Despite the prominent black eye suffered by the dietary supplement industry in the recent New York Attorney General affair, increased demand for testing services is a sign the industry is taking quality seriously and is getting better, according to Alkemist...
The Council for Responsible Nutrition has sent a formal letter to Attorney General Schneiderman requesting transparency in his investigation of four retailers of herbal supplements.
An Oregon-based marketer of dietary supplements has been slapped with a permanent injuction for distributing prodcts that the Food and Drug Administration alleged were adulterated and were unapproved new drugs.
GNC Holdings has responded to the NY Attorney General’s actions with full and robust responses to every question raised in the cease and desist letter, including original test results and the results of retesting that was performed on the product lots...
The high rate of failure in New Dietary Ingredient notifications has led some companies to seek workarounds. Anecdotal evidence gathered by NutraIngredients-USA shows that companies are increasingly leaning on GRAS status as a way to avoid having to enter...
The budget request from the White House for the Food and Drug Administration is part of President Obama’s overall budget that will not see the light of day. Nevertheless, the massive document does include priorities that are likely to be addressed in...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has confirmed media rumours that Dr Margaret Hamburg is stepping down from her role as Commissioner at the end of March, with Stephen Ostroff, MD, the FDA's chief scientist, serving as acting Commissioner.
The issue of “protein spiking” has led companies in the sports nutrition sphere to start to differentiate their products based on the quality and transparency of their ingredients and to rely less on marketing-driven messages of the products’ muscle-boosting...
The New York state attorney general’s investigation into allegedly substandard herbal dietary supplements was flawed from the start by an inexplicable failure to refer to national standards established for the testing of such products, experts say.
The Office of the Attorney General of New York has defended its testing and choice of researcher to conduct its tests, but will not be releasing its data for peer-review, NutraIngredients-USA can reveal.
A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia has upheld an earlier court ruling in favor of the FTC versus POM Wonderful and claims it made in its advertising. On the flip side, the court also stated that requiring two valid clinical trials to...
Science and an evaluation of risk must inform any regulatory decision on powdered pure caffeine products and not Senators usurping the law, says the Natural Products Association’s Dr Daniel Fabricant.
A group of six Democratic senators have written to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg to urge the Agency to ban the sale and marketing of pure caffeine, a move that has received support from the industry.
Opponents of the labeling of genetically modified ingredients have spent millions to defeat the various state ballot measures on the issue. At least as far as dietary supplements are concerned, that money was spent out of a misguided fear, said one influential...
Non GMO positioning is becoming an ever hotter topic within the supplement realm. NutraIngredients-USA will examine the topic in an online forum on Feb. 26 with an expert panel drawn from trade organizations, manufacturers and retailers.
A recent FDA warning letter to a New York company points again to the danger of mixing metaphors when positioning a product as either a beverage or a liquid dietary supplement.
Medical foods formulated for diabetes are still in a state of limbo more than 18 months after the US Food and Drug Administration issued an updated draft guidance on the category in 2013. After a comment period, the guidance has languished in a draft...
‘Don’t take sports supplements, they can’t be trusted’ was the takeaway message from Welsh track stars Rhys Williams and Gareth Warburton after the recent UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) tribunal agreed steroids got into their blood streams via contaminated sports...
As obesity rates worldwide continue to rise and the related scourge of diabetes increases in lockstep, companies marketing ingredients in the United States intended to help consumers who find themselves sliding somewhere along this curve toward a full...
Aker BioMarine, the world’s largest single harvester of krill, says a renewed Marine Stewardship Council certification of its Antarctic fishery should finally put sustainability concerns about its operations to rest.
The recent negative opinion from EFSA for CLA and weight management is “frustrating” and questions raised over the safety of the ingredient “contradict the science supporting the biological activities of CLA”, a leading researcher tells NutraIngredients-USA.
The Food and Drug Administration has issued another warning letter taking a company to task for marketing a product with an ingredient that lacks a New Dietary Ingredient filing. But one observer wonders why more such letters haven’t come from the agency.
A recent FDA warning letter to a company making products based on whole dandelion parts and other herbs seems to call into question whether organoleptic identification of incoming botanical specimens still passes muster as far as the agency is concerned....
A company that markets supplements aimed at children with speech disorders associated with autism has agreed to stop making what the Federal Trade Commission deemed were deceptive claims on its products and to pay a substantial fine in a settlement, the...
By Michael McGuffin, president, American Herbal Products Association
The herbal products industry can expect several recent trends to continue in 2015, but there are also some significant changes on the horizon. Here are a few things the industry can look for in 2015.
By Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D., CEO and Executive Director of the Natural Products Association
As with any new year, January is a time for looking ahead and getting in front of obstacles before they arise. Many mistakenly believe that a new year means new, unexpected challenges, but reality the year’s tests and trials – both internal and external...
The recall last last year of a probiotic product found to be contaminated with a fungus should not cast a pall over the entire sector, experts say. Though they are products consisting of cultured microorganisms, probiotic ingredients are no more at risk...
By Loren Israelsen, president of the United Natural Products Alliance
On the cusp of its 30th anniversary, there’s been a lot of talk about the look forward provided by the 1985 movie, Back to the Future. A similar look back at the natural health products industry to see the future is not such a far-fetched idea. A number...
By Steve Mister, president and CEO, Council for Responsible Nutrition
When I was a child, it seemed I could never get through an entire game of Candyland with my older brother. He kept changing the rules in the middle if his player started to fall behind. Don’t you hate it when someone changes the rules midstream?
Improving global nutrition won’t be achieved unless, “the roles of politics, economics, and institutions” can be better understood, The Lancet has reported.
From polyphenols and prebiotics to a focus on Latin America, healthy aging and functional foods, NutraIngredients-USA’s special editions have set traffic records because of their in-depth coverage and exclusive content. Today we feature part two of our...
The leaders of the five trade organizations most closely associated with the dietary supplement industry offered their input to NutraIngredients-USA on what the big lessons industry should learn from the events of 2014.
The owner of a dietary supplement company has pleaded guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the sale of diluted and adulterated ingredients and supplements. The plea deal comes with an agreement to pay a fine that exceeds $1 million.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has sent a petition to federal regulators seeking the ban of pure, powdered caffeine that is packaged and sold as a dietary supplement. Because of the product’s extreme potency, the possibility of accidental...
Increased demand for contract manufacturing services has led Axiom Nutraceuticals to retrofit a recently acquired facility to bring its manufacturing footprint to more than 100,000 square feet, the company announced recently.
CRN hails passage of bill as ‘welcome protection against criminal outliers’
The Designer Anabolic Steroid Control Act has passed Congress and will now be sent to the President’s office to be signed into law. The result is being hailed by the industry.
Activist investor Bill Ackman has released a new video attack that takes nutritional products network marketing giant Herbalife to task over non-compliant disease treatment claims made for the products on the part of distributors. The company responded...
Preliminary data from consultant Marian Boardley, who tracks trends in FDA inspection reports, shows that overall 483 citations are down. But she cautions that many of the observations still fall under the very basic lack of specifications and other process...
Another high profile FTC case reaches a conclusion of sorts this week as the agency started mailing out checks to consumers it says were mislead by claims for the weight loss product Sensa. The payout totals more than $26 million.
Proposed FDA revisions to CFSAN’s Redbook to include dietary supplement ingredients, and therefore regulate them as food additives, has created “real and legitimate” concerns for the industry. But also concerning was the limited presence by dietary supplement...
Hearing on potential changes to Redbook to take place tomorrow
The Food and Drug Administration should finalize the revised draft guidance for New Dietary Ingredients (NDIs) and stop attempting to regulate the products and their ingredients as ‘food additives’, says Marc Ullman on behalf of Natural Organics, Inc.
ChromaDex has bolstered the IP protection around pTeroPure, one of its branded ingredients, with the announcement of two patents relating to pterostilbene, which are the second and third patents granted to the company on the ingredient.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has delivered a positive opinion on vitamin D based on its ability to lower the risk of falling associated with muscle weakness and postural instability.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) have published a 60 point plan as part of a ‘framework for action’ to improve global food and nutrition systems.
The National Advertising Division has recommended that LifeCaps Nutraceuticals of Salt Lake City, UT, discontinue claims it was making on its LifeCaps brand of dietary supplement that claimed the product is a “survival pill.”
In designing a clinical trial strategy its important to keep end points in mind—and it’s not just avoiding disease endpoints we’re talking here. It’s vital to end up with information that can aid in the marketing of the product, experts say.
Two years on from revised European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidelines on weight management, the industry is still struggling to produce sufficient evidence to back claims.
A coalition of nearly 140 organizations and companies including dietary supplement trade associations has issued comments to proposals to reform California’s controversial Proposition 65 (Prop 65).
