The History Of Herbalife

1985: The First Major Law Suit For Herbalife
By 1985, Hughes claimed that Herbalife had over 700,000 distributors and an annual income approaching half a billion dollars a year. But trouble was brewing. In May 1985, Senator William V. Roth, Jr. (R-DE) held two days of hearings on weight-reduction programs, during which he grilled Hughes about the "research and testing" done prior to marketing Herbalife's products. Hughes said, "We have a lot of scientific data on the herbs," but Roth ascertained that no actual testing of Herbalife products had taken place.

The hearing also brought to light a study done by Herbalife of 428 users of its products. About 40% had experienced headache, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, lightheadedness, palpitations, and/or other transient symptoms that might be attributable to Herbalife products. The occurrence of side effects came as no surprise because several ingredients in Herbalife products were potent laxatives and one product (N.R.G.) contained guarana, which is high in caffeine.

In March 1985, the California Attorney General had charged Herbalife with violating California's consumer protection laws. The suit charged that early editions of the Herbalife Official Career Handbook made illegal claims that various herbal ingredients were effective against more than seventy diseases and conditions. Although most of these claims were deleted in subsequent editions of the handbook, the company had not replaced the original pages sent to distributors with the revised pages or asked these distributors to destroy them. Similar testimonial claims had been made in the company's cable television broadcasts. The suit also charged that Herbalife had been operating an illegal pyramid scheme. The case was settled in 1986 when Hughes and the company agreed to pay $850,000 and to abide by a long list of court-ordered restrictions on claims and marketing practices.

Just before the Senate hearings, Cable News Network aired a four-part report which revealed that Herbalife's supposed "research laboratory" was a conference room that housed a large table and books on herbs, located at one of Marconi's factories. Marconi told a CNN interviewer, "We employed hundreds . . . even thousands of Ph.D.s in the research program for our products." But when asked who they were, he replied, "Why, the research papers that are published and printed that we have access to on our computer."

The adverse publicity caused Herbalife's income to drop sharply, but the company survived, expanded into many foreign countries, and is now a publicly held corporation. The claims have toned down and several potentially toxic ingredients have been removed.

2000: Herbalife Founder Died after 4-Day Binge, Autopsy Reveals
We will have more information on the death of Mark Hughes coming shortly, so be sure to tune back to the site!

Click Here to Continue Reading the History of Herbalife