CAMLAW: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Law Blog : Complementary, Alternative, & Integrative Medicine Law, Regulation, Ethics & Policy (Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Medical Spa Information, Holistic Health Attorney, and Legal Resources)

These FTC rules show why it's important to have a qualified attorney review your legal situation, including your website and any disclaimers that may be necessary.

The FTC notes:

A skin care products advertiser participates in a blog advertising service. The
service matches up advertisers with bloggers who will promote the advertiser’s products on
their personal blogs. The advertiser requests that a blogger try a new body lotion and write
a review of the product on her blog. Although the advertiser does not make any specific
claims about the lotion’s ability to cure skin conditions and the blogger does not ask the
advertiser whether there is substantiation for the claim, in her review the blogger writes
that the lotion cures eczema and recommends the product to her blog readers who suffer
from this condition. The advertiser is subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated
The Commission tested the communication o 1 f advertisements containing testimonials
that clearly and prominently disclosed either “Results not typical” or the stronger “These
testimonials are based on the experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results.” Neither disclosure adequately reduced the communication that the experiences depicted are generally representative. Based upon this research, the Commission believes that similar disclaimers regarding the limited applicability of an endorser’s experience to what consumers may generally expect to achieve are unlikely to be effective.

Nonetheless, the Commission cannot rule out the possibility that a strong disclaimer of
typicality could be effective in the context of a particular advertisement. Although the
Commission would have the burden of proof in a law enforcement action, the Commission notes that an advertiser possessing reliable empirical testing demonstrating that the net impression of its advertisement with such a disclaimer is non-deceptive will avoid the risk of the initiation of such an action in the first instance. representations made through the blogger’s endorsement. The blogger also is subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated representations made in the course of her endorsement. The blogger is also liable if she fails to disclose clearly and conspicuously that she is being paid for her services.

That's the strange truth about Federal Trade Commission rules regarding false, misleading and deceptive advertising.

The FTC publishes its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising online. Our lawyers frequently do website review for FTC compliance and give legal advice to many new businesses seeking website user agreements, disclaimers, privacy policies, and legal advice.

It's better to steer clear of trouble ahead of time than incur a potentially large fine down the road.

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Our law firm has many successes with health care and business law clients, whose practices are transforming the business and health care landscape as we know it.

Michael H. Cohen is an attorney providing business legal advice to green entrepreneurs and companies, and health care law advice to businesses and physicians, acupuncturists, naturopaths, homeopaths and others in the holistic health, wellness, and green industries. As a founding attorney of the Global Vision Law Group, he represents businesses poised for vertical lift, whose leaders are conscious, intuitive, and committed to shaping a better world. Michael also advises medical spas and integrative medicine clinics, physicians, chiropractors, naturopathic physicians, massage therapists, energy healers, nutritionists and herbalists, dietary supplement and cosmetics companies, and businesses with bio-energy and other technologies and medical devices. Michael offers the Entrepreneur’s Legal Toolkit as a series of legal guides to businesses. The first legal e-book deals with Contract Essentials, giving legal tips every business needs to negotiate its legal agreements; the second addresses legal issues faced by multi-level marketing companies and individuals involved in multilevel marketing and direct sales; and the third one so far is a HIPAA Regulations and Privacy Manual at far less the cost than it would take for an attorney to prepare.

Michael also sponsors Being Central, a Portal for Potential, which gives access to other, pre-paid legal services. 

Read reviews of Michael’s work on the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Law Blog. And visit the Flat Rate Legal Services page for information on legal services offered at a flat rate or project fee (such as incorporation for entrepreneurs, review and drafting of business contracts, trademark, and health law services for CAM providers and others).

Michael’s clientele  through the Global Vision Law Group includes businesses not only in California, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. states, but also abroad. To speak with a lawyer about health care law issues pertaining to complementary and alternative medicine, or to consult a business lawyer about laws and legal issues for entrepreneurs and new enterprises that are seeking legal advice, contact the Global Vision Law Group today.