The Council for Responsible Nutrition is asking FTC to take enforcement action against online testing service ConsumerLab.com to limit a number of allegedly deceptive practices central to the firm's business model.

CRN requests that the Federal Trade Commission require ConsumerLab to "make public all future test results, regardless of whether companies have or have not paid money" to the testing firm.

ConsumerLab analyzes dietary supplements for claimed amounts of vitamin and mineral index elements, lead content and disintegration of non-chewable and non-time-release formulations.

"ConsumerLab requires supplement manufacturers to pay a fee to obtain favorable publicity for positive test results or to avoid unfavorable publicity for negative results," the trade group contends in a Jan. 12 letter to the commission.

The online firm's claim to be a source for independent testing is false, CRN charges. "ConsumerLab is a for-profit enterprise pressuring manufacturers into using its services for its own financial gain," the letter asserts.

According to CRN, ConsumerLab approaches supplement manufacturers and offers to include their products in planned tests of particular categories in exchange for a fee. If the company agrees to pay for testing, ConsumerLab promises to release results only if the product meets defined criteria.

Paying customers whose products yield negative results "will not be included in press releases, in the public section of the ConsumerLab website to which the media and the general public have access, or even in the private section of the ConsumerLab website to which subscribers have access," CRN says. At the same time, the testing firm "only publicizes adverse test results from manufacturers who refuse to pay."

"This entire business model represents an egregious form of consumer fraud and deception," CRN charges. "It is a business, not a watchdog - one that intimidates manufacturers to pay for its services."

The testing firm therefore should release results for all products tested "make public specific testing criteria and methodologies prior to undertaking the testing," CRN suggests.

Furthermore, FTC must require ConsumerLab to publicly identify the laboratories that are contracted to perform the actual product tests, as well as change their name to "correct the impression created in consumers' minds that ConsumerLab operates a laboratory," the letter requests.

CRN's allegations are "false, misleading and, in our opinion, defamatory," ConsumerLab contends in a Jan. 13 response to CRN.

"We publish our findings for all the products that we choose to test, whether they pass or fail," ConsumerLab President Tod Cooperman maintains.

The use of outside laboratories is a measure to safeguard against researchers' bias, Cooperman asserts, adding that negative findings are confirmed by a second independent lab before being published.

The names of the testing centers are not disclosed because "members of your industry have threatened several with loss of business," Cooperman claims.

ConsumerLab calls the contentions that it requires a fee "false and absurd." "We publish our findings for all the products that we choose to test, whether they pass or fail," the letter states. The firm also notes its testing methods "have always been freely accessible."

CRN's scrutiny of ConsumerLab's business practices follows an evaluation of multivitamin products last May (¹ 'The Tan Sheet' May 24, 2004, In Brief).

The trade group issued a press release about member companies' multivitamins that were listed as passing on ConsumerLab's "subscribers only" website.

ConsumerLab requested that the trade group remove the press release from its website on grounds that CRN "had no right to release that information publicly" since the list was compiled from information on the subscriber site, CRN President Annette Dickinson, PhD, said. The trade group sought legal counsel and began the inquiry into ConsumerLab's business practices shortly thereafter.

ConsumerLab “Unfair,” “Deceptive” Practices Warrant FTC Action – CRN

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