Lawsuit Filed Against Some Fish Oil Manufacturers

Fish Oil  was in the news this week because of contaminant concerns by some manufacturers.  You might ask how bad can these brands be? To show you how bad the makers and sellers of fish oil supplements were sued by Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation in California for not telling consumers that their products contained toxic levels of PCBs.

What is funny and sad at the same time is that it was it was NOT the  FDA that initiated the action to force the manufacturers to make their contaminated products off the shelves. Instead an environmental consumers group had to sue them for not including PCBs on the label! They sued them under California proposition 65 which requires a warning label whenever a product contains toxic ingredients.

The defendants in this lawsuit were Omega Protein, a Houston-based company that is the world’s largest producer of omega-3 fish oil, and the many companies that they produced fish oil for – companies like Rite Aid, CVS, GNC, Now Health Group, Pharmavite, Solgar and Twinlab.

And those aren’t the only ones. The Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation only tested 10 omega-3  supplements manufactured by Omega Protein to date and have found PCBs in all of them. They plan to continue testing and to add other companies to the lawsuit if their products are also contaminated.

Even scarier is that many of labels on these products said that the omega-3 supplement was treated to reduce or remove PCBs. As a consumer you were lead to believe that they were safe!

As if that weren’t scary enough the FDA announced a massive recall of products containing textured vegetable protein manufactured by a company called Basic Food Flavors because of salmonella contamination.

The problem is that there are at least 56 different kinds of consumer products containing this company’s textured vegetable protein – including salad dressings,
dips, packaged snacks, potato chips and soup mixes (Who knew that salad dressings contained textured vegetable protein?). I personally do not like TVP

That means that this recall will be huge. It will affect many foods that most people buy and use every day. The problem in this case is NO quality control of raw materials. If they would have done that then they would have dtected salmonella contamination.

Dr. Steve Chaney who teaches at UNC Medical school gives these guidelines to consumers:
So what can you do as a consumer? Here are my recommendations:

1) Get your supplements from an established company with a reputation for quality and integrity. I would recommend choosing a company that has been around for a number of years so that you know that their reputation is based on their track record over the years rather than just on hype.

2) Make sure that they run rigorous quality controls on their products. I would choose a company that requires pharmaceutical grade quality controls on their products.

3) Make sure that they have published clinical studies on their products that prove both safety and effectiveness. Again I would recommend choosing a company that has many published clinical studies on their products rather than just one or two.

While Fish Oil offers great health benefits taking a questionable brand of fish oil can be detrimental to your health. The following comments  from Shaklee Vice President, Cindy Lathum  is a great reminder of the importance of the brands of supplements you purchase. Quality always trumps quantity when it comes to your health.

Comments by Cindy Lathum, Shaklee VP

I can’t end the week, without commenting about Omega3 in the news. There was a lawsuit filed against a number of brands (not Shaklee) that raised some concerns, brands that used cod liver oil. There are NO safety issues Shaklee’s OmegaGuard.

We use pharmaceutical grade fish oil, we use a molecular distillation process to remove contaminants like dioxins, mercury and PCB’s. Here’s the rest of the scoop.

Shaklee’s fish oil comes from highly purified whole fish –not from the liver of cod or shark (which the brands in the lawsuit used) which tend to accumulate these harmful compounds.

Shaklee helped create a monograph to establish the standard for quality and purity, including defining the …limits for contaminants including dioxin, PCB’s, lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium. Yeah !!

Editors Note on Fish Oil manufacturing: See my previous Post why some brands of fish oil may be detrimental to your health.

Watch CBS News on Fish Oil Lawsuit Click here for full written report