Green Coffee Bean Manufacturer Fails the FTC Substantiation Test!

Not all studies are created equal and not all studies will provide sufficient substantiation for marketers in the weight loss vertical. Texas-based, Applied Food Sciences, Inc. (AFS), learned this lesson the hard way and paid $3.4 Million for using a flawed study to make weight–loss claims about its green coffee extract to retailers and marketers who repeated those claims in marketing the product to consumers. The FTC complaint charged AFS for deceptive marketing based on allegations that their study was so hopelessly flawed that no reliable conclusions could be drawn from it. According to the FTC’s complaint, in 2010, Austin, Texas-based AFS paid researchers in India to conduct a clinical trial on overweight adults to test whether Green Coffee Antioxidant (GCA), a dietary supplement containing green coffee extract, reduced body weight and body fat. This is a good step to compliance. However, the study’s lead investigator repeatedly altered the weights and other key measurements of the subjects, changed the length of the trial, and misstated which subjects were taking the placebo or GCA during the trial. When the lead investigator was unable to get the study published, the FTC says that AFS hired researchers Joe Vinson and Bryan Burnham at the University of Scranton to rewrite it. Despite receiving conflicting data, Vinson, Burnham, and AFS never verified the authenticity of the information used in the study, according to the complaint.