When we enter into a health food store we typically assume that whatever we buy there will be good for us. Another way to look at it would be to say we don't walk into an unhealthy food store; therefore whatever we buy in a health food store should be good for us and healthy. In addition to the assumption that all health food stores sell healthy products we also have the delusion that the word natural also means healthy. What I'm about to tell you about the health food industry may shock and dismay you. Yet, I also want to temper my message with the idea that they do sell an overwhelming number of healthy products. In fact, the health food store isn't often to blame; however they are being manipulated and deceived by the manufactures of some very harmful products.

Couple that with the FDA's inability or unwillingness to really punish bad manufacturers and you'll quickly discover that the very agency that fines these companies is a huge part of the problem. And so long as the FDA continues to just give a slap on the hand of unscrupulous vendors they in turn are responsible for allowing these bad manufacturers to continue doing business as usual.

Let me give you a few examples. But before I do let me ask you a question. Do you think that a supplement company caught adding harmful ingredients into their product should be allowed to continue doing business? In other words, I think that if any company violates the trust of the public in anyway whatsoever that they should never ever be allowed to be involved in the production of any supplement ever again. Simply put, they should be banished from ever producing another supplement again. Period! Let me give you a few examples of recent fines levied against certain supplement companies for engaging in very harmful practices.

Several companies were recently caught adding various anabolic steroids into their products. Dietary supplements that were promoted for building muscle and increasing strength and sold in health food stores can cause serious long-term adverse health consequences in men, women, and children. These products claim to be anabolic and problems associated with anabolic steroids include: liver toxicity, testicular atrophy and male infertility, masculinization of women, breast enlargement in males, short stature in children, adverse effects on blood lipid levels, and a potential to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. But here's the real question. If your 16 year old son used any of these products do you understand that these products can cause a pituitary to testicular shutdown? In other words your child goes into a health food store and buys a muscle building vitamin and ends up with a very serious and perhaps lifelong hormonal complication. In addition, any athlete using these products and competing in a drug tested event would test positive for steroids. That in turn would ruin their career, reputation, sponsorships, and even college scholarship. Here's just 2 names of companies that were caught by the FDA; Anabolic Xtreme Superdrol, manufactured for Anabolic Resources LLC, Gilbert, Arizona, and distributed by "Supplements to go," Cincinnati, Ohio and "Methyl-1-P," manufactured for Legal Gear, Brighton, MI and distributed by Affordable Supplements, Wichita, Kansas. But here's the real kicker, the FDA only sent out warnings, no confiscation, no fines and no prohibition of ever manufacturing supplements in the future. Don't you find that really odd?

Now, as if that's not bad enough consider this. On November 30, 2005, The Washington Post reported that a dietary supplement marketed to fitness and health enthusiasts on the Internet and in body-building shops contains anabolic steroids, according to a prominent researcher.

The supplement, which is sold under the name Halodrol-50, contains a steroid that closely resembles Oral-Turinabol, the principal steroid used to fuel East Germany's secret, systematic sports doping program, according to Don Catlin of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory.

Catlin said it also contains DMT, or madol, a steroid federal authorities say was developed for Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), the California nutritional supplement company at the center of a scheme to provide prominent professional athletes with undetectable performance-enhancing drugs.

Last month, Catlin tested five other dietary supplements obtained by The Post and found that each contained anabolic steroids, four of which had not been previously detected. The Food and Drug Administration announced after publication of The Post's story on Oct. 18 that it had opened an investigation into the four companies marketing them: Anabolic Xtreme, Applied Lifescience Research Industries, Legal Gear and PharmaGenX.

Halodrol-50is marketed by Gaspari Nutrition, a dietary supplement company based in Neptune, N.J., that sells bodybuilding and weight-loss products. The Halodrol-50 label further states that it contains polydehydrogenated, polyhydroxylated halomethetioallocholane. The label makes no mention of DMT or other anabolic steroids.

Athletes taking Halodrol-50 would flunk standard sport drug tests, however, because DMT -- which Catlin identified more than a year ago -- is now detectable. DMT was one of three steroids found associated with BALCO. The others were norbolethone and THG, also known as "the clear."

Here are my thoughts; if any company violates the trust of the public by adding drugs or harmful ingredients into their product they should be banned from the industry of manufacturing supplements forever. However, the FDA has allowed Gaspari nutrition to be fined and continue manufacturing supplements to you, your children and the rest of the public.