Amway Corp. Added to P&G; Suit: Procter...

Amway Corp. Added to P&G; Suit: Procter & Gamble Co. said it added Amway Corp. to a lawsuit accusing an Amway distributor of spreading false statements linking P&G; with Satanism. Cincinnati-based P&G;, the largest U.S. consumer products company, filed the suit against the distributor last August, alleging that he used Amway’s voice mail system to spread the rumor to other Amway distributors. P&G; said it added Ada, Mich.-based Amway and five other Amway distributors to the suit because the company--a competitor in a number of consumer product lines--failed to stop its distributors from spreading “false and malicious statements” connecting it with Satanism. An Amway spokeswoman said the company “does not condone the spreading of false or malicious rumor against Procter & Gamble or any other company.” P&G; said it has been plagued by the rumors for 15 years, having logged almost 200,000 phone calls and letters about them. Typically, the company said, the false stories claim that P&G;’s president discussed Satanism on “Donahue” and that its moon-and-stars trademark is a Satanic symbol. No P&G; executive has ever discussed Satanism on any nationally televised talk show and the trademark dates to the mid-1800s, “when the man in the moon was simply a popular design,” the company says. The 13 stars in the design represent the original 13 colonies.