The Federal Trade Commission has banned A. Glenn Braswell from using direct marketing to sell food, unapproved drugs and dietary supplements. Braswell, who was already under a previous consent decree stemming from alleged violations of the FTC Act, will pay $1 million and turn over assets worth $3.5 million to settle the FTC’s charges.
According to the FTC, Braswell used a direct mail package consisting of “The Journal of Longevity,” an advertisement designed to look like a health magazine. The FTC charged that Braswell used false and misleading claims of medical or scientific “breakthroughs,” expert endorsements, and misrepresented the results and applicability of scientific studies.
The products the FTC targeted, Lung Support Formula, AntiBetic Pancreas Tonic, Gero Vita G.H.3, ChitoPlex, and Testerex, were supposed to cure, prevent, or treat a number of illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and emphysema.
In settling the FTC’s charges, Braswell not only is banned from direct response marketing (with a few exemptions, such as FDA approved product claims), he also is prohibited from making false, misleading, or unsubstantiated health claims, misrepresenting endorsements, making unsubstantiated endorsements, or misrepresenting scientific evidence for all foods, drugs, dietary supplements, and health-related products and services. Braswell already was under a 1983 consent order to resolve the FTC’s charges related to his marketing of baldness and anti-cellulite products.
The FTC also announced a settlement with defendant Hans Kugler. The FTC alleged that Kugler was an expert endorser for two of the products, Lung Support Formula and Gero Vita G.H.3. The FTC’s complaint charged that Kugler did not have the required expertise or a reasonable basis for his endorsements. The settlement prohibits him from making future endorsements, unless they are based on competent and reliable scientific information and an actual exercise of his represented expertise, as well as misrepresentations about scientific tests or studies. Kugler will pay $15,000 in settlement of the allegations.
With today’s announced settlements, all of the seven corporate defendants and four of the five individual defendants have settled the FTC’s charges in this case. Litigation continues against a fifth, Chase Revel.
The Commission votes authorizing staff to file the stipulated final orders were both 4-0. The stipulated final orders for permanent injunction were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Oct. 21 (Kugler) and Dec. 28 (Braswell).
