Quite frankly, there is no substantiated reason for comfrey or germanium to be on this List of Twelve, but lobelia and chaparral both need to taken under the care of a qualified Herbalist…not a physician and not a pharmacist.

Here’s the whole List of Twelve substances that Consumer Reports issued a report about in their most recent magazine.

Consumer Reports’ Dirty Dozen

Kava, lobelia, chaparral, coltfoot, colloidal silver, bitter orange, comfrey, germanium, aconite, country mallow, yohimbe, and greater celandine.

You can go into many shops and get Botox injections anytime as well, but just because these substances are available online and in some stores; it doesn’t mean that the entire Nutritional Supplement industry needs to be regulated by the FDA. The FDA has enough challenges with food, drugs, and alcohol. They don’t have enough man power to take care of these three categories and are not fully qualified to police nutritional supplements unless they hire genuine experts and professionals in a new department in the future.

The report gives the public the wrong impression that supplements are not safe and have not been evaluated for efficacy. The TRUTH is that this industry is for the most part: self-regulating for quality control and standardization. I have watched and observed this occur since the early 1970’s to this very day and there is an extraordinary level of professionalism and business acumen in the policies and practices that drives the industry.

The interesting issue that this report misses entirely is that the consumers who purchase and use nutritional supplements are well-educated, well-informed, and extremely knowledgeable out of necessity. So many decades ago, many of us realized that we could not afford to give away our power to physicians who relied upon drugs that were not adequately researched or tested for disease management. We opted to change our way of thinking to use the model of a healthy Lifestyle for Wellness, rather than the prevention of disease.

Sure there are companies and countries like China that abuse the trust and the law. China is particularly culpable and the material that is imported MUST be better monitored and evaluated before entering the marketplace. Most of the companies in America who manufacture and market nutritional supplements adhere to strict quality control standards and drug companies would enjoy a better reputation if they followed suit.

Having said this, there is always room for improvement and the big picture includes individual education. Most of us know better than to consume too much Kava Kava. Most of us use comfrey root in a black salve for the purpose for which it is intended and we get excellent results. Most of us have read the research from Germany and Russia about germanium and know the difference between a cheap version and a superior product.

Furthermore, we also regulate the industry internally in that most people seek qualified Herbalists, Naturopaths, Homeopathic Physicians, Nutritionists, Lifestyle Therapists, Acupuncturists, and Chiropractors among others holistic professionals who have been trained and are experienced in the applications of these substances. MDs and pharmacists are only now beginning to learn about these substances and need a great deal more education before you could consider them to know enough to be trusted sources of information to guide you. The real test is for each individual to be evaluated with EAV equipment to determine the relative value of any substance whether it is a nutritional supplement or a pharmaceutical drug.

I want to cover this report in greater detail after I read it completely, so I will add to this post tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.