Supplement Industry Should Self-Regulate For Self-Preservation – FTC
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Participation in the self-regulatory process will benefit the dietary supplement industry by helping marketers maintain the validity of truthful product claims, according to Latham & Watkins attorney Edward Correia
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Participation in the self-regulatory process will benefit the dietary supplement industry by helping marketers maintain the validity of truthful product claims, according to Latham & Watkins attorney Edward Correia. "You all have a lot of great products," Correia said while speaking to industry during the World Obesity & Weight Loss Congress in Washington, D.C. Sept. 14. "The problem is being able to market those and get people to pay attention and have your reasonable, substantiated claims not drowned out by" unsubstantiated or misleading advertisements, he said. The creation of the Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program exemplifies an industry's interest in moving forward with self-regulation, FTC Assistant Director of Advertising Practices Richard Cleland said. The program launched in August 2004 as an extension of the Council of Better Business Bureaus' National Advertising Division (1 'The Tan Sheet' Sept. 20, 2004, In Brief). Cleland credited the electronic retailing industry with approaching NAD about its program to evaluate direct marketing and infomercials. Cleland also said he was hopeful that discussions of the self-regulatory process within the supplement industry would increase. He referenced a recent meeting on weight-loss products that FTC held with several dietary supplement firms and trade associations. "The goal was to develop a set of...call them guidelines just for purposes of discussion, guidelines that the industry then could adopt as part of a self-regulatory process," Cleland explained. "Part of the reason [that effort] hasn't moved further ahead is that we've just been so strapped for resources at the FTC. It's not a small undertaking," he added. "This is still really a work in progress." "I hope that we can, at some point, be able to get back on track" with developing such guidelines on self-regulation for industry, Cleland maintained. Self-regulation "can address issues more effectively, efficiently...than government regulations," FTC Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Lydia Parnes stated at the meeting. However, in order to be successful, it is essential that "industry leaders take the threat of meaningful sanctions seriously," she added. |