Lookback: Oregon GNC Lawsuit Claimed Supplements are Untested Drugs

Around four years ago, the Oregon attorney general filed a GNC lawsuit claiming that the supplements violated regulations.

In October 2015, Attorney General Ellen Roseblum argued that General Nutrition Corporation (GNC) violated the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act (UTPA) by misrepresenting their products and selling untested, unapproved drugs under the guise of nutritional and dietary supplements. The GNC lawsuit sought to correct alleged misrepresentations that deceive many consumers about the contents of their supplements.

According to the attorney general, the company allegedly sold products which were labeled as containing botanical acacia rigidula without disclosing that the pills had been “spiked’ with picamilon and BMPEA.

Picamilon is a synthetic chemical that is used as a prescription drug in other countries to treat some neurological conditions, but the ingredient has not been tested or approved for use in the United States. BMPEA is an amphetamine-like stimulant which, despite lacking FDA approval, is sometimes sold as a weight loss supplement or performance enhancing nutritional vitamin.

The lawsuit argued that between the picamilon and BMPEA, GNC allegedly deceived consumers into believing that they were taking helpful, safe vitamins and supplements when they were actually taking untested drugs. Other supplements have been accused of deceptive advertising, such as their Glutamine products.

“It is scary to know that certain products sold by GNC contain an ingredient that is not even labeled—let alone approved in the United States,” said Attorney General Rosenblum of the GNC lawsuit claims in a media release. “When Oregonians buy a dietary supplement, they deserve to know that the ingredients in the products are safe and comply with the law. There are 25 GNC stores in Oregon that sold thousands of these products over the span of a couple of years.”

Unfortunately, illegal pharmaceuticals and untested chemicals in supplements is fairly common. It is estimated that every year, these untested substances cause 23,000 emergency department visits – over 2,000 of which are serious enough to warrant hospitalization.

The problem with untested pharmaceuticals is that there is no way to predict if the supplements will react poorly with certain medical conditions or with other approved medications. Medications can cancel each other out, have poor interactions with each other within the body, and cause life threatening complications if not used correctly.

This was not the first time GNC supplements have placed the company in legal trouble. In December 2016, GNC Holdings Inc. agreed to pay $2.25 million to resolve a federal GNC lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit brought similar claims against the supplement company, specifically targeting OxyElite Pro Advanced Formula which was reportedly misbranded and included synthetic stimulants.

“Unlawful dietary supplements are an important enforcement priority,” said DOJ principal deputy assistant attorney general Benjamin C. Mizer, according to Reuters.

More recently, in December 2018, GNC recalled 756,000 boxes of their Women’s Iron Complete Dietary Supplement due to concerns that the supplement’s packaging was not childproofed well enough to avoid poisoning. According to a statement by the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the supplement comes in a blister pack that isn’t child resistant. If a child were to ingest these supplements, they could case serious injury or death.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.