While no one admitted any wrong, two former officers of Nature's Sunshine Products Inc. and the company have agreed to pay a total of $650,000 in civil penalties in connection with a Securities & Exchange Commission investigation of NSP's Brazilian subsidiary.

GUEST COLUMN by Judith L. Grubner, Esq., Arnstein & Lehr Partner and Intellectual Property Practice Group Leader Some of us remember when parents would chase their children out to play in the sun, with no protection other than play clothes. 

Several hours after our post on increased media coverage of the potential danger of supplement use by high school athletes, the Food & Drug Administration held a press conference and issued a public health advisory on body-building products and steroids.

The pros have rules. The NCAA has its rules. And now there is a media awakening that steroid use in high schools deserves attention.  Newspapers have focused on the subject in recent articles.

If you thought faux news was the province of only The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and The Onion, welcome to News 13 WKTV. It is the non-TV station,  non-news Web site that reports on Resveratrol Ultra.

What is good for the patient is good for the nurse and doctor, too. The Council for Responsible Nutrition hired Ipsos Public Affairs to ask doctors and nurses how often they took vitamins and why.

Attention copywriters. The FDA has taken out a bright red pen and is poised to mark up your product statements. The green shades (an antiquated description of newspaper copyeditors)  signaled much closer review of health claims with a warning to General Mills about oat cereal.

Three New Jersey companies that manufacture and sell nutritional supplements and protein powders have just learned what happens when you do not follow health directives from the Food and Drug Administration.

GUEST BLOG by David A. Mark The Institute of Medicine is currently reviewing the Dietary Reference Intake value for vitamin D that last changed in 1997.

A recent study by LegalMetrics, a litigation analysis firm, named the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida among the top five districts for speed to resolution in patent infringement cases.  

Calvin Pace of the New York Jets will be sitting out the first four games of the 2009 season because he violated the National Football League's policy on doping.

Following up on a post from June 30, the question of consumer confidence in nutritional supplements arises again. The Times-Herald reports that many supplements have quality problems. 

Anne Hart has lots of questions about the quality and safety of nutritional supplements, 19 questions to be exact. They revolve around product integrity, contamination, mislabeling (think sibutramine), FDA oversight and so on. 

Manufacturers beware. Your regulatory problems may not be over when you pull a product from the store shelves. Matrixx Initiatives Inc. recalled its Zicam products on June 16 and three days later the Securities & Exchange Commission sent a letter of inquiry.

The Nutritional and Dietary Supplement Law Blog is pleased as punch to announce that Joel B. Rothman, your faithful editor and publisher, has joined the West Palm Beach office of Arnstein & Lehr LLP as a partner.

In the days following the FDA warning on the dangers of taking Hydroxycut and the manufacturer's recall, the reaction has been more sliced than divided. There were the oft-seen reactions: NaturalNews headlined its commentary, "FDA Floats Hydroxycut Scare to Discredit Yet Another Supplement Company." 

Here is some good advice I received in an email courtesy of Greenberg Traurig partner James R. Prochnow who allowed us to reprint this here.  The advice came in the context of potential reaction from the article by David Epstein and George Dohrmann in Sports Illustrated entitled "What You Don't Know Might Kill You."

There was a ton of buzz this past week about the article by David Epstein and George Dohrmann in Sports Illustrated entitled "What You Don't Know Might Kill You."

This month's Nutritional Outlook magazine features an article by your favorite Nutritional and Dietary Supplement Law blog editor/publisher Joel Rothman.  Entitled "Playing It Safe: Marketers can protect themselves against product adulteration and recalls," the article provides several valuable tips for supplement marketing companies looking to avoid legal and regulatory problems in today's challenging environment.

Get ready for the not-so-kind-and-gentle FDA when it comes to food safety. The agency took abuse from politicians and consumer advocates over its handling of peanut and pistachio contamination earlier this year.