A handful of lawsuits brought against several makers of “aloe vera” gel are a stark reminder that nine times out of ten, you can’t judge a product by its label in the US. The suits allege that four brands of “aloe vera” gel — store brands labeled by Target, Wal-Mart, CVS, as well as another brand called Fruit of the Earth — contained literally no aloe. Various lab tests conducted independently and by Bloomberg found that these products carried “no chemical markers” for aloe. Though none of the retailers would comment on the results, a spokesperson for Fruit of the Earth told Bloomberg, “We’ve been in the business a long time, and we know where the raw ingredients come from,’’ adding, “We stand behind our products.”
Nine times out of ten, you can’t judge a product by its label in the US.
It’s not hard for aloe makers to stand behind their products, however, even if what they’re packaging contains no aloe: the FDA, which oversees cosmetics and drug products sold in the United States, doesn’t directly test any product and also doesn’t recall in the face of mislabeled products. In fact, all recalls, even of potentially dangerous substances, are strictly at the discretion of the manufacturers. The bottled aloe, like almost everything one would buy as a “personal care product” (meaning it doesn’t have a Drug Warning label on its package) is regulated by the FDA’s Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which dates back to 1938. Though the Act has been updated plenty over the years, it essentially treats manufacturers of products on the honor system, trusting them to make things for us to buy that don’t kill or harm us. It trusts companies to label things accurately and to not make false claims about the powers of its products.
All this means that really, the only recourse for consumers is a lawsuit. And that’s where several consumers are right now with Big Aloe. “No reasonable person would have purchased or used the products if they knew the products did not contain any aloe vera,’’ attorneys wrote in a suit filed in Illinois in September. But no reasonable person can test their bottled aloe themselves, so what do we make of it? How does one go about getting real aloe?
Get a plant. Or demand a stronger FDA. Failing that, you’re on your own.
