Pill company thrives despite complaints
Just three years since an Ohio salesman started selling penis enlargement pills out of a spare room in his house, his company is raking in more than $200 million a year on unproven palliatives for virtually every malady of the middle-aged middle class.
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There's Enzyte, his original product for "natural male enhancement," and Avlimil, its female equivalent. Dromias is for insomnia, Altovis for fatigue. Numovil fights memory loss and Rogisen, deteriorating vision. Rovicid is supposed to lower your cholesterol.
Is there a diet pill? Don't be silly.
In the early days, Steven Warshak pitched his penis pills in cheap advertisements at the back of men's magazines. Now, despite being the defendant in a class-action lawsuit and the target of more than 3,000 complaints to the Better Business Bureau, the company he created has become a thriving phone-order business with an ambitious national advertising and marketing campaign similar to the ones prescription drug manufacturers use to sell their remedies.
"Our ultimate goal is to be the nutraceutical
The history of Warshak's company, Cincinnati-based Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, demonstrates just how easy it has become to peddle faux pharmaceuticals in today's marketplace. Unlike drugs, which must be proven safe and effective before they can be sold, nutritional supplements are regulated pretty much like any other consumer product. They're legal as long as they don't do any harm, the pills actually contain whatever ingredients are listed on the bottle and the manufacturer doesn't make claims about them that aren't backed up by scientific evidence.
"They can't claim to cure disease, but they can use words that suggest it," said Arthur P. Grollman, a professor of pharmacological sciences at the State University of New York in Stony Brook who has testified to Congress about dietary supplements.
That's why supplement ads often tout products with vague promises to "boost the immune system" or "power up your brain." Its why the TV advertising campaign for Enzyte promises only "natural male enhancement."
Millions of people have seen the television commercials for Berkeley's products. The Enzyte ad features "Smiling Bob," a goofy, grinning everyman who sails through a charmed life with a spring in his step, sinking holes in one on the golf course and returning to "a very happy missus at home" -- presumably thanks to what Enzyte has done for his virility.
In the days before Bob, when Warshak was just getting started in the dietary supplement business, his claims for Enzyte were more explicit. He bought ads in the back of GQ and Esquire magazines promising that "over the eight-month program ... your erectile chambers, as well as your penis, will enlarge up to 41 percent." Continued...
