Actually it's mostly peas and cat hair.
The news that a New York state attorney general's investigation found that the overwhelming majority of so-called "nutritional supplements" sold by some of the biggest retailers in the nation contained none of the actual ingredient they were supposed to be "supplementing" once again raises the question: Is the health supplement marketplace
America's most crooked industry?
The 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. The 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. [...]
Three out of six herbal products at Target — ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort and valerian root, a sleep aid — tested negative for the herbs on their labels. But they did contain powdered rice, beans, peas and wild carrots. And at GNC, the agency said, it found pills with unlisted ingredients used as fillers, like powdered legumes, the class of plants that includes peanuts and soybeans, a hazard for people with allergies.
"Houseplants" is a nice touch, although the news that the highly priced placebos may or may not contain unlisted ingredients that could kill some people is probably the one more worth focusing on.
Savvy attorney generals across the nation will hopefully repeat the experiment in their own states; the nutritional supplement industry makes money hand over fist—possibly due to the savings that can be achieved by putting little or no actual active ingredients in the products being sold—and the opportunities for high-profile fraud prosecutions could provide an easy boost to political profiles and state budgets alike. It also ought to end for once and for all this notion that the supplement industry needs no regulation. On the contrary, calling something a "supplement" has been adopted as the millennial version of ye olde snake oil.
In the meantime, you probably want to stop taking supplements. If the biggest brands in the industry don't know or don't care what's in those bottles, the nice fellow selling you pills over the internet isn't likely to give a damn either. You might call to inquire as to sending the unused portion of your pills to Sen. Orrin Hatch, who has been the industry's champion in exempting themselves from FDA regulation under the banner of we don't feel like doing that, and maybe he'll be able to direct you as to how best to get a refund. Go on, give his office a call right now. He's a bona fide expert in this stuff.
(Note: Do not actually send your unused pills to Orrin Hatch. The industry doesn't give a damn if those things end up being "mostly anthrax, some filler" but you can put a lot of stuff in your stomach that would be a felony to send to a senator. They're a bit stuffy like that.)
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—More than 40% of households are less than three months from poverty:
While the official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, there's a lot of controversy over how poverty should be measured, and still more over how we should view proximity to poverty, the people who aren't poor but are dangerously close to it. Here's another way of looking at that. The Corporation for Enterprise Development has released its annual assets and opportunity scorecard, scoring the states on how well they promote household financial security through jobs, education, health care, housing and financial assets. Do states support very small businesses? Do they provide quality public education and incentives to college savings? Do they have a minimum wage above the federal minimum and provide cost of living adjustments? Do they provide tax credits to low-income families and prohibit predatory payday lenders?
The scorecard finds that the asset poverty rate of American households is 27.1 percent—these families don't have enough savings or other assets to subsist at the poverty level for three months if they lost their income, even if they were able to liquidate every asset they had in that time. Liquid asset poverty, a measure that excludes hard-to-get-rid-of things like houses and cars, is still higher, at 43.1 percent. That means a great many people who are working now, who aren't showing up on traditional poverty measures, are leading incredibly fragile lives and could easily be thrown into poverty by any crisis. As with almost every measure of this kind, there are huge racial gaps—34.1 percent of white households are in liquid asset poverty, in contrast to 64.6 percent of households of color.
These things don't just happen in isolation, as the scorecard shows. States can take action through policy to make it easier for low-income people to save money, strengthen their financial position, educate their children.
Tweet of the Day
It had been a while since a total stranger told me how to do my job. Adorable.
— @Hegemommy
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Thom Tillis ups the anti-public health game.
Greg Dworkin rounds up the continuing vax news. Polls say millennials love Hillary. Jeb Bush opposed his brother's auto bailout, but was OK with the Wall St. bailout. Aaron Schock,
Downton Abbey lover, opposes PBS funding. Oh, and has spent serious taxpayer dough on decorating, including (gasp!)... granite countertops!
Joan McCarter discusses the House Republicans' 56th ACA repeal vote, the collapsing
King case, a win in the battle for net neutrality, and that the press has rediscovered how to use the word "filibuster!" Open carry activists are back at the brand hijacking game.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments