New York Times reports from the Attorney General's Office that many of the reported Herbal supplements do not actually contain any of the listed substances. In the United States, supplements have little to no regulation. Meaning, many of these herbal supplemental manufacturers can put anything they want in a capsule and label it what ever they want. At Walmart, the authorities found that ginkgo biloba, a Chinese plant product that supposedly promotes memory, contains none of the actual product but rather powdered radish, houseplants, and wheat. In order to test this, the Attorney General's Office used DNA fingerprinting to match the DNA of claimed product with the DNA barcode of the actual product. Although the president of the American Herbal Association argues that "processing during manufacturing of botanical supplements can remove of damage DNA", which is true. It still does not explain why the ingredients in the supplements are not listed on the bottle.
I understand why this may be disconserting to some, but the lack of regulations concerning supplements enables companies to produce pills without going through the process of FDA testing which can be extremely expensive and time-consuming.
ReplyDelete