Last week the Federal and Trade Commission announced that they were fining several diet supplement marketers and manufacturers -- including German drug titan Bayer — a total of $25 million for making false and misleading advertising claims in the advertising of their products. In a perfect world these products would be banned — after all the government has banned trans fat — so that people could be truly protected from predatory business practices of the unscrupulous.

The most important thing that consumers should learn from this case is that the FTC has ruled, “Testimonials from individuals are not a substitute for science.” Deborah Platt Majoras Chairman of the FTC has been clear on this point and went on to say that “the marketers are required to back up their claims with science, and if they can’t do that they can’t make the claim.”

I’ve been railing about this for years, so it’s good to see that the government is using their power in an appropriate manner.

What this means is that anecdotal evidence provided by consumers who have enjoyed positive results cannot be used in advertisements as the basis to make claims of a product’s efficacy. In other words, just because Jane Doe says she lost 30 pounds in 8 weeks doesn’t mean that a company can say that YOU will do the same, small print disclaimer or not.

There’s that little thing called science that companies will need to use in order to back up their claims.

The biggest offender — at least judging by the size of the fines — is RTC Research & Development, marketers of the ersatz weight loss product Xenadrine EFX. RTC will pay anywhere from $9 million and $12.8 million. The company that manufacturers Xenadrine, Nutriquest, is owned by Robert Chinery who also owns RTC.

Nutriquest used to be known as Cytodyne Technologies and has been in bankruptcy proceedings as a result of a massive suit filed by those who were damaged or killed by Xenadrine’s herbal, ephedra-based formula a few years ago. Baltimore Oriole pitcher Steve Bechler died in 2003 and Xenadrine was blamed as being partially responsible; his death served as the tipping point in the debate to ban ephedra and helped to launch this lawsuit.

Nutriquest was in bankruptcy from paying an $18 million judgment from this class-action suit, and the 140 plaintiffs will also split almost $35 million that comes from Nutriquest’s bankruptcy settlement.

Nutriquest wasn’t named in the FTC complaint, and Chinery and other parties involved in the sale of Xenadrine haven’t admitted to any wrongdoing in this case, but settled “to avoid the uncertainties and costs of litigation.”

However, it’s important to remember that this FTC complaint deals with the advertisements for the new Xenadrine formulation that is ephedra-free and not the old ephedra-laden Xenadrine.  Would you buy any supplement made and marketed by this guy?