This is the reason many of us are leery when we hear some of the promotions and accolades about various supplements. Often, these people have no idea of what they are actually ingesting.

From yesterday's NYT:

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds. ..........

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/sc...SDDETWgzul45yg

...who takes anything, be it statin or stamen, without doing their own research is a fool. If they make their decision from sleazy TV preachers or from slick brochures left at their doctor's office by Big Pharma's expensively dressed sales force than doubly so. Those of us who choose to spout "wisdom" in a forum such as this have a further obligation to an unseen audience as well.

But, folks, we are blessed to live in the age of the Net. In my last year of University, knowing it was my last semester due to my father's looming bankruptcy, I dropped the pretense and spent the entire period wandering the library's stacks learning what interested me. Much of it was science and, if you needed a particular journal there was a two-week wait. Today you can scroll to the top of this page and click where it says PubMed and wonder of wonders.....

Learn to use this beautiful thing that has been given to you or ask someone you trust to assist you. Don't trust anyone, however, especially Big Pharma. They are evil and they kill 100,000s of people each year. And now, with the NYT (which the same interests own) leading the way, they are coming after the herbs and spices. The world has gone mad.

Herbal products and proprietary mixes, slip past safety concerns and can be very problematic.

Many herbal products can be contaminated ...esp from China where they add things like digitalis, phenybutazone (a toxic NSAID) and many other drugs to herbal treatments.

Herbs may be contaminated by lead or other heavy metals. Until someone really tests them, these can poison people.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2397634/

http://www.naturalnews.com/025896_me...ad_herbal.html

We live in troubling times.... nothing is really safe anymore. Not even dog jerky treats (from China implicated in many deaths recently)

Ok

Just to help control a little of the paranoia that "they" are coming after your herbs and spices, the NYT only reported the story, as did other news sources. For full disclosure, this is the actual publication:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/222/abstract

Now, we can all get back to living in a world gone mad......lol.

In a thread a while back someone mentioned that Jarrow was a very reputable manufacturer of vitamins and supplements. Are there others? I use Swanson's mail order because their prices are so low, but I have no way of knowing what their quality control is like? Any thoughts?

Jon

Jarrow and NOW

I use Swansons for almost all my supplements, my bones have not complained against anything yet except for the Essiac Tea preparation(am back to getting Essiac from my usual place)

If possible buy from professional level companies that sell through physicians and health professionals rather than health food stores. Some brands include Allergy Research Group, Douglas Labs, Designs for Health, Pure Encapsulations, Metagenics, Physiologics, Ayush herbs, EuroMedica, Lane labs, Quincy Bioscience, Gaia herbs, Innate Response, Protocol for Life Balance, Perque, Klaire labs, NOW, DaVinci labs, EcoNugenics, Enzo, and many others. Life Extension Foundation is also excellent.

Any of these can provide quality control or audit information.

Going back to the top level this does have an aroma. They chose the most in-demand products thereby assuring a certain level of crooks from the start. Then they selected at random from those thereby giving equal weight to big names like NOW and fly-by-nights like "Vinnie's Lawn Care and Herbal Stuff". I noted that no one had been hurt lately or even complained. Unlike the thousands dead from standard meds just yesterday. And then parading the revolving door of government corruption. the FDA, as a possible solution.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the antibiotic loss due to the practices of the same interests rendering them useless. Nor to the newfound discovery, by the obscene rag posing as an honest source, that the crisis loomed. Let's see, how much are you willing to pay for the weed that cures your child? If we can just get rid of the ignorant peasents that claim to have some sayso.....