GNC wrote me this in regard to my question about "How the hell can you allow this much heavy metals in one of your branded products?"

Thank you for taking the time to contact GNC, we appreciate your interest in our company. As the largest manufacturer and retailer of nutritional supplements, we understand that customers depend on us for quality products and quality information.

GNC follows regulatory and industry standards for appropriate labeling of all of its products and will continue to do so. Nutra performs 100% tests for all label claim items for GNC. In addition, Nutra performs microbiological content assays for all raw materials, and every 10th lot of the finished product (tests include E coli, total plate count, total coliforms, yeast & mold, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella. Nutra also performs heavy metals analysis for all herbal and natural products. Nutra makes certain that raw materials are identified correctly and are free of adulterants. Nutra has two separate laboratories for raw material assays and finished product assays. In addition, Nutra conducts stability trials to determine and check expiration dates for GNC products.

There are detectable PCB’s at the nanogram level in all protein products, however GNC meets or exceeds all testing requirements. These are naturally occurring in the products. In addition, PCB’s are tested according to the US Method for PCB’s, and meet all standards for residual PCB content.

GNC’s products are tested for chemical and microbiological contaminants. We also adhere to one of the strictest purification standards in the U.S., California state law - Proposition 65. Prop 65 levels (not more than 90 nanograms per day exposure) are significantly lower than the levels that the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) deems safe.

All of these activities support the effectiveness of the purification processes, yielding:

Total heavy metals 10 ppm (parts per million) maximum

Mercury 0.1 ppm

Lead 0.1 ppm

Arsenic 0.2 ppm

Cadmium 0.1 ppm

PCB’s 0.09 ppm

ICP-MS spectrometry is the best available technology for measuring low levels of heavy metals.

The manufacturer has a two step purification process for the standard products. The first involves absorbents like natural clays and activated carbon, this step reduces the heavy metal (including mercury) and organic contaminates like PCBs. The second step is distillation that further reduces organic contaminants.

GNC requires its suppliers to provide certificates of analysis stating specifically that their shipments meet all applicable regulatory standards. To request a certificate of analysis for specific products, please submit a request in writing to our manufacturing plant to:

Nutra Manufacturing

Quality Department

1050 Woodruff Rd.

Greenville, SC 29607

Nutra, the manufacturing division of GNC is audited annually by the FDA for the published cGMP’s standards of 21 CFR part 111. In addition, Nutra is audited by NSF and USP agencies that certify their audits. Nutra is also audited by many foreign agencies acting on the behalf of their regulatory agency (as FDA is the USA regulatory agency). Nutra is audited biannually by the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Association of Australia). In addition, Nutra is audited by at least 10 of the companies that Nutra manufactures products for other than GNC. Nutra does not employ an independent agency to certify GNC products. Nutra has 2 laboratories that test all ingredients and finished products before they are released for sale. GNC (Nutra) has an extensive Quality program employing over 100 people focused solely on quality of GNC products.

Nutra has a very active audit calendar the year round. Other groups also publish results of tests conducted on GNC products, such as Consumer Reports and ConsumerLabs.com.

If you have any more questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reply to this email or call our Customer Service Department toll-free at 1-888-462-2548 [Call: 1-888-462-2548] .

Amanda

GNC Customer Service Representative I

Live Well

It's best to just stay away from protein powders and stick to whole foods, you can even make high cal shakes with food like eggs oatmeal orange juice and other whole foods, theres plenty of recipes on the internet for whole food shakes.

I emailed CytoSport about the Muscle Milk results. Response from CytoSport:

Thank you for emailing us directly with your questions about the claims made on our labels and the 2010 consumer reports article. In response to that 2010 article, attached is a statement that was released by the NSF International organization. I would like to apologize for any concern the Consumer Reports article has caused. I will provide you with some background information about what we were doing prior to the article and the changes we have implemented in response to the information we have acquired.

Prior to the Consumer Reports article (May/June 2010) we had relied on NSF International to conduct our heavy metal testing. NSF published a statement in response to the Consumer Reports article which is attached. We had not focused strongly on in-house heavy metal testing because we were relying on our manufacturers to provide us with that information on the documentation that accompanies the raw materials.

As a result of the article we have instituted regular and rigorous testing on both the raw materials we receive and the finished goods we produce. This has lead to both changes in manufacturers we purchase from and formulations so that our products are as low as possible (in the parts per billion range). It will be impossible to entirely eliminate trace levels (parts per billion) of heavy metals in all of our products because some of the ingredients we use have naturally occurring levels. Naturally present levels occur because crops that are grown in soils and animals that consume feed or drink water from land that has heavy metals present will produce products with levels also present. Moving forward we will continue to perform these procedures as a regular part of our quality control practices so that our products are of the highest quality.

Again, I apologize for the concern you experienced. We appreciate your affinity to CytoSport products and hope they continue to support you.

So what powder not on this death list is good? I know that I get a newsletter from Dave Draper and he sells his own brand of Powder. Is that good?

Wow, the Muscle Milk I drink tested the worse, and this shit is practically in every store. I am not a fan of ON but ill be going back.

God darn. I use GNC alot because its just around the corner of my house and just shot them an email asking why the hell they would put arsenic and other bad stuff in any branded powders they have. Damn.