Couple Sue L-Tryptophan Maker for $30 Million

A Burbank couple on Monday filed a $30-million lawsuit against a Japanese manufacturer of the dietary supplement L-tryptophan, alleging that impurities in the product severely disabled the woman.

Mike and Cecile Gracy filed suit in Burbank Superior Court, claiming that Showa Denko of Tokyo produced impure batches of the supplement in late 1988 and early 1989 that caused Cecile Gracy to develop eosinophilia-myaglia syndrome, a potentially fatal muscle and blood ailment.

Bob Schwadron, a spokesman for Showa Denko in New York, declined to comment on the lawsuit. But he acknowledged that other suits had been filed against the company, the largest of six tryptophan suppliers, he said.

Researchers last month presented the strongest evidence to date linking the company’s batches of the amino acid supplement to a U.S. epidemic last fall of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome.