Hillman Prize-winner Alison Young exposes another dodgy dietary supplement for USA Today:
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — A Mexican dietary supplement called Reumofan has gained a loyal following in the United States as a “100% natural” treatment for arthritis and joint pain. It’s supposedly made by a company called Riger Natural from ingredients such as shark cartilage, white willow and glucosamine, or so the labels say.
But consumers who buy Reumofan products are risking dangerous side effects and trusting their lives to a company that uses fake addresses, lies about the ingredients in its products and may not even exist, a USA TODAY investigation has found.
The newspaper set out to find Riger Natural and the people responsible for producing and selling the supplement, searching corporation records and visiting addresses in Mexico where it had been listed on the Web as having a lab. Those addresses are fake and there’s no evidence the company ever had facilities in the locations. Some Mexican retailers who once distributed the product say their contacts have simply disappeared. Even Mexican health authorities have been unable to track down the company.
Riger Natural? As in Riger Mortis? Reumofan is marketed as a dietary supplement but some of these pills contain potentially toxic prescription drugs and the FDA has received reports linking the pills to bleeding, strokes, and death.
[Photo credit: U.S. FDA.]
