Is Informed Choice legit?

Legit is measured by what can be lost: why a certifier's own description proves nothing, and the first two things this programme stands to lose, an accreditation that can be suspended and a database checked in public after every positive case

Is Informed Choice legit is a question that cannot be answered by reading what the programme says about itself, because every certifier, the legitimate and the invented, describes itself as rigorous, independent and trusted, and a buyer who reads the about page has learnt only that the programme can write one. The test that discriminates is exposure: a certifier is legitimate in proportion to what would happen to it if it certified badly, because a body with nothing to lose can certify anything and a body with a great deal to lose has every reason not to. A programme that would suffer no consequence from certifying a contaminated product is a logo for hire whatever its wording; a programme that would lose its laboratory's standing, its public credibility and its referrals is a programme whose incentives run the right way, and that is what legit means in practice. This one has four things to lose, and the first two are the heaviest.

The first is an accreditation that can be suspended. The programme's testing is run at a laboratory accredited to the international standard for testing and calibration laboratories by the national accreditation body, which means the laboratory was assessed, is reassessed on a cycle, has a published schedule listing every method it is accredited for by analyte and matrix, takes part in proficiency testing in which it analyses blind samples and is scored against other laboratories, and can have its scope suspended or withdrawn after a failed assessment or a proficiency failure. That accreditation is a thing the laboratory and the programme spent years earning and could lose in one assessment, and it is checkable: the accreditation body's register lists the laboratory, its number and its schedule, and a buyer can read them. A laboratory that merely describes itself as world-class has none of this to lose, and a certifier that uses such a laboratory has staked nothing.

The second is a database checked in public after every positive case. When an athlete tests positive, the first question in the hearing, the press and the sport is what the athlete took, and if a certified product is named, the programme's database is opened in public and its certification of that product is examined by the anti-doping body, the tribunal and the brand's competitors. A certified product implicated in a positive case is a public failure of the programme with the programme's name on it, and the programme's whole value to brands depends on that not happening; the incentive to screen hard, sample blind and withdraw quickly comes from that exposure rather than from a mission statement. A certifier whose database nobody checks after a case is a certifier that can afford to be lax, and this one cannot.

Two things to lose set out, with the two that remain, visible withdrawals and the referrals of the anti-doping bodies, the fee objection answered by the same test, the narrow scope as a limit, the worked example placed by the test and the verdict in the next section.

The third and fourth things to lose, products visibly withdrawn and the referrals of the anti-doping bodies and institutes; the fee-for-service objection answered; the narrow scope as a limit and not a flaw; the worked example placed by the same test; and the verdict

The third thing is a brand list from which products are withdrawn and seen to be withdrawn. The programme publishes its certified products in a database that is a public record of who is in and, by their absence, who has left; a product that fails a blind market sample, changes formulation or site without notice, or lapses on renewal is removed, and the removal is visible to the brand's customers, its retailers and its competitors. A certifier that never removes anyone has either perfect clients or no teeth, and the public record of withdrawals is the evidence of which; a buyer can read the database over time and see that it changes. The fourth is the referrals of the anti-doping bodies and the sports institutes: the national anti-doping organisation and the institutes that advise athletes direct them to products certified under the programme as the risk-reduction step their strict-liability rules make necessary, and those bodies have their own reputations to protect and would stop referring to a programme that embarrassed them. The referrals are a continuing endorsement by bodies with nothing to sell, conditional on the programme's performance, and the programme would lose them first if it failed.

The fee-for-service objection is answered by the same test. Brands pay for certification, which is how every certification in every industry is funded, from food safety audits to financial audits to the accreditation of the laboratory itself; the question is never whether the certifier is paid but whether it loses more by certifying badly than it earns by certifying, and a programme that could lose its laboratory's accreditation, its public credibility after one case, its database's integrity and its referrals from the anti-doping bodies loses far more from one bad certification than it earns from any brand's fee. A certifier is compromised by fees when the fee is the only thing at stake, and here it is the smallest thing at stake.

The narrow scope is a limit and not a flaw. The programme screens for banned substances and audits sites for contamination control, and it does not test dose, purity, metals or efficacy, which the previous pages in this section set out; a legit certifier with a narrow scope is still legit within it, and a buyer who expects it to attest more than it does has misread the scope rather than caught the certifier out. The worked example is outside the programme and is placed by the same consequences test applied to its own laboratory: {FL}, 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate stated as 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, is not enrolled in any banned-substance programme and says so, and its batch testing for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium is run at a UK laboratory accredited to the same international standard by the same national body, with the same published schedule and the same exposure to suspension, so that the certificate by lot on request is backed by a laboratory with something to lose; UK made under GMP and BRC, 180 capsules for £19.99 at 22p a day, and a tested athlete who wants a magnesium chooses one in the programme's database. The full label breakdown is here.

The verdict: the programme is legit by the test that matters, what it stands to lose. Its laboratory holds an accreditation the national body can suspend; its database is opened in public after every positive case in sport; its products are withdrawn visibly when they fail; and the anti-doping bodies and institutes that refer athletes to it could stop. A certifier with that much exposure has its incentives pointing the right way, the fees it charges are the smallest thing at stake, and its narrow scope is the limit of what it attests rather than a flaw in how it attests it. A buyer applies the same test to any certifier and any laboratory, including the one behind a brand's own certificate.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

Is Informed Choice a legitimate certification?

Yes, by the test that discriminates a real certifier from a logo for hire, which is what it stands to lose: its testing laboratory is accredited to the international testing standard by the national accreditation body, with a published schedule and a scope that can be suspended after a failed assessment; its database is opened in public after every positive test in sport, so a certified product named in a case is a public failure; its products are visibly withdrawn on a failed blind sample or a lapsed renewal; and the anti-doping bodies and sports institutes that direct athletes to it could stop; a certifier with that much exposure has its incentives pointing the right way, within the narrow scope of banned substances and site control.

Do brands pay for Informed Choice certification?

Yes, as brands pay for every certification in every industry, from food safety audits to financial audits to the accreditation of the laboratory itself, and the payment is not what decides legitimacy: the question is whether the certifier loses more by certifying badly than it earns by certifying, and a programme that could lose its laboratory's accreditation, its public credibility after one athlete's case, the integrity of its database and the referrals of the anti-doping bodies loses far more from one bad certification than any brand's fee is worth; a certifier is compromised by fees only when the fee is the only thing at stake, and here it is the smallest.

Has an Informed Choice certified product ever caused a failed drug test?

That is the question the programme's whole value rests on and the reason its database is public: after any positive test the athlete's products are examined, and a certified product implicated in a case would be a public failure with the programme's name on it, examined by the anti-doping body, the tribunal and every competitor of the brand; the programme's blind market sampling, its site audits and its withdrawals exist to keep that from happening, and a buyer who wants the record reads the published decisions of the anti-doping tribunals, where the products athletes took are named, rather than any certifier's own account of its history.

How do I check if a supplement certification is real?

By asking what the certifier would lose if it certified badly, and checking each answer in a public record: whether its laboratory appears on the national accreditation body's register with a number and a schedule of methods, which a letterhead laboratory does not; whether its database is public and changes over time, with products that have left it; whether independent bodies with nothing to sell, the anti-doping organisations and the sports institutes, direct people to it; and whether the scope it claims is narrow and specific rather than a promise to attest everything; a certifier that passes those four is real, and one that fails the first is a logo whatever else it says.

Is the laboratory behind this site's magnesium testing legit by the same test?

It is placed by the same test rather than by its own description: the product is outside the programme and says so, and its batch testing for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is run at a UK laboratory accredited to the same international testing standard by the same national accreditation body, with a published schedule of methods and a scope the body can suspend, so that the certificate by lot on request is backed by a laboratory with something to lose; the product is 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate stated as 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, UK made under GMP and BRC, 180 for £19.99 at 22p a day.

Sources

1. ISO/IEC 17025, the standard for testing and calibration laboratories: accreditation to it by a national body attests to a laboratory's technical competence and the validity of its results for the methods in scope, and is what makes a certificate of analysis a document someone has audited. https://www.ukas.com/accreditation/standards/laboratory-accreditation/
2. The UK Accreditation Service: UKAS accredits testing laboratories to ISO 17025 for defined scopes and publishes a searchable directory of accredited organisations and their schedules of accreditation. https://www.ukas.com/find-an-organisation/
3. The sports supplement certification programmes: Informed Sport, Informed Choice, BSCG and NSF Certified for Sport test products or batches for banned substances, the assurance competing athletes rely on. https://sport.wetestyoutrust.com/
4. UK Anti-Doping guidance on supplements: strict liability means an athlete is responsible for any prohibited substance in their sample regardless of how it got there, contaminated supplements have produced UK anti-doping violations, and batch testing under a recognised programme is the risk-reduction step the agency describes while stating no supplement can be guaranteed free of prohibited substances. https://www.ukad.org.uk/athletes/supplements

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