FDA Warns About All Natural Products- With All Natural Arsenic

Everyone is jumping on the natural product and herbal bandwagon.  What many don’t know is that all-natural is often far from all-safe.  Almost all of these producs remain highly unregulated and untested in their claims (therefore the need for the blanket disclaimers that the products are not intended to diagnose of treat any condition). 

One of the problems with herbals is the huge rate of contamination with other ingredients.  This may be inadvertant such as mercury in fish oil capsules, heavy metals in herbs, or intentional such as the well-reported spiking of herbal viagra with real drug viagra. 

I know a manufacturer of herbal supplements.  He used to sell electronics but now sells herbal supplements.  I think it’s a more lucrative business.

Today the FDA issues a warning out arsenic contamination in mineral water.  Just realize that when these contaminations occur in herbal supplements it is often buyer beware before its discovered.  Low level contamination often is never discovered.

FDA Warns Again About Arsenic in Mineral Water  - Five Brands Recalled Within Last Month

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is re-issuing its warning to consumers not to drink “Jermuk” brand mineral water due to the risk of exposure to arsenic, a toxic substance and a known cause of cancer in humans. The agency is providing this information again to consumers due to an expansion of the recall initiated by the products’ importers and distributors. “Jermuk” water is imported from Armenia and distributed under different labels in California. Five brands of these products have been recalled since March 7

The good news is you probably won’t die

Although arsenic is a well known human poison, there is little chance that someone would become seriously ill after consuming the recalled products over a brief period of time (days to weeks). However, it is likely that the person would experience nausea, abdominal pain and possibly vomiting, which are indicators of arsenic toxicity.

FDA has sampled the contents of 500 milliliter (mL) green glass and/or plastic bottles of all of these brands and found they contained 454-674 micrograms of arsenic per liter of water. FDA’s standard of quality for bottled water allows no more than 10 micrograms per liter.

UPDATE:  wow two recalls in one day of natural health products!

Another fDA recall is in effect this time for some vitamins.  Unfortunately, the manufacturer faled to fully list the ingredients onthe label.  As I said it happens all the time.  This one had fish products but never listed them posing a severe allergic reaction risk for some.

FiberChoice Plus Multivitamins Issues Allergy Alert Fish Allergen Not Declared on Label

FiberChoice® fiber supplement is recalling the newest variant of FiberChoice® plus Multivitamins fiber supplement. This recall affects 90 count (16oz.) plastic bottles. 

This recall was initiated after we discovered fish gelatin, a known allergen, contained in one of the raw materials of the product, which was not declared on the product label for the multivitamins being recalled. The fish gelatin consists of the following species of fish: cod, pollock, hake, cusk, haddock, redfish, sole, and flounder.