Tainted Sex Supplement Pills

LA Times – Lawsuit claims San Diego stores sell tainted love pills

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Illegal and dangerous erection-inducing products containing Viagra and Cialis are being deceptively sold across San Diego, according to a lawsuit against dozens of San Diego convenience stores.

The products often bear sexually suggestive names like Black Stallion 35000, Rhino 69, and New Stiff Nights Platinum 10K. They’re sold in convenience stores, liquor and smoke shops, as dietary or natural supplements.

Read full article on Los Angeles Times.

SMDP Logo

SMDP – Local liquor stores face lawsuit over male enhancement pills

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Santa Monica Daily Press – Pills promising better sex are at the center of a lawsuit filed against a dozen local liquor store owners, as a Los Angeles area law firm brings a multi-state legal threat to its hometown. The firm is representing a Texas-based supplement company, Outlaw Laboratory, who says mom-and-pop store owners are profiting from products that secretly contain sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. Suddenly, the convenience store owners find themselves deciding between a five-figure settlement or a protracted court battle.

 

Read full article at Santa Monica Daily Press.

Daily Journal

Daily Journal – Contract flaws spell doom for Beats defense

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Attorney Gil Peles of Tauler Smith LLP was sought for his expert opinion by the Los Angeles Daily Journal as jurors considered a high-profile breach-of-contract lawsuit involving Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and a man who was key in developing them.

Peles has published numerous articles about intellectual property law, one of his specialties, and litigates entertainment, employment, corporate and general commercial disputes.

The Beats case involved a dispute over whether a royalty agreement was meant to cover a single product or multiple products based on the same design. The contract didn’t clearly spell out the terms, and that ambiguity was a serious flaw, Peles said.

“One would think (Dr. Dre’s) highly paid attorneys would have made that abundantly clear in the contract language,”

Peles told the Daily Journal. “This circumstance will not be lost on the jury.”

It wasn’t. As Peles correctly predicted, the jury awarded the plaintiff $25 million in owed royalties.

Read the full story here (subscription may be required): https://tinyurl.com/PelesOnBeats

Deseret News

Deseret News – Proposed SARMs Control Act could be tougher

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Rob Tauler‘s undisputedly one of the nation’s experts in the legal fight to protect consumers and the natural supplement industry against unproven chemicals promoted by unscrupulous manufacturers and retailers. Here’s his guest op-ed from the Deseret News saying the proposed SARMs Control Act of 2018, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is a great first step — but it needs more teeth.
Natural Products Insider

Natural Products Insider Updates on Enhanced Athlete Case

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Natural products insider writes about Tauler Smith’s recent court victory against Enhanced Athlete and their managing agent Charles Anthony Hughes, a California lawyer who refers to himself as “Dr. Tony Huge” to market patented drugs called SARMs to bodybuilders.

Read the full article on Natural Products Insider.

Osta RX SARMS

False advertising lawsuit wrongly dismissed; 9th U.S. Circuit panel rules in favor of Tauler Smith client

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A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel handed client Nutrition Distribution LLC a major victory in its ongoing battle to prevent IronMag Labs LLC from its false advertising of its sports supplements containing Ostarine, a substance developed by pharma giant GTx to treat degenerative muscle diseases and cancers, announced Robert Tauler of Tauler Smith LLP in Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges that IronMag Labs sells Ostarine without a prescription and markets Ostarine as a bodybuilding supplement, even though Ostarine is still in clinical trials. IronMag does not disclose to its customers that Ostarine has well known side effects.

Nutrition Distribution’s position was bolstered by an amicus curiae brief filed by GTx Inc., which said that Ostarine is being investigated as a new drug, is the subject of clinical trials, and, as such, cannot be sold in supplements.

Tauler Smith’s Lisa Zepeda made the successful appeal, arguing in part that “the FDA has made a clear statement that Defendants are selling their products illegally. Thus, even according to the district court’s own reasoning, Nutrition Distribution’s claims are not precluded.”

“We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit acknowledged GTx’s position that since Ostarine is the subject of publicly disclosed clinical trials, it cannot subsequently be marketed as a dietary supplement. It is important that the creators of drugs like Ostarine are able to protect their inventions and the integrity of the clinical trial process to ensure the safety of products,” Tauler said.

The decision was covered by the industry’s leading news source, Natural Products Insider.

  • This story spells out the issues involved in the lawsuit: https://tinyurl.com/FDAs-role
  • Coverage of the 9th Circuit judges’ decision to dismiss, with prejudice, a lower court’s ruling as “an abuse of discretion … due to a misapplication of the law.” https://tinyurl.com/primary-jurisdiction.
  • Watch the arguments made before the court here (Dec. 6, 2017).
  • Read the Jan. 24, 2018 ruling here.
Illegal Dietary Supplement Lawsuits

Civil laws clean up the illicit sports supplement marketplace as FDA is overwhelmed, underfunded

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Robert Tauler, in this guest column for Law360, spelled out how the illegal and illicit sports supplement business works, where the gaps are in criminally investigating and prosecuting companies that ignore federal rules to push poisons to an unsuspecting public.

“Until these dangerous substances are eliminated from the marketplace, laws that govern competition in the marketplace will remain the strongest weapon to protect consumers and hapless teenagers alike,” Tauler wrote. “The teenagers might be disappointed they are not seeing the “explosive gains” they want right away, but parents will happily exchange dangerous shortcuts to bigger muscles for the comfort that comes from knowing their child is staying drug­free.”

Read the column here (subscription may be required): https://tinyurl.com/Law360-Loopholes

Allergan Lawsuits

Allergan PLC sues compounding pharmacies over false advertising

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When Allergan PLC alleged false advertising in a lawsuit against large compounding pharmacies, Law360’s reporter turned to Robert Tauler for his insight and expertise on the Lanham Act. “I think this (litigation) may be groundbreaking,” he said. “If you are a large pharmaceutical company, it’ll have ripple effects if you start pursuing compounders.”

Read the story here (subscription may be required): http://bit.ly/2I7WX4g

Law360

‘Seminal’ Allergan Cases Test Copycat Drug Limits

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Law360, New York (November 27, 2017, 11:08 PM EST) — Two recently filed lawsuits from Allergan PLC are teeing up a pivotal test of the extent to which drug compounders can mass-produce virtual copies of brand-name prescription drugs, attorneys say.
Continue reading the story on Law360.
Dietary Supplement Raids

The Guardian: U.K. sellers of deadly pesticide for weight loss unmasked in California lawsuit

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The Guardian’s top health reporter published an exclusive, three-part package on a raid by British Food Standard’s Agency on the European operation of a Sacramento-based supplement company facing a lawsuit from Tauler Smith for selling the chemical DNP (2,4-dinitrophenol) for human consumption.

Excerpt: “The substance heats up the body’s metabolism, burning fat, but it can cause drastic overheating. Its victims’ organs literally cook inside the body. Once taken, there is no antidote…”

“DNP is basically pesticide coming out of a smoke stack and these folks are ingesting it and losing weight because their body is trying to get rid of it. It is ingested poison,” Robert Tauler told The Guardian.

The stories appeared in both the U.S. and U.K. versions of theguardian.com, as well as in print.