I just saw a commercial for Lipozine which not only claims weight loss, but even goes as far as to describe it specifically attacking fat.
Wiki says:
“The company Obesity Research Institute, the marketer of FiberThin, Zylotrim, Propolene and Lipozene, settled FTC charges that their misleading weight-loss claims violated federal laws by agreeing to pay $1.5 million in consumer redress.”
OK, so why are the ads still running?
And more generally, why is this a reoccurring issue?
I imagine the (newer) ad you saw included the right weasel words so as not to technically rise to the level of making false claims.
Yeah, there are very few laws regarding commercials. The laws there are, are very specific and concrete (no tobacco advertisements comes to mind), everything else can be circumvented with creative use of the language.
Because they can sell enough more than they pay in fines to make it worth it. Sure, they paid out $1.5 million. But if they made $2 million, it makes sense to keep going, right?
Well, only if all their other operating costs are less than $500,000…though your point is valid. The accountants probably figure the inevitable fines into the budget at this point.
Because the FDA does not require any efficacy testing at all for products which are nominally marketed as “herbal supplements”, like Lipozene or Enzyte. FTC regulations prohibit such products from touting direct health benefits, so advertisers allude to them as closely as they think they can get away with. Hence, Enzyte claiming that it offers “natural male enhancement”, which is really saying nothing.
Probably because their lobbyists in Congress are well-paid and effective in keeping regulatory legislation from getting very far. And consumers love their “quick fixes” so they don’t complain too much.
True. And I actually had like 7 tabs open trying to find the actual revenue for these folks in the last year, or ten years or whatever, so we could do the math. But I had trouble finding that information, and realized the details don’t matter so much. The point is that they make more money than they pay out in fines, so there’s no reason to go to the expense of reshooting commercials.
It’s much like automobile manufacturers who decide a recall for a product fault would cost more than the probable lawsuits that would be filed for injury or death. It’s all very finely worked out in terms of dollars, so what would be a crippling fine serving to change behavior to a small company is just the cost of doing business for these big guys.
Why is it that these ads tend to go in cycles? It seems like I’ll see ads and hear ad for Lipozine and then after a few months it goes away, months later it comes back and does another run?
It’s because of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. Here’s what the FDA has to say about it: http://www.fda.gov/food/dietarysupplements/consumerinformation/ucm110417.htm
Basically, DSHEA is a gigantic loophole that means if you call your stuff a “dietary supplement”, you can make any sort of completely untrue, unproven, or untested claim that you want, as long as it’s a “structure/function claim”, and not a direct claim of treating or curing a disease. That’s why you almost always see the standard supplement weasel disclaimer: “This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”.
Ah, but in their disclaimer in very fine print at the bottom of the ad, has data from their “Double Bilnd Study” It says that subjects who got the suplement lost 2 more pounds, over a one year period, than those not getting it.
Who knows how many people were in the study. If there were 2, it might be true, but not statistically significant.
Personally, I have no faith in the Double Bilnd methodology. 