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Wednesday, March 3, 2010 (SF Chronicle)
Lawsuit says fish oil supplements contain PCB Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
An environmental group filed a lawsuit in San Francisco on Tuesday alleging that 10 types of fish oil or shark oil supplements contain a toxic industrial compound, and that manufacturers and sellers need to warn
consumers.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the Oregon group Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation and two individuals, claims that under California's Proposition 65, the makers and sellers of fish oil supplements are required to tell consumers that the pills contain the compound polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB.
Fish oil has become an increasingly popular supplement because it has high levels of healthy omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D.
More than 100 brands of fish oil are available. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit tested 10 products, all of which had some amount of PCB, they say. They found wide ranges in PCB levels, but because scientists haven't
agreed on a safe level of consumption, consumers should be made aware of potentially toxic compounds in their supplements no matter what the amount, said David Roe, attorney for the plaintiffs.
"People buy fish oil to improve their health," Roe said Tuesday in a teleconference with reporters. "We have no way of knowing if all of the other fish oil products have PCB, too."
The lawsuit names CVS/Pharmacy, General Nutrition Corp. (GNC stores), Now Health Group, Omega Protein, Rite Aid, Solgar, Twinlab and Pharmavite, which produces Nature Made supplements, as defendants.
Representative of those companies said they wouldn't comment because they hadn't seen the lawsuit.
PCBs were once used to insulate transformers and capacitors, but were banned more than 30 years ago. They are still found in San Francisco Bay and other waterways, where they are consumed by fish.
Most people don't eat enough fish to risk serious exposure to PCBs, Roe said, but because people generally take fish oil supplements every day, they can potentially consume harmful levels of the chemical.
PCBs can cause cancer, reproductive problems and damage to the nervous system, environmental scientists have said. A list of products named in the PCB lawsuit. C4 Fish oil
The products named in the PCB lawsuit are:
-- GNC Liquid Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
-- Nature Made Cod Liver Oil
-- Nature Made Odorless Fish Oil
-- Now Foods Double Strength Cod Liver Oil
-- Now Foods Salmon Oil
-- Now Foods Shark Liver Oil
-- Solgar 100 percent pure Norwegian Shark Liver Oil Complex
-- Solgar Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
-- Twinlab Emulsified Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
-- Twinlab Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
Copyright 2010 SF Chronicle=
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Subject: FROM Cindy Latham Fw: [Team 21] Omega3's - Why Shaklee is the Best!
From: Cindy@cnc.net ; Latham@cnc.net (Works for Shaklee)
To: Team21@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 8:10 AM
Subject: [Team 21] Omega3's - Why Shaklee is the Best!
I can't end the week, without commenting about Omega3 in the news. There was a lawsuit filed against a number of brands (not Shaklee) that raised some concerns, brands that used cod liver oil. There are NO safety issues Shaklee's OmegaGuard #20244 We use pharmaceutical grade fish oil, we use a molecular distillation process to remove contaminants like dioxins, mercury and PCB's. Here's the rest of the scoop.
Shaklee's fish oil comes from highly purified whole fish --not from the liver of cod or shark (which the brands in the lawsuit used) which tend to accumulate these harmful compounds. Shaklee helped create a monograph to establish the standard for quality and purity, including defining the ...limits for contaminants including dioxin, PCB's, lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium. Yeah !!
Cindy Latham with Shaklee
