Lipodrene Makers Lose to FTC in Court

WASHINGTON—The marketers of Lipodrene, Thermalean and Spontane-ES were ordered by a federal district court to pay more than $15 million to FTC to settle charges of deceptive product sales; the court also banned them from making future unsubstantiated claims or misrepresenting the state of the science on a product. National Urological Group and related defendants promoted the dietary supplements for weight loss and erectile dysfunction, but the claims were found to violate FTC’s requirement for “competent and reliable scientific evidence” for substantiation. The defendants’ arguments that the ads were protected under the First Amendment and that FTC’s challenge was precluded by an earlier consent decree with FDA were both rejected by the court.