Wilderness Family Naturals, a Silver Bay, Minn. company that sells health food and other products over the Internet, can no longer advertise that its chickweed salve fights chicken pox, its Green Food Feast Powder is good for gout or that its St. John’s Wort Salve can cure putrid leg ulcers. Unless it can prove it.

In a consent decree with the Food and Drug Administration signed in federal court Monday, the family-run company agreed to remove any unproven health claims for “Chickweed Salve, St. John’s Wort Salve, Chest Rub Salve, Goldenseal-Comfrey Salve, flux hull lignan, Green Food Feast, any coconut oil product” or any other untested “drug.” The company also agreed to hire a consultant to ensure it complies with FDA regulations on the sales of pharmaceuticals.

In an announcement of the action, Michael Chappell, the FDA’s acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, made this statement: “The FDA is acting to protect the American public from companies making unapproved disease treatment claims for their products. Claims made by Wilderness Family might distract consumers from seeking products that have been shown to be safe and effective in treating disease.”

The FDA continued: “Wilderness Family has a history of promoting its products for the treatment of diseases, and recently referred customers to seemingly independent Web sites that were actually controlled by Wilderness Family. The Web sites claimed benefits for its products against diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome, HIV and AIDS, and arthritis.”

The FDA issued a warning letter after they visited the company in 2005, according to its complaint filed last week. Two years later, they were back, and determined the company was still making unsupported health claims about what they sold.

Kenneth Fischer, who owns the company with his wife Annette, declined to talk in detail Thursday about the situation. He did say that the couple had never owned a business before they started the company about nine years ago.

“We made some mistakes not knowing all the laws and rules concerning it,” he said. Now, he said, “we’re making every effort to comply with whatever the FDA wants.”

When I asked him whether he believed the products could, in fact, treat those ailments as advertised, he said: “All the products we carry are ones that we use ourselves. We firmly believe in our products. We believe our products are some of the best in the world. Some of the reasons we use them are the benefits we get from them.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 11:56 am and is filed under Businesses in hot water, Buyer beware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.