NPF Alerts FDA, FTC to 13 Companies Making Drug, Disease Dietary Supplement Claims

As part of its Truth In Advertising program, the Natural Products Foundation (NPF; Washington, DC) last week alerted FDA and the FTC to 13 dietary supplement companies allegedly making illegal advertising claims. The association has asked the agencies to take action against those companies.

The companies had been contacted by the association’s Truth In Advertising program, which seeks to alert companies the association believes are making problematic advertising claims. NPA alerted the regulatory agencies after the companies still failed to fix the faulty claims in their advertising materials.

Over the 12 months, the Truth In Advertising program has mailed a total of 77 warning letters to dietary supplement companies making illegal drug and disease claims. The association notes that a large majority of the companies have amended their advertising to be in regulatory compliance.

“We had exceptionally good meetings with both FDA and FTC,” said attorney Marc Ullman of Ullman, Shapiro & Ullman LLC, and also legal advisory council chairman for NPF. Ullman led the meetings with FDA and the FTC.

“Both agencies expressed their appreciation for the Foundation’s efforts and underscored the importance of our self-regulatory initiative,” he stated. “Significantly, both agencies advised us that they would review the material we provided relating to noncompliant advertisers who had either failed to respond or otherwise make substantive efforts to come into compliance following the receipt of our TIA ‘warning letters.’”