On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission finalized an order to permanently ban Health Research Laboratories, LLC, Whole Body Supplements, LLC and owner Kramer Duhon from advertising, marketing, promoting or selling their dietary supplements that they claimed could fix cardiovascular and diabetic diseases and disorders despite having no scientific evidence to support their claims.
In their initial complaint, the FTC found that the defendants’ claims were “unsubstantiated” and that it warranted further investigation. The FTC found that the defendants claimed their supplements were miracle drugs that could permanently prevent the risk of heart attacks and diabetes without any substantial scientific evidence to support their claims. In their decision letter, the FTC laid out guidelines for what qualifies as legitimate scientific studies, specifically a “randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled human clinical test,” and that the FTC must inspect and verify the results before being allowed to resume selling their supplements.
Furthermore, the defendants must preserve all customer information and then destroy it after sending letters to all customers to inform them that “the enclosed FTC order requires us to stop selling dietary supplements and claiming that our products cure, treat, mitigate, prevent, or reduce the risk of any disease.” The defendants also were forced to concede that their products may actually interfere with legitimate medicines and treatments for these issues and that they should stop taking the supplements immediately.
The FTC Commission voted unanimously to approve this order. In a response to a public commenter, Secretary April J. Tabor said that this order affirms that “representations about the health benefits, safety, performance or efficacy of any Food or Drug be non-misleading and substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence.”
