Supplement maker sentenced to jail for misleading customers

Supplement maker sentenced to jail for misleading customers

I know you’ve seen them. They’re among the most ridiculous commercials on television. They feature Smiling Bob – a generic, middle-aged guy with an absurd permanent grin on his face. Why the smile? Because Bob takes Enzyte – a daily supplement that, according to the ad, promotes “male enhancement.”

But last month a federal jury said that thousands of consumers purchased Enzyte under false pretenses. And here’s where it gets a little mind-boggling.

The court sentenced Steve Warshak, the owner of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals (the maker of Enzyte), to 25 years in jail, a personal fine of $93,000, and required the company to forfeit $500 million. Warshak’s 75-year-old mother and several associates also received jail sentences.

I’m certainly not going to rush to Mr. Warshak’s defense just because he sells dietary supplements. He was found guilty on more than 90 counts, which included conspiracy and money laundering, so obviously there’s much more going on here than just misleading customers.

But here’s my question: How many of Mr. Warshak’s customers died?

Zero.

When Merck executives pulled Vioxx from the market in 2004 because of increased risk of heart attack and stroke, they suddenly faced thousands of lawsuits from families whose relatives died after using Vioxx.

Last year, Merck paid close to $5 billion to settle those cases out of court.

In a case study that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association this past spring, two doctors who reviewed Vioxx litigation documents wrote: “In April 2001, the company’s internal intention-to-treat analyses of pooled data from these 2 trials identified a significant increase in total mortality. These mortality analyses were neither provided to the FDA nor made public in a timely fashion.”

The authors also noted that in a 2001 Safety Update Report for the FDA, Merck “minimized the appearance of any mortality risk.”

How many years will Merck executives spend in jail?

Zero.