How closely can nutritional supplement companies connect with the fast-moving world of social media? The FDA will address these questions at a hearing Nov. 12-13 in Washington. The agency is soliciting comments in the Federal Register.

The Federal Trade Commission provides advertising lessons in its proposed settlement with CVS to refund nearly $2.8 million to buyers of the retailer’s Air Shield dietary supplement. The drug store chain made cold-prevention claims for the product that were similar to those for competing products, Airborne and Germ Defense. Those product claims also ran afoul of the FTC and cost their companies.

This is a tale of two types of weight-loss products and how the Food and Drug Administration had different responses to similar problems with them. The separate, but not equivalent treatment raises questions about how the FDA operates.

If you have not visited the NutriSupLaw blog in a little while, you should. To celebrate the start of our fifth year, we gave the blog a makeover. Or as they say on the Web, a redesign. We think the new look does a better job of displaying blog entries and organizing our growing lists of resources, links and tags.

Some dietary supplement companies are boosting their dosages now. The increases have implications not only for consumer health but for regulatory action. The agency might issue warning letters to companies selling Vitamin D products containing 2.5 times the current UL, telling those manufacturers that their products are potentially unsafe.

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.” James’ [...]