Marketers of ‘Super’ Diet Pill Agree to Tone Down Ads

Conceding that advertising claims for a “super” diet pill may have misled some consumers, a group of Canoga Park companies will tone down some advertising claims in order to continue marketing the pills nationwide, one company official said Friday.

A day earlier, the companies had agreed to pay a $500,000 out-of-court settlement in a civil lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and accusing them of false and misleading advertising.

The companies are preparing new advertisements to comply with the terms of an injunction prohibiting exaggerated and misleading claims for their product, called Amitol/Am, said Michael S. Levey, chief executive officer of Dresner Communications Inc., the advertising agency for Continental Health Co., which markets the pills.

Continental, Dresner and a third corporate defendant, Pacific Order Processing Co., are all situated at 8025 Deering Ave.

Some of Claims True

“The district attorney’s office did not accept our evidence that some of the claims were true and correct,” Levey said of the original advertisements. In those advertisements, placed in 268 newspapers and periodicals nationwide last year, the companies claimed that their product “prevents calories from forming body fat” and that “some people have reported as much as three pounds lost in the first 24 hours,” a civil complaint alleged.

In the new advertisements, the companies will no longer make claims such as one proclaiming that the pills can help a person lose a pound a day, Levey said. The advertisements will also leave out before and after pictures of a woman who claimed to have lost 51 pounds in six weeks, he said.

“I do admit there were some phrases in the advertising that were perhaps somewhat overenthusiastic,” Levey said. But he added that the injunction contained no admission of wrongdoing.

“My evaluation is that, just because a product is controversial, that does not mean that the product is not good,” Levey said. The companies decided to settle out of court in order to avoid the time and expense of a trial, he said.

‘The Product Works’

“Our guarantee is limited to the fact that we believe that the product works, and, if any customer is ever dissatisfied with any product, they can send it back to us and they’ll be given their money back,” Levey said.

Under the court injunction, the defendants must establish a $150,000 trust account in order to provide refunds to former customers who request it, said Charles Kelson, supervising investigator for the district attorney’s consumer protection division. Those consumers have 180 days after the court settlement to submit a written request for a refund, Kelson said.

As long as the companies’ new advertisements comply with the terms of the injunction, “we have no legal cause to close the companies,” Kelson said.

The pill, made of Glucomannan, a harmless fibrous substance extracted from the root of a Japanese plant, is itself legal, Kelson said.