Lead-in-vitamins report creates controversy

A company that tests vitamins and supplements is standing by its claim that a popular brand of children's vitamins contains unhealthy levels of lead - despite protests from the manufacturer of the vitamins.

"There's no question about the results," Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com, said in an interview with Reuters Health. Cooperman said he stands by the recent ConsumerLab.com review that found that L'il Critters Gummy Vites contained potentially harmful levels of lead.

But the results of the testing are "highly suspect," according to Steven Fink of Lexicon Communications, which represents Northwest Natural Products, Inc., (NNP) the company that makes the vitamins.

"The underlying message is that Gummy Vites are safe," Fink told Reuters Health in an interview. "To say that they are way above any kind of standard is misleading."

ConsumerLab.com is a privately held company based in White Plains, New York. According to the company, it is neither owned by nor has a financial interest in any companies that make, distribute or sell consumer products.

One project of the New York company is to review the contents of vitamins and supplements. The results being disputed come from a review of more than 40 vitamin products, Cooperman said.

To conduct this type of review, ConsumerLab.com purchases products from stores and then sends them to an independent lab for testing, according to Cooperman. If the first round of testing produces any troubling results, such as elevated lead levels, then the product is tested at a second independent lab, he said.

That is what happened with L'il Critters Gummy Vites, according to Cooperman. The first round of testing detected 2.5 micrograms of lead per two-gummy-bear serving, and a second lab confirmed the results, Cooperman said.

The FDA advises that children younger than 6 consume no more than 6 micrograms of lead per day.

But Fink, the representative for Northwest Natural Products, Inc., says that when the vitamin maker had an independent lab conduct similar testing, the vitamins contained negligible levels of lead. In fact, Fink said that L'il Critter Gummy Vites had less lead than several other children's vitamins, although he said he was not able to release the comparative results at this time.

According to Cooperman, ConsumerLab.com's testing involved vitamins that had an expiration date of September 2005. Cooperman said that the tests commissioned by the vitamin maker were conducted on newer vitamins, which had an expiration date of 2006.

"They tested a newer batch and said that we lied. It's ridiculous," Cooperman said.

But Fink said that ConsumerLab.com would not tell Northwest Natural Products, Inc., which batch had been tested, a charge denied by Cooperman, who said that ConsumerLab.com always retains samples of the products that it tests.