Want Some Primrose to Go With That Saw Palmetto?

Are you taking St. John's Wort to stave off depression? Gingko Biloba as a memory booster? Saw palmetto for prostate health? Or other herbal supplements?

And are you buying them from Walmart, Target, or GNC?

Then you should know this:

On Monday, New York State’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman instructed Target, GNC, Walgreens and Walmart to immediately cease selling a number of scam herbal supplements. An investigation revealed that best-selling supplements not only didn’t work, but were potentially dangerous, with four out of five of the products not even listing any herbs in their ingredients–instead, the supplements contained fillers including powdered rice, houseplants and asparagus. 

(Full Salon article by Joanna Rothkopf, here; similar reports were carried by other major news organizations, including the New York Times, here, and CBS News, here)

In fact, tests showed that only about one in five products contained the herbs they were supposed to. I can get better odds in Vegas.

Still wonder why I believe in regulation?

Herbal nutritional supplements aren't subject to approval or review by the Food and Drug Administration; companies essentially operate on the honor system. If you think you're hearing snarky thoughts from me right now.... you are.

Why aren't supplements subject to the FDA? Because of a loophole in a 1994 federal law which was, as Salon's Rothkopf noted, spearheaded by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R). Hmmm. You don't suppose that there could be any connection to the fact that nutritional supplements are Utah's third largest industry, do you? According to the Economic Development Corporation of Utah's 2009 analysis (the most recent I could quickly find), there are "more than 150 nutritional product companies within the state and revenues from this business range from $2.5 to $4 billion a year." (full analysis, here; note, opens as .pdf)

Nah, must be pure coincidence.

Bad enough that people are spending hard-earned money on supplements that aren't what they say they are, but, as the New York Times article points out, the DNA tests conducted for the New York attorney general's office "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." And what if you're allergic to wheat?

Please: could we get serious and close this loophole?