Original subtitles

tonight on Frontline a multi-billion

dollar a year industry the debate over

supplements how could it be that you can

sell something without any evidence that

it's safe or effective they say their

products will make you healthier

consumers derive a benefit over half the

country every day takes a supplement

safely and effectively but critics say

that many have fraudulent claims could

be dangerous and should be regulated it

almost takes a sacrificial lamb to die

before the Food and Drug Administration

can take any action correspondent

Jillian Finlay

investigates oh that doesn't smell good

very strong fishy smell supplements and

safety a Frontline New York Times

special

report this is a product that was

formulated for people who are under

severe this is an herb that would be

great for older individuals that are

concerned about

it's estimated that half of all

Americans take a health supplement every

day that one is going to be amazing for

supporting encapsulates the nutrients in

a non-GMO soy antio it's a 30 plus

billion doll industry I will guarantee

you that this will change your reality

within 3 to 5 days companies range from

Big Pharma to M and

Pop I started in my kitchen making them

by hand back in

the80s I would order the ingredients I

would order the capsules and with a

plate of a 100 capsules I would weigh

out and fill them up and you have a

bottle of 100 capsules of any particular

vitamin you wanted do you have

background in Pharmacology or medicine

or any expertise in this area I did some

college but most of my time was spent in

the medical libraries at Stony Brook so

you sort of were self-taught then were

you selftaught correct

yes Candace trip called her company

Purity

first she says she was helped by her

then husband Terren Dulan a

chiropractor and what was his academic

background or or expertise in this area

he was a chemist he was a chemist in

college and then he went on to

chiropractic school from Mod beginning

she says she grew the business into a

half a million doll a year Enterprise

selling on the web in stores and through

local Alternative healthc Care

Providers Purity first is a great name

and I said Gee how can you go wrong it's

what you would imagine that you would

want in every single vitamin that it's

absolutely

pure Vinnie Gro was an early Purity

first customer the vitamins became part

of his daily Quest For Better Health I

felt fine and of course you know I'm

running every day I'm feeling great up

until the October November December time

frame of 2012 where I had some very

unusual

symptoms it started with unexplained

back pain that soon became

debilitating he then started hearing

from other Purity first customers with

troubling symptoms of their

own I'm hearing stories my daughter is

an honor student she's on the swim team

but she's been thrown out of school for

being overly aggressive I'm talking to a

woman who had lost uh her position in a

choir because her voice had changed I'm

talking to another woman who said I've

got these incredible bleeding scales on

my head and I can't go to work they were

all taking the same vitamins recommended

they say by Terren Duan the chiropractor

now a naturopath Duan declined to be

interviewed and denies any

responsibility Terry had come to me in

January and asked me if I thought

anything was wrong because he said there

was some blood tests coming back that

was funky at that

point we had just had Hurricane Sandy

come

through and a lot of people were getting

sick after they were in their basements

cleaning up water and that's why he had

recommended people go see um this other

doctor right and they started going to

see doctor's faith we had an examination

and he said to me what is it that all of

you who've come to me in the past month

and a half have one commonality you've

all taken Purity first b50

vitamins it's estimated there are 85,000

dietary supplements for sale in the

United States today right here I have

our liposomal D this is our bopa this is

an herb that would be great for older

individuals that are the essential

nutrients like chromium with so many

pictures and promises you might assume

that some government agency has approved

them before allowing them onto the

market the FDA does not do any review of

dietary supplements before they come

onto the market and I think that all

consumers need to understand this no

testing no obligation to provide any

evidence a product is effective or even

safe the one thing manufacturers do have

to show is that they follow good

manufacturing practices the FDA conducts

inspections for that but it's limited by

resources and by

information we actually don't know the

total number of Manufacturers that we

need to be able to inspect because there

is no formal registration system that is

required of um um manufacturers that

make dietary supplements and so we do

inspections of the ones that we know

about the FDA did know about a

supplement manufacturer that used to

operate here in 2012 and again in the

spring of

2013 Mira Health Products was cited by

FDA inspectors for violating

manufacturing codes among the products

mea produced Candace stps Purity first

vitamins I had a lot of faith in Mirror

because he was more of a smaller scale

manufacturer he wasn't one of these big

pharmaceutical company that

just didn't really make you warm and

fuzzy well what did you do to try to

verify that this was a reputable company

that would make the product that you

wanted um they're supposed to test the

product and give you an analysis at the

end that what is in the capsule is what

they've tested and the certificate is

supposed to be certified and this is

what your product is and did they give

you those certificates I believe yes

they did they did they gave us those and

there didn't seem to be a problem but by

2013 there was a problem Dr Kenna spaith

who specializes in environmental health

is a man those pury first customers

turned to to investigate their symptoms

he arranged for the b50 vitamins to be

tested

and the results were a shock the

capsules were laced with two anabolic

steroids Joe quailer Candace Trip's

current husband took it up with mir's

owner I called Mike and said pretty much

what could have

happened and you know he was making the

M enhancement pills and he said Joe he

said if they found any type of steroids

in there the only thing I could possibly

think is maybe the mixer was not cleaned

enough you know you go to by now Purity

first customers had started hiring

lawyers and sharing their

stories uh change in the voice change in

the sexual organs hair growth on a young

lady was one of our clients basically

developing mustache beard uh the female

sexual organs taking on a male

configuration for The Men Who ingested

these things they developed what's

called

gynecomastia uh you end up with male

breasts it would take the FDA nearly 6

months to get the Purity first vitamins

off the market a response Dr spai calls

glacial he declined to be interviewed on

camera but he shared email exchanges

with us detailing his efforts to get the

FDA to

act space says he suspected

contamination but his first inquiry went

unanswered when he emailed again asking

if the lack of response was was a lack

of Interest he was referred to the fda's

hotline for adverse reactions called

medwatch spaith had tried the line been

transferred and put on hold before being

disconnected

twice 5 weeks later he was still

frustrated will you tell me what your

plans are he wrote I have 20 very

worried patients and little to offer

them among the officials spaith was

writing to was Daniel fabricant then

head of the the fda's division of

dietary

supplements we took that information um

while it was helpful it didn't make the

whole case we had to make the case at

FDA and we did uh and remove the product

successfully one of his biggest

complaints is is the amount of time it

took just to get somebody to call him

back he says one of the operators she

acted as if I was telling her that

aliens put messages in my Cheerios now

that doesn't suggest that you've got a

particularly robust system in place to

allow people to report problems when

they happen right well I can assure you

the government worked very quickly the

agency is acting to remove the product

across the board across the country so

it's a bit more of a heavier scientific

lift than just a doctor having an

Intuition or a feeling about something

we had to build evidence Court ready

evidence to take away somebody's product

somebody's manufacturing operation and

that's exactly what we did and doing

that in 6 months the team at the FDA

worked diligently and worked quickly to

do that which was a quite a successful

accomplishment two women from the FDA

came in and they were speaking with us

about how there seems to be a problem

with one of our products when we asked

which product they said oh that didn't

matter yet okay do you want us to stop

selling the product no you don't have to

stop selling the product nobody died

they said nobody died those were their

words their words were nobody died you

don't have to pull the product if there

was any concern at all what why didn't

you just pull it from the market I mean

why did you not do it yourself great

question their response to

me um was people call the FDA all the

times to report minor

things so don't worry about it the FDA

strongly denies those things were said

some vitamins manufactured here in Long

Island are triggering recently issued

stero in the end Purity first withdrew

the V under

pressure ofor miror was forced out of

business by the FDA nobody from the

company would speak to us 36 people are

now suing the companies and no one knows

how many people in total may have been

harmed SPI had brought up that he was

looking for a needle on a Hy for Vin

Grau and his lawyer it was a sobering

look into a troubled World dollar I was

very concerned and then I realized that

this whole industry needs

change and it and how much danger we're

all in not just from Purity first likely

but from others that can put anything

into these little bottles and and put a

seal and a label on

it in 2013 the Children's Hospital of

Philadelphia had had

enough worried about the number and

quality of the supplements their

patients were arriving with Hospital

pharmacists decided to challenge

manufacturers families are showing up

literally with shopping bags full of

dietary supplements regulatory issues in

the United States are that you have to

if a patient brings a medication into a

hospital we have to as pharmacist verify

that this is a quality product it is

what it says it is it's labeled

appropriately it's being dosed

appropriately and so

on we got fed up we took a step back and

we said okay we're going to ask these

companies to at least meet a labeling

standard they have to send us something

called a certificate of analysis which

means they've had their product analyzed

by an independent party that says that

what's on the labels what's in the

bottle 90% of the companies never

responded and of the 10% that responded

of the that 10% often they would send us

certificates of analysis where what was

on the label wasn't even close to what

was in the bottle and these were the

ones who responded to us which made us

fearful of an industry that we couldn't

trust for example this is a aquous

vitamin D drop so we use vitamin D in um

premature infants it says it should have

400 international units

per 1 ml of solution however it tells us

that the results are that it's 213% of

the labeled value so it's more than

double what it says that it is so if

we're dosing premature infants who need

very tiny doses of this drug we're now

potentially giving them double what they

should get and could really put them at

risk for

toxicity in the end only 35 supplements

met the hospital

standards I come away very worried and

dismayed

I'm worried mostly about what um the

American public is being exposed to

because it's

essentially a complete unknown when

you're buying a dietary supplement

unless you have some proof of what's in

that product it could be

anything at the New York Botanical

Gardens you can find many of the herbs

We Buy in bottles in their natural

state this is black kohos commonly

recommended to women to treat symptoms

of menopause

in 2010 gynecologist David Baker decided

to check out what so many of his

patients were taking he bought dozens of

brands of black coo supplements and

started testing the DNA 30% had no black

Kash and the the samples that we found

we could identify the other plants as

well and they were from ornamental

plants from China

Baker and his colleagues published the

results in an academic Journal but they

didn't get much attention so they kept

on testing other supplements produced

results that were no less

disturbing upwards of 15% of supplements

like Sal pometto or not Sal

pometto uh supplements like um Devil's

claw

100% are not Devil's claw or

contaminated with some other

problem what I see in this is that there

are

those who take the easy way out a

fraudulent way and want to put something

in the bottle that's cheap and readily

available and buyer

beware with billions of dollars at stake

it's no surprise that the supplement is

industry is a powerful force in

Washington there are four separate Lobby

groups the largest the natural products

Association headed by Daniel fabricant

you know a lot of products now you'll

see private label a lot of the contract

manufacturers that make the private

label are a members as well it's the

same Daniel fabricant who until 2014 was

in charge of regulating dietary

supplements at the

FDA he defends what critics have called

a disturbing revolving door

folks who understand an industry make

for very effective Regulators I think

that it certainly worked for the

consumer benefit which at the end of the

day I think FDA the industry in are in

the same business is to make sure

consumers have access to safe healthy

products do you accept that there is a

problem with adulteration though in the

natural health food industry there may

be some supply chain issues we need to

be mindful of but again I think that

there are federal authorities that cover

that that ensure that products are made

to you know made to certain quality

parameters it's defined by law and if

firms don't there are clear consequences

so I think that that's the important

thing is and Americans have a high

degree of confidence in the products

because of

that but just months after leaving the

FDA fabricant didn't sound so confident

himself in a presentation to a trade

Association conference he shared some of

the results of FDA

inspections you talked about the some of

the findings the companies that were

doing no testing uh have no idea of what

they're buying or selling companies that

have no standards inadequate records

being kept no specification set and this

is a quotation the extreme of this

observation is more common than

expected which I read to be this is

worse than the extreme those are the

companies we took action against those

are the companies we drove out of

business though I'm speaking from my

experience when I was a regulator when

we saw those problems and they were they

were extreme we threw the book at people

and so I think that that's you know

that's good news for consumers as how

how many companies did you throw at a

business uh quite a number I think we

processed over 25 injunctions during my

time at the agency mhm so in in an

industry that has 4,000 or more

manufacturers is that significant I got

my 25 you get yours I'm not a regulator

I don't think that's going to happen it

is significant it's very

significant the FDA division in charge

of the supplement industry is Tiny just

25

employees they target companies they

consider the most risky but agree the

problem remains much bigger than that

because of the targeting and because of

traditionally the way this industry has

developed over time we do see a higher

proportion of inspections that we do

with dietary supplements a higher

proportion of them that have substantial

problems than in other categories that

we regulate how much does that worry you

um it of course it's a concern because

ultimately this isn't about us and it

isn't about the companies it's about the

consumers to many supplements may look

like prescription drugs but there's a

big difference drug makers have to prove

their products are safe and effective

before putting them on the market those

who make supplements don't not unless

they're introducing a new ingredient

that's never been marketed

before it's an absurd absurd system in

the future many years we'll look back

and we'll say how could we have possibly

done this it took a hundred years of

thoughtful regulatory advances to ensure

that drugs now we're talking about

prescription drugs are both safe and

effective how could it be that the clock

turned back to the world of uh 1920s

1930s when you can sell something

without any evidence that it's safe or

effective we are back at the turn of a

century when snake oil salesmen could

Hawk their potions with promises that

couldn't be kept in the early 1990s the

head of the FDA was David Kesler that is

absolutely false he arrived in office

promising tougher regulations for

supplements in particular demanding

Health claims be backed by scientific

evidence the industry went Bonkers

everything

exploded I mean I've taken on some of

the hardest regulatory

issues me I did uh tobacco tobacco

looked easy compared U to dietary

supplements what what happened was the

dietary supplement industry

recognized that the standard that we set

significant scientific agreement would

require

it before it could make a claim to have

a scientific basis and they just

couldn't make any claim and they saw

literally billions of dollars at

stake and they Unleashed a lobbying

campaign that was Second To

None the campaign was as dramatic as it

was

effective hey guys got it's only vitam

complete with Hollywood

stars vitamin C you know like in oranges

Congress received more letters regarding

this than they ever received regarding

the Vietnam

War Dan Hurley has written what many

consider the definitive account of the

industry's battle with the regulator we

hear people claiming that FDA is while

David kler was trying to convince

Congress behind the scenes another kler

was at

work Jerry wrer ran a large dietary

supplement company was a very strong W

character the FDA is going to limit

potencies of vitamins which is what

they've said the FDA is going to take

herbs and make them drugs and he called

together every leading manufacturer to

come out to his Ranch in California

which used to belong to Ray Croc of

McDonald's okay so Jerry basically

stands up before the group and says as

this is the either the end of our of our

industry or a new beginning and we have

to defend our

interests Jerry kastler would turn out

to be a very effective lobbyist joining

forces with powerful political friends

because today we honored the wishes of

100 million people consumers of dietary

supplements friends like Senator Orin

hatch of Utah the senator deined to be

interviewed his state has seen as the

global Center for dietary supplement

manufacturing his son has lobbied for

the industry and hatch himself his own

shares in at least one supplement

company he's never hidden the fact he's

a Believer we know that the American

people are not a bunch of cooks or a

bunch of dummies and what the people

want is a right to use products which

have helped them for

centuries the campaign

worked Jerry Kesler

said forget this law that's going to

actually regulate we need a law that

says uh you can't regulate these

products and he named it the dietary

supplement health and Education Act he

came up with the name of it Jerry

Kessler did a

manufacturer the one concession the FDA

did get was an agreement that

manufacturers would not make unproven

Health

claims and so for example they can't say

their products cure our arthritis or

prevent heart disease but they can say

they support things like bone density

promote cardiovascular health what

Congress did is basically said industry

you go make the claims and if FDA has a

problem with it FDA has to prove it's

false or misleading so the horse is out

of out of the barn FDA then has to go

seiz the produ go into court and it has

the burden 784 a bill to amend the

federal Food Drug and cosmetic act to

establish standards with respect to

dietary supplements problems with the

legislation would become apparent even

before it passed the FDA was getting

complaints about popular new weight loss

supplements containing an ingredient

called

aedra manufactur has fought the FDA for

more than a decade yesterday 23-year-old

Steve Beckler became the first baseball

player ever to die in it wasn't until a

young major league pitcher died after

taking a fedra that sales were halted

called edra by then more than 160 deaths

had been linked to the

supplement it almost takes a sacrificial

lamb to die of liver injury or some

other injury before the Food and Drug

Administration can take any action I am

Dr

Bowski thank thanks for being here Dr

Herbert Bowski is an investigator with a

liver Injury Network funded by the

National Institutes of Health let me get

a listen of your your lungs and then

concerned about the harm supplements are

causing and just just lie lie back there

for this has been sort of the fastest

growing kind of liver injury that we're

observing in the drug induced liver

Injury Network the frequency with which

we see this has roughly tripled in the

last 10 years about 7% of all the cases

that we've enrolled into this network

over the years were due to these in the

last couple of years it's been around

20% it's incredibly hard to quantify the

current problem how much harm are

supplements doing just yesterday I was

talking to a patient who suffered a

bleeding stroke into his brain after

taking just one um workout supplement

and the reason why we don't know is that

there's no effective system to detect

harm from

supplements take what happened in Hawaii

in the summer of 2013 there was an

outbreak of liver problem Health

officials would link to a diet and

workout

supplement we didn't know if it was

something in you know the Hawaiian

population or or some sort of

contaminant or what exactly the problem

was the state's only transplant center

was overrun an initial cluster of seven

patients grew to more than two dozen two

of them sick enough to need new livers

it was difficult it was stressful cuz

people were calling up and they were

continually referring new patients and

um I don't have enough organs to give I

I don't know how I could put all these

patients on a transplant list and

possibly save all of them sad news

tonight from the family of a Maui woman

the mother of seven who fell ill after

taking diet pills the Department of

Health reports 32 cases of liver damage

o elite pro and health officials dietary

supplement oxy elite pro just two months

before the outbreak the makers of oxy

elite pro had been pressured to pull an

earlier form a from the market following

years of complaints the new version

included a compound called

ageline now ageline is a normal

component of the baale tree and it's

been used as as a natural product by

naturopathic healers for

centuries usually fairly safely but they

didn't use bail tree extract they bought

ageline from a Chinese drug company that

made ageline at least the company

claimed it was ageline and within a few

months uh they began to observe patients

with liver failure uh mostly in Hawaii

but not

entirely Cynthia novid is a chief petty

officer with the US Navy based in San

Diego she turned to oxy elite pro to

help pass Fitness tests

it helped keep my weight down it helped

you know just give me that extra push

during the workout and I was liking it

and know I would take

it but only halfway through the first

bottle Cynthia's eyes started turning

yellow her doctor had bad

news that's when he told

me that your liver is shot pretty

much I possibly need a liver

transplant she would get a

transplant the FDA has linked oxy Elite

to more than 70 cases of liver damage

the company declined to be interviewed

and denies any

responsibility doctors in Hawaii still

remember how slow the FDA was to act

they say they followed all the

directions on the agency's medwatch

website they phoned several times but it

wasn't until they approached the State

Health authorities that the FDA they

finally called them back they told one

of our liver doctors that you know they

thought she was a prankster because she

had sent in her you know private email

address and you know kept bugging them

and you know they didn't think we were

real they weren't taking you seriously

no it would be nice if there was a

system that you know we could use and

get some consistent results but the FDA

says they do have a system that's what

medat is you know right but I don't know

if they're overwhelmed but the way it

stands is there's you know we're not

getting a response as quick as we

probably should be in Hawaii there were

uh reports of a cluster of people who

develop severe liver problems the doctor

in the case that we have spoken with

raises troubling questions repeatedly

she says she and her colleagues tried to

contact medwatch tried to report and

tried to get advice from the FDA as to

what to do and repeatedly she says they

heard nothing back had you heard this

before no I can't deal with hear saying

speculation and I'm not going to

speculate what I can tell you is when

the documents did come in the FDA that

alerted us to the problem in Hawaii we

were able to remove the product within a

month by that point there were 56 cases

of liver damage that had been reported

and this was for a company that only 6

months earlier had had another

formulation there removed what there

were there weren't 56 cases reported

until sometime after we had the product

removed we had the product removed with

effectively about 20 cases

Cynthia novida is one of more than a

hundred people who are now suing the

makers of oxy elite

pro a 23-year veteran with the Navy she

had hoped to get her 25-year service pin

that's not likely to happen

now you know I have to be able to travel

and can't do that now can't go on a ship

because they don't carry the meds that I

need

continuously her doctors tell her the

price of that one pill is that she'll

have to take 19 pills every day for the

rest of her

life the makers of oxy Elite deny all

claims against

them the allegations against USP Labs

and its operators but in November 2015

the justice department launched a

criminal case against the company and

arrested four of its Executives frud

charges Vigilant when it comes to the

health and safety of the American public

it's a Great Big Beautiful Day omega3 is

essential for good health the promises

are endless the minerals your kids need

but even if what you buy in those

bottles is real critics contend there's

a bigger problem many supplements simply

don't work what's worse they could be

doing you

harm now supplements I get this question

all the time I only take four pills our

screens blare advice on how to get

health from a pill and today I'd like to

talk to you a little bit about

supplementation reputations have been

built on dispensing that advice that

everyone should be taking a multivitamin

multimineral product as insurance

against but amid all the hype what's

often lost is the

[Music]

science when people walk into the

dietary supplement or vitamin store um

they think that everything is just

perfectly

safe in addition to being a pediatri

nutrition Paul offet is a best-selling

author whose book do you believe in

magic questions are supplement habit so

I've got uh vitamins for children and

vitamins for adults the problem is is

that when you look on the the back you

find that a number of these vitamins are

contained in uh in amounts that are much

greater than the recommended daily

allowance offet believes we simply take

too many I think multivitamins don't

hurt you which is to say vitamins at or

around the recommend daily L for each of

those vitamins I mean you need vitamins

to live the question is do you get

enough in food and I think the answer to

that question is yes but now there are

studies done done showing if you use a

me take a mega vitamin you actually can

hurt yourself you actually can increase

your risk of cancer increase your risk

of heart disease I think few people know

the risks they're taking and how do you

know what's too much you here's how you

know what's too much you shouldn't

bypass the satiety level your stomach is

only so big for a reason he illustrates

the point with a 1,000 mg of vitamin C

that's one of these

pills to get the same amount of the

vitamin from a food source you'd have to

eat between seven and eight entire

cantaloupes no you're not meant to eat

eight cantaloupes it's a dangerous thing

to do to go against what nature intends

it's even worse with vitamin E he

says this capsule has a th000

international units you can also find

vitamin E in almonds but to get the same

1,000 units you'd have to eat a lot of

almonds

1,670 to be precise scientific Studies

have shown that that much vitamin E can

be

dangerous if you take large quantities

of vitamin E as a supplement you clearly

and definitively increase your risk of

prostate cancer and in a better world in

a regulated world where vitamin E a

regulated product it should have a

blackbox warning on it that says just

that vitamins E and C are an

antioxidants and for years we've been

told to take them because antioxidants

are the mortal enemy of free radicals

cells linked to cancer and other

diseases I mean if you look at people

for example who eat diets rich in fruits

rich in vegetables they contain

antioxidants they do seem to live longer

and have lesser rates of cancer and

heart disease so the thinking was great

okay now we figured out a way to make

ourselves healthier now let's let's

let's double down and take even larger

quantities of antioxidants and that's

where we cross the line and now study

after study shows that in fact it's true

you can take too much in the way of

antioxidants in response to the studies

in 2013 one of the world's most

important scientific journals published

an

editorial enough is enough argued the

case is closed supplementing the diet of

well-nourished adults with most

supplements has no clear benefit and

might even be harmful Dr alisso yr was

the lead

author this might be the some of the

best well studied compounds in in the

history of mankind in terms of of uh

clinical trials uh there there well over

a couple hundred uh thousand people that

have participated in in clinical trial

so the conclusions that we have for

antioxidant vitamins I think are very

strong vitamin D is not an antioxidant

but it is one of the top selling

vitamins in

America pushed with information that's

often confusing vitamin D to pick one

vitamin to push to everybody to think

about again in their lives it's vitamin

D it's true we do all need some vitamin

D The Institute of medicine recommends

adults get 600 international units a day

in vitamin D3 but look at the doses some

others are suggested recomended 5,000

IUS daily 5,000 I tends to be perfect

when people are initially really on one

website I answered just three questions

my age my height and my weight and I was

told I needed 10,000 international units

a day 16 times the iom's

recommendation when I hear that various

groups are recommending 10,000 IUS a day

or even 5,000 IUS a day

routinely I really want to say show me

the data show me the evidence

evidence is what Dr Joanne Manson is

accumulating here she's collected blood

samples from over 25,000 people the

vital trial is to our knowledge the

largest randomized clinical trial of

vitamin D supplementation in the world

Manson is comparing disease rates

between those who take Vitamin D

supplements and those who don't final

results won't be known until

2017 but but already she has

concerns many people are taking too much

uh vitamin D The Institute of medicine

also recommended avoiding getting above

4,000 IUS daily because that could be

associated with Adverse Events calcium

in the urine which can be associated

with kidney stones high blood calcium

calcium um in in the arteries vascular

calcification as well soft tissue

calcification and there are now studies

that show a U-shaped curve that those

who have high as well as low blood

levels of vitamin D have higher risks of

cardiovascular disease as well as all

cause mortality so we can't assume that

more is necessarily

better the third most widely used

supplement in America is fish oil the

Omega-3s contained in the oil are

believed by many to be essential for

good

health DHA omega-3 in particular is is

extremely

important it also helps prevent disease

according to the man who heads one of

the largest fish oil trade associations

it's different from them there's

certainly ample evidence that it helps

things like reducing blood pressure

reducing your risk of coronary

death but the science behind fish oil is

a little more complicated than that so

these are two capsules this is a FDA

approved product this is Dr Preston

Mason is a Harvard University researcher

here he's comparing prescription quality

fish oil to the oil found in

over-the-counter supplements and uh give

it a

smell smells a little bit fishy but not

not bad right smells you're going to

have always some

smell one of the issues with fish oil is

it's delicate it's extracted as a

byproduct from oil fish like anchovies

as the fish get crushed the oil is

exposed to oxygen and it doesn't take

much oxygen to turn the oil

rancid this is a common supplement for

fish

oil see what that smells

like

oh what that doesn't smell good that's

that smells like it's going bad yeah

right yeah it's a very strong fishy

smell

if it was simply an odor issue that

would be one thing but oxidized oil

contains oxidized lipids one of the

building blocks of cells we've long

known that lipids when oxidized can be

harmful so oxidized lipid triggers

inflammatory responses within our body

particularly in our cells and uh if we

ingest oxidized lipid we can trigger

these inflammatory changes that can lead

to things like cardiovascular

disease

recently Mason published his own study

of fish oil supplements the results were

consistent with other studies showing

high levels of

oxidation one in New Zealand found 83%

of fish oils tested failed to meet the

industry's own

standard it was shocking to see such a

high proportion of products that that

had high oxidation levels and so we went

and and actually bought 47 products from

the New Zealand market and had them

tested at multiple labs and we did not

see that same effect well what was the

percentage of that you discovered that

were not in compliance with your

standards uh it was it was around 20%

would you agree that 20% is still

problematic um well from a consumer's

point of view I mean if if it's truly

20% Then then yeah we would like to see

those um those 20% uh improved but

improving the quality won't address the

other issue with fish oil the growing

questions about whether it prevents

disease to years ago epidemiologist Dr

Andrew Gray compiled all the best

studies on fish oil as reported in the

world's most prestigious scientific

journals I think for cardiovascular

disease one has to say there is no

compelling evidence that taking fish

oils protects against a first heart

attack or a second heart attack and so

people who are advised to do that or are

doing it are are are wasting their time

and the

money but the fish oil industry

continues to insist there is a benefit

particularly for preventing heart

attacks we asked their spokesman to send

us his best evidence which included some

of the same studies gray had cited and

didn't seem to support his case this one

says it doesn't appear to reduce sudden

cardiac death the next one insufficient

evidence jamama 2012 overall omega-3

supplementation was not a associated

with a lower risk of all cause mortality

another journal the evidence is not

clear cut and any benefits are almost

certainly not as great as previously

believed so that doesn't seem to be

suggesting there's an overwhelming

amount of evidence yeah well I I think

what you're looking at are the abstracts

but the conclusions are the conclusions

well but but again those papers are

looking at very large areas of

cardiovascular disease and and um you

know I think it's it's hard to argue

that Omega-3s aren't important for how

your heart

functions many researchers agree if you

get them from eating actual fish the

problem is science still hasn't proven

its true for

supplements we would think that

something that's natural That's

essential to normal cell function and

body function would have clinical

benefits uh it just has to be proven but

in the meantime there's certainly been a

lot of promotion suggesting a benefit in

every everything from Alzheimer's

disease to cardiovascular disease but we

still need the strong clinical trials to

validate those

hypothesis the same can be said about

virtually every product the supplement

industry sells essal vitamins and

minerals to help keep you we wanted to

discuss the issues with some of the

industry's most prominent Advocates so

many questions so many concerns Dr in

addition it's loaded with beneficial Dr

Joseph vitamin D would be an example of

that and Dr Andrew wild all decline to

be

interviewed while the debate continues

over whether supplements actually work

in rural G onario there is a botanist

who may have found an answer to that

other Troublesome question what's

actually in the pills and potions that

we

take Dr Steven newmaster is part of a

worldwide effort to collect and catalog

Nature's wide array of DNA he believes

in the power of nature to heal I buy and

use Natural Health

Products I believe in them I've used

them all my life um used them with my

family we have that anecdotal evidence

that you have some ailment and you take

a whatever the the remedy is and it's

dealt with so it's an irony that GF

University was responsible for one of

the latest studies documenting problems

with supplement

quality in 2012 new master and his team

randomly selected 44 herbal Products off

the shelves in Canada and the US and

started comparing them to the plant DNA

in their datab

bank and we looked at the results I was

fairly astounded like wow 60% of the

products contained ingredients not

listed on their labels even more

astonishingly one in three proved to be

outright

fakes if I put my consumer hat on that

pissed me off because I go in to buy a

product that I believe in that I care

about and I pay a lot of money for it's

not even in the bottle are you kidding

me unlike similar studies in the past

this one got noticed front page of the

health section in the New York Times an

article that was read by among others

New York's attorney general last

December my office purchased a variety

of storebrand herbal supplements from

stores in different parts of New York

State Eric Schneiderman ordered up his

own test of herbal supplements which

produced even worse results and found

that only 21% of the products we tested

uh had in fact had DNA evidence that

they contained the product listed on the

label we uh found the results to be

shocking we purchased products from four

major chains Walmart Walgreens Target

and GNC we found asparagus DNA house

plant DNA rice and other things but not

the product that was on the labels and

it seemed that there was just a massive

fraud going on the Attorney General

demanded the company stop selling the

products at first the industry

questioned the methodology but then GNC

the largest of the supplement retailers

agreed to use DNA barcoding to

authenticate its

products the industry spokesman however

still isn't convinced Daniel fabricant

we're working with the Attorney

General's office so they understand more

about the industry and we understand

more of their concerns I think that

that's important that we work together

do you accept the findings that they

published well I haven't been able to

review the findings no because they they

say because it's an act of Investigation

but what they have told you do you

accept them without seeing the science

I'm a scientist first and foremost I

can't really comment on data I haven't

seen so is that a yes or a no that's a

no you say you haven't seen the actual

study from from the attorney general so

you can't actually comment but you have

seen the study from from the guf

University univers that was published uh

a year 2013 I've seen that and you know

and what do you make of that I mean

fairly similar finding well I think some

there's same challenges though is the

accreditation of the lab there's no

mention of reference materials reference

materials are critical when you're doing

DNA analysis um you know not knowing how

you established a

baseline what are you

comparing new Master's comparison was to

that library of DNA he an international

scientists have been

collecting we've done this now thousands

actually tens of thousands of times for

products and the process works and it

works really well today 14 States

Attorneys General have come together to

demand

change not only from the industry but

from the FDA and

lawmakers we think that there's

responsibility in Congress and there's

responsibility at the agency level and

we're just going to keep pressing until

we can get them to take action thank

than you since that interview Federal

prosecutors and Regulators announced

they've taken action against over a 100

companies we see a number of serious

issues with dietary supplements and

products falsely marketed as dietary

supplements there are now signs that at

least some in the industry are adopting

new technology to ensure accurate

labeling we have implemented the use of

DNA bar code technology here in our

products I think it is a game Chang

right it's new and uh with with newness

comes um you know first some early

adopters Nature's Way is among those

leading the way the manufacturer is one

of several who have now partnered with

the Canadian scientists in A Renewed

effort to put quality

first we made contact with him and

started a relationship which included um

testing many of our of our herbal

dietary ingredients for identity

right now testing is done offsite at the

University of G and Dr new master is

working on some technology that could

possibly be implemented in a you know in

a commercial manner take some of the

sample and simply put it into this Pro

new master believes the partnership is

just the

beginning and loaded into the machine

press go he's refined his barcoding

technology further making it cheaper and

easier to use you can start testing

further back in the supply chain uh what

about that batch that came in it's a

huge vat and it's powder the DNA is

excellent in that it's easy it's cheap

it could be tested at where it's being

transported and the supplier is doing

trading and buying it could be tested at

the producer the farmer it could be

tested all the way along and I think

that's an appropriate way to solve the

problem but that still leaves the

question of what if any of this stuff

actually works we're using the herb

combined with the standardized extract

the industry is quick to criticize

studies that challenge their

products but it hasn't produced large

peer-reviewed studies of its own with

clinical trials where supplements are

tested against

placebos the crazy thing about the

dietary supplement world is there are

none of those studies and the studies

that are done say the stuff doesn't

work there is new science out there all

the time

consumers are going to continue to take

supplements because they derive a

benefit over half the country every day

takes a supplement safely and

effectively we love the notion of a

magic pill with something that makes it

all better it's just too

seductive but it is a pill just like any

other pill the only difference is it's

an unregulated pill and you don't know

what's in

it