Joint action is first step in halting sale of the products

Lowcarbfriends, a popular lowcarb bulletin board, established a support forum for the HCG diet about a year ago. This coincided with Netrition, the company that owns Lowcarbfriends, starting to sell the homeopathic hhCG drops and pellets.

Netrition’s response to the FDA/FTC action was to declare:

Netrition has not been contacted by the FDA but will comply with all FDA rules and regulations. Therefore, we are removing all marketing text from all of the HCG products that we sell.
As of this moment, we will continue to sell HCG products but be advised that HCG products could be taken off the market at any time. If this is a concern to you, you may want to stock up as soon as possible.

Now, I’m sure that FDA and FTC know that the actual drops and pellets are harmless as they don’t actually contain any HCG. However,

The labeling for the “homeopathic” HCG products states that each product should be taken in conjunction with a very low calorie diet. There is no substantial evidence HCG increases weight loss beyond that resulting from the recommended caloric restriction. Consumers on a very low calorie diet are at increased risk for side effects including gallstone formation, electrolyte imbalance, and heart arrhythmias.

The prescribed “very low calorie diet” for hhCG consists of 500 calories of low fat and relatively low carb foods. Considering the controversy that surrounded the Kimkins diet, another starvation diet that was initially also sponsored by Lowcarbfriends, you would think that they would know that such a diet is not healthy. In case you don’t recall, you can read about it on Kimkins Survivors.

Following the HCG forum on Lowcarbfriends over some time, there has been many reports of similar adverse effects as previously reported for Kimkins. The non-existent HCG in the homeopathic hhCG will not protect against damage from an extreme low calorie diet, no matter how much you believe in homeopathy. FDA is asking anybody that has suffered adverse affects due to hhCG use to report it on MedWatch.

While I do not believe that the hhCG drops and pellets do any harm, I find it sad to see how people now rush to “stock up” before they are taken off the market, and the suppliers, like Netrition, take advantage of this panic in order to increase sales.

FTC Charges Marketers of ‘Hoodia’ Weight Loss Supplements With Deceptive Advertising

The Federal Trade Commission has charged the suppliers of supposed Hoodia gordonii, also known as hoodia, with deceptive advertising for claiming that using their product would lead to weight loss and appetite suppression.

In its complaint, the FTC alleges that the defendants not only made false and deceptive claims about what hoodia could do, but also, on one or more occasions, claimed that their product was Hoodia gordonii, a plant native to southern Africa, when it was not.

The FTC has requested that the court order the defendants not to make false or deceptive statements or destroy documents pending trial. The Commission seeks to permanently bar the defendants from deceptively advertising hoodia, and to obtain disgorgement of the defendants’ profits from their hoodia sales.

The defendants allegedly made false and deceptive claims when advertising their fake hoodia to trade customers who manufactured and marketed supplements.

NOTE: The Commission authorizes the filing of a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. A complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendants have actually violated the law.

It is interesting to see how the FTC continues to pursue these companies that make a living by selling weight loss products with claims that are not backed up by facts.  This Hoodia charge follows closely on the Hydroxycut warning, the settlement with QVC and the FDA releasing a list of weight loss supplements considered unsafe.

There is still much work to do though. Will the Acai scam and Colon Cleanse come next? I hope so.

We can also hope that these type of cases result in some legislation for deceptive marketing as a whole. That would prevent dangerous diets such as Kimkins to establish themselves on the internet