I wasn’t really shocked to read that a lot of the common herbal supplement labels you see, like Puritan’s Pride, Sundown and a few other very common names in herbal and natural supplements, are made under one roof by a parent company.  In the tradition of large pharmaceutical companies and other big parent companies like Procter and Gamble, that churn out multiple single labels, many herbal companies have become huge business. Heck, even some of the vitamins and supplements that are still popular today are made by actual pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth.

I think this is fine actually. As long as a supplement is a good, pure one and is made with strict standards, I don’t really care where it came from, although I do like to support the smaller mom and pop operations when I can because I believe that’s just good karma and also helps our overall economy and spirit of the small business person (being one myself, this is close to my heart).  However, I wouldn’t strictly not use something because of where it came from.

The continuing popularity of herbal supplements has been something that is debated by the medical community, and honestly it makes me a feel a little better than some of these big pharma companies have a stake in keeping them in the market and keeping them largely unregulated, so that it’s easier for people to get the herbal supplements that work so well for them, without being hindered or limited in what they can buy, and what companies can make.

Big pharma is no doubt a huge force in political lobbying, and no one can tell me they don’t have huge influence over politicians and our government in general, so knowing that they also have some natural remedies out there makes me feel a little more comfortable that they won’t attack them full force.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Herbal Supplements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.