The Region - News from Jan. 30, 1985

An Atlanta company has agreed to pay $18,670 in civil penalties and costs and to stop promising that its products help cure high blood pressure, baldness, diabetes, sexual impotency and cancer. The judgment signed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eli Chernow ended a 5-year-old consumer protection lawsuit filed against Athena Products Ltd. by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The judgment carried no acknowledgement of wrongdoing, attorneys for both sieds said. The civil suit claimed that Athena misled as many as 50,000 subscribers to a health magazine, Soma, by failing to tell readers that the company and the publication were co-owned. Articles and columns, prosecutors said, actually were “hidden advertisements” that readers could misconstrue as authoritative endorsements of the products.