23536
Bluelight Crew
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/b...im-at-gnc-and-a-supplement-maker.html?hp&_r=0
EVERY morning as she gets dressed for her accounting job, Leanne Sparling hangs her son’s military dog tags and a photograph of him in uniform around her neck. She wears the tags on the outside of her clothes, hoping to prompt strangers to ask about him. “When I do tell them what happened,” she says, “they are in total disbelief.”
Her son, Michael Lee Sparling, was a 22-year-old Army private when he died. But he wasn’t killed by a roadside bomb or an ambush in Afghanistan. He collapsed while running in formation for about 10 minutes with his unit at Fort Bliss, Tex., went into cardiac arrest and died later that day, on June 1, 2011.
Private Sparling had recently graduated from basic training and was in excellent physical condition. Before the exercise, he had taken the recommended dose of a workout supplement called Jack3d, bought at a GNC store on the base, according to legal filings.
Pronounced “jacked,” as in “jacked up,” Jack3d contains a powerful stimulant called dimethylamylamine, or DMAA for short, which some medical experts and health regulators say has similar effects on the body as amphetamines. Among bodybuilders and in the fitness-obsessed culture of the military, Jack3d has acquired a reputation for bolstering workout energy and stamina. The product description on the GNC Web site promises as much: “ultra-intense muscle-gorging strength, energy, power and endurance.”
Leanne Sparling and her husband, Michael, blame Jack3d for their son’s death. It is the only way, they say, they can make sense of a healthy young man dying from cardiac arrest. Last month, they filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against USPlabs, the maker of the supplement, and GNC. They argue that the companies sold a defective product and failed to warn about its risks.
The case has united some military physicians, professional sports organizations and supplement researchers who say Private Sparling’s death, and reports of at least four others, expose major weaknesses in federal protections for consumers. It also opens a very public challenge to GNC’s image as a trusted supplier to athletes and bodybuilders.
The supplement industry is fighting back. Peter B. Hutt, a lawyer representing USPlabs, a Dallas-based company that markets Jack3d and other supplements, says the company is “unaware of anyone that died who has used the product in accordance with the labels’ directions for use.” He adds that there is no evidence that the product caused the deaths that have been reported.
“Let me give you an example,” Mr. Hutt says. “Suppose I drank a soda pop and, 15 minutes later, died of a heart attack. Would you say that the caffeine in the soda pop caused my heart attack?”
Laura Brophy, a spokeswoman for GNC, said the company did not comment on pending litigation. But in a statement e-mailed to The New York Times two weeks ago, GNC said it had “no reason to believe that DMAA is unsafe.”
Although the Defense Department in late 2011 removed products containing DMAA from all stores on military installations, including more than 100 GNC outlets, the GNC statement said the military had “yet to produce any scientific or medical evidence to support a safety concern.” And, in fact, the Food and Drug Administration has not asked manufacturers to recall the products.
GNC continues to sell Jack3d in its consumer stores around the country, as well as on its Web site, where the product has been featured this month as a “hot buy.”
cont. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/b...im-at-gnc-and-a-supplement-maker.html?hp&_r=0
EVERY morning as she gets dressed for her accounting job, Leanne Sparling hangs her son’s military dog tags and a photograph of him in uniform around her neck. She wears the tags on the outside of her clothes, hoping to prompt strangers to ask about him. “When I do tell them what happened,” she says, “they are in total disbelief.”
Her son, Michael Lee Sparling, was a 22-year-old Army private when he died. But he wasn’t killed by a roadside bomb or an ambush in Afghanistan. He collapsed while running in formation for about 10 minutes with his unit at Fort Bliss, Tex., went into cardiac arrest and died later that day, on June 1, 2011.
Private Sparling had recently graduated from basic training and was in excellent physical condition. Before the exercise, he had taken the recommended dose of a workout supplement called Jack3d, bought at a GNC store on the base, according to legal filings.
Pronounced “jacked,” as in “jacked up,” Jack3d contains a powerful stimulant called dimethylamylamine, or DMAA for short, which some medical experts and health regulators say has similar effects on the body as amphetamines. Among bodybuilders and in the fitness-obsessed culture of the military, Jack3d has acquired a reputation for bolstering workout energy and stamina. The product description on the GNC Web site promises as much: “ultra-intense muscle-gorging strength, energy, power and endurance.”
Leanne Sparling and her husband, Michael, blame Jack3d for their son’s death. It is the only way, they say, they can make sense of a healthy young man dying from cardiac arrest. Last month, they filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against USPlabs, the maker of the supplement, and GNC. They argue that the companies sold a defective product and failed to warn about its risks.
The case has united some military physicians, professional sports organizations and supplement researchers who say Private Sparling’s death, and reports of at least four others, expose major weaknesses in federal protections for consumers. It also opens a very public challenge to GNC’s image as a trusted supplier to athletes and bodybuilders.
The supplement industry is fighting back. Peter B. Hutt, a lawyer representing USPlabs, a Dallas-based company that markets Jack3d and other supplements, says the company is “unaware of anyone that died who has used the product in accordance with the labels’ directions for use.” He adds that there is no evidence that the product caused the deaths that have been reported.
“Let me give you an example,” Mr. Hutt says. “Suppose I drank a soda pop and, 15 minutes later, died of a heart attack. Would you say that the caffeine in the soda pop caused my heart attack?”
Laura Brophy, a spokeswoman for GNC, said the company did not comment on pending litigation. But in a statement e-mailed to The New York Times two weeks ago, GNC said it had “no reason to believe that DMAA is unsafe.”
Although the Defense Department in late 2011 removed products containing DMAA from all stores on military installations, including more than 100 GNC outlets, the GNC statement said the military had “yet to produce any scientific or medical evidence to support a safety concern.” And, in fact, the Food and Drug Administration has not asked manufacturers to recall the products.
GNC continues to sell Jack3d in its consumer stores around the country, as well as on its Web site, where the product has been featured this month as a “hot buy.”
cont. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/b...im-at-gnc-and-a-supplement-maker.html?hp&_r=0
