Ensure Muscle Health False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit

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Ensure Muscle Health False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit

By Matt O’Donnell

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Abbott Nutrition claiming it misleads baby boomers about the muscle-building benefits of Ensure shakes and other products containing Revigor – a scientific-sounding name that is nothing more than a “cleverly developed marketing name” meant to connote medical significance to the company’s claims. The shakes targeted in the class action lawsuit are Ensure Muscle Health Shake and Ensure Clinical Strength.

“Abbott capitalizes on the fears of a growing population of baby boomers and other individuals who are concerned about muscle loss. To gain credibility with consumers, Abbott touts the purported health benefits of these supposed miracle elixir Products with pseudo-scientific terms and proclamations like, the ‘#1 doctor recommended brand,’” the Ensure class action lawsuit states. “In particular, the packaging for Abbott’s panacea boldly promises that the Products will ‘help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time.’ According to Abbott, this astonishing scientific achievement comes from Revigor – Abbott’s ‘proprietary ingredient’ – a source of ‘Amino Acid Metabolite HMB.’”

The Ensure class action lawsuit says these claims are “nothing more than false and misleading claims designed to increase sales by deceiving consumers into believing that purchasing and consuming the Products alone will deliver health and wellness benefits that the Products do not, and cannot, provide.”

Despite these representations, without exercise, neither Ensure, Revigor nor any other ingredients in the Products can “rebuild” lost muscle and strength in normal, healthy adults, regardless of their age, the class action lawsuit says.

Even the trade name “Revigor” contributes to the false and misleading nature of the product labeling, the class action lawsuit says. Had the Plaintiff and consumers known that Ensure could not provide the benefits promised, they would not have purchased them, or they would have paid less, the complaint alleges.

The Ensure Revigor class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of all U.S. residents who purchased Ensure Muscle Health Shake or Ensure Clinical Strength during the period of August 14, 2008 to the present. It is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, restitution and disgorgement of Abbott’s profits, injunctive relief and a Court order requiring a corrective advertising campaign.

A copy of the Ensure Muscle Health Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Michael J. Otto v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., Case No. 12-cv-1411, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Eastern Division. The Plaintiff is represented by the law firm Baron  & Budd, P.C.

UPDATE: A federal judge has dismissed the proposed Ensure Muscle Health class action lawsuit two times since it was originally filed, but finally allowed a third amended complaint to move forward in a September 11, 2013 ruling.

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