Simon Chides Davis Over Link to Metabolife

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr. on Monday rebuked Gov. Gray Davis for taking a six-figure donation from a major marketer of herbal weight loss pills two years ago and then ceding regulation of the product to the federal government.

While criticizing Davis for taking contributions from the company, Simon acknowledged that he too had accepted money from an officer of San Diego-based Metabolife International Inc.

Simon said he had no plans to return the $10,000 donation, but stressed that he was criticizing Davis for the governor’s inaction after receiving the money, not merely for accepting or keeping the contributions. Vowing to “end pay-to-play once and for all” if he is elected governor, Simon appeared outside the state Department of Health Services building and declared: “Gray Davis, the buck stops at your desk.”

Davis in 2000 accepted $150,000 in political donations from Metabolife. The firm’s flagship product, Metabolife 356, contains herbal ephedrine, a stimulant that some health experts believe can contribute to heart attacks, seizures and strokes.

After taking the money, Davis declared in 2000, in a veto statement on legislation related to the issue, that regulation of herbal ephedrine was the responsibility of Congress.

“Instead of taking strong action and exhibiting any leadership at all,” Simon said, “Gray Davis passed the buck, as usual, and turned the issue over to the federal government.”

On Friday, Davis promised to sign legislation regulating the product if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to act within 30 days.

Davis made his statement after the U.S. Justice Department announced it is investigating whether Metabolife’s founder, Michael Ellis, had lied in a letter to the FDA suggesting that the company had received no consumer complaints about illnesses caused by its product.

The company had accumulated 13,000 complaints. Ellis’ attorney has said those complaints were not forwarded because company officials had no evidence that their product had caused the health effects.

Davis’ campaign spokesman, Roger Salazar, said Davis had no plans to return the donations, which include $100,000 in campaign donations in 2000, $50,000 to a nonprofit corporation that Davis established to host a party for delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000, and an additional $25,000 from Ellis last June.

Salazar said Simon’s acceptance of $10,000 from a Metabolife executive “underscores the hypocrisy of this guy.”

The Davis campaign aide called on Simon to bring up the issue of regulation of herbal ephedrine when President Bush arrives in California later this week to campaign for him.

“If he had any guts, he’d call on the president to have his FDA do its job,” Salazar said.

When he was governor of Texas, Bush’s health department proposed requiring that herbal ephedrine be sold only by prescription. That was not approved; instead, another Texas regulation took effect last year that requires that manufacturers place an 800 number on product labels so consumers can call the FDA with any complaints of ill effects.

Simon defended his decision to accept the $10,000 from the Metabolife executive and to not return it, saying: “They know I am not for sale. Unlike Gray Davis, I can’t be bought. The outrage here is, once again, that Gray Davis let his fund-raising compromise his responsibility to the state and to its citizens.”

Simon said he intends to spend much of the remaining 2 1/2 months of the campaign criticizing Davis on those grounds. “