HEALTH, HARM or RIP-OFF?
What About the
Food & Drug Administration (FDA)?
Don’t they protect consumers when it comes to
vitamins and nutritional supplements?
Here are the facts from Dr. Tod Cooperman, a noted researcher, writer and speaker on consumer health care issues, and president of ConsumerLab, the organization that created HEALTH, HARM or RIP-OFF?
As a medical doctor I came to understand what a huge problem Americans face because vitamins, herbs and other nutritional supplements are not regularly tested by the FDA—or by any other government organization, for that matter.
In 1994 it promised that it would issue rules on how supplements should be made, but for 13 years it delayed and delayed until only recently, in 2007, did it publish those rules.
Unfortunately, there are lots of weaknesses in them. Their main focus is on manufacturer’s record keeping, but they include no basic standards for purity or how to test for ingredients.
The rules don’t even set a limit on how much heavy metal contamination is permitted in a supplement! Basically, the manufacturers get to set their own limits.
But still worse, the sad truth is that the FDA hasn’t allocated the resources needed to see that even the regulations they do have are properly enforced.
So where does that leave you as a consumer?
You’re on your own, my friend. Caveat emptor (“Let the buyer beware”). But how can you beware and make informed choices without accurate information? And do you have the time and knowledge needed to do your own research on the supplements available today in the market?
How can you be sure that what’s on the label is really in the pill you’re putting in your mouth? That you’re getting the proper quality and dosages of the active ingredient you’re paying for—and that there’s nothing in it that can harm you instead of help you?
This is precisely why we created HEALTH, HARM or RIP-OFF?, a 2-volume reference guide of more than 750 pages that shows you test results for over 800 different brand-name supplements. It names names, telling you which products failed our tests—and why. And you may be surprised at what was discovered about some of the biggest, most popular brands.
This is state-of-the-art independent and objective research, conducted at a cost of well over $1 million to our organization. But you can get all this information now for only $39.95—for the entire 2-volume set.
So don’t go another day without knowing what’s in the vitamins and supplements you and your family are taking...