June 2007

Dear Customer,

As consumers, we at Doctor’s Best share the concern of the whole nation with respect to imports from China. The canned dog food we had been feeding our dogs was recalled. I know that toothpaste sold in Latin America has been found to contain poisonous radiator coolant. Children’s toys have been found to have lead in the paint used to color them.

It is reasonable to assume these kinds of problems also exist with regard to dietary supplement ingredients. Following is what Doctor’s Best has done to ensure the safety of our products since the beginning.

Very few of our product ingredients are imported from China. As an example, we buy from Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Australia, Norway, India, Norway and the US. where they are manufactured in modern facilities that are cGMP and ISO 9001.

Furthermore, our red yeast rice is produced here in the US in a state of the art facility built solely to make red yeast rice. Our MSM is also manufactured in the US from the bark of southern pine trees. As a side note, this MSM costs Doctor’s Best 3.7 times as much as MSM we could import from China.

None of the excipients used in encapsulating or tableting in Doctor’s Best products are from China either.

I do wish, however, to state that China produces exceptionally high-end ingredients, many of which are imported into Europe and sold under the name of highly respected raw material suppliers. How can this be? The fact that poor quality, contaminated products arrive in the US from China has much more to do with purchasing decisions than with the ability of Chinese manufacturers to produce high quality materials.

There are a number of US raw material suppliers in our industry who have built processing facilities in China which are very high end and in compliance cGMP, ISO 9001. We at Doctort’s Best only deal with companies who comply with these regulations (see http://www.nsf.org/ , one of the two most respected testing organizations in the US). DRB works with companies who have “Drug Master File” (DMF) status on 20 of their products, most from China. DMF is a European Union requirement for products to be sold in Europe. It is the highest level of testing standards in the world.

Again, China produces some of the highest quality manufacturing in the world. The reason why is because US and European companies have established their own cGMP manufacturing plants there. The European market is one of the most regulated markets in the world. They would not be buying their raw materials from a place that cannot be trusted. If the Europeans would not get the best products out of China they would not buy them from there. Here is where it all begins, the buyers of raw materials and how they assure they get the raw materials from the highest quality manufacturing facilities with the most fastidious standards. That is the key to safety.

The companies we deal with in China adhere to European and US cGMP rules and supply the highest quality products we can make available to you.

Those products which are being supplied to European manufacturers are also available for purchase by American manufacturers. However, the price is significantly higher than for other products also produced in China but not up to the high standards.

There is an old American saying “you get what you pay for.” This certainly applies to dietary supplements as it does to anything else.

More examples of good purchasing high end instead of cheap and low quality:

Doctor’s Best purchases chondroitin sulfate from another US company which co-owns a manufacturing facility in China dedicated to producing the highest quality chondroitin. This facility has been certified GMP by U.S. Pharmacopeia, the oldest and most respected testing organization in the US. (http://www.usp.org/ ).

For years chondroitin sulfate has been available for sale in the US for as little as $19.00 per kg. A great deal has been sold at that price by unscrupulous companies. When the cheap chondroitin sulfate was tested, it was found to have NO DETECTABLE chondroitin. Chondroitin, in order to be effective and to actually make label claim has at times cost as much as $90.00 per kg. This high quality raw material is of course what Doctor’s Best uses.

Another US company which buys ingredients from China and sells to Doctor’s Best (Best Resveratrol). They have developed a sophisticated testing and reporting method named “Proven Profile.” Their QC program goes above and beyond to assure safety to the consumer, we know we checked them out thoroughly as we do with all of our suppliers.

I hope that I have persuaded you to accept the notion that the problem is more one of American manufacturers choosing to purchase products at the lowest possible cost and then get what they asked for, namely cheap, low grade product, rather than that all Chinese ingredients are bad. Quality should be the measure.

Doctor’s Best, by choosing to do business only with suppliers of very high grade ingredients, and by testing raw materials purchased prior to packaging and again after packaging, has in place procedures to ensure that the consumers of our products obtain safe and efficacious products for maintaining and to further their health. Here is why.

Doctor’s Best developed a brand that would never compromise on ingredients, quality, or science. A key to my understanding of the supplement business is that fad items and products with fictional benefits jeopardize retailer integrity and consumer trust. As a privately owned, independent entity, Doctor’s Best answers only to its customers and the retailers who carry our products. We all depend on the integrity of the people and products with whom we deal. Since the day we went into business more than 17 years ago, Doctor’s Best has pledged itself to that policy. The bottom line is, if Doctor’s Best offers it, you know it’s a proven nutritional concept with genuine health benefits. You have my personal guarantee on that.

Yours in Good Health,