On February 3, 2015, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman accused GNC, Target, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that the companies remove the products from store shelves. Affected products include:
- GNC “Herbal Plus” brand Ginko Biloba
- GNC “Herbal Plus” brand St. John’s Wort
- GNC “Herbal Plus” brand Ginseng
- GNC “Herbal Plus” brand Echinacea
- Target “Up & Up” brand Ginko Biloba
- Target “Up & Up” brand St. John’s Wort
- Target “Up & Up” brand Valerian Root
- Walgreens “Finest Nutrition” brand Ginko Biloba
- Walgreens “Finest Nutrition” brand St. John’s Wort
- Walgreens “Finest Nutrition” brand Ginseng
- Walgreens “Finest Nutrition” brand Echinacea
- Walgreens “Finest Nutrition” brand Saw Palmetto
- Wal-Mart “Spring Valley” brand Ginko Biloba
- Wal-Mart “Spring Valley” brand St. John’s Wort
- Wal-Mart “Spring Valley” brand Ginseng
- Wal-Mart “Spring Valley” brand Echinacea
The Attorney General’s testing showed these products often fail to contain the listed herbal ingredient and sometimes include non-listed ingredients. This can pose a serious health risk to people with food allergies. In fact, the Attorney General stated tests ran on a group of store brand herbal supplements showed only 21% of samples included the plants listed on the product labels.
If you recently purchased one of these products, contact us to talk with one of our experienced class action attorneys.