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.

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 warning was serious: “Due to the potentially serious health risks associated with using these types of products, the FDA recommends that consumers immediately stop using all body building products that claim to contain steroids or steroid-like substances, ” the FDA said in the advisory.

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.”  The personal injury law firm of Onder Shelton O’Leary & Peterson [...]