We've spoken about the risks from supplement manufacturers before on this site. Well, here we go again. Buyer beware when it comes to supplements.

The New York State attorney general’s office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves.

The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.

The investigation came as a welcome surprise to health experts who have long complained about the quality and safety of dietary supplements, which are exempt from the strict regulatory oversight applied to prescription drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration has targeted individual supplements found to contain dangerous ingredients. But the announcement Monday was the first time that a law enforcement agency had threatened the biggest retail and drugstore chains with legal action for selling what it said were deliberately misleading herbal products.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/0...etailers/?_r=0

Supplements industry derides NY attorney general's DNA tests

It sure sounds like the supplement industry needs to figure out a testing protocol that will legitimize what they sell!

http://news.yahoo.com/supplements-in...164514558.html

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/...-on-the-labels

Looks like someone screwed up big time in the NY Attorney General's office on this investigation.

http://www.livescience.com/49713-her...ntroversy.html

hopefully supplement companies will document their quality control measures, i assume they better ones will do DNA fingerprinting of the raw materials and then check the finished product using gas or thin film chromatography. And what if the supplement mfg is already buying a highly processed product, i can't imagine someone making one of the multivitamin pills with a 100 ingredients buying the raw plant for everything.

But ginseng is ginseng, how processed can that be?

here's JARROW's response, a supplement mfg.
http://www.jarrow.com/articles/14/Total_Quality

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...t_letters.html

they want documentation, seems much more going on than what the press reported on.

I think the DA'a letter was sent out before they realized that their DNA testing procedures might have screwed up.

http://www.dailycommercial.com/lifes...d2fef57be.html

http://www.prevention.com/mind-body/...pplement-tests

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2015/...-poor-quality/

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

Along with Jarrow, who else has those high standards? Swanson's has a huge inventory and low prices. Are there compromises in their manufacturing process?

DUNNO, I'm not an expert and i buy JARROW not because of extensive research, mainly because what i read on their website and RICK liked them

i also buy NATURE'S WAY products.

i'll have to leave it to others to provide better research as to which brands are the best.

i buy from iherb, you can check their favorites list and see what brands are at the top, i assume it's more because buyers like the product and not just because of hype/price. that said, for all the supplements i have tried and i've tried almost everything that has been reported in a pd research paper, nothing has really helped me feel much better as i have progressed. of course can't say if i progressed slower because of a certain supplement/life style. so take 1/2 of a multi vitamin/day, curcumin, fish oil, eye of newt ..... and now about 800-1000mg of carbidopa/levodopa a day, 12 years after diagnosis. dealing with on/off and playing with dosage/timing of IR and CR.