Lead in paint on toys. Melamine poisoning baby formula and candy. What could be scarier? What if you learned that the multiple vitamins that you and your children take every day come from China as well? Doesn’t our government protect us from danger?

The label on the bottle is unlikely to give you the whole story.

First of all, let’s clear up one misconception: Our government has very different standards for vitamins and nutritional supplements than they do for drugs. Federal regulations classify nutritional supplements as food. This means that the manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that its dietary supplement products are safe before they are marketed. There is no government approval process for dietary supplements for safety or efficacy before they reach the consumer. Manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements are not required to report any claims of injuries or illnesses that may be related to the use of their products.(1) There are no laws requiring that vitamin supplements be tested during the manufacturing process. Quality control laboratories are not required in vitamin manufacturing facilities. If it is discovered that someone has been injured by the long term consumption of a product (which would be virtually impossible to prove), the company is under no legal obligation to inform its customers or even change its product. The worst that could happen to the company is that they could be served with a class-action lawsuit. If enough people could prove that they were injured by the product, only then would our government step in. By then, the company will likely have taken action due to the threat of loss from the lawsuit.

The way the laws are written for this industry, it is in the best interest of the manufacturers and distributors not to test. That way, if any damage occurs, they are not legally culpable. If someone is injured, the company had no idea that their product was dangerous. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to sue them. Legally, it was an innocent mistake. Are your vitamins hurting you?

Imagine if the majority of vitamins on the market for the last 20 years did not contain all of the nutrients listed on the label but DID contain many harmful contaminants? Who would ever find out?

A study was done at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health in 2002. They took people who had been taking vitamins for 20 years or longer and compared them with people who had never taken vitamins at all. In the 4 major biomarkers, those that had been taking vitamins had WORSE scores than those that had taken nothing! When looking at the incidence of disease, the people taking vitamins for 20 years or longer were only slightly better off than those who had not taken vitamins at all.

An update was done to this study (by the same research team at UC Berkeley SPH)and the results were published in 2007 for one specific vitamin manufacturer. The results were stunningly better. This manufacturer has a history of extraordinary quality control testing. The difference in the end result was obvious.(2)

In 2003, the global market for vitamins was valued at approximately $2.3 billion.(3)

If you were going to invest in a company with great potential for profit and little government regulation, could you think of a better choice than the vitamin supplement industry?

This explains why there has been an explosion of new vitamin brands. Google “vitamin manufacturers” and you will see a long list of companies that will gladly use your recipe and label and provide for you your very own vitamin ready for the direct sales market. With China and India taking over the majority of world-wide manufacturing, prices have dropped significantly. Profits are soaring. Anyone can get into the game with little more than a few thousand dollars to invest and an MBA is more useful than any degree in health or medicine.

The marketing for these products is specifically designed to mislead consumers. In my next article, I’ll help you wade through the carefully worded hype so that you will have a better chance of finding quality nutritional supplements. Believe it or not, they DO exist.