NOT SO NATURAL?
New York state probe finds some health supplements may not contain the ingredients advertised,
Natural health supplements might not contain the ingredients they claim to, according to a recent investigation by New York state.
The attorney general’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter Monday to a number of retailers for selling possibly fraudulent generic brand supplements.
The letters, sent to GNC, Walmart, Target and Walgreens, claim DNA tests show that many of the storebrand health supplements do not contain the health ingredients advertised, and may contain off-label additives.
The retailers have until Feb. 9 to supply the attorney general with supporting information.
GNC is the only retailer cited which also sells natural health products in Canada under its Herbal Plus line, according to Health Canada’s Licensed Natural Health Products Database.
“We stand behind the quality, purity and potency of all ingredients listed on the labels of our private label products, including our GNC Herbal Plus line of products,” a GNC spokesperson said in a statement.
The products tested by the New York authority are Ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort, ginseng, garlic, Echinacea and saw palmetto.
The authority found that about four out of five times the supplements from all four retailers were “either unrecognizable or a substance other than what they claimed to be.”
The retailers were admonished for falsely labelling herbal products, which constitutes “deceptive business practices.” A product advertised as ginseng contained no ginseng DNA at all, according to the New York attorney general. It did, however, contain off-label ingredients such as rice, citrus, wheat grass and dracaena, a tropical houseplant.
The New York agency’s results come after testing by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph produced similar
A product advertised as ginseng contained no ginseng DNA at all, according to the investigation
results.
“It is disappointing that over a year later the attorney general’s researcher reached similar conclusions, demonstrating that the industry has failed to clean up its practices,” the cease-and-desist letters read.
In its statement, the GNC spokesperson questioned the science behind the DNA tests conducted by the attorney general and the University of Guelph, and asserted it tests its products according to widely used industry standards.
The company said that while it stands by its products, it will remove them from New York state shelves if required by law, “not because we agree with the testing methods used to support it.”