Retail drugstore chain CVS is holding the unregulated supplements industry accountable.
The Rhode Island-based company has recently launched “Tested to Be Trusted,” a campaign to inform customers that all of the dietary supplements sold on their shelves will now be independently verified to ensure the product in the bottle matches what’s on the label.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time that any national retailer is requiring all vitamins and supplements to undergo third-party testing, in order to be sold on our shelves,” says George Coleman, Senior VP of CVS.
The pharmacy chain, which operates some 10,000 stores nationwide, claims they’ve already tested more than 1,400 vitamins and supplements from 152 brands vying for a spot on their shelves. Of those, seven percent didn’t make the cut, and were either removed from stores or asked to correct their ingredients labels.
In an interview with The Post last year, supplements expert Dr. Pieter Cohen discussed the Food and Drug Administration’s hands-off approach to the supplements industry.
“There’s a problem with the FDA … not doing as robust a job in monitoring in this whole area that they should,” says Cohen, a researcher at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School.
He says that the evidence required by the FDA to prove a dietary supplement is safe and accurately labeled is “incredibly low,” and there’s been “study after study demonstrating that the labels are inaccurate.”
Research published in JAMA Network Open last year revealed over-the-counter supplements containing prescription steroids, Viagra and other unapproved and potentially dangerous drugs — which might land someone in the hospital. Recent estimates by the Centers for Disease Control attributes some 23,000 emergency room visits per year in the US to supplements.
Furthermore, claims made by companies that their product will boost brain function or make hair shiny are generally unfounded since a majority of products are not put through rigorous — and expensive — clinical testing. Cohen points out that the $40 billion industry has “zero incentive” to put claims to the test when the FDA doesn’t ask for evidence.
“Why would they want to spend any amount of money on a large trial that’s likely to show that the supplement doesn’t even work?,” he says. “That’d be a colossal mistake from a business perspective.”
While CVS won’t be funding human studies to fact-check such claims, Coleman is certainly getting ahead of trends showing consumers are increasingly dubious of what goes into their bodies.
“Consumers are moving to this proactive health and wellness stance,” he says, “and we don’t want to follow. We want to help lead in that, and help our customers.”