Bogus ingredients put consumers’ health at risk

updated 8:46 p.m. ET June 14, 2007

LOS ANGELES - American consumers are being ripped off and their health possibly put at risk because of bogus ingredients slipped into imports ranging from toothpaste to dietary supplements.

Suppliers who substitute cheaper ingredients for the real thing seldom get busted because the government and private labs review few of the products flooding in.

Recent bouts of bad ingredients in pet food and toothpaste showed how suppliers can fool the limited safety checks.

Fad-driven supplements are particularly vulnerable — a rush of demand for a pill with an expensive key ingredient such as chondroitin can present a quick-buck opportunity. Much like anti-doping officials tasked with ensuring that athletes are clean, by the time scientists spot how their tests are being cheated, suppliers have a new trick.

“People want low prices and they want quick turnaround time,” said Jana Hildreth of the Analytical Research Collective, a group of scientists advocating better dietary supplement testing. “And what’s the one thing you cut? Well, quality control.”

Ingredient substitution is not a priority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, unless officials conclude consumers are being exposed to harm. As a result, regulators only take action after problems surface.

Such complications are underreported. Companies haven’t had to relay incidents to federal regulators, though new tracking requirements begin in December.

Multiple private labs that test supply quality have in recent years found a hodgepodge of pills lacking advertised ingredients, including chondroitin, saw palmetto, bilberry and coenzyme Q-10. Each is relatively expensive and many are supplied by China, a country with a long tradition of herbal remedies and a history of poor food safety.

The products are supposed to help with joint pain, prostate health, vision and the heart, though federal law prohibits most claims that supplements treat or cure illness.

That has hardly hampered the industry. Last year, Americans bought an estimated $1.4 billion worth of those four supplements alone, an increase of 28 percent over four years, according to Nutrition Business Journal.

Unscrupulous suppliers
An example of how unscrupulous suppliers can swoop in to exploit a situation came after hurricanes thrashed Florida in 2005, derailing saw palmetto production.

To fill the void, Asian suppliers began hawking “Chinese saw palmetto” for $60 per pound. It was an obvious scam: The saw palmetto plant grows in the Southeast. The extract being peddled was based on palm oil, which is worth less than $1 per pound and which no one claims has medicinal properties.

Despite the rip-off, suppliers were not held accountable.

James Neal-Kababick, director of Oregon-based Flora Research Laboratories, said his firm routinely finds supplements with problems. One issue, he said, is anticipating what hot product will be doctored next.

“At some point, there’s going to be a shortage, and that’s when you’re going to see the adulteration,” Neal-Kababick said. “It can be dangerous or it can just be a rip off.”

The dietary supplement industry’s main trade groups said ingredient substitution is overhyped as a problem. They cite powerful business incentives to ensure products work as advertised and don’t harm anyone.

“Responsible companies understand that they have a relationship of trust with their consumers,” said Steve Mister, president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition.

Like Mister, other industry officials allowed that some unscrupulous firms make bad products but said those are the rare exception among the hundreds of U.S. supplement makers.

Firms with a reputation for quality say they invest in finding reliable sources and even then test all the supplies because some batches will inevitably be bad.

“We do this to prevent injury to our customers or surprises,” said Lon Heiner, who oversees quality control at Utah-based Nature’s Way Products, Inc. “When companies don’t do that, sooner or later they’re going to have problems. And the consequences of that have a tremendous cost.”

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