22 ms·

Amazon receives FDA warning letter for supplements with undeclared ingredients

495 points by mkmk 3y ago

kayodelycaon 3y ago
I’m glad the conclusion says the products lists are not the only ones to which this letter applies. Otherwise Amazon could just remove the products mentioned and make the FDA play wack-a-mole. As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average person to protect themselves.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  The FDA likely needs a data team if they don’t have one already to monitor Amazon for ongoing compliance. Similar to the SEC’s data team that monitors capital market data flows for anomalies that would indicate illegal behavior. My two cents: good market to be looking for good data folks who might want a (potentially remote) federal agency data job with shakiness in tech. https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-science/ https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-science/
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    If you've ever been with a startup that needed a 510k, you'd know that the FDA regularly monitors everyone for compliance. At least in my narrow domain of medical imaging and treatment planning devices they do. I'd be surprised if they didn't have similar mechanisms in place in every area of their 'jurisdiction'. It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just distributors. Doesn't really even hurt me. If RTP is a part of my software product I should be under a microscope. It's going to be small people who try to market supplements who will get trounced now. Because every report will, by law, have to include the source of the product. And that source company or individual is in for a long year. Even shutting down won't end their legal obligations in a lot of cases. On the other hand, that was, in part, the original point of the FDA. To stamp out the snake oil salesmen. So, yeah. I guess they're just carrying out that mandate in new and updated ways.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      I am not unsympathetic to the disparity you mention, but am advocating that distributor gorillas (like Amazon, but others as well) need strong controls (both regulatory and technical) due to their incentives to not be compliant and the potential negative outcomes (illness, perhaps death even, depending on material and consumer) from non compliance.
      - tacheiordache 3y ago
        Absolutely. And Amazon should also pay for it!
        bilbo0s 3y ago
        Not how it works. Everyone pays. Amazon for their part. The producer for their part. Anyone that is provably in between is held accountable as well. Usually it's the producer that gets hit the hardest. Not disagreeing with that. That's what should happen. Just listing another in a litany of reasons that it's far worse for the producer/manufacturer than for the distributor. Think about it, your grocer rarely suffers the same consequences that a poultry producer does in the event of a poultry recall for instance.
    - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
      > It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just distributors. I'm doing my first FDA-monitored automation project at a local brewery, and am quickly becoming familiar with the abundant controls that the FDA puts on domestic producers. But the FDA is an American organization. Amazon or Ebay or Aliexpress or whoever may be just distributors, but they're international distributors. They're fully-automated self-service distributors for manufacturers in China and Russia and Indonesia and India who aren't subject to FDA jurisdiction, who sometimes aren't subject to any oversight at all. The only entity that the FDA can go after here is Amazon, so this should hurt Amazon.
      - galangalalgol 3y ago
        The FCC should be going after them too. A lot of the wireless stuff they sell isn't registered.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    If Amazon fails to comply with the auditing requirements imposed by law, their entire retail shipping business could be closed by the US federal government. The FDA need only prove that Amazon has a pattern of negligence in their product auditing duties under law, in order to impose severe penalties, up to and including shuttering Amazon FBA. The FDA is not required to perform inventory assessments as a free service for Amazon in order to reach that final outcome. This letter is the first, necessary, step towards doing so.
    - serial_dev 3y ago
      I assume it's still a move with lots of politicking involved, so they need to stand on solid grounds, proof and all, I don't think they would every take lightly closing down vone of the biggest companies of the country (and the world). If it ever happened, I can already see the endless coverage by Sean Hannity and similar about how it's governmental overreach that risks destroying an important US company with X thousands employees... However, I don't think it will ever happen, in the end it's one of the richest men, Jeff Bezos behind Amazon with significant influence on news reporting, who seems to be on good terms with both the Republicans and Democrats, and the regulatory agencies in the US just didn't show a pattern of going too hard against US companies.
      - altairprime 3y ago
        I definitely don’t have a well-formed opinion on how likely such an outcome is, but I absolutely believe that discussing that outcome as a serious concern is necessary discussion to have.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        It's a good thing that regulatory actions are slow going and difficult to prove under the law, otherwise the commons would be subject to powertripping leaders above clouds far more than they are already. It also means that if things do get to such a point, then the action will come down swift and heavy in a manner generally agreeable to the majority of the commons.
      - trogdor 3y ago
- fallingknife 3y ago
  I'm certainly in favor of these regulations that require supplements and food products to accurately list ingredients. I'm also in favor of the FDA coming down hard on violators. But it seems perfectly reasonable that law enforcement should have to play whack a mole. That's kind and of how it works with innocent until proven guilty. I'm not a fan of the whole "you enforce it for us or we come after you" approach. In reality what it means is that gate keepers like Amazon have to put in place policies that are much more strict than the actual rules in order to avoid even a chance of getting hit. Agencies like the FDA know this and use it as a way to put in place de facto policies that are much stricter than they could legislate.
  - werico 3y ago
    I totally get where you're coming from, but the problem with enforcement-by-whack-a-mole is that some crimes are very cheap and easy to carry out and very difficult to detect and prosecute. The asymmetry means criminals are incentivized to commit those crimes, and can even become fantastically wealthy by doing so. If there isn't an offsetting risk for them (or control), then they're going to do it. Some of those crimes can ruin victims' lives, and in some cases (like this) people can die. We simply can't afford to use no other enforcement strategies. A good example of where we threw out the upfront controls was COVID relief money, and that was a disaster in terms of fraud. (Admittedly a purely government program, but the same principle applies.)
  - bumby 3y ago
    I think it's a distinction in risk philosophy. The whack-a-mole approach is "continue until we find you unsafe" while the other approach is "don't start until you prove you're safe". I think both approaches can be reasonable depending on the level of risk. When it comes to supplements tainted with unlisted ingredients that can have harmful or deadly effects for consumers, I personally think the latter is the better approach.
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      But the risk level is very low. The stats I see show less than 20 hospitalizations and 2 deaths per year due to bad supplements. https://time.com/5602125/dietary-supplements-kids/ https://time.com/5602125/dietary-supplements-kids/
- 1920musicman 3y ago
  I searched for all products mentioned in the letter - they are all gone. Amazon is quick to react to such public letters to pretend that they are a responsible company. Saying that, the search returns hundreds of other supplements in the same category, with similar nonsensical names. They are certainly attempting to play wack-a-mole.
  - ssgodderidge 3y ago
    I think the speed to remove the noted items isn’t suspect; it’s what I would expect a responsible company to do in this scenario. However, I am curious to see how Amazon handles the other drugs. Seems like pausing the sale of the entire category is the right call
    - 1920musicman 3y ago
      The category these supplements were listed under is "Sports Nutrition Endurance & Energy Products" with some legitimate products listed under it. I doubt Amazon would delist the entire category. But also, something tells me that sellers would just list products under a different category without any meaningful consequences. E.g. these or similar tainted supplements could be listed under "Health, Household, and Body Care" (a very broad category that already has products like "stripfast5000 Fire Bullet Capsules with K-CYTRO for Women and Men" listed under it), etc.
    - treprinum 3y ago
      Amazon bans all sellers that ever attempt to sell/list anything Amazon bans even if the ban was not made public (unless they pay their "consultants" closely connected to managers to unban them of course).
- stickfigure 3y ago
  Genuine question: What level of scrutiny do you think Amazon should provide here? In vaguely increasing level of detail/effort, it could be... * Checking the published label of items for illicit content * Checking the contents of one bottle for undeclared ingredients * Checking the contents of all bottles for undeclared ingredients * Checking the contents of all pills in all bottles for undeclared ingredients ...etc. I guess what I'm wondering is, what course of action do you think is reasonable for Amazon to take here? It's easy to say "don't allow this to happen"; I'm curious about what that actually translates to in practice.
  - Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
    It is an interesting question. How much cocaine goes via Amazon? Or ephedrine, or ecstasy... Etc
  - giarc 3y ago
    GNC (and likely other online supplement stores) have an online presence and likely has some QA for the products they sell. Amazon just insists on having 1,000,000+ listings for supplements rather than a more curated list. Perhaps some categories shouldn't have endless list of products.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      The only QA in the "supplement" and "vitamin" business I know of is USP: https://www.quality-supplements.org https://www.quality-supplements.org Although, I have no clue if USP simply rubber stamps it once time, or if they do continuous testing of the products. If I were to bet, I would say they probably do not test often enough after initial certification.
  - verall 3y ago
    Supplements should probably not be sold in a marketplace fashion by fly-by-night distributors by a major trusted brand (amazon). Businesses that sell supplements should create trusted relationships with their suppliers to not break the rules and to limit their own liability.
- nradov 3y ago
  The FDA does some good work, but they have no authority to specifically approve or certify most types of nutritional supplements. If you want to know what you're actually getting and avoid contamination, then only buy supplements when have been certified by the NSF. https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/supplement-vitamin-certification https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/supplement-v... https://www.nsfsport.com/ https://www.nsfsport.com/ Amazon.com does have their own certification program for dietary supplements, but it seems like the rules aren't consistently enforced. https://blog.ansi.org/anab/requirements-sell-dietary-supplements-amazon/ https://blog.ansi.org/anab/requirements-sell-dietary-supplem...
- loeg 3y ago
  > As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average person to protect themselves. The mislabeling is certainly a problem, but really these drugs (sildenafil and tadalafil) should be over-the-counter and cheaply available on Amazon as generics. That they are not is a failure of the same FDA. They have a great safety profile and limited contraindications, comparable to many other OTC drugs.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This isn't what anybody objects to about the FDA. "You have to list what's in the product" is a simple rule that every knows, is easy to comply with, and doesn't require any government interaction even in the case of a suspected violation because the FDA can just buy the product to test it and compare the lab results to the label. What people object to is when someone wants to sell an accurately labeled product with a risk-benefit trade off, the customer knows what the product is and is exercising informed consent, and the government says they can't have it anyway.
  - wredue 3y ago
    >doesn’t require any government interaction Dude what? Government around the world are constantly catching corporations for lying on their product lists. As for controlled substances, on this topic is a completely fine line which I’d probably tend to agree is not treaded properly. There are risk trade offs to allowing open markets on classes of drugs. With that said, the massive propaganda campaigns corporations get up to completely subvert that risk, and 100% leaves consumers uninformed even with the proper information at their fingertips: as a major example, the opioid crisis, leaded fuels, leaded paints, carcinogenic materials handling. I mean, the list really goes on and on. The issue with the FDA has time and time and time again been demonstrated to be how toothless it is. Corporations constantly ignore regulation for billions in profits, only to receive a sternly worded letter and MAYBE a 0.01% of profits fine.
    - nickff 3y ago
      Governments around the world are terrible at 'catching corporations for lying' in any way. There are manifold examples in every regulatory field, in every country. Examples include Wirecard, Theranos, Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson talc, etc. In most cases, the regulators are handed the evidence, and take a long time to do anything about it. In my mind, the question is whether the massive regulatory burdens which protect incumbents and inhibit liberty are worth it. This is not an all-or-nothing question, and might be answered field-by-field, but regulators have not covered themselves in glory.
- ineedaj0b 3y ago
  I don’t want to sound like a nut job, but please look into how much the FDA hampers drug trails. If you understand how tough it is in one case, think how many trails yearly never get done because of the FDA. The amount of benefit vs. the amount of deaths caused by the FDA being slow likely means many more are deaths at the hands of the FDA than you expect. Cracking down on supplements that people take voluntary hardly seems like something I’m pleased they meddle with too.
  - neaden 3y ago
    You're only taking them voluntarily if they are what they say they are, if as in this case they aren't you aren't meaningfully taking them voluntarily.
    - Tao3300 3y ago
      Buying shady penis pills on the Internet is a voluntary risk. Play stupid games, win stupid heart attacks and priapisms. Though I do think Amazon should have a share of the blame. Buyer and seller are both wrong here.
  - hibikir 3y ago
    It's possible, and even a good idea, to say that the FDA massively overregulates drug trials, while at the same time also say that the current supplement market is almost just as massively underregulated, and would be far healthier with more oversight. Organizations, just like people, can do good and bad things at the same time. I am very happy they crack down on supplements, a kind of product that is filled with fraud and that I lack the resources to make informed purchases on. I would also be just as happy if they started cross-approving drugs with the EU and Australia. They are neither angels nor the devil.
- pardoned_turkey 3y ago
  Well, on the flip side: the whole reason these are sold is that the FDA is preventing the substance from being sold OTC. This is not an example of a manufacturer putting something unwanted in the product. It's all just a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of a deal with willing buyers. It creates some risk of accidents, but I doubt there were any. I'm not sure the regulation here is great. As with Rx-only contraception, these regulations force patients to spend money and discuss their intimate life with a doctor for no real reason, which many people find difficult. And it's not like you undergo thorough screening to get Viagra anyway. A doctor is not gonna say "no". The problem with bodies such as the FDA is that once they address grave risks, they seldom reach this point of "OK, we fixed the problem of arsenic in patent medicine, so let's scale back for now." Instead, the bureaucracies only grow. Today, far too many drugs are Rx-only and stay this way for too long. The need for prescriptions for equipment such as eyeglasses or contact lenses is hard to justify too.
  - lwhi 3y ago
    It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk. If wrongly prescribed equipment can cause harm, it's very justifiable that a license scheme is put in place.
    - bjt 3y ago
      > It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk. Sure, and the parent comment's point was that there's a line where further risk reduction doesn't make sense anymore. The agency doesn't have the right incentives to stop at that line. Plenty of very significant risks aren't regulated to the degree that Viagra and Cialis are. You don't need a note from a doctor or a govt-issued permit to buy kitchen knives or a table saw or a Bic lighter, for example.
      - lwhi 3y ago
        Kitchen knives have multiple uses and discretion through education is expected as standard. Viagra and Cialis have a singular use and contraindications aren't likely to be understood through cultural osmosis.
- adolph 3y ago
  A regulatory agency was fine for a world with a finite number of trusted vendors working operating in the the agency jurisdiction. Reliable consumer owned/operated molecular characterization is needed for a future that moves faster and farther than an agency or regulation.
jeffrallen 3y ago
Cool! Now do their crappy cords that are likely to burn down your house. Amazon Basics should be terminated with prejudice.
- gruez 3y ago
  I checked a random amazon basics powerstrip and there's an ETL certification mark on them. As much as it's popular to hate on amazon for fakes/subquality products, your particular example is a poor one. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/I/61oYtdtgmVL._AC_SL1500_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/...
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    Funnily enough AmazonBasics is probably the safest set of products on Amazon, as nobody but Amazon is allowed to sell those products. A brand name item might be a fake, but AmazonBasics is always the original (potentially crappy anyway) product.
  - floatrock 3y ago
    EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The number of generic chineesium chargers available that will move 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL certification is mind-boggingly high. I've seen some advertise "UL Safety Report", which I assume is weasel-words for "We failed UL certification so we can't actually say the magic phrase 'UL Listed'". I've seen some claim to be UL Listed without being able to find them on the UL site. Sure, it's nice to buy a cheap chinesium drone, but something moving 40amps of power and heat in your home without accepted safety checks? That feels like something that should have some liability on the merchant's side when it burns something down.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The number of generic chineesium chargers available that will move 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL certification is mind-boggingly high. Sounds like you're talking about third party EV chargers. What does this have to do with amazon basics? Or are you pulling a motte and bailey, going from "amazon basics is going to burn down your house" to "third party EV chargers are going to burn down your house"?
throw__away7391 3y ago
Nothing bought on Amazon should be consumed or applied topically or otherwise come into prolonged contact with your body. I learned this the hard way a few years back with some counterfeit shampoo that severely burned my scalp after a single use.
- enlightenedfool 3y ago
  Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for legal action.
  - inetknght 3y ago
    > Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for legal action. A lot of people don't have time, or money, to risk legal action.
  - throw__away7391 3y ago
    I put a negative review which was promptly taken down.
- asquabventured 3y ago
  I had the similar experience back in 2018... Led to temporary hair loss (I remember my hair falling out in tufts) from what I believe was counterfeit hair gel (it smelled different from same product I've used for years). Stopped using the product from Amazon and only ever order from reputable sites like Sephora and Nordstrom now. Amazon has lost all of my business for consumable goods. It's not worth the convenience to risk my own or my families health. Fuck 'em.
- y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
  I stopped buying health and beauty stuff on Amazon altogether due to the counterfeits or people returning items by replacing the actual product with something else which I ultimately end up getting. I had too many instances with vitamins and such where the labels and seals were sketchy, damaged, or didn't exist. Same with shampoos, lotions, face-washes, soaps, detergents, hot-tub supplies, etc. Reporting to the seller or Amazon was a pointless exercise as often times they'd shrug it off.
Sanzig 3y ago
> FDA confirmed through laboratory analyses that the “MANNERS Energy Boost,” “Round 2,” “Genergy,” and “X Max Triple Shot Energy Honey” products, purchased on www.amazon.com, contained the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) tadalafil; and the “WeFun,” “Big Guys Male Energy Supplement,” and “Mens Maximum Energy Supplement” products, also purchased on www.amazon.com, contained the API sildenafil. These ingredients are not declared on the products’ labeling. Sildenafil and tadalafil are phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors and the active ingredients in the FDA-approved prescription drugs Viagra and Cialis, respectively, used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). So Amazon was literally selling Viagra and Cialis disguised as a supplement. Wow.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Not just Amazon, every time these "ED supplements" are tested, most of them turn out to have actual pharmaceuticals in them. Here's a similar article from 5 years ago: https://www.wired.com/story/dietary-supplements-can-contain-viagra-steroids-or-worse/ https://www.wired.com/story/dietary-supplements-can-contain-...
- deleted 3y ago
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- bpodgursky 3y ago
  Can we have an honest conversation about whether there's any good reason for Viagra to require a prescription? The barrier right now is that you have to waste 2 hours and $100 to tell a doctor that you have ED. What's the point? It's not stopping anyone except people too poor or busy to jump through the hoops.
  - lokar 3y ago
    A middle ground is to let a pharmacist dispense it after going over side effects, instructions, interactions and existing conditions (without a Rx).
    - Sanzig 3y ago
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thenerdhead 3y ago
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pbj1968 3y ago
Heard a talk once by someone that managed nutrition for an NFL team. She said periodically clusters of players would pop positive for meth and inevitably it would be some new supplement that was giving them results and they told all their teammates about it. They’d just tell them to quit using it and move on. Interesting story, possibly true.
- Forgeties79 3y ago
  And I imagine a lot of nutritionists on teams kind of know what’s going on, but are disincentivized from looking too closely at it unless it could really hurt somebody. Or rather, it could hurt somebody enough for someone to notice immediately or impact their performance in the short term. This is obviously armchair speculation, but I’ve seen it in other industries, time and time again. Everyone kind of knows, but nobody wants to be the squeaky wheel that gets the star player - or major piece of equipment - out of commission.
  - LargeTomato 3y ago
    It's possible the nutritionists are also duped. They know that giving their athletes X mg of Y gives them better performance. They don't know that their particular X supplement is really just sugar pills and meth.
    - Forgeties79 3y ago
      Totally. I highly doubt there’s only one answer here. Though I would expect a nutritionist to know and understand the contents of any supplement they recommend to an athlete.
- dopa42365 3y ago
  Any even remotely WADA compliant drug testing uses chromatography, this story is most likely false.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
FartyMcFarter 3y ago
Anyone have an idea of what's likely to happen here? Fines or something more serious such as being barred from selling whole categories of products?
duxup 3y ago
More and more Amazon just seems like a "you're on your own" scam site. I can't figure out what I'm getting anymore. Half the listings are sponsored ads when I search. I searched for "Lego" this past Christmas and on the first page I got a bunch of products that were in what looked just like Lego boxes with Lego fonts and numbering ... but were not made by Lego and were clearly made to deceive. I noticed some items I get price alerts now will drop low but only one vendor is actually offering the low price ... who has terrible ratings. But you can't actually know that is happening unless you click through the UI a bunch, if you just buy it you'll see the overall rating that is fine... but you get it from some vendor with terrible ratings. I bought something last spring that was never delivered, turns out it was some random Chinese company. The item even says it wasn't delivered and yet I couldn't get a refund if I went through the order status page. It just sent me to one automated customer service who sent me to a different customer service who sent me back. Someone on HN had to tell me to go to the front page and contact "that customer service".... wtf I used to go to Amazon because it offered better selection and quality products that my local stores didn't sell. Now it's just low quality garbage and scams.
- Forgeties79 3y ago
  Your comment made me realize that the gap between Amazon and eBay has been steadily shrinking for years now. And it’s not because eBay is getting better, that’s for sure.
  - zargon 3y ago
    The gap has been widening for years. Because Amazon keeps getting worse.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  The good thing about Amazon is that they've made it increasingly easy to stop buying from them. Finding the things you need is increasingly difficult and even if you find it, most of it seems like obvious scams. Amazon went from a bookstore to the "everything store" and back to being just a book store, because those are the only items you can reasonably find and trust to not be scams. It must be rather difficult to be in the US where Amazon is so dominant, because I given up and just rely on local webshops.
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
About 15 years too late. Wonder what they'd find if they tested the protein, creatine, etc on Amazon.
- deleted 3y ago
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FartyMcFarter 3y ago
Yet another reminder that buying so called supplements should almost never be done, except for supplements that have been widely researched like multivitamins or creatine (and then only from reputable suppliers).
noodlesUK 3y ago
I think with the state of things, Amazon should be completely banned from selling anything that might be construed a supplement. They have such lax controls that your protein powder or vitamin pills might contain pretty much anything. Even reputable brands bought from their brand storefront might be counterfeit [1]. You’d be shocked at the number of things that are counterfeit. A friend of mine recently bought a niche optical device, and it turned out it was a fake, despite being allegedly sold by the manufacturer. Amazon needs to stop co-mingling inventory, and it also needs to stop selling things that have no safety testing whatsoever, especially in the food and supplement space. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...
- arcticfox 3y ago
  I used to think my wife was silly for spending more at beauty stores for her skincare products, but after realizing how insane Amazon's quality controls are, I think someone needs to actually shut them down. I wonder if there are any grounds for lawsuits. The number of counterfeit products they sell, even under "Sold by Amazon.com" is WILD. Zero supply chain discipline.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    obviously if Amazon sold something that damaged someone it would be grounds for suit under tort law, in which case the sky's the limit, and guessing the easy to find details of their behavior over the years any American jury would punish them.
    - jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
      Only a tiny few Americans can afford filing such types of lawsuits, and only a tiny few of those people are interested in pursuing such things.
      - baryphonic 3y ago
        Personal injury is serious business, and many personal injury attorneys work on contingency. Amazon has "deep pockets," so I doubt this is the reason.
deeth_starr_v 3y ago
It’s been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug but a feature
- tacheiordache 3y ago
  > It’s been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug but a feature And who knows what else!!! I'd never ingest anything that has Chinese provenance. Chinese garlic comes to mind as the latest thing to try to avoid. Not sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage. I'd rather be safe and avoid that altogether.
  - ta988 3y ago
    A lot of the garlic in yhe US is from China, so if you ate in a restaurant you likely had some already.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Not sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage. If that's your concern, you shouldn't be worried about just China. It's done in America as well. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/cities-turn-sewage-into-black-gold-for-local-farms https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/ci...
thedougd 3y ago
Do American grocery stores have better controls or does their broker model just happen to filter the junk?
- notyourwork 3y ago
  I wonder the same thing. It seems like something that at Amazon scale we pick on but at physical store scale we discard as not possible.
  - gehwartzen 3y ago
    I haven't hear about these problems at Walmart and would think the scale of stuff sold is comparable. I think the main problem, as others have mentioned, is that Amazon commingles products from various suppliers (so everything that comes in from a manufacturer or a true vetted wholesaler + 1000's of "flip stuff from china" garage operations get mixed up at Amazon warehouses before being sold).
    - arrowleaf 3y ago
      Right. Walmart doesn't let someone drive up with a semi-load of what looks like bags of King Arthur bread flour, mark the pallets with a tag, and cut them a check when they stock the items from that pallet onto the shelf. That's basically what Amazon does.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Walmart is known for having a very tight control over their suppy chains. IMHO, mostly for cost control, but quality control and authenticity are useful side effects.
- wccrawford 3y ago
  IMO, there's a couple things going on there. First, grocery stores work on a 3% margin, so if they have a ton of returns on something, it costs them a ton of money from credit card fees and wages, and possibly from losing the cost of some portion of the product. Second, grocery stores have limited space and are picky about what they'll put in their store. They want quality goods that will sell well, and they don't want to cannibalize other products that would make them more money. So random supplements don't find their way to their shelves.
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
I don’t think Amazon should have any protections for being a marketplace. Especially since we all found out about co-mingling, and how reviews are transferable between vendors and sometimes between products. They should be liable for any damages caused by these drugs, as well as patent/copyright/trademark infringement for any counterfeit products. I don’t feel the same for ebay, reverb, or facebook. I’m not sure where the line should be, but I’m certain Amazon crossed it. Plus their business model infected Newegg and even Walmart, and who knows how many others, it just needs to stop. Maybe it should be that either you’re a retailer or a marketplace, but never both? I don’t know the answer but it sucks and has sucked for a long time, and im too lazy to stop using it so i guess im part of the problem.
- ta988 3y ago
  Reviews are transferable? I was wondering because many reviews I have seen don't seem to be for the product I am looking at at all.
  - jacurtis 3y ago
    There is a blackmarket of repurposed Amazon Product Pages. This is a problem that Amazon knows about and does nothing to resolve. So the way it works is that some company makes a page for a stuffed animal for example. They name the product page appropriately and start selling their toys. They push hard and gets lots of reviews and build up the aSEO (amazon search Optimization) for that page. They build up 1,000 positive reviews for their stuffed animal averaging 4.8 stars. Cool. Now they decide to stop selling that toy and instead start selling fidget spinners. Why start from scratch and go through the work of building up all those reviews again and the aSEO that took years on the stuffed animal product. Instead they just go in and change the title, the URL slug and the images to represent the new Fidget Spinner. They publish the changes and now, within seconds of posting their new Fidget Spinner is one of the best reviewed fidget spinners on Amazon and starts immediately getting sales because the page has strong aSEO and high reviews which makes it present well in search results. Visitors of the page see the high reviews and buy the product. They start selling thousands of Fidget Spinners overnight and build up to 2,000 positive reviews. Now that company sells fidget spinners and then gets sued for using toxic glue in the building of their fidget spinners. No problem. THey change their name from SpinnyAltodaWidgetCorpIncUnlimitedPlus to ShenzenSpinnyWidgetToyPlusUnlimitedCorp. New company, now you can't sue them. Then they change the name on the product page and keep selling the same product with a different name and same reviews, building it up to 3,000. Now the company goes under. But they have all these high performing amazon pages. Here is where the fun begins, they literally go up for auction. Companies will page hundreds of thousands for a top performing amazon page. They sell the page to the highest bidder. Now a new company ShenzenShitzuSuperCorpPlusMegaChargerMorePlusPlus buys the page and starts selling Fish Oil supplements. They just change the name, images, URL, and company information, but it is technically the same amazon page. Then they start selling Fish Oil supplements with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.8 stars. They immediately shoot to the top of the search results and start selling thousands of bottles overnight because people are overwhelmed by the positive reviews of this product and its age and legacy on Amazon tells Amazon to push it to the top of search results. This is the black market of Amazon pages. These pages change hands often many times a year. Amazon could easily prevent product changes above a certain threshold or even across categories to prevent or eliminate this, but they don't want to. They are complicit in these behaviors by turning a blind eye to what they know is happening. Here is a detailed article about Hijacked Reviews from Consumer Reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-reviews-ratings/hijacked-reviews-on-amazon-can-trick-shoppers/ https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-reviews-ratings/hij... For example, in one review they find a phone charging cable that has reviews for zip ties, hand soap, shaving cream, and gaming headsets all in the reviews for a phone charging cable. This page has been hijacked several times by entirely different product types.
Xeoncross 3y ago
I purchased a vitamin c supplement that was pure white and odorless/tasteless. I posted a review and photos. Obviously fake filler of some sort, Amazon removed my review as inaccurate when it's obvious whatever was in those capsules was not ascorbic acid of any kind. They also claimed to have zinc (greenish) and elderberry (purple). It's not safe for Amazon to let any random exporter put stuff for sale without any sanity checks.
- asquabventured 3y ago
  When I reviewed a product as obviously fake they also removed my review. The company as a whole really kind of disgusts me now.
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    yeah they are kind of the last resort for me at this point when buying online.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  Ascorbic acid is cheap in bulk, something like less than $5/kg if you buy it by the ton. Maybe cheap enough to be the filler. And it is white and odorless in its pure form. It does have an acidic taste though, because it is an acid. I have some of it in my kitchen (pure bulk powder, not bought on Amazon) and I can tell you by experience.
  - BizarroLand 3y ago
    Did you get it to make cheese sauce with?
    - GuB-42 3y ago
      Actually, I got it for making bread, because someone recommended it to me. I didn't really test the difference though. I didn't know about cheese sauce, I may take a look at it. I have 250g of the stuff, probably enough to last me a lifetime considering the quantities used.
segmondy 3y ago
Don't buy anything from Amazon that you would put in your mouth, supplements, food, toothpaste, mouthwash, anything! I'm even wondering if to do the same for things applied to body as well, my wife recently bought a hair cream because from Amazon because she couldn't find it in stores. It was obvious the one from Amazon was not real when compared with the remaining ones she had. Package was perfect, but the color/texture of the cream was very different. It's a big chance buying things from online marketplace.
- Beijinger 3y ago
  Well, some stuff you can buy only online. Anecdote: I tried to market my own dietary supplements in the US for a while. Unfortunately I am poor in marketing but many customers loved it. I bought all the ingredients from a supplier, had it mixed in California and shipped to a company that can package it. For a slight taste I needed a tiny amount of sucralose. Did not want to buy a huge amount. So I ordered it on eBay. I asked the guy to send me a CoA and he did. It said Manufacturere Spectrum and Food grade. Unfortunately I knew that Spectrum was not selling this as food grade. Sure the guy could have made his own tests but how likely is this? I just trashed it and bought it somewhere else. Should have used Stevia anyway.
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TaylorSwift 3y ago
Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work, most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or calcium supplement with chalk. Some supplements do work, but since they're not regulated, they're drowned out by nonsense and noise. OK, so you don't want to be a rube?...you do your research and then piece of shit fitness influencers tell you "ohh...that vitamin you bought form Walgreens or Costco didn't work?...of course not, you need to buy mine...it's CHELATED!!!!! thus is more BIOAVAILBLE...or some other random scientific work which is either incorrectly used or outright fraudulent. Half of my family spends a huge fortune on supplements, most of which are placebos. If you're young, you may not understand, but for us over 40, life starts to suck, physically. When you're young, your body is very fault-tolerant...have 6 beers and a cheeseburger for supper every day for a week?...nothing a few tums can't fix. Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right (daily exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like shit most of the day....same with most my age...thus we're desperate for anything that will make us feel better and not have any side effects that make things worse. Supplements are the dream and an age-old scam. Maybe punishing big retailers who tolerate fraud will not only reduce false claims, but make the public more aware that so called health experts online are ignorant, scammers, or both.
- ta988 3y ago
  If you replace the Calcium with chalk you would still have a source of calcium so it wouldn't be that bad :D
  - achanda358 3y ago
    With different bioavailability
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    It's better than that. According to Wikipedia > Chalk is typically almost pure calcite, CaCO3, with just 2% to 4% of other minerals The supplement I just looked up uses Calcium Carbonate. That could just be purified chalk and be in compliance with the FDA. In fact, it probably is just that.
pfisherman 3y ago
I had the opportunity to get a peek at the FDA database of adulterated supplements and by far the most common type of adulteration was people spiking with viagra. I asked why and was told: “Man has been searching for an aphrodisiac for thousands of years and we finally found it. Of course they are going to put it in everything!”
- lostlogin 3y ago
  The product reviews would be interesting to read.
Blundermuffin 3y ago
The supplements in the letter say they contain the active ingredients found in many ED medications... This has been going on for years with those over the counter gas station products as well. The demand for these products is clearly big enough, and dozens of other countries sell these ED medications OTC at pharmacies. Maybe it's time the FDA approve those drugs for sale OTC and curb the madness.
- azinman2 3y ago
  If you did that you’d end up with a lot of deaths. These vasodilators are contraindicated for a wide variety of heart/health issues as well as other prescriptions.
  - pbj1968 3y ago
    Cull the herd.
    - Kerb_ 3y ago
      Certainly one of the most sadistic ways to say "dangers like that are well within the risk factors of most of the people willing to use them, and at some point you're responsible for paying attention to how your own medications interact".
oglop 3y ago
Do not buy supplements or anything you put in your body off Amazon. Just assume everything is made with fiberglass and dick pills, and shop with that mindset.
partiallypro 3y ago
I bought a lotion from Amazon recently that smells like Windex. I need to go to the store and see if the lotion in store has the same smell. I have a feeling it could be counterfeit, as I can't see this particular maker making a product with that smell.
MarCylinder 3y ago
Looks like a lot of uninformed opinions in here. As someone who has made a career consulting for supplement companies selling on Amazon, this does not surprise me. When Amazon first instituted testing requirements for supplements (something that already exists under federal law) they required all sellers to provide testing for all of their products. Failure to do so resulted in removal of your products from the marketplace. Since then, two things have changed. Certain supplement categories have additional testing requirements outside of what is expected by the FDA. Companies have to prove the absence of certain illegal ingredients. But, Amazon has switched to random testing requirements. In the last 3 years, Amazon has not asked a single one of my clients to provide any COAs. I have seen other brands have to provide some, but the requirements are very limited. It is for this reason, unsurprising that illegal products are making it into customer hands. It is my understanding that the individual who drove the campaign to get COAs, GMP certificates, etc for all supplement listings is no longer with Amazon, and nobody has filled that role since. That should be changed. But Amazon has always been aggressive over enforcement of marketing claims, and some claims will always instantly flag a COA requirement. Sellers use careful wording to avoid these flags. The solution is to make a COA required for the creation of these listings. I mean, let's take this one further. Most supplement companies are just marketing companies. They don't formulate the product, they don't manufacture the ingredients, and they don't even blend the powder. They make a brand. But, the FDA doesn't care. As a brand receiving product from a manufacturer, you are still required to test it. The manufacturer is also required to test the raw materials as well as the finished product. Yet, most companies I speak to are not testing product received. They rely solely on the manufacturer testing. So we should be requiring these brands to do their due diligence. Show me the COA you are supposed to have for every lot you send in. It's already required by the FDA. As is always the case with supplements, regulation is not the issue. It's enforcement
- Flammy 3y ago
  This is a really high quality comment you've written here, thank you for posting your perspective. For those of us who don't know about testing, can you explain COA/GMP and how robust the testing process is? The reason I ask I'm a little concerned about Amazon's incentives not being aligned with consumers priority for high quality and safe product and is letting suppliers choose which product(s) to submit for testing rather than doing periodic random testing which I fear is too much to hope/ask for...
pama 3y ago
It is great that the FDA does these random checks and can identify supplement and food items that contained erectile dysfunction drugs in them. It is a tough call to try and completely eliminate such products from all the marketplaces, especially when some approved US drugs may be not controlled in other countries. I’d trust Amazon as more able to do so than a random pharmacy or internet store. Let’s see how this story develops.
jrmg 3y ago
Not just Amazon. It’s very obvious that much of e.g. YouTube and Instagram’s funding (and that of creators) comes from ads for fraudulent and/or potentially dangerous medical supplements (not to mention other things like financial schemes or fraudulently described products).
1920musicman 3y ago
Since Amazon removed these products already, here is a link to one of the supplements mentioned in the letter: "X Max Triple Shot Energy Honey" (https://khan-alasal.com/honey-product/3-triple-shot-honey/ https://khan-alasal.com/honey-product/3-triple-shot-honey/). The company looks very shady, with no registered address and no contact details. They list dozens of "male energy" supplements that all apparently have been certified by HAACP (Safe Food Alliance, https://safefoodalliance.com/ https://safefoodalliance.com/).
- thorncorona 3y ago
  They're probably faked certs.
stainablesteel 3y ago
if only the FDA cared about vitamins this much
philip1209 3y ago
I've had so many issues with Amazon counterfeits lately. Most recently, it turned out that my Coravin cartridges were fake. I've returned to buying direct from the manufacturer for many branded consumables (such as fish oils).
FredPret 3y ago
Amazon is a scam site. I will buy my books from Indigo (Canada) from now on. Electronics and related doodads can come from Costco, Bestbuy, Walmart. Maybe it's not as convenient, but you know what you're getting. It's really unfortunate that Audible is in the Amazon family, because I'm not cancelling that any time soon. I know much of the internet runs on AWS, but I'll never really trust that either.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  > Amazon is a scam site. It is and I don't understand the downvotes here. With commingled inventory, I don't understand how people are ok with ingesting stuff they buy from Amazon.
- infamouscow 3y ago
  I've purchased quite a few paperbacks and hardcovers from Amazon because the author sidestepped the traditional publishing industry with Kindle Direct Publishing. I've enjoyed a number of book series this way.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    That is the one light in the darkness that is amazon.com
siliconc0w 3y ago
This is a real risk and why supplementation is probably not a good idea except for like specific conditions as recommended by your doctor (e.g pregnancy). In an unregulated space like this, it's basically impossible to know what you're getting which can range from ineffective to seriously harmful (heavy metals, toxins, or active pharmaceuticals). Better to get micronutrients from bio-available sources and optimize diet, sleep, and exercise. It's also relatively expensive compared to the usually marginal benefit. Most likely you should sock away that spend into an index so you can afford the more effective and expensive therapies that our healthcare system doesn't give you access to (because it generally won't pay for prevention).
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nblgbg 3y ago
Recently, I noticed that Amazon removed the listed ingredients for regular items like toothpaste, shampoos, and mouthwashes. Initially, I thought it was a mistake for a couple of items I regularly buy, but it seems they have removed this information for many products. I'm not sure what the intention behind this change is. My suspicion now (after this article) is that they are doing it deliberately, allowing them to claim that the page doesn't list ingredients for any item.
sameermanek 3y ago
Amazon was a great site! I still remember buying my first converse from amazon in 2011. Back then, there were no nike stores in my town in India and i badly wanted one. I bought from a few local resellers who sold me duplicate products and i wasted a lot of my money on that. Now, the tables have turned. If i want a genuine product, i often shop locally rather than amazon. They even messed up my socks and sent duplicate versions of fairly common books like harry potter. The whole site seems to be promoting bad products, placing something not even Remotely close to my searches. "Looking for a yoga mat? Here's a chinese fitness tracker we think you might be interested in".. the fuck?? On top of that, the bad quality supplements they sell are just nerve wrecking. Almost no information is factual, No usage guidelines, nothing. And the reviews are just another scam by themselves! All in all, it's a really bad product now!
- Tao3300 3y ago
  IMO Cons (at least Chuck Taylors) themselves have been counterfeit garbage for a while now. They imbue the soles with paper so they can dodge tariffs by calling them slippers. They don't pass the savings from this on to the consumer, and the traction is terrible.
NanoYohaneTSU 3y ago
This is so hilariously pathetic. MISBRANDING???? HOW DARE YOU!!!!! FDA has been worthless for a long time and only acts as a barrier to stop idiots from buying products that lie. Let them die.
diego_sandoval 3y ago
So, Amazon sold drugs illegally and all they have to do now is send a letter promising that they won't do it again? No fines, no lawsuits?
LanzVonL 3y ago
Amazon is totally jam packed with scams, it's actually pretty shocking.
narrator 3y ago
Lol, looks like these guys the FDA wrote the letter about were selling absurdly cheap generic viagra and cialis.
Groxx 3y ago
Driving food- and medical-adjacent stuff off of Amazon and their un-checked mixed-binning insanity would be fantastic. They've been allowed to play fast and loose with safety for far too long.
epgui 3y ago
Biochemist here: for a whole bunch of biology & administrative reasons, the supplement industry is more scam than science.
mberning 3y ago
Big Pharma using their bought and paid for henchmen to protect their turf. The mob wishes they were ever this successful.
BobbyTables2 3y ago
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CamelCaseName 3y ago
Way too late. Way too little. This is honestly pathetic. Supplements on Amazon have been a disaster for the better part of a decade, maybe longer. It's painful to see abuse after abuse and little regulatory action. Except in a very small handful of situations, the best case scenario is that the company pays a small fine. That fine gets announced years after the abuse, then, that pittance gets litigated down over even more years. The risk adjusted present value might as well be zero. Why would any company ever do the right thing?

495 points by mkmk 3y ago

I’m glad the conclusion says the products lists are not the only ones to which this letter applies. Otherwise Amazon could just remove the products mentioned and make the FDA play wack-a-mole. As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average person to protect themselves.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
The FDA likely needs a data team if they don’t have one already to monitor Amazon for ongoing compliance. Similar to the SEC’s data team that monitors capital market data flows for anomalies that would indicate illegal behavior. My two cents: good market to be looking for good data folks who might want a (potentially remote) federal agency data job with shakiness in tech. https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-science/ https://usajobs.github.io/microsite-data-science/
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  If you've ever been with a startup that needed a 510k, you'd know that the FDA regularly monitors everyone for compliance. At least in my narrow domain of medical imaging and treatment planning devices they do. I'd be surprised if they didn't have similar mechanisms in place in every area of their 'jurisdiction'. It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just distributors. Doesn't really even hurt me. If RTP is a part of my software product I should be under a microscope. It's going to be small people who try to market supplements who will get trounced now. Because every report will, by law, have to include the source of the product. And that source company or individual is in for a long year. Even shutting down won't end their legal obligations in a lot of cases. On the other hand, that was, in part, the original point of the FDA. To stamp out the snake oil salesmen. So, yeah. I guess they're just carrying out that mandate in new and updated ways.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I am not unsympathetic to the disparity you mention, but am advocating that distributor gorillas (like Amazon, but others as well) need strong controls (both regulatory and technical) due to their incentives to not be compliant and the potential negative outcomes (illness, perhaps death even, depending on material and consumer) from non compliance.
    - tacheiordache 3y ago
      Absolutely. And Amazon should also pay for it!
      - bilbo0s 3y ago
        Not how it works. Everyone pays. Amazon for their part. The producer for their part. Anyone that is provably in between is held accountable as well. Usually it's the producer that gets hit the hardest. Not disagreeing with that. That's what should happen. Just listing another in a litany of reasons that it's far worse for the producer/manufacturer than for the distributor. Think about it, your grocer rarely suffers the same consequences that a poultry producer does in the event of a poultry recall for instance.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    > It doesn't really hurt the Amazons, they're just distributors. I'm doing my first FDA-monitored automation project at a local brewery, and am quickly becoming familiar with the abundant controls that the FDA puts on domestic producers. But the FDA is an American organization. Amazon or Ebay or Aliexpress or whoever may be just distributors, but they're international distributors. They're fully-automated self-service distributors for manufacturers in China and Russia and Indonesia and India who aren't subject to FDA jurisdiction, who sometimes aren't subject to any oversight at all. The only entity that the FDA can go after here is Amazon, so this should hurt Amazon.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      The FCC should be going after them too. A lot of the wireless stuff they sell isn't registered.
- altairprime 3y ago
  If Amazon fails to comply with the auditing requirements imposed by law, their entire retail shipping business could be closed by the US federal government. The FDA need only prove that Amazon has a pattern of negligence in their product auditing duties under law, in order to impose severe penalties, up to and including shuttering Amazon FBA. The FDA is not required to perform inventory assessments as a free service for Amazon in order to reach that final outcome. This letter is the first, necessary, step towards doing so.
  - serial_dev 3y ago
    I assume it's still a move with lots of politicking involved, so they need to stand on solid grounds, proof and all, I don't think they would every take lightly closing down vone of the biggest companies of the country (and the world). If it ever happened, I can already see the endless coverage by Sean Hannity and similar about how it's governmental overreach that risks destroying an important US company with X thousands employees... However, I don't think it will ever happen, in the end it's one of the richest men, Jeff Bezos behind Amazon with significant influence on news reporting, who seems to be on good terms with both the Republicans and Democrats, and the regulatory agencies in the US just didn't show a pattern of going too hard against US companies.
    - altairprime 3y ago
      I definitely don’t have a well-formed opinion on how likely such an outcome is, but I absolutely believe that discussing that outcome as a serious concern is necessary discussion to have.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      It's a good thing that regulatory actions are slow going and difficult to prove under the law, otherwise the commons would be subject to powertripping leaders above clouds far more than they are already. It also means that if things do get to such a point, then the action will come down swift and heavy in a manner generally agreeable to the majority of the commons.
    - trogdor 3y ago
fallingknife 3y ago
I'm certainly in favor of these regulations that require supplements and food products to accurately list ingredients. I'm also in favor of the FDA coming down hard on violators. But it seems perfectly reasonable that law enforcement should have to play whack a mole. That's kind and of how it works with innocent until proven guilty. I'm not a fan of the whole "you enforce it for us or we come after you" approach. In reality what it means is that gate keepers like Amazon have to put in place policies that are much more strict than the actual rules in order to avoid even a chance of getting hit. Agencies like the FDA know this and use it as a way to put in place de facto policies that are much stricter than they could legislate.
- werico 3y ago
  I totally get where you're coming from, but the problem with enforcement-by-whack-a-mole is that some crimes are very cheap and easy to carry out and very difficult to detect and prosecute. The asymmetry means criminals are incentivized to commit those crimes, and can even become fantastically wealthy by doing so. If there isn't an offsetting risk for them (or control), then they're going to do it. Some of those crimes can ruin victims' lives, and in some cases (like this) people can die. We simply can't afford to use no other enforcement strategies. A good example of where we threw out the upfront controls was COVID relief money, and that was a disaster in terms of fraud. (Admittedly a purely government program, but the same principle applies.)
- bumby 3y ago
  I think it's a distinction in risk philosophy. The whack-a-mole approach is "continue until we find you unsafe" while the other approach is "don't start until you prove you're safe". I think both approaches can be reasonable depending on the level of risk. When it comes to supplements tainted with unlisted ingredients that can have harmful or deadly effects for consumers, I personally think the latter is the better approach.
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    But the risk level is very low. The stats I see show less than 20 hospitalizations and 2 deaths per year due to bad supplements. https://time.com/5602125/dietary-supplements-kids/ https://time.com/5602125/dietary-supplements-kids/
1920musicman 3y ago
I searched for all products mentioned in the letter - they are all gone. Amazon is quick to react to such public letters to pretend that they are a responsible company. Saying that, the search returns hundreds of other supplements in the same category, with similar nonsensical names. They are certainly attempting to play wack-a-mole.
- ssgodderidge 3y ago
  I think the speed to remove the noted items isn’t suspect; it’s what I would expect a responsible company to do in this scenario. However, I am curious to see how Amazon handles the other drugs. Seems like pausing the sale of the entire category is the right call
  - 1920musicman 3y ago
    The category these supplements were listed under is "Sports Nutrition Endurance & Energy Products" with some legitimate products listed under it. I doubt Amazon would delist the entire category. But also, something tells me that sellers would just list products under a different category without any meaningful consequences. E.g. these or similar tainted supplements could be listed under "Health, Household, and Body Care" (a very broad category that already has products like "stripfast5000 Fire Bullet Capsules with K-CYTRO for Women and Men" listed under it), etc.
  - treprinum 3y ago
    Amazon bans all sellers that ever attempt to sell/list anything Amazon bans even if the ban was not made public (unless they pay their "consultants" closely connected to managers to unban them of course).
stickfigure 3y ago
Genuine question: What level of scrutiny do you think Amazon should provide here? In vaguely increasing level of detail/effort, it could be... * Checking the published label of items for illicit content * Checking the contents of one bottle for undeclared ingredients * Checking the contents of all bottles for undeclared ingredients * Checking the contents of all pills in all bottles for undeclared ingredients ...etc. I guess what I'm wondering is, what course of action do you think is reasonable for Amazon to take here? It's easy to say "don't allow this to happen"; I'm curious about what that actually translates to in practice.
- Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
  It is an interesting question. How much cocaine goes via Amazon? Or ephedrine, or ecstasy... Etc
- giarc 3y ago
  GNC (and likely other online supplement stores) have an online presence and likely has some QA for the products they sell. Amazon just insists on having 1,000,000+ listings for supplements rather than a more curated list. Perhaps some categories shouldn't have endless list of products.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The only QA in the "supplement" and "vitamin" business I know of is USP: https://www.quality-supplements.org https://www.quality-supplements.org Although, I have no clue if USP simply rubber stamps it once time, or if they do continuous testing of the products. If I were to bet, I would say they probably do not test often enough after initial certification.
- verall 3y ago
  Supplements should probably not be sold in a marketplace fashion by fly-by-night distributors by a major trusted brand (amazon). Businesses that sell supplements should create trusted relationships with their suppliers to not break the rules and to limit their own liability.
nradov 3y ago
The FDA does some good work, but they have no authority to specifically approve or certify most types of nutritional supplements. If you want to know what you're actually getting and avoid contamination, then only buy supplements when have been certified by the NSF. https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/supplement-vitamin-certification https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/supplement-v... https://www.nsfsport.com/ https://www.nsfsport.com/ Amazon.com does have their own certification program for dietary supplements, but it seems like the rules aren't consistently enforced. https://blog.ansi.org/anab/requirements-sell-dietary-supplements-amazon/ https://blog.ansi.org/anab/requirements-sell-dietary-supplem...
loeg 3y ago
> As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This stuff can kill people and it is impossible for the average person to protect themselves. The mislabeling is certainly a problem, but really these drugs (sildenafil and tadalafil) should be over-the-counter and cheaply available on Amazon as generics. That they are not is a failure of the same FDA. They have a great safety profile and limited contraindications, comparable to many other OTC drugs.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> As a side note, this letter is exactly why I think a regulatory agency like the FDA is absolutely necessary. This isn't what anybody objects to about the FDA. "You have to list what's in the product" is a simple rule that every knows, is easy to comply with, and doesn't require any government interaction even in the case of a suspected violation because the FDA can just buy the product to test it and compare the lab results to the label. What people object to is when someone wants to sell an accurately labeled product with a risk-benefit trade off, the customer knows what the product is and is exercising informed consent, and the government says they can't have it anyway.
- wredue 3y ago
  >doesn’t require any government interaction Dude what? Government around the world are constantly catching corporations for lying on their product lists. As for controlled substances, on this topic is a completely fine line which I’d probably tend to agree is not treaded properly. There are risk trade offs to allowing open markets on classes of drugs. With that said, the massive propaganda campaigns corporations get up to completely subvert that risk, and 100% leaves consumers uninformed even with the proper information at their fingertips: as a major example, the opioid crisis, leaded fuels, leaded paints, carcinogenic materials handling. I mean, the list really goes on and on. The issue with the FDA has time and time and time again been demonstrated to be how toothless it is. Corporations constantly ignore regulation for billions in profits, only to receive a sternly worded letter and MAYBE a 0.01% of profits fine.
  - nickff 3y ago
    Governments around the world are terrible at 'catching corporations for lying' in any way. There are manifold examples in every regulatory field, in every country. Examples include Wirecard, Theranos, Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson talc, etc. In most cases, the regulators are handed the evidence, and take a long time to do anything about it. In my mind, the question is whether the massive regulatory burdens which protect incumbents and inhibit liberty are worth it. This is not an all-or-nothing question, and might be answered field-by-field, but regulators have not covered themselves in glory.
ineedaj0b 3y ago
I don’t want to sound like a nut job, but please look into how much the FDA hampers drug trails. If you understand how tough it is in one case, think how many trails yearly never get done because of the FDA. The amount of benefit vs. the amount of deaths caused by the FDA being slow likely means many more are deaths at the hands of the FDA than you expect. Cracking down on supplements that people take voluntary hardly seems like something I’m pleased they meddle with too.
- neaden 3y ago
  You're only taking them voluntarily if they are what they say they are, if as in this case they aren't you aren't meaningfully taking them voluntarily.
  - Tao3300 3y ago
    Buying shady penis pills on the Internet is a voluntary risk. Play stupid games, win stupid heart attacks and priapisms. Though I do think Amazon should have a share of the blame. Buyer and seller are both wrong here.
- hibikir 3y ago
  It's possible, and even a good idea, to say that the FDA massively overregulates drug trials, while at the same time also say that the current supplement market is almost just as massively underregulated, and would be far healthier with more oversight. Organizations, just like people, can do good and bad things at the same time. I am very happy they crack down on supplements, a kind of product that is filled with fraud and that I lack the resources to make informed purchases on. I would also be just as happy if they started cross-approving drugs with the EU and Australia. They are neither angels nor the devil.
pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Well, on the flip side: the whole reason these are sold is that the FDA is preventing the substance from being sold OTC. This is not an example of a manufacturer putting something unwanted in the product. It's all just a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of a deal with willing buyers. It creates some risk of accidents, but I doubt there were any. I'm not sure the regulation here is great. As with Rx-only contraception, these regulations force patients to spend money and discuss their intimate life with a doctor for no real reason, which many people find difficult. And it's not like you undergo thorough screening to get Viagra anyway. A doctor is not gonna say "no". The problem with bodies such as the FDA is that once they address grave risks, they seldom reach this point of "OK, we fixed the problem of arsenic in patent medicine, so let's scale back for now." Instead, the bureaucracies only grow. Today, far too many drugs are Rx-only and stay this way for too long. The need for prescriptions for equipment such as eyeglasses or contact lenses is hard to justify too.
- lwhi 3y ago
  It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk. If wrongly prescribed equipment can cause harm, it's very justifiable that a license scheme is put in place.
  - bjt 3y ago
    > It's the job of a regulatory body to reduce risk. Sure, and the parent comment's point was that there's a line where further risk reduction doesn't make sense anymore. The agency doesn't have the right incentives to stop at that line. Plenty of very significant risks aren't regulated to the degree that Viagra and Cialis are. You don't need a note from a doctor or a govt-issued permit to buy kitchen knives or a table saw or a Bic lighter, for example.
    - lwhi 3y ago
      Kitchen knives have multiple uses and discretion through education is expected as standard. Viagra and Cialis have a singular use and contraindications aren't likely to be understood through cultural osmosis.
adolph 3y ago
A regulatory agency was fine for a world with a finite number of trusted vendors working operating in the the agency jurisdiction. Reliable consumer owned/operated molecular characterization is needed for a future that moves faster and farther than an agency or regulation.

jeffrallen 3y ago

Cool! Now do their crappy cords that are likely to burn down your house. Amazon Basics should be terminated with prejudice.

gruez 3y ago
I checked a random amazon basics powerstrip and there's an ETL certification mark on them. As much as it's popular to hate on amazon for fakes/subquality products, your particular example is a poor one. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/I/61oYtdtgmVL._AC_SL1500_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/...
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  Funnily enough AmazonBasics is probably the safest set of products on Amazon, as nobody but Amazon is allowed to sell those products. A brand name item might be a fake, but AmazonBasics is always the original (potentially crappy anyway) product.
- floatrock 3y ago
  EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The number of generic chineesium chargers available that will move 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL certification is mind-boggingly high. I've seen some advertise "UL Safety Report", which I assume is weasel-words for "We failed UL certification so we can't actually say the magic phrase 'UL Listed'". I've seen some claim to be UL Listed without being able to find them on the UL site. Sure, it's nice to buy a cheap chinesium drone, but something moving 40amps of power and heat in your home without accepted safety checks? That feels like something that should have some liability on the merchant's side when it burns something down.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >EV Chargers then. Search for Level 2 EV Charger. The number of generic chineesium chargers available that will move 40amps of power in your garage without UL or ETL certification is mind-boggingly high. Sounds like you're talking about third party EV chargers. What does this have to do with amazon basics? Or are you pulling a motte and bailey, going from "amazon basics is going to burn down your house" to "third party EV chargers are going to burn down your house"?

throw__away7391 3y ago

Nothing bought on Amazon should be consumed or applied topically or otherwise come into prolonged contact with your body. I learned this the hard way a few years back with some counterfeit shampoo that severely burned my scalp after a single use.

enlightenedfool 3y ago
Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for legal action.
- inetknght 3y ago
  > Did you take any action at all? Sounds serious enough for legal action. A lot of people don't have time, or money, to risk legal action.
- throw__away7391 3y ago
  I put a negative review which was promptly taken down.
asquabventured 3y ago
I had the similar experience back in 2018... Led to temporary hair loss (I remember my hair falling out in tufts) from what I believe was counterfeit hair gel (it smelled different from same product I've used for years). Stopped using the product from Amazon and only ever order from reputable sites like Sephora and Nordstrom now. Amazon has lost all of my business for consumable goods. It's not worth the convenience to risk my own or my families health. Fuck 'em.
y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
I stopped buying health and beauty stuff on Amazon altogether due to the counterfeits or people returning items by replacing the actual product with something else which I ultimately end up getting. I had too many instances with vitamins and such where the labels and seals were sketchy, damaged, or didn't exist. Same with shampoos, lotions, face-washes, soaps, detergents, hot-tub supplies, etc. Reporting to the seller or Amazon was a pointless exercise as often times they'd shrug it off.

Sanzig 3y ago

> FDA confirmed through laboratory analyses that the “MANNERS Energy Boost,” “Round 2,” “Genergy,” and “X Max Triple Shot Energy Honey” products, purchased on www.amazon.com, contained the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) tadalafil; and the “WeFun,” “Big Guys Male Energy Supplement,” and “Mens Maximum Energy Supplement” products, also purchased on www.amazon.com, contained the API sildenafil. These ingredients are not declared on the products’ labeling. Sildenafil and tadalafil are phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors and the active ingredients in the FDA-approved prescription drugs Viagra and Cialis, respectively, used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). So Amazon was literally selling Viagra and Cialis disguised as a supplement. Wow.

EA-3167 3y ago
Not just Amazon, every time these "ED supplements" are tested, most of them turn out to have actual pharmaceuticals in them. Here's a similar article from 5 years ago: https://www.wired.com/story/dietary-supplements-can-contain-viagra-steroids-or-worse/ https://www.wired.com/story/dietary-supplements-can-contain-...
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bpodgursky 3y ago
Can we have an honest conversation about whether there's any good reason for Viagra to require a prescription? The barrier right now is that you have to waste 2 hours and $100 to tell a doctor that you have ED. What's the point? It's not stopping anyone except people too poor or busy to jump through the hoops.
- lokar 3y ago
  A middle ground is to let a pharmacist dispense it after going over side effects, instructions, interactions and existing conditions (without a Rx).
  - Sanzig 3y ago

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thenerdhead 3y ago

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pbj1968 3y ago

Heard a talk once by someone that managed nutrition for an NFL team. She said periodically clusters of players would pop positive for meth and inevitably it would be some new supplement that was giving them results and they told all their teammates about it. They’d just tell them to quit using it and move on. Interesting story, possibly true.

Forgeties79 3y ago
And I imagine a lot of nutritionists on teams kind of know what’s going on, but are disincentivized from looking too closely at it unless it could really hurt somebody. Or rather, it could hurt somebody enough for someone to notice immediately or impact their performance in the short term. This is obviously armchair speculation, but I’ve seen it in other industries, time and time again. Everyone kind of knows, but nobody wants to be the squeaky wheel that gets the star player - or major piece of equipment - out of commission.
- LargeTomato 3y ago
  It's possible the nutritionists are also duped. They know that giving their athletes X mg of Y gives them better performance. They don't know that their particular X supplement is really just sugar pills and meth.
  - Forgeties79 3y ago
    Totally. I highly doubt there’s only one answer here. Though I would expect a nutritionist to know and understand the contents of any supplement they recommend to an athlete.
dopa42365 3y ago
Any even remotely WADA compliant drug testing uses chromatography, this story is most likely false.
- hotpotamus 3y ago

FartyMcFarter 3y ago

Anyone have an idea of what's likely to happen here? Fines or something more serious such as being barred from selling whole categories of products?

duxup 3y ago

More and more Amazon just seems like a "you're on your own" scam site. I can't figure out what I'm getting anymore. Half the listings are sponsored ads when I search. I searched for "Lego" this past Christmas and on the first page I got a bunch of products that were in what looked just like Lego boxes with Lego fonts and numbering ... but were not made by Lego and were clearly made to deceive. I noticed some items I get price alerts now will drop low but only one vendor is actually offering the low price ... who has terrible ratings. But you can't actually know that is happening unless you click through the UI a bunch, if you just buy it you'll see the overall rating that is fine... but you get it from some vendor with terrible ratings. I bought something last spring that was never delivered, turns out it was some random Chinese company. The item even says it wasn't delivered and yet I couldn't get a refund if I went through the order status page. It just sent me to one automated customer service who sent me to a different customer service who sent me back. Someone on HN had to tell me to go to the front page and contact "that customer service".... wtf I used to go to Amazon because it offered better selection and quality products that my local stores didn't sell. Now it's just low quality garbage and scams.

Forgeties79 3y ago
Your comment made me realize that the gap between Amazon and eBay has been steadily shrinking for years now. And it’s not because eBay is getting better, that’s for sure.
- zargon 3y ago
  The gap has been widening for years. Because Amazon keeps getting worse.
mrweasel 3y ago
The good thing about Amazon is that they've made it increasingly easy to stop buying from them. Finding the things you need is increasingly difficult and even if you find it, most of it seems like obvious scams. Amazon went from a bookstore to the "everything store" and back to being just a book store, because those are the only items you can reasonably find and trust to not be scams. It must be rather difficult to be in the US where Amazon is so dominant, because I given up and just rely on local webshops.

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

About 15 years too late. Wonder what they'd find if they tested the protein, creatine, etc on Amazon.

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FartyMcFarter 3y ago

Yet another reminder that buying so called supplements should almost never be done, except for supplements that have been widely researched like multivitamins or creatine (and then only from reputable suppliers).

noodlesUK 3y ago

I think with the state of things, Amazon should be completely banned from selling anything that might be construed a supplement. They have such lax controls that your protein powder or vitamin pills might contain pretty much anything. Even reputable brands bought from their brand storefront might be counterfeit [1]. You’d be shocked at the number of things that are counterfeit. A friend of mine recently bought a niche optical device, and it turned out it was a fake, despite being allegedly sold by the manufacturer. Amazon needs to stop co-mingling inventory, and it also needs to stop selling things that have no safety testing whatsoever, especially in the food and supplement space. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

arcticfox 3y ago
I used to think my wife was silly for spending more at beauty stores for her skincare products, but after realizing how insane Amazon's quality controls are, I think someone needs to actually shut them down. I wonder if there are any grounds for lawsuits. The number of counterfeit products they sell, even under "Sold by Amazon.com" is WILD. Zero supply chain discipline.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  obviously if Amazon sold something that damaged someone it would be grounds for suit under tort law, in which case the sky's the limit, and guessing the easy to find details of their behavior over the years any American jury would punish them.
  - jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
    Only a tiny few Americans can afford filing such types of lawsuits, and only a tiny few of those people are interested in pursuing such things.
    - baryphonic 3y ago
      Personal injury is serious business, and many personal injury attorneys work on contingency. Amazon has "deep pockets," so I doubt this is the reason.

deeth_starr_v 3y ago

It’s been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug but a feature

tacheiordache 3y ago
> It’s been common knowledge that any Chinese ED supplement on Amazon that is effective has Viagra in it. This is not a bug but a feature And who knows what else!!! I'd never ingest anything that has Chinese provenance. Chinese garlic comes to mind as the latest thing to try to avoid. Not sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage. I'd rather be safe and avoid that altogether.
- ta988 3y ago
  A lot of the garlic in yhe US is from China, so if you ate in a restaurant you likely had some already.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Not sure if true but it seems to be grown in sewage. If that's your concern, you shouldn't be worried about just China. It's done in America as well. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/cities-turn-sewage-into-black-gold-for-local-farms https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/10/176822392/ci...

thedougd 3y ago

Do American grocery stores have better controls or does their broker model just happen to filter the junk?

notyourwork 3y ago
I wonder the same thing. It seems like something that at Amazon scale we pick on but at physical store scale we discard as not possible.
- gehwartzen 3y ago
  I haven't hear about these problems at Walmart and would think the scale of stuff sold is comparable. I think the main problem, as others have mentioned, is that Amazon commingles products from various suppliers (so everything that comes in from a manufacturer or a true vetted wholesaler + 1000's of "flip stuff from china" garage operations get mixed up at Amazon warehouses before being sold).
  - arrowleaf 3y ago
    Right. Walmart doesn't let someone drive up with a semi-load of what looks like bags of King Arthur bread flour, mark the pallets with a tag, and cut them a check when they stock the items from that pallet onto the shelf. That's basically what Amazon does.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Walmart is known for having a very tight control over their suppy chains. IMHO, mostly for cost control, but quality control and authenticity are useful side effects.
wccrawford 3y ago
IMO, there's a couple things going on there. First, grocery stores work on a 3% margin, so if they have a ton of returns on something, it costs them a ton of money from credit card fees and wages, and possibly from losing the cost of some portion of the product. Second, grocery stores have limited space and are picky about what they'll put in their store. They want quality goods that will sell well, and they don't want to cannibalize other products that would make them more money. So random supplements don't find their way to their shelves.

dec0dedab0de 3y ago

I don’t think Amazon should have any protections for being a marketplace. Especially since we all found out about co-mingling, and how reviews are transferable between vendors and sometimes between products. They should be liable for any damages caused by these drugs, as well as patent/copyright/trademark infringement for any counterfeit products. I don’t feel the same for ebay, reverb, or facebook. I’m not sure where the line should be, but I’m certain Amazon crossed it. Plus their business model infected Newegg and even Walmart, and who knows how many others, it just needs to stop. Maybe it should be that either you’re a retailer or a marketplace, but never both? I don’t know the answer but it sucks and has sucked for a long time, and im too lazy to stop using it so i guess im part of the problem.

ta988 3y ago
Reviews are transferable? I was wondering because many reviews I have seen don't seem to be for the product I am looking at at all.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  There is a blackmarket of repurposed Amazon Product Pages. This is a problem that Amazon knows about and does nothing to resolve. So the way it works is that some company makes a page for a stuffed animal for example. They name the product page appropriately and start selling their toys. They push hard and gets lots of reviews and build up the aSEO (amazon search Optimization) for that page. They build up 1,000 positive reviews for their stuffed animal averaging 4.8 stars. Cool. Now they decide to stop selling that toy and instead start selling fidget spinners. Why start from scratch and go through the work of building up all those reviews again and the aSEO that took years on the stuffed animal product. Instead they just go in and change the title, the URL slug and the images to represent the new Fidget Spinner. They publish the changes and now, within seconds of posting their new Fidget Spinner is one of the best reviewed fidget spinners on Amazon and starts immediately getting sales because the page has strong aSEO and high reviews which makes it present well in search results. Visitors of the page see the high reviews and buy the product. They start selling thousands of Fidget Spinners overnight and build up to 2,000 positive reviews. Now that company sells fidget spinners and then gets sued for using toxic glue in the building of their fidget spinners. No problem. THey change their name from SpinnyAltodaWidgetCorpIncUnlimitedPlus to ShenzenSpinnyWidgetToyPlusUnlimitedCorp. New company, now you can't sue them. Then they change the name on the product page and keep selling the same product with a different name and same reviews, building it up to 3,000. Now the company goes under. But they have all these high performing amazon pages. Here is where the fun begins, they literally go up for auction. Companies will page hundreds of thousands for a top performing amazon page. They sell the page to the highest bidder. Now a new company ShenzenShitzuSuperCorpPlusMegaChargerMorePlusPlus buys the page and starts selling Fish Oil supplements. They just change the name, images, URL, and company information, but it is technically the same amazon page. Then they start selling Fish Oil supplements with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.8 stars. They immediately shoot to the top of the search results and start selling thousands of bottles overnight because people are overwhelmed by the positive reviews of this product and its age and legacy on Amazon tells Amazon to push it to the top of search results. This is the black market of Amazon pages. These pages change hands often many times a year. Amazon could easily prevent product changes above a certain threshold or even across categories to prevent or eliminate this, but they don't want to. They are complicit in these behaviors by turning a blind eye to what they know is happening. Here is a detailed article about Hijacked Reviews from Consumer Reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-reviews-ratings/hijacked-reviews-on-amazon-can-trick-shoppers/ https://www.consumerreports.org/customer-reviews-ratings/hij... For example, in one review they find a phone charging cable that has reviews for zip ties, hand soap, shaving cream, and gaming headsets all in the reviews for a phone charging cable. This page has been hijacked several times by entirely different product types.

Xeoncross 3y ago

I purchased a vitamin c supplement that was pure white and odorless/tasteless. I posted a review and photos. Obviously fake filler of some sort, Amazon removed my review as inaccurate when it's obvious whatever was in those capsules was not ascorbic acid of any kind. They also claimed to have zinc (greenish) and elderberry (purple). It's not safe for Amazon to let any random exporter put stuff for sale without any sanity checks.

asquabventured 3y ago
When I reviewed a product as obviously fake they also removed my review. The company as a whole really kind of disgusts me now.
- wombat-man 3y ago
  yeah they are kind of the last resort for me at this point when buying online.
GuB-42 3y ago
Ascorbic acid is cheap in bulk, something like less than $5/kg if you buy it by the ton. Maybe cheap enough to be the filler. And it is white and odorless in its pure form. It does have an acidic taste though, because it is an acid. I have some of it in my kitchen (pure bulk powder, not bought on Amazon) and I can tell you by experience.
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  Did you get it to make cheese sauce with?
  - GuB-42 3y ago
    Actually, I got it for making bread, because someone recommended it to me. I didn't really test the difference though. I didn't know about cheese sauce, I may take a look at it. I have 250g of the stuff, probably enough to last me a lifetime considering the quantities used.

segmondy 3y ago

Don't buy anything from Amazon that you would put in your mouth, supplements, food, toothpaste, mouthwash, anything! I'm even wondering if to do the same for things applied to body as well, my wife recently bought a hair cream because from Amazon because she couldn't find it in stores. It was obvious the one from Amazon was not real when compared with the remaining ones she had. Package was perfect, but the color/texture of the cream was very different. It's a big chance buying things from online marketplace.

Beijinger 3y ago
Well, some stuff you can buy only online. Anecdote: I tried to market my own dietary supplements in the US for a while. Unfortunately I am poor in marketing but many customers loved it. I bought all the ingredients from a supplier, had it mixed in California and shipped to a company that can package it. For a slight taste I needed a tiny amount of sucralose. Did not want to buy a huge amount. So I ordered it on eBay. I asked the guy to send me a CoA and he did. It said Manufacturere Spectrum and Food grade. Unfortunately I knew that Spectrum was not selling this as food grade. Sure the guy could have made his own tests but how likely is this? I just trashed it and bought it somewhere else. Should have used Stevia anyway.

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TaylorSwift 3y ago

Most supplements are garbage. Since they don't actually work, most people would never know if you replaced their magnesium or calcium supplement with chalk. Some supplements do work, but since they're not regulated, they're drowned out by nonsense and noise. OK, so you don't want to be a rube?...you do your research and then piece of shit fitness influencers tell you "ohh...that vitamin you bought form Walgreens or Costco didn't work?...of course not, you need to buy mine...it's CHELATED!!!!! thus is more BIOAVAILBLE...or some other random scientific work which is either incorrectly used or outright fraudulent. Half of my family spends a huge fortune on supplements, most of which are placebos. If you're young, you may not understand, but for us over 40, life starts to suck, physically. When you're young, your body is very fault-tolerant...have 6 beers and a cheeseburger for supper every day for a week?...nothing a few tums can't fix. Now that I'm over 40, I do everything right (daily exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, etc) and still feel like shit most of the day....same with most my age...thus we're desperate for anything that will make us feel better and not have any side effects that make things worse. Supplements are the dream and an age-old scam. Maybe punishing big retailers who tolerate fraud will not only reduce false claims, but make the public more aware that so called health experts online are ignorant, scammers, or both.

ta988 3y ago
If you replace the Calcium with chalk you would still have a source of calcium so it wouldn't be that bad :D
- achanda358 3y ago
  With different bioavailability
- dehrmann 3y ago
  It's better than that. According to Wikipedia > Chalk is typically almost pure calcite, CaCO3, with just 2% to 4% of other minerals The supplement I just looked up uses Calcium Carbonate. That could just be purified chalk and be in compliance with the FDA. In fact, it probably is just that.

pfisherman 3y ago

I had the opportunity to get a peek at the FDA database of adulterated supplements and by far the most common type of adulteration was people spiking with viagra. I asked why and was told: “Man has been searching for an aphrodisiac for thousands of years and we finally found it. Of course they are going to put it in everything!”

lostlogin 3y ago
The product reviews would be interesting to read.

Blundermuffin 3y ago

The supplements in the letter say they contain the active ingredients found in many ED medications... This has been going on for years with those over the counter gas station products as well. The demand for these products is clearly big enough, and dozens of other countries sell these ED medications OTC at pharmacies. Maybe it's time the FDA approve those drugs for sale OTC and curb the madness.

azinman2 3y ago
If you did that you’d end up with a lot of deaths. These vasodilators are contraindicated for a wide variety of heart/health issues as well as other prescriptions.
- pbj1968 3y ago
  Cull the herd.
  - Kerb_ 3y ago
    Certainly one of the most sadistic ways to say "dangers like that are well within the risk factors of most of the people willing to use them, and at some point you're responsible for paying attention to how your own medications interact".

oglop 3y ago

Do not buy supplements or anything you put in your body off Amazon. Just assume everything is made with fiberglass and dick pills, and shop with that mindset.

partiallypro 3y ago

I bought a lotion from Amazon recently that smells like Windex. I need to go to the store and see if the lotion in store has the same smell. I have a feeling it could be counterfeit, as I can't see this particular maker making a product with that smell.

MarCylinder 3y ago

Looks like a lot of uninformed opinions in here. As someone who has made a career consulting for supplement companies selling on Amazon, this does not surprise me. When Amazon first instituted testing requirements for supplements (something that already exists under federal law) they required all sellers to provide testing for all of their products. Failure to do so resulted in removal of your products from the marketplace. Since then, two things have changed. Certain supplement categories have additional testing requirements outside of what is expected by the FDA. Companies have to prove the absence of certain illegal ingredients. But, Amazon has switched to random testing requirements. In the last 3 years, Amazon has not asked a single one of my clients to provide any COAs. I have seen other brands have to provide some, but the requirements are very limited. It is for this reason, unsurprising that illegal products are making it into customer hands. It is my understanding that the individual who drove the campaign to get COAs, GMP certificates, etc for all supplement listings is no longer with Amazon, and nobody has filled that role since. That should be changed. But Amazon has always been aggressive over enforcement of marketing claims, and some claims will always instantly flag a COA requirement. Sellers use careful wording to avoid these flags. The solution is to make a COA required for the creation of these listings. I mean, let's take this one further. Most supplement companies are just marketing companies. They don't formulate the product, they don't manufacture the ingredients, and they don't even blend the powder. They make a brand. But, the FDA doesn't care. As a brand receiving product from a manufacturer, you are still required to test it. The manufacturer is also required to test the raw materials as well as the finished product. Yet, most companies I speak to are not testing product received. They rely solely on the manufacturer testing. So we should be requiring these brands to do their due diligence. Show me the COA you are supposed to have for every lot you send in. It's already required by the FDA. As is always the case with supplements, regulation is not the issue. It's enforcement

Flammy 3y ago
This is a really high quality comment you've written here, thank you for posting your perspective. For those of us who don't know about testing, can you explain COA/GMP and how robust the testing process is? The reason I ask I'm a little concerned about Amazon's incentives not being aligned with consumers priority for high quality and safe product and is letting suppliers choose which product(s) to submit for testing rather than doing periodic random testing which I fear is too much to hope/ask for...

pama 3y ago

It is great that the FDA does these random checks and can identify supplement and food items that contained erectile dysfunction drugs in them. It is a tough call to try and completely eliminate such products from all the marketplaces, especially when some approved US drugs may be not controlled in other countries. I’d trust Amazon as more able to do so than a random pharmacy or internet store. Let’s see how this story develops.

jrmg 3y ago

Not just Amazon. It’s very obvious that much of e.g. YouTube and Instagram’s funding (and that of creators) comes from ads for fraudulent and/or potentially dangerous medical supplements (not to mention other things like financial schemes or fraudulently described products).

1920musicman 3y ago

Since Amazon removed these products already, here is a link to one of the supplements mentioned in the letter: "X Max Triple Shot Energy Honey" (https://khan-alasal.com/honey-product/3-triple-shot-honey/ https://khan-alasal.com/honey-product/3-triple-shot-honey/). The company looks very shady, with no registered address and no contact details. They list dozens of "male energy" supplements that all apparently have been certified by HAACP (Safe Food Alliance, https://safefoodalliance.com/ https://safefoodalliance.com/).

thorncorona 3y ago
They're probably faked certs.

stainablesteel 3y ago

if only the FDA cared about vitamins this much

philip1209 3y ago

I've had so many issues with Amazon counterfeits lately. Most recently, it turned out that my Coravin cartridges were fake. I've returned to buying direct from the manufacturer for many branded consumables (such as fish oils).

FredPret 3y ago

Amazon is a scam site. I will buy my books from Indigo (Canada) from now on. Electronics and related doodads can come from Costco, Bestbuy, Walmart. Maybe it's not as convenient, but you know what you're getting. It's really unfortunate that Audible is in the Amazon family, because I'm not cancelling that any time soon. I know much of the internet runs on AWS, but I'll never really trust that either.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> Amazon is a scam site. It is and I don't understand the downvotes here. With commingled inventory, I don't understand how people are ok with ingesting stuff they buy from Amazon.
infamouscow 3y ago
I've purchased quite a few paperbacks and hardcovers from Amazon because the author sidestepped the traditional publishing industry with Kindle Direct Publishing. I've enjoyed a number of book series this way.
- FredPret 3y ago
  That is the one light in the darkness that is amazon.com

siliconc0w 3y ago

This is a real risk and why supplementation is probably not a good idea except for like specific conditions as recommended by your doctor (e.g pregnancy). In an unregulated space like this, it's basically impossible to know what you're getting which can range from ineffective to seriously harmful (heavy metals, toxins, or active pharmaceuticals). Better to get micronutrients from bio-available sources and optimize diet, sleep, and exercise. It's also relatively expensive compared to the usually marginal benefit. Most likely you should sock away that spend into an index so you can afford the more effective and expensive therapies that our healthcare system doesn't give you access to (because it generally won't pay for prevention).

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nblgbg 3y ago

Recently, I noticed that Amazon removed the listed ingredients for regular items like toothpaste, shampoos, and mouthwashes. Initially, I thought it was a mistake for a couple of items I regularly buy, but it seems they have removed this information for many products. I'm not sure what the intention behind this change is. My suspicion now (after this article) is that they are doing it deliberately, allowing them to claim that the page doesn't list ingredients for any item.

sameermanek 3y ago

Amazon was a great site! I still remember buying my first converse from amazon in 2011. Back then, there were no nike stores in my town in India and i badly wanted one. I bought from a few local resellers who sold me duplicate products and i wasted a lot of my money on that. Now, the tables have turned. If i want a genuine product, i often shop locally rather than amazon. They even messed up my socks and sent duplicate versions of fairly common books like harry potter. The whole site seems to be promoting bad products, placing something not even Remotely close to my searches. "Looking for a yoga mat? Here's a chinese fitness tracker we think you might be interested in".. the fuck?? On top of that, the bad quality supplements they sell are just nerve wrecking. Almost no information is factual, No usage guidelines, nothing. And the reviews are just another scam by themselves! All in all, it's a really bad product now!

Tao3300 3y ago
IMO Cons (at least Chuck Taylors) themselves have been counterfeit garbage for a while now. They imbue the soles with paper so they can dodge tariffs by calling them slippers. They don't pass the savings from this on to the consumer, and the traction is terrible.

NanoYohaneTSU 3y ago

This is so hilariously pathetic. MISBRANDING???? HOW DARE YOU!!!!! FDA has been worthless for a long time and only acts as a barrier to stop idiots from buying products that lie. Let them die.

diego_sandoval 3y ago

So, Amazon sold drugs illegally and all they have to do now is send a letter promising that they won't do it again? No fines, no lawsuits?

LanzVonL 3y ago

Amazon is totally jam packed with scams, it's actually pretty shocking.

narrator 3y ago

Lol, looks like these guys the FDA wrote the letter about were selling absurdly cheap generic viagra and cialis.

Groxx 3y ago

Driving food- and medical-adjacent stuff off of Amazon and their un-checked mixed-binning insanity would be fantastic. They've been allowed to play fast and loose with safety for far too long.

epgui 3y ago

Biochemist here: for a whole bunch of biology & administrative reasons, the supplement industry is more scam than science.

mberning 3y ago

Big Pharma using their bought and paid for henchmen to protect their turf. The mob wishes they were ever this successful.

BobbyTables2 3y ago

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CamelCaseName 3y ago

Way too late. Way too little. This is honestly pathetic. Supplements on Amazon have been a disaster for the better part of a decade, maybe longer. It's painful to see abuse after abuse and little regulatory action. Except in a very small handful of situations, the best case scenario is that the company pays a small fine. That fine gets announced years after the abuse, then, that pittance gets litigated down over even more years. The risk adjusted present value might as well be zero. Why would any company ever do the right thing?