Often we who value herbs and vitamin supplements feel government agencies are unfairly targeting our right to access these. We value the essential components of healthy foods, vitamins, minerals and the wonderful synergy of herbs. When it comes to the health benefits of plants, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
New York Attorney General Targets Supplements at Major Retailer, February 3, 2015 is an article written by Anahad O’Connor for Alternative Medicine-Well Bog, New York Times newspaper. O’Connor writes, 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.
…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.
…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.
O’Connor continues the investigation was a welcome surprise to [allopathic] health experts. These experts and pharmaceutical companies have complained about the safety and quality of dietary supplements. They are angry that supplements are exempt from the strict regulatory oversight that is applied to prescription drugs.
We should all care about the quality of the supplements we ingest. There have been many reports of imported products tainted by toxic chemicals. Often the cost of an organic quality product made in the U.S. is only pennies per serving more. Why risk liver disease, or kidney failure and a lifetime of real medical expense for a few pennies a serving?
What is the moral---Buyer Be Aware. There are many people in the U.S. That claim we have too many consumer regulation that makes products too expensive. Some manufacturers abroad, and in the U.S. are more concerned about profits than the deadly effects of their product. Pharmaceutical companies run statistics on profits compared to the cost of being sued when their drug kills or permanently damages someone. If profits out weigh damage costs, that drug will be sold on the open market---even when research shows little health benefit.
What is the moral---Buyer Be Aware. There are many people in the U.S. That claim we have too many consumer regulation that makes products too expensive. Some manufacturers abroad, and in the U.S. are more concerned about profits than the deadly effects of their product. Pharmaceutical companies run statistics on profits compared to the cost of being sued when their drug kills or permanently damages someone. If profits out weigh damage costs, that drug will be sold on the open market---even when research shows little health benefit.
What is the high point of the story? The U.S. has high school students capable of great things when we invest in our schools. Quality does not occur on the cheap in the products we buy, or in our schools.
There is a positive and exciting aspect to the story and that is the back-story. Where did the initial research come from? The research came from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) which is located in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. CSHL is a private, not-for-profit research and education institution at the forefront of molecular biology and genetics. CSHL sponsors a science competition for high school students called the Urban Barcode Project.
From the CSHL website: The Urban Barcode Project (UBP) is a science competition spanning the five boroughs of New York City. Just as a unique pattern of bars in a universal product code (UPC) identifies each item for sale in a store, a DNA barcode is a DNA sequence that uniquely identifies each species of living thing. In the Urban Barcode Project, student research teams use DNA bar coding to explore biodiversity (Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms, between species, and within/between ecosystems) in New York City.
Scientists identify plants and animals by looking for short sequences of DNA unique to each organism, which is much like the bar codes on grocery items, and compares it with an electronic DNA barcode database. In this project technology identifies which plants a supplement contains by identifying its unique DNA.
In 2012, Hostos-Lincoln Academy of Science students Bobby Glover, Mary Achaempong, and Marisa VanBrakle and their teacher Allison Granberry created a DNA barcode project investigating store brands herbal supplements. Their tests revealed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants. The Bronx high school team won first prize in the annual Urban Barcode Project competition conducted by the DNA Learning Center.
The students’ results were forwarded to the N.Y. State Attorney General. Further research confirmed the Urban Barcode Project findings of herbal supplement fraud.
The New York State Attorney General ordered GNC, Walmart, Walgreens, and Target to cease and desist selling the herbal supplements, which did not contain the advertised plant according to DNA bar-coding tests. Among the samples tested, none of ginkgo supplements, from all four companies, contained any Ginkgo biloba DNA rather the DNA barcode for rice was commonly identified.
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences was established in 1890 as a laboratory to train high school and college teachers in marine biology. In 1889, John D. Jones gave land and buildings of the Cold Spring Whaling Company to the Institute, which led to a name change.
The first course at the new Biological Laboratory was the General Course on Biology. Ever since the 1890s, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been on the cutting edge of scientific research. Today, they continue their mission with outreach science and research programs for children, teachers, college, high school and graduate students, as well as established scientists.
http://www.urbanbarcodeproject.org/finalists_2012/index.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment