Study finds high percentage of recalled dietary supplements still have banned ingredients

It takes money to have enough employees and equipment to test for dangerous substances and to take action to enforce the law.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/tjnj-sfh101614.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2014

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Contact: David Cecere
dcecere@challiance.org
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Study finds high percentage of recalled dietary supplements still have banned ingredients

About two-thirds of FDA recalled dietary supplements analyzed still contained banned drugs at least 6 months after being recalled, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiates class I drug recalls when products have the reasonable possibility of causing serious adverse health consequences or death. Recently, the FDA has used class I drug recalls in an effort to remove dietary supplements adulterated with pharmaceutical ingredients from U.S. markets. Prior research has found that even after FDA recalls, dietary supplements remain available on store shelves. However, it has not been known if the supplements on sale after FDA recalls are free of the adulterants, according to background information in the article.

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Banned substances identified in recalled supplements included sibutramine, sibutramine analogs, sildenafil, fluoxetine, phenolphthalein, aromatase inhibitor, and various anabolic steroids.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to determine if adulterants remain in supplements sold after FDA recalls," the authors write.

"Action by the FDA has not been completely effective in eliminating all potentially dangerous adulterated supplements from the U.S. marketplace. More aggressive enforcement of the law, changes to the law to increase the FDA's enforcement powers, or both will be required if sales of these products are to be prevented in the future."

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