Court Bars Diet Clinics’ Advertising Claims : Business: San Diego-based chain, Pacific Medical Clinics Management Inc., and two of its executives face federal charges for allegedly deceiving customers.
Federal authorities have charged a San Diego-based weight-loss clinic chain, Pacific Medical Clinics Management Inc., and two executives with deceptive advertising.
The Federal Trade Commission says the firm misled consumers with broadcast and print ads saying they could lose 1 1/2 pounds a day--without exercise--with a “medically safe” program.
Karin Lynn Norred and James Norman Wells are the company officers named in the Sept. 17 civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego. Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. has granted a temporary restraining order against the firm, barring it from continuing to make those claims and freezing all of its assets pending a Sept. 27 hearing, the FTC said.
Wells also is under indictment in Texas for conspiracy and racketeering in connection with a prostitution ring, according to Marjorie Erickson, assistant regional director for the FTC in Los Angeles.
Wells, 54, who moved to San Diego two years ago, previously ran hair-restoration centers and five nude-modeling studios in the Houston area.
The complaint lists as Wells’ aliases Johnny Norman Wells, Duke Wells and John Holmes.
The agency said the firm claimed that its programs worked by raising the dieter’s metabolism using an amino acid tablet supplement known as Growth Hormone Releaser (GHR), protein supplements in the form of powdered puddings and drinks, a potassium supplement, and a daily multivitamin.
“None of these methods achieve an increase in the metabolic rate or a significant loss of weight,” FTC attorney John Jacobs said at a press conference Wednesday.
“They don’t, in fact, give the consumers what they represent to,” he said. “If it sounds too good be true, it probably is.”
FTC also said the thyroid hormone drug Synthroid has been used in connection with the clinics. But according to the complaint, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that Synthroid’s labeling contain a warning against the drug’s use as a treatment for obesity.
The FDA says use of the drug by people with normal thyroid glands is--depending on the dose--unsafe or ineffective for weight reduction.
The FTC said the firm operates Medical Clinics Inc. in Las Vegas and Vienna, Va.; Georgia Medical Clinics Inc., which has two offices in Atlanta; and American Medical Clinics Inc., which is based in Houston and has four clinics there and one in Austin and San Antonio.
The FTC complaint says the firm’s headquarters at 3500 Estudillo Street also serves as one of the two San Diego weight-loss clinics. The California Secretary of State’s office said the firm also runs an office in the 3400 block of Kearny Villa Road.
FTC officials estimate that since late 1987, the firm has had revenues of $20 million, but the agency does not have an estimate of the number of customers.
Pacific Medical Clinics Management was incorporated in California on Oct. 16, 1987, according to the Secretary of State’s office, but its corporate status was suspended by the state franchise tax board on March 1 for failing to file a 1988 state corporate income tax return.
Repeated phone messages left at the business were not returned.
Records in San Diego County Superior Court do not show any record of criminal or civil cases filed against the firm, Norred, Wells, or any of Wells’ aliases.
The state attorney general’s office in San Diego said it did not know if it would be investigating the firm.
The FTC said this is the first case they’ve filed against a diet clinic chain “in recent years,” although they have filed complaints against diet pills and products.
