Buy your Supplements with Team Happy Healing - We deliver directly from the Lab, never cutting corners

by Todd Gegerson September 28, 2017

Posted August 21, 2013 by Gary Collins, MS -- Still very relevant today

In today’s difficult economy, everyday folks seeking a health-and-energy boost may be hesitant to purchase “expensive” vitamins and supplements from “upscale” stores and distribution outlets. Instead, honest folks turn to Internet sites such as Amazon and eBay to purchase vitamins on the cheap for themselves and their kids.

I urge you, don’t do this! (emphasis added)

As a former special agent and forensic investigator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), my heart breaks for hardworking moms and dads trying to do right by their family by buying inexpensive supplements.

Little do they know that these “bargain” vitamins and capsules are worthless at best, and at worst may cost them and their children their health, and possibly their lives.

The fact is, it costs money to make quality dietary supplements such as vitamins, protein powders, fish oil capsules, energy bars, herbal blends, or sports nutrition products.

But if you have no morals and know how truly under-regulated the supplement industry is in America, you can make huge amounts of money selling dangerous counterfeit and expired supplement products.

 

How? You undercut the price of legitimate supplement companies. Cheaper wins. And the consumer loses.

Why should you believe me? For many years, not too long ago, I worked in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a Special Agent.

I’ve been behind the curtain of the supplement industry – way behind – so what I say is not based on some far-fetched conspiracy theory. I was there and witnessed it firsthand.

Now, as a public health advocate and creator of the Primal Power Method, here’s what I want you to know about the vitamins, capsules and pills that can make or break your health.

There are three main ways that supplements end up on the market at unbelievably cheap prices:

1. They are counterfeit and probably dangerous.
2. They are useless expired products that have been repackaged as new.
3. They are stolen products released on the black market without any quality control.

Here’s how each scenario plays out.

Counterfeit Products

One of the easiest ways to make a dishonest buck in the supplement world is to create a pill that mirrors a name-brand health supplement. Create lookalike packaging and you can sell your worthless pill on the Internet for a “discounted” price. And a counterfeit operation is born!

People would be appalled if they knew how prevalent counterfeit dietary supplements truly are. Sadly, fake vitamins and “health” capsules have made their way into the general consumer market.

These dangerous pills masquerade as the real thing on the shelves of the name-brand department stores that virtually every family in America patronizes – and they certainly are available on the Internet.

Here’s the bottom line: If an above-board supplement or pharmaceutical drug is popular, you can bet someone, primarily in China or India, is counterfeiting it. I’m not saying this as some off-the-wall scare tactic. I was there and this was my job.

Still don’t believe me? Here is a recent article by a major news network backing up what I say regarding Amazon selling counterfeit items and destroying businesses who created the product!

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/amazon-counterfeits-put-mans-business-140007731.html

Even worse? Fake pills virtually never have the correct amount of the active ingredient they are supposed to contain.

During my FDA tenure we ran lab tests on all kinds of lookalike pills and capsules. Some cheap/counterfeit supplements had ten times or more the amount of “medicinal” ingredients as was indicated on the label. Worse, some had none, and others simply contained large amounts of sawdust!

Criminals are not moral, but they are often smart. They not only counterfeit health supplements, but also all of the paperwork that goes along with them. They have numerous distribution shell companies set up all over the world, so it is almost impossible to figure out the paperwork trail and the actual origins of these dangerous pills. (Trust me, I’ve been paid to untangle this kind of web many times.)

The real-world result is that there are virtually no legal consequences to selling fake pills, capsules or vitamins, and the criminals know it.

How prevalent are fake supplements? The IACC (International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition) estimates that brand-holders (the legitimate companies behind name-brand, non-counterfeit products) lose approximately $600 billion of revenue annually because of counterfeiting.

Michael Danel, the secretary general of the World Customs Organization, has said that if terrorism did not exist, counterfeiting would be the most significant criminal act of the early twenty-first century.

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