It looks like some GNC products were found to NOT have the ingredients on the label.
Gingko Biloba, St John’s Wort, Ginseng, Echinacea, and Saw Palmetto were among the products affected.
It’s so hard to know which products are legit and which arent.
In Canada, they are talking about greater regulation of this billion dollar industry.
Here’s a look at the letter sent by the ATTORNEY GENERAL of New York to the CEO of GNC.
scribd.com/doc/255235564/Cease-and-Desist
Dr. Steven Newmaster, a University of Guelph researcher, led a 2013 study that described potential contamination and substitution in herbal products found in both Canada and the U.S.
He expects more legal cases stemming from the crackdown in New York.
“It’s going to spread to all the states, into Canada and Europe,” he said. “And the companies — their feet are going to be held to the fire.”
Newmaster’s study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, used DNA barcoding — a technique developed at the University of Guelph, based on earlier research — to analyze 44 herbal products representing 12 companies.
The study found nearly 60 per cent of the herbal products analyzed contained unlabeled plant ingredients, and more than 20 per cent included fillers such as rice and wheat, also not listed on the labels.
“There’s a whole pile of problems, because some of the fillers could be toxic,” Newmaster said. “We saw in the studies that there’s wheat, and people with celiac problems don’t want wheat in their herbal products.”
The study found one Ginkgo biloba product was contaminated with black walnut, which could endanger people with nut allergies.