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Aloe Vera... Sans Aloe Vera

posted by on Sunday November 27 2016, @10:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Bloomberg reports:

The aloe vera gel many Americans buy to soothe damaged skin contains no evidence of aloe vera at all.

Samples of store-brand aloe gel purchased at national retailers Wal-Mart, Target and CVS showed no indication of the plant in various lab tests. The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water.

[...] Aloe’s three chemical markers — acemannan, malic acid and glucose — were absent in the tests for Wal-Mart, Target and CVS products conducted by a lab hired by Bloomberg News. The three samples contained a cheaper element called maltodextrin, a sugar sometimes used to imitate aloe. The gel that’s sold at another retailer, Walgreens, contained one marker, malic acid, but not the other two.

A related article from FatPhil discusses herbal supplements which, upon analysis, did not contain the ingredients their labels claimed.

Caveat emptor.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by SubiculumHammer on Sunday November 27 2016, @11:01PM

    by SubiculumHammer (5191) on Sunday November 27 2016, @11:01PM (#433799)

    Asymmetric information impedes the free market.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday November 27 2016, @11:14PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Sunday November 27 2016, @11:14PM (#433809) Journal

    Asymmetric information impedes the free market.

    Indeed, this is what Libertarians ignore. But it's not just asymmetric information, it's asymmetric access to the courts (because of the high cost of suing).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:08AM (#433902)

    As does fraud.