Quality Control
 As
anyone who has been in a health food store has probably observed,
there are hundreds of brands of thousands of nutritional supplements
available directly to the consumer. The supplement industry is,
in fact, a booming and competitive industry, not under the jurisdiction
of the Food and Drug Administration. There is intense marketing
of its products with many inflated and unverifiable claims made.
Quality control is erratic with many products not containing
sufficient quanitites of sufficiently high quality ingredients
to be effective.
These are not the sort of products we stock in the WIN Natural
Pharmacy.
Supplements
We use the following criteria to ensure that we only prescribe
and make available the highest quality supplements to our
patients:
- The company’s main market must be professionals.
Companies that market primarily to consumers make many
dubious claims about their products. These warp consumer
expectations, a sort of placebo effect. Thus, profit
from marketing campaigns is not necessarily based on product
performance but by manipulation of consumer attitudes
and desires.
- In contrast, companies that market only to professionals
must create quality products that actually work because
the health of their business relies on repeated use
by healthcare practitioners.
- The company must be familiar with the scientific literature
and base its formulations on available scientific research.
- The company must use third party independent testing
on its products to ensure the accuracy and purity of
the ingredients and active medicinal constituents.
- The company must have a good industry reputation with
a proven track record and be known for producing consistently
high quality products.
- Lastly, but probably most importantly, is our own physicians’ experience
with the effectiveness of the products we routinely
and continually use. If a product we carry does not produce
the desired results on the patients, then we no longer
prescribe or carry the product. This feedback process
over our years of practice has allowed us to find the products
that we can consistently rely on for quality and potency
of medicinal action.
Herbal Products
We have chosen our main suppliers of herbal products with
the following criteria in mind:
- Consistent quality and potency of products.
- The company’s practices for making pure products
using organic or sustainably wild
crafted plants.
- The company’s ethical standards in refraining from
using plants on endangered species lists.
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