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FTC: Growth pills come up short

By Scott Barancik
Published November 25, 2006

Short teenagers who paid a Hillsborough County company $64 a month for HeightMax pills won't be dunking basketballs anytime soon, the Federal Trade Commission said in court filings this week.

In radio ads and publications like Maxim, alleged HeightMax customers from Miami to Bombay claimed to have grown as much as 2 inches a month after taking the dietary supplement.

A company Web site said co-owner and biochemist William Thomson spent more than five years developing and clinically testing the product.

But according to the FTC, the only thing HeightMax stretched was the truth: Scientific tests of the product were never conducted. Claims about its effectiveness were unsupported.

Thomson, the co-owner, turned out to be fictitious. The FTC said Sunny Health Nutrition Technology & Products, which is based in Riverview, made similarly unsubstantiated claims about two of its other products: Liposan Fat Blocker, a premeal pill that supposedly blocked the absorption of fat; and Osteo-Vite, a supplement that allegedly reversed the effects of osteoporosis.

All told, the FTC said, consumers wasted an estimated $1.9-million on the three products.

Sunny Health and its sole owner, Sunny Sia, won't have to pay back nearly that much under a signed agreement with the FTC.

According to court filings, the defendants will put $375,000 toward an FTC customer relief fund, stop making unsubstantiated claims about the products, and provide the FTC with detailed financial disclosures upon request.

The FTC also reserved the right of its staff to pose as customers to confirm that Sunny Health, also known as SHN Tech, is complying with the agreement.

The FTC's filings did not provide instructions for obtaining refunds.

Sunny Health representatives could not be reached Friday afternoon.

Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.

[Last modified November 25, 2006, 01:27:53]