FDA announced more ephedra seizures last Friday, this time from Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, an Atlanta area supplement maker. For the FDA press release, click here. We previously mentioned Hi-Tech in connection with a trade dress dispute here.

The Original Creatine Patent Company, a UK firm that owns several patents for creatine supplement formulations, has sued NBTY and several of its subsidiaries, including Vitamin World, Nature's Bounty, and Puritan's Pride, for patent infringement.

General Nutrition Centers, Inc., the ubiquitous brick-and-mortar supplement retailer and franchisor, has taken a group of GNC franchisees to task for speaking out. GNC has filed suit in the Western District of Pennsylvania against several franchisees who formed the General Nutrition Operators Association (GNOA), a group that purports to represent GNC franchisees and their economic interests.

As Steven Shapiro, Esq. of Ullman, Shapiro & Ullman pointed out at last week's FDLI Food Law Regulation Workshop, an effective supplement regimen has once again been the subject of unfair media bashing despite positive study results.

Hip cosmeceutical maker Philosophy has sued the South Florida dermatology practice of Dr. Fredric Brandt for trademark infringment. Philosophy claims that when it adopted the mark HOPE IN A JAR for a moisturizing cream, Dr.

The American Herbal Products Association will hold a teleseminar on March 3rd entitled "Substantiation for Dietary Supplements — How to Ensure Dietary Supplement Product Claims Are Truthful, Legal & Documented."

The National Nutritional Foods Association reacted strongly to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found no difference between patients with an enlarged prostate condition who were treated with saw palmetto versus a placebo.

In recent years more and more drugs, both OTC and prescription, have been made available with nasal inhalation delivery systems. Most recently, the FDA announced approval of inhaled insulin.

In a decision on precedural issues, the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals has ruled on the scope of federal court review of FDA regulations imposed on dietary supplements regulated under DSHEA.

Just a few short days after several former executives of Berkeley agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges, the FTC has filed this complaint against the company charging it with unfair and deceptive trade practices in connection with the marketing and sale of a number of the company's nutritional supplement products.

Yours truly is featured in this month's Balancing Life and Practice column at Lexis One. While I do not profess to be a poster child for balance, it is nice to get some publicity and recognition from Lexis, a resource I use regularly.

This article reports that the Federal Trade Commission has settled misleading advertising charges with Chase Revel, the creator of advertising for Gero Vita International's dietary supplements.

While doing some research I ran across this Duke law journal article entitled REGULATING FUNCTIONAL FOODS: PRE- AND POST-MARKET STRATEGY. The article is on the web in full text, so I thought I would post it.

From the Cincinnati Business Journal comes this article that details a plea agreement with four former senior executives of Berkely Premium Nutraceuticals, Inc. on mail fraud charges.

LLRX.com, the Law Librarians' Resource Exchange, the premier legal research site on the internet, has published "Researching Laws and Information on Nutritional and Dietary Supplements On the Web," the Nutrisuplaw.com

The potential impact of rules adopted by the Codex Alimentarius commission, especially what effect these rules may have on nutritional supplement availability in the US and elsewhere, has been hotly debated.

In the last 24 hours, FDA has issued two press releases on supplement issues, one concerns another ephedra seizure, and a second warns (albeit belatedly) about brazilian diet pills.

This article in Natural Products Insider contains an excellent discussion of FDA regulations regarding food additives that are Generally Recognized As Safe or GRAS. As the article notes, with the passage of DSHEA in 1994, dietary ingredients used in nutritional supplements no longer had to qualify as GRAS, but instead were regulated under a different regulatory scheme that I have described briefly in the Research Guide appended to this blog.

Beginning January 14, 2006, supplement industry lawyer Jonathan Emord who represented the plaintiffs in the landmark case Pearson v. Shalala will host “Health Law and Politics.”

Vero Beach, Florida based supplement maker Orange Peel Enterprises, makers of the Greens+ line of supplements containing, among other herbal ingredients, chlorophyl, has sued the maker of Super Greens Plus for trademark infringement.