Dr.S.K. Dash, founder and president of UAS Labs rediscovered Probiotics. While working as the director of the Food and Drug Administration for South Dakota, from 1973 to 1979, Dr. Dash discovered that a probiotic product was approved as a drug in the 1950's by the U.S. Government. He also found that probiotics lost ground to antibiotics, the miracle drug of the time.

    Dr. Dash found that probiotics have been 97% effective in combating E. coli infection in pigs, which is about the same effectiveness as the antibiotic Neomycin Sulfate. The large pharmaceutical companies using millions of dollars to market and promote antibiotics were able to take over the market.

    During the past 15 years, however, the health trend has shifted away from prescriptions to nutrition. Vitamin and health supplement use has been growing at the rate of 20 to 30% a year. Fortification of milk and yogurt with Acidophilus is increasing. Yogurt consumption has grown 10-fold during the past 10 years.

    During DR. Dash's tenure with the government, he was very critical about nutritional labeling and misleading information given to the consumers by manufacturers. He found probiotics producers were the worst offenders. Misleading information frequently ' appeared on probiotic products. Dr. Dash became chairman of the National Probiotic Products Committee because of his concerns about honesty in labeling and quality control.

    He worked to develop labeling standards and assay procedures, which are currently being followed by the Industry.

    Dr. Dash has written articles and spoken at many national and regional meetings on "How to Select an Acidophilus Supplement." Among the innovations he has introduced are non-dairy probiotics sold as DDS Acidophilus and DDS Plus as well as using nitrogen packaging to enhance the stability of his products.

    Recently, Dr. Dash has taken another stop to improve the quality and performance of probiotics by fortifying them with prebiotic Fructooligosaccharides (FOS). His new area of research is peptic ulcers and probiotics.