my age, but when I was a kid, I listened to a show hosted by "Long John Nebel" out of NYC, that ran from midnight to 5 AM, and was really the prototype for the Coast to Coast AM show.
The format was a little different, Noory's show is all done over the phone, and Nebel had live guests in the studio, generally several at a time, so it was more of a round table discussion than a one-on-one interview.
But he had the same collection of kooks spewing their kookery. In fact, a few days ago one of Noory's guests was talking about one of the UFO people I remember from Nebel's show (George Adamski).
Nebel was a skeptic, and was always willing to challenge his guests. He wasn't a "yes man" like Noory.
I prefer that.
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