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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

>Vitamins used to be priced according to manufacturing cost. Slowly, the low-cost vitamins have been up-priced to match the expensive ones. Vitamin C is about $10/Kg in bulk, but about $100/Kg at a US drugstore.

How does one even know if the Vitamin C is Vitamin C? There is no government agency that confirms supplements and vitamins are what they say they are, nor are there penalties. The only thing I have heard of is the USP branding being a signifier of higher likelihood of the supplement/vitamin being what it says it is.

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>How does one even know if the Vitamin C is Vitamin C?

Good question. For the last few years I've subscribed to Consumer Lab. They have a rigorous testing program for vitamins and supplements.

https://www.consumerlab.com/about/

Is there one similarly for sunscreen and lotions for toxicity?

Yes! https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/

EWG doesn't test anything, they merely analyze the list of stated ingredients.

Look for USP certification.

My understanding is that it's voluntary, but the equivalent of the QC that prescription medications undergo.

I think this is part of why they’re so expensive. If you can only go off reputation, you pay for it.

The US is very bad at ensuring our food supply is what it claims to be.... you have to trust companies, basically.

Or do your research with companies that have independently assess products

not very many people can afford to do their own research... lab tests for everything you buy?

Not you personally, but there can be third parties companies reviewing products

while that may be true (and better then nothing), you still have to rely on companies like I said originally

You always have to rely on somebody if you don't do it yourself.

well, of course, but the Gov. would hopefully have goals better aligned with the population....

Maybe, I personally would trust the 3rd party more, but understand that opinions differ.

I think that the 3rd parties have both more at stake to get it right and are less influenced than the gov.

They mean there are third party organizations that perform testing. Consumer Reports and such. Or most supplement companies pay for independent testing (some skepticism is warranted since they're the ones paying).

https://labdoor.com/

if we can't trust a company's label, how can we test another company's testing? the incentives to deceive still exist

This is literally how all construction materials are vetted and it works great.

Underwriters Laboratories.

If it were feasible to sue retailers for damages due to fraudulent vitamins, approximately 0% of supplements sold would be fake.

The problem is there isn’t adequate scientific evidence to back the efficacy of any of these supplement which is why they aren’t regulated in the first place.

> The problem is there isn’t adequate scientific evidence to back the efficacy of any of these supplement which is why they aren’t regulated in the first place.

While I would agree that good evidence is generally lacking on supplements, that’s different than “is the product as advertised”. Just because vitamin C isn’t a miracle drug wouldn’t justify selling sugar pills as vitamin C.

Sounds like a pretty clever startup idea. Consumer Reports, but for everything. Then a seal that manufacturers can put on their product that certifies the assay of ingredients. Does a Coke actually have 120 calories? Is a Vitamin actually what it says? Is the bottle actually recycled? Consumer Reports is often opinion based with some quantitative data and they don’t review everything. Is you olive oil actually from Italian olives? Are those organic pears actually organic? Products that get “the seal” can market that fact. And if consumers care enough, they’ll pick products that are certified to be what they say they are. If I am buying high end paint, the water content matters to me for example.

The FDA should really focus entirely on consumer safety only. (It’s not a safety issue if your olive oil is Moroccan rather than Spanish or whatever.) And the FDA doesn’t have any mission to test if that 18/10 stainless steel sink is actually 18/10 stainless for example.

sounds really good but in the end, companies will do what's best for their bottom line... I think the Government should do it

Selling something that is not what you say it is is false advertising, and falls under the purview of the FTC. Unfortunately, the testing, enforcement, and penalties are all extremely weak.

Trust in the marketplace is a very valuable asset, one that cannot be bought. It has to be cultivated and maintained over many, many years, and having the government do that makes perfect sense as it is a societal benefit.

We need a UL/Consumer Reports for Internet-connected devices that documents and certifies their use of personal data and bandwidth. The regulators are not going to be able to keep up with the changes.

Computer component manufacturers have already caught on. New products are built to spec and then later on in that product's manufacturing life cycle, the parts it's built with are changed to reduce cost but the SKU is kept the same.

Are you suggesting other countries independently test each food product that is sold to consumers?

Local authorities in the UK have a legal duty to implement a food product inspection scheme. It's regulated by the Food Standards Agency. And yes, the labs used are independent.

In the UK the government tests each food product? I doubt it.

The website suggests random inspections. Just like the US does.

Do you think that the only way to improve on the US's current position is to test every single product?

No, but I failed to see how the current US approach is different than the UK's.

Stick to brands that have a reputation for quality worth defending.

It's no guarantee, but you want a brand that perhaps charges a bit more because of their long track record of quality. The longer and more solid their track record of quality, the more motivation they will have to make sure that reputation stays intact.

That's about the best you can do.

I stick to stores that I can trust. Costco very much can. Walmart maybe. Amazon nope who knows what your actually getting.

I would focus on finding brands to trust vs stores. Stores do absolutely zero diligence on ingredients of supplements.

https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/02/major-retailers-order...

> Three to four samples of each supplement purchased in different parts of the state were tested. Each sample was tested five times, for a total of 390 tests on 78 samples. Schneiderman said that only 4 percent of Walmart’s supplements (“Spring Valley” brand) actually contained the ingredients listed on the label, while 18 percent did at Walgreens (“Finest Nutrition” brand), 22 percent at GNC (“Herbal Plus” brand), and 41 percent at Target stores (“Up & Up” brand).

and brands are bought out by private equity and change for the worse all the time. look at the downfall of many historically great brands/names that are no longer what they once where: pyrex vs PYREX. Craftsmen. MEC. Birkenstock. And so many more.

Costco may one day fall too but their brand is what they sell in store and they do actually seem to do due diligence (also they have the Kirkland brand)

The NSF Certified for Sport program is a good place to start.

https://www.nsfsport.com/

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