NEW YORK -- New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has formed a coalition of state attorneys general from Connecticut, Indiana and Puerto Rico to further investigate the business practices of the herbal supplement industry.
The initiative seeks to enhance transparency and ensure that the herbal supplements industry is taking the steps necessary to validate their marketing claims, including as to authenticity and purity, he said.
The formation of the coalition follows a recent analysis commissioned by the New York State Attorney General's Office that allegedly found contaminants, unlabeled plant species and other substances in certain store-brand herbal supplements. Many of the supplements had either been so thoroughly processed that the genetic material of the original plant source was undetectable or not present at all.
The office has sought documentation from retailers as well as from several major manufacturers of supplements as part of an ongoing investigation.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requires companies to verify that their products are safe and properly labeled for their contents, but unlike drugs, supplements do not undergo the agency's rigorous evaluation process, which scrutinizes everything about the drug--from the design of clinical trials to the severity of side effects to the conditions under which the drug is manufactured.
In February, Schneiderman sent letters to GNC, Target, Walmart and Walgreens calling for the retailers to immediately stop the sale of certain products, including echinacea, ginseng, St. John's wort and others. Although no convenience-store chains were part of the investigation, many sell such supplements and related products.
In response to the recent report, Pittsburgh-based GNC Holdings Inc., a leading retailer of health and wellness products, announced that independent, third-party testing of certain product lots in its Herbal Plus product line has confirmed that the products are safe, pure, properly labeled and in full compliance with all regulatory requirements.
The testing showed that the GNC Herbal Plus products meet all requirements for safety, quality, purity and proper labeling on these products. "These results clearly and conclusively demonstrate that the company's products contain all herbal extracts listed on their respective labels and are compliant with regulations prior to distribution," GNC said.
The company has shared the results of the third party tests with the attorney general.
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