Page 83
The Willner Window Product Reference Catalog, Summer 2014
since 1911
• Willner Chemists •
the nutritional supplement professionals
How Low Can You Go?
There is a point at which a product
becomes too cheap. Let’s get seri-
ous. When you see a bottle of no-
name cheapo-supreme CoQ10
advertised at a fraction of the price
of reputable products and you can
buy one and get six free—plus, if
you order now, they throw in a 35
millimeter camera for free!—do you
seriously think you are getting a
quality product?
Certainly, many of us need to pay
attention to price. There is no need
to pay more than necessary. But if
you are careful and patient, you can
usually find reputable, well-known
brand-name products on sale at dis-
counts up to 30 percent or 40 per-
cent off list price. This is especially
true in the major metropolitan areas.
Mail order is another alternative,
but only if you stick to well-known
national brands. There are certain
brands that are high quality and
priced very competitively.
But if the price is too good to be
true, it probably is.
The Bottle in the Window
There are some health food stores
that display products on shelves
right inside the window. When you
are on the street looking into the
store, you see the backs of actual
products on display. When the sun
hits the window, it heats up the bot-
tles. Heat contributes to the deterio-
ration of nutritional supplements.
Do not buy products from stores
that may have stored or displayed
the items inappropriately. Likewise,
if a product is supposed to be refrig-
erated, it should be on display in a
refrigerator, and if the store has a
storage area or warehouse, it should
have been refrigerated there as well.
The Recommendation
You’re in the health food store,
looking at the various products on
the shelf. Perhaps there is a brand on
sale that you have not used before or
maybe it is a name you’ve never
heard of. So you ask the clerk, “Is
this a good product?”
What you should do is ask your-
self, “What are this person’s qualifi-
cations? Why would he (or she) be
capable of evaluating the quality of
any given product or brand?” Does
he have a scientific background, so
that he can separate marketing
hyperbole from scientific fact? Has
he spoken to anyone from the com-
pany other than a sales representa-
tive? Has he actually visited the
company? Is he getting some type
of kickback for selling certain prod-
ucts?
A common tactic in certain stores,
especially large health food store
chains, is what is called “bait and
switch.” This can take several
forms, but one is very obvious. The
store will display the well-known,
national brand of a product on one
shelf, and right below, it will display
the same products under their own
house-brand label. You are then
pressured to buy the house brand
rather than the national brand.
What about a recommendation
from your doctor? Most doctors,
either directly or indirectly, will
admit that they know very little
about what distinguishes a high-
quality brand from a poor-quality
brand. The others will claim they
know and perhaps make a recom-
mendation. Doctors are very knowl-
edgeable individuals. They know a
great deal about medicine, diagno-
sis, and treatment. But they don’t
usually learn about pharmaceutical
manufacturing in medical school.
They usually learn about products
from sales representatives and detail
men who, as you might expect, have
a tendency to exaggerate. It is very
difficult to find a salesman who will
not tell you that his products are
“the best.”
Those doctors who are quick to
make recommendations sometimes
have ulterior motives. If they sell
the products they recommend, their
motives may be suspect.
Professional Brands
The good news is that doctors are
more supportive of nutritional sup-
plements and herbal remedies than
they used to be. Many have come to
realize the value of combining con-
ventional and alternative therapies.
Some have adopted the term com-
plementary medicine to describe
this new approach.
The bad news is that a small num-
ber of health professionals have
taken this a step further and turned it
into a business opportunity. They
have become supplement retailers.
Some involve themselves in multi-
level marketing, which we discuss
in Chapter 4. Others just stock and
sell certain brands of dietary supple-
ments.
The Pharmacist Says: Some
might argue that it is okay for
physicians to sell nutritional
and herbal supplements from
their offices. But the American
Medical Association (AMA),
in its ethics guidelines, states:
“In-office sale of health-related
products by physicians
presents a financial conflict of
interest, risks placing undue
pressure on the patient, and
threatens to erode patient trust
and undermine the primary
obligation of physicians to
serve the interests of their
patients before their own.”
The AMA cautions physicians who
choose to sell health-related prod-
ucts from their offices to “not sell
any health-related products whose
claims of benefit lack scientific
validity.” And they warn that,
“because of the risk of patient
exploitation and the potential to
demean the profession of medicine,
physicians who choose to sell
health-related products from their
offices must take steps to minimize
their financial conflicts of interest.”
For one thing, as we said above,
the AMA suggests that physicians
limit sales to products that “serve
the immediate and pressing needs of
their patients.” It suggests that if
products are distributed to patients,
they should be done so free of
charge or at cost. This will avoid the
appearance of personal gain and
possible “financial conflicts of
interest that may interfere, or appear
to interfere, with the physician’s
independent medical judgment.”
The AMA goes on to require that
physicians disclose fully the nature
of their financial arrangement with a
manufacturer or supplier. This
would include informing patients
“about the availability of the prod-
uct or other equivalent products
elsewhere.”
What about the so-called profes-
sional lines? According to the code
of ethics, “physicians should not
participate in exclusive distributor-
ships of health-related products
which are available only through
physicians’ offices.” The AMA
acknowledges that these products
may be of established benefit. But it
suggests that if this is the case,
physicians should encourage the
manufacturers to make the products
more widely accessible to patients
than exclusive physician-distribu-
tion mechanisms allow.
Is this a bad thing? According to
the ethics guidelines of the
American Medical Association,
“The relationship between patient
and physician is based on trust and
gives rise to physicians’ ethical obli-
gations to place patients’ welfare
above their own self-interest and
above obligations to other groups,
and to advocate for their patients’
welfare.”
The ethics guidelines say all that
needs to be said about the pros and
cons of physician retailers. More to
the subject of this book is the ques-
tion of the products being sold.
Often, perhaps to justify the fact
that they are being sold by the doc-
tor or at a high price, the patient is
told that these professional-brand
products are superior to those found
in retail stores.
This is simply not true. There are
high-quality professional lines and
there are high-quality retail lines.
There is no reason to think that one
is higher quality than the other. And
it is also highly unlikely that prod-
ucts similar to these cannot be found
from other sources.
Are there certain attributes that
might distinguish these products
from those found in stores? There
can be. If the line specializes in
hypo-allergenic products, for exam-
ple, the physician may feel more
comfortable recommending prod-
ucts from that line if he deals with
many patients with allergies. In
some cases, these professional lines
contain products that are designed
for use as part of an integrated ther-
apeutic protocol, and it might not be
appropriate for the patient to use the
products unless they are under the
supervision of the physician. Some
of these products are not labeled for
retail display. For example, how
would a consumer looking at prod-
ucts in a health food store know
what Formula XYZ-29B is for?
So, there may indeed be a valid
role for supplements that are
designed specifically for use under
the supervision of physicians, and
there may sometimes be justifica-
tion for physicians making these
products available to patients direct-
ly from their office.
But is there a valid role for a line
of supplements bearing the doctor’s
label that can be obtained only from
his office? Is there justification for
physicians selling a line of products
from their office that cannot be
obtained anywhere else, including
pharmacies? It’s hard to understand
how a pharmacy, entrusted with the
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. . . continued from page 78
The Best Supplements For Your Health:
Chapter 2: How to Choose The Right
Supplement