Why are so many fish oil supplement companies being sued for their PCB levels?

What's the future of fish oil in Sacramento in the form of supplements? Are people turning to calamari or krill oil instead when told to get at least 600 mg of DHA and a little less EPA for brain and artery health? How much toxins such as carcinogenic PCBs are in your fish oil? Sacamento consumers buy a lot of fish oil supplements in local health food stores, online, and in discount stores such as Sacramento's Walmart and Target stores.

More than a year has passed since the March 2010 PCB levels in fish oil (contamination) lawsuit, and yet news is hard to find online about which changes were made in various brands of fish oil. Is what's on the label the same as what's in the bottle, capsule or soft-gel?

Testing found that levels of PCBs in supplements in popular fish oil products varied from about 12 nanograms per recommended dose in one brand of fish oil to more than 850 nanograms in the worst performer - a factor of 70. Before you give your child a spoonful of fish oil, you should know that last year a lawsuit brought by environmentalists in California claimed that 10 popular brands of fish oil dietary supplements contained unsafe and illegal levels of the carcinogenic chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Download a copy of the lawsuit here.

Consumers buy the fish oil at stores such as Walmart, Target, GNC, and similar stores or online, for example at The two Twinlab. See, A.F.'s Twinlab among 8 companies sued over fish oil supplements, Solgar, Now Foods, Twinlab, Nature Made named in Lawsuit, and for the industry's side of the story, see Industry Responds to California Fish Oil Lawsuit | NBJ Blog. You can be sure the fish oil industries are fighting back.

Why didn't supplement manufacturers and distributors warn consumers that 10 of their fish oil supplements contain toxic chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects? Naturally, industry responded. Who's doing the sueing? The plaintiffs are two citizen environmentalists and the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation. Also see the sites, Environmental Justice Foundation EJF: Protecting People and Planet, FishOilSafety.com and Lawsuit: Disclose PCB Levels in Fish Oil - CBS News.

Last spring, 2010, Twinlab Corp, was accused in a lawsuit filed by Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation and two environmentalists of misleading consumers about the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in two of their fish oil supplements, Twinlab's Norwegian Cod Liver Oil and Emulsified Norwegian Cod Liver Oil. The use of the word 'Norwegian' somehow puts an idea in the brains of consumers that because the fish come from icy waters, it has to be free of PCBs and other toxins. But what's the reality and how do the various supplement manufacturers fight back or answer the law suit?

It's not the first lawsuit aimed at Twinlab. See, Shareholders Sue Twinlab Corporation for Stock Fraud, Says Berman. Only this time, the law suit focuses on fish oil. See, Industry Responds to California Fish Oil Lawsuit | NBJ Blog. There's two sides to every story. For consumers, shoppers of fish oil want the industry to agree that the customer is supposed to be right.

Even though these two Twinlab supplements claim they are "PCB and heavy metal free," the lawsuit reports that the fish oil supplements "allegedly contain PCBs above the 'safe harbor' limits set for human consumption under California's Proposition 65, which requires consumers to be warned about exposure to toxic chemicals," according to the San Francisco Superior Court suit.

In addition to Twinlab, the suit names several retailers and manufacturers of fish oil, shark oil, fish liver oil and shark liver oil supplements. They include: CVS Pharmacy Inc.; General Nutrition Corp.; Now Health Group Inc.; Omega Protein Inc.; Pharmavite LLC (which sells fish oils under the Nature Made brand); Rite Aid Corp.; and Solgar Inc.

According to an article in Time magazine, research has shown that since 2006, the U.S. market for omega-3 supplements has doubled, to an estimated $1 billion, and that doesn't count the billions of dollars more that consumers paid for infant formula, orange juice, breakfast cereals and a host of other products that have added these wonder nutrients. But how safe from PCBs and other contaminants is the fish oil you take as a supplement or in put into your packaged foods? For example, DHA from fish oil is added to some jars of baby foods.

In fact so many fish are being taken out of circulation to make fish oil so people can drink their DHA and omega 3 fatty acids, that there's a shortage of fish, and some people are turning to calamari oil or krill oil to save sea life from over-fishing just to get a dose of omega 3 that's widely touted on TV and in consumer magazines as being good for the brain, arteries, and cholesterol as well as anti-aging. So what's the future of fish oil?

There are over 100 fish oil supplement products on the market, according to the FishOilSafety.com site, and you, the consumer, have no way of knowing whether some have more or less PCB contamination than the ones we have tested. FishOilSafety.com will be doing more testing and more analysis. The organization also plans to ask the manufacturers to commit to doing meaningful testing themselves (and making the results public so consumers can make informed choices). In the meantime, these results give consumers a way to make comparisons among these 10 products, with more information to come.

You can check out the lawsuit which was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco. The suit targeted eight supplement manufacturers or distributors - CVS Pharmacy, Rite Aid, General Nutrition Corp., Solgar, Twinlab, Now Health, Omega Protein and Pharmavite - for alleged violations of California's Proposition 65, which requires that consumers be warned about chemical exposures. Eventually, a total of 10 companies were added to the list. But the suit claims that all of the manufacturers are in violation of Proposition 65 for not disclosing any non-zero PCB levels in their products.

The plaintiffs and their attorneys claim that that labels saying "Screened for PCBs" or "Treated to Remove PCBs" are especially problematic, because those labels imply - falsely - that PCBs have been removed entirely. They also believe that the manufacturers already have extensive data on the amount of PCBs present in their product. Will the companies release their tests and data?

PCBs were officially listed as known carcinogens and known reproductive toxins in California back in 1990, making them subject to the California's warning requirement. On the other hand, if you look at the manufacturers, Only three years ago reports found no unsafe levels of dioxin, mercury or PCBs in many edible products - one from Consumer Reports and another from the well-regarded supplement testing publication ConsumerLab. So who do you believe? Check out the sites, PCBs in Fish Oil Supplements? - Dr. Weil

The California lawsuit was filed by environmentalists who claim that certain fish oil supplements sold in the state contain unsafe and illegal levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). The manufacturing of these chemicals was banned in the United States in 1979, but they were widely used as plasticizers in paints, plastics, and rubber products and many other industrial applications.

If you're ingesting PCBs in fish oil or any other supplement, the PCBs are not going to break down. What you have stored in your body from the past and what's in the environment are still being released into the food chain and air, including Sacramento's polluted air. PCBs are known to have adverse health effects in humans and animals and are regarded as potential carcinogens. Check out the following sites regarding the law suit filed last spring.