BUTLER, C.
The products you offer are good and for…
The products you offer are good and for a fair price. However, many still may contain ingredients, naturally occurring or not, that may be contaminated by heavy metals and other toxins, and thus cannot be sold wholesale in California. You also need to get titanium dioxide out of all your products. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies titanium dioxide as a Group 2B carcinogen.
Response from Bronson VitaminsOct 15, 2018
Thank you for your long history as a customer of Bronson. We appreciate your continued patronage and your concern regarding the way we respond to the ever-evolving regulatory environment in which we operate. California's Proposition 65 places interesting notification responsibilities on vitamin and dietary supplement manufacturers. The most recent changes require that Aloe and Aspirin containing products warrant warnings for any products containing those ingredients shipped into California also. Most of the products that fall into the Prop 65 warning category are herbals like Psyllium Husk powder, Valerian Root, and St. John’s Wort, and products that contain a large mineral content like our Coral Calcium Complex and Vitamin & Mineral Formula and Mineral Complex. These products, as they occur in nature - whether they are grown in soil or they are mined from the earth - are likely to have levels of heavy metals. California has established safe levels of those heavy metals because of this, realizing that a complete ban was and is unrealistic. The warnings that are on any invoice that contains a “Prop 65” product are required by the State of California. To distribute products for resale in the California requires us to comply with Prop 65 regulations. Because we cannot monitor how wholesalers comply with these regulations, we made the choice to restrict our sales in that state to end-use consumers only. Addressing your concern about titanium dioxide being classified as a group 2B carcinogen, it is only when it is inhaled as a powder. The exact quote in the International Agency for Research on cancer, says, “IARC did conclude, however, that titanium dioxide is “possibly carcinogenic to humans by means of inhalation” (category 2b). It found inadequate evidence in humans but sufficient evidence of cancer risk in animals.” When used as a coloring agent in our opaque capsules, or in pharmaceuticals, or even in milk (to give it a whiter appearance), miniscule amounts of titanium dioxide are considered safe to consume orally, and therefore it does not present a risk to health as it is used in Bronson Products. Hopefully this explains the ways that Bronson is striving to be compliant in this current regulatory environment, and that we would never consider using a substance in our products that could harm our customers. Being concerned for our customers’ well-being is how we have stayed in business since 1960.