Government Accountability Office Investigation Finds Deceptive or Questionable Claims About Herbal Dietary Supplements, Contaminants in Products
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In an investigation conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, nearly all of the herbal dietary supplements tested contained trace amounts of lead and other contaminants, and some sellers provided potentially harmful medical advice to elderly “patients.”
The Special Committee on Aging asked the GAO to determine whether:
• Sellers of herbal dietary supplements are using deceptive or questionable marketing practices.
• Selected herbal dietary supplements are contaminated with harmful substances.
To conduct the first part of the investigation, GAO investigators posed as elderly consumers and visited or called 22 storefront and mail-order retailers of herbal dietary supplements. GAO staff also reviewed the written marketing language used on approximately 30 retail Web sites. To conduct the second part of the investigation, the GAO had an accredited laboratory test 40 single-ingredient herbal dietary supplements for the presence of lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, organichlorine pesticides, and organophosphorous pesticides.
The investigators found several instances in which written sales materials for products sold through online retailers claimed that herbal dietary supplements could treat, prevent, or cure conditions such as diabetes, cancer, or cardiovascular disease. In addition, GAO investigators posing as elderly customers often were told by sales staff that a given supplement would prevent or cure conditions such as high cholesterol or Alzheimer's disease. Examples of potentially harmful medical advice included one case in which a seller stated that it was not a problem to take ginkgo biloba in combination with aspirin, and another case in which a seller stated that an herbal dietary supplement could be used in place of a prescription medication.
Analysis of the single-ingredient dietary supplements found trace amounts of at least one potentially hazardous contaminant in 37 of the 40 products tested, although none of the contaminants was present in amounts considered to pose an acute toxicity hazard. All 37 supplements tested positive for trace amounts of lead; of those, 32 also contained mercury, 28 contained cadmium, 21 contained arsenic, and 18 contained residues from at least one pesticide.
To download the full report or hear clips of the undercover calls, visit http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-662T.