BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov 1, 2013) - It is with great shock and disappointment that we learned of Health Canada's public advisory that specific lots of Vega One and Vega Sport Protein have "potentially serious risks posed to health", as we are confident that our products in question are absolutely safe. We have been actively trying to work with Health Canada to discuss this matter and will continue to do so. However, given that we value each of our consumer's individual feelings about our product, we will accept returns with a full refund. For a listing of product names and lot codes that may contain trace amounts of chloramphenicol, all of which are well below the levels published by Health Canada to be safe for human consumption, click here.

Background

It recently came to our attention that, for a brief period of time, the enzyme ingredient used in our Vega One and Vega Sport Protein contained a trace amount of the antibiotic chloramphenicol (CAP). Vega immediately conducted extensive testing and research to determine any potential health risks. Dr. Jaap Hanekamp , a world recognized expert in chloramphenicol (CAP) research and environmental health sciences was asked to review the affected Vega products specifically. After a detailed analysis, Dr. Hanekamp determined that"The Vega products under review pose no risk whatsoever for consumers over a lifetime of exposure".

To read the full research paper, please click here.

The presence of trace amounts of CAP in foods is not new. In fact, this issue has been addressed previously by Health Canada in 2002 involving honey:

"The CFIA has now completed testing of over 100 samples of the liquid honey and has found uniformly small amounts of contamination with chloramphenicol residues (0.3 to 34.0 parts per billion). Based on new information from other countries and new testing data from the CFIA, there is now added assurance that the residues of the honey in question are uniformly low and pose a low risk.

Health Canada has since refined its advice that people can continue to consume products that may contain honey as the risk is extremely low.

Because the risk from products manufactured with honey, such as bakery products, is extremely low, consumers may continue to eat these products."

We tested our products in various third party laboratories and found our Vega One and Vega Sport Protein contain between 0.42ppb and 1.3ppb (parts per billion) of CAP. The upper most range in the above Health Canada release of 34 ppb is 26 times the highest CAP level found in Vega products. Health Canada has raised the concern about aplastic anemia as a result of CAP ingestion but the science demonstrates that this has only occurred in extremely rare cases at therapeutic doses (125 million times more than what is found in Vega). This has never been documented from residue levels of CAP found in foods.