A Dose of Lead or Mercury With Your Medicine

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The fact that 3 out of 46 or 6.5% of the companies, whose products were tested and found to contain excess levels of lead, are members of the Amercian Herbal products Association is reason enough not to simply rely on a company's membership in AHPA for assurance that a dietary supplement is safe.
In fact, a recent study found excess levels of lead in dozens of women and children's Vitamins made by companies who are members of AHPA.
The fact that AHPA has no quality assurance requirement for memebership is another reason not to rely on AHPA memebership in assessing a products safety.
Indeed, under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 ( DSHEA), products sold and labeled as Dietary Supplements" can be and are sold to the public without anyone ever evaluating the product for safety or efficacy.
Unlike traditional foods or drugs, ingredients banned from use in foods and in drugs, like various stimulant herbal laxatives, can still be used in dietary supplements.
Taurine, an ingredient found in many energy drinks and supplements is banned from use in foods and drugs for human beings.
Food laws also ban cancer causing agents from Traditional foods. These same consumer protection laws do not apply to dietary supplements.
In short, many dietary supplements made by companies that one may consider reputable, sell dietary supplements that contain lead and other heavy metals.
The fact that the amounts may not be consider significant by the manufacturers ignores the fact that these products are used routinely and for long periods of time.
In toxicology, there is the principle that the Dose Makes The Poison. Under the current body of laws, the long term adverse effects from dietary supplements are not known. Until the safeguards that protect the consumer are put into place for dietary supplements, these dangers may never be uncovered.
If it is natural it is safe, is a dangerous assumption to make even if the company is well known, a member of AHPA or any other business organization that is a marker of good manufacturing practices. In fact, manufacturers of dietary supplements have no GMP's that they were required to follow since these laws has not even gone into effect. Caveat Emptor

Christopher E. Grell of CA 5:03PM September 29, 2008

That report takes medicines from non-reputed online sources and claims they are toxic. It completely ignores popular Ayurvedic brands like Himalaya and Kerala Ayurveda. All that report concludes is un-prescribed online drugs are fake. It is a biased report - that study does not represent Ayurveda.
BTW search about infamous Dr. Biederman and Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab to find out how dangerous and corrupt American doctors and their prescribed medicines can be. See also http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/23/health.pharmaceuticals

Fred Francias of KS 1:34PM August 30, 2008

Good article. People indeed are, thanks to the net, awash in a sea of info about everything you can imagine and everything else. It tends to take away from the positive effect of even the clearest, best written articles, a phenomenon that really gets in the way. Here's an article on the mercury and other...unconventional ingredients in vaccines and what the government has to say about the mercury itself. Fellow readers might be surprised!
http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/the-abbreviated/

Stefan of NY 5:43PM August 28, 2008

Seems like this article has been targeted to scare people away from using alternate, effective and cheaper medicines.
So far there has not been even a single case of death or fatal report through out the world history from any herbal medicine.
The report says so far 80 cases has been reported in past 30 yrs for apparently not so lethal side effects, maximum is vomiting or feeling uneasiness in some cases. Chances are very high they might have used medicine not prescribed for them, kind of you taking anti-biotic not meant for you.
Chances are those people might have used expired medicines. If you use any of the expired mainstream medicine and you know what can happen to you, you can even easily die, and yet in case of Ayuervedic medicine the side effect is limited to feeling some uneasiness or vomiting at max.
Now the number of people who have died itself using the main stream medicine in past 30 years will come to hundred of thousands to couple of millions. Compare this to not even a single death reported.
Now the number of people who feel uneasiness or felt fever or had soar throat or vomited after eating mainstream medicine would be in billions! in past 30 years. I am 29 and I do not know a single person in life who would not have at least once some bad side effect from mainstream medicine.
Now, the reasons for lead or mercury can be the tools used to make them or the cheap containers and this doesn't mean the Ayurvedic medicine itself is bad.
This article is written only for one purpose to undermine the effectiveness of Ayuervda and scare people. This reminds me of Bush few years back saying "America is at war, Iraq is a terrorist nation and blah blah".

Nitin of CA 9:38PM August 27, 2008

Your article seems to reinforce the idea that the medical industrial complex and the architects of society only want us to live longer if we are sick and unhealthy.
You could believe that this is just an accident and bad business practices. Or you can look at it from the standpoint of the oligarchs who are on record saying that the ideal population for the Earth is less than one billion people. Maybe they are right and maybe it's no accident.
Weren't a lot of people overreacting about the microwave a long time ago? Did any of those conspiracy warnings ever come to fruition?
Or maybe it's like in the first Batman movie with Jack Nicholson where it is not just one product or another that makes you sick but a combination of products. Fluoride in the water, Mercury in your vaccine, low pulse microwaves from the cell phone towers, Mercury in your tuna, heavy metals and your medicine.

Wesley of WA 6:10PM August 27, 2008