The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with the sellers of an at-home treatment aimed at opiate-addicted consumers.
The marketers of Elimidrol, a powdered drink mix touted for overcoming addiction and withdrawal, has settled an FTC complaint that their claims were false and misleading.
Sunrise Nutraceuticals of Boca Raton, Florida, and its principal Joshua Erickson are required to pay $235,000 and are banned from making any deceptive claims for any health-related products, according to the proposed court order.
The company also must have such testing to support claims that a product cures, mitigates, or treats any other disease, according to the order.
“Opiate addiction has taken a tremendous toll on the American public,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “By peddling their unproven product, these defendants have prevented people from seeking legitimate treatment.”
In the complaint filed in November 2015, the FTC alleged that Sunrise Nutraceuticals deceptively claimed that Elimidrol alleviates opiate withdrawal symptoms to enable consumers to overcome withdrawal and also increases the likelihood of overcoming opiate addiction.
The order is still subject to court approval.
Full statement from Elimidrol spokesperson:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed litigation challenging claims that the Elimidrol supplement can address symptoms of opiate withdrawal. The FTC takes the position that such claims must be backed by pharmaceutical-level randomized controlled double blind clinical trials. Although Sunrise has consistently denied the allegations throughout this litigation and does not admit them in its settlement with the FTC. Sunrise made the pragmatic decision to settle its dispute with the FTC, without any admission or liability of wrongdoing. This was an incredibly difficult decision, but upon weighing the resources and time necessary to continue defending its claims, it chose to instead focus its attention on continuing to improve the high quality products Elimidrol customers have come to expect. The FTC has taken no issue with the safety of the ingredients in Elimidrol or claims that Elimidrol promotes everyday comfort, calmness, positive mood, and restful sleep while relieving intermittent anxiety, irritability, and restlessness. It is important to note that Sunrise received overwhelmingly positive feedback and the FTC admitted under oath that it did not receive a single complaint against Sunrise.
Sunrise relied on over 70 scientific studies to carefully select ingredients and dosages to formulate the Elimidrol supplements. Sunrise hired a leading clinical pharmacologist to examine its research and studies. He concluded that Elimidrol does have competent and scientifically reliable evidence to back up its claims. This is an expert with 20 years of relevant experience in evaluating scientific evidence to substantiate advertising claims; a scientist with a Ph.D in Pharmacology from the Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and one who has held positions at some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. He has spent much of his professional life analyzing the health effects of various products. Regardless of this information, the FTC insisted that any advertising claims relating to opiate withdrawal must have pharmaceutical level randomized double blind controlled trials (“RCTs”) on the product itself and other substantiation is inadequate. While Sunrise does not agree with these claim standards, Sunrise intends to conduct the human clinical testing of Elimidrol through randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled testing in the future pursuant to its settlement with the FTC.
