Group sues Bloomingdale maker of fish oil, others

A Bloomingdale company that makes fish oil products is among eight makers being sued by a California group alleging the products have high levels of a known carcinogen.

Now Health Group Inc., known as Now Foods, in Bloomingdale makes shark liver oil, double strength-cod liver oil and salmon oil that are among the products tested by the Mateel Justice Foundation and consumer advocates Chris Manthey and Benson Chiles.

The suit, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, targets Now, as well as Omega Protein Inc. Pharmavite LLC's Nature Made brand, Solgar Inc., TwinLab Corp. and some of the drugstores that sell them, CVS Pharmacy Inc., General Nutrition Corp. and Rite Aid Corp. The drugstore house brands were not tested or included in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that the products go beyond the so-called "safe harbor" limits set for consumption of PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyl compounds, under California's Proposition 65 law, which requires consumers to be warned about such exposures.

"We want consumers to know that they can't depend on what's on the label," said David Roe, an Oakland, Calif., lawyer involved with writing California's Proposition 65 and representing the Mateel Justice Foundation.

Now said in a statement Wednesday that it has been investigating the concerns raised by Manthey, Chiles and the foundation for a number of months and has worked with environmental groups and its suppliers to ensure that its products are safety tested, said company spokeswoman Scott Daniel.

"We agree that the current testing methods for PCBs are highly variable and incomplete," she said. "Currently there are no universal standards to test for the 209 different compounds that are included under the term PCB. However, we believe we are in compliance with the most widely followed industry and regulatory standards."

She said if consumers are concerned about this issue, they can look for products that are molecularly distilled and made from small fish with short life spans, such as anchovies and sardines. The majority of the Omega-3 concentrates on the market and in Now product assortment are made from these smaller fish, she said. Daniel declined to answer other questions.

Fish oil has been touted and marketed to have healthy benefits because of its Omega-3 fatty acids. They are not required to be reviewed or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and many such products say so.

PCBs were banned in the 1970s and many lakes and rivers have since undergone massive cleanups from the contamination linked to the electricity industry. However, many lakes and rivers continue to be contaminated and the fish still ingest those contaminants, which are linked to cancer and reproductive problems.

Roe said the Mateel Justice Foundation bought the fish oil products at local drugstores and had them tested at a lab. The tests were expensive, about $1,000 per tablet, and limited to 10 known brands.

The suit is asking the court to make the companies be more responsible and to place warning labels on their products about the level of PCBs they contain. Penalties could be as high as $2,500 per bottle per person exposed, Roe said.

The companies have 40 days to respond in court.