Osteo Bi-Flex Class Action Challenges ‘Joint Health’ Label Promises

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A woman from California says Osteo Bi-Flex glucosamine supplements can’t possibly provide the joint health benefits that their labeling promises.

Plaintiff Sandra Seegert is challenging the labeling on the Osteo Bi-Flex line of nutritional supplements, made and marketed by defendant Rexall Sundown. The defendant sells the Osteo Bi-Flex line through retail outlets like Walgreens, Walmart and Costco, and also through its own website, OsteoBiFlex.com.

Promotional materials for Osteo Bi-Flex products give the impression that the supplements can improve a person’s joint health, Seegert says. She claims the labeling on some of these products bears representations like “Joint Shield,” “Joint Health,” and “Shows Improved Joint Comfort within 7 Days!”

On at least one Osteo Bi-Flex product, the front label says “Supports Cartilage Health” and “Helps Strengthen Your Joints.” Labeling across the line of products says they “support[] joint comfort” and “help[] strengthen joints while helping to maintain joint cartilage essential for comfortable joint movement,” she claims.

But Seegert says the main ingredient in Osteo Bi-Flex offers no benefits for joint health whatsoever. That main ingredient is glucosamine hydrochloride, a combination of glucosamine and hydrochloric acid.

Seegerts says many reliable scientific studies have purportedly found no particular benefits for joint health in persons who took glucosamine. These studies reported that glucosamine had no particular effect on joint space width or cartilage reconstruction, and they found no particular improvements in pain or joint function.

“Accordingly, Defendant’s joint health representations are false, misleading and deceptive, and its Osteo Bi-Flex joint health products are worthless,” Seegert says.

She believes the emphatic promises of joint health in these products’ labeling could result in a placebo effect in anyone who uses them, without any actual joint health improvement.

Seegert says she was financially harmed by Rexall Sundown when she bought a container of Osteo Bi-Flex in February 2017. She says that in deciding to buy that product, she relied on the company’s representations that it would support joint health.

Had she known those representations were false, she says, she never would have purchased Osteo Bi-Flex.

In her Osteo Bi-Flex class action lawsuit, Seegert takes issue with four specific products under that brand: Osteo Bi-Flex One Per Day, Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength, Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength MSM, and Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength with Vitamin D.

Seegert is proposing to represent a plaintiff Class consisting of all persons who purchased any of the Osteo Bi-Flex products at issue within the state of California and within the applicable statutory limitations period.

She is asking the court to enjoin Rexall Sundown from continuing the alleged false advertising and to conduct a corrective advertising campaign. She also seeks an award of restitution and disgorgement of revenues related to the alleged mislabeling, reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs of litigation, all with pre- and post-judgment interest.

Seegert’s attorneys are Todd D. Carpenter of Carlson Lynch Sweet Kilpela & Carpenter LLP and Timothy G. Blood and Thomas J. O’Reardon II of Blood Hurst & O’Reardon LLP.

The Osteo Bi-Flex False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Sandra Seegert v. Rexall Sundown Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-01243, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.