Choosing Vitamins: Brand Names or Not?

Brand-name vitamins may not provide any better quality than store brands, a consumer group says. The New York Times wrote about the issue of vitamins and quality December 5. ConsumerLab.com did tests on many brands of vitamins, the Times said. The group found a quality problem in about 30% of them. Some house brands from large discount stores were just as likely to contain accurate amounts of ingredients as better-known brand names, ConsumerLab found. It said discount store brands were more reliable, on average, than drugstore house brands. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not test vitamins before they are sold. An industry spokesman said the FDA allows some variation in the amount of ingredients in a product. He said pills may contain up to 15% more of a vitamin than the label indicates.