http://images.bimedia.net/documents/thao_indictment.pdf
Kentwood supplement firm, owner indicted
by By Chris Knape | The Grand Rapids Press Friday February 29, 2008, 1:47 PM
GRAND RAPIDS -- A federal grand jury has indicted a former West Michigan man and his Kentwood-based company, alleging he was part of an illegal ring that sold nutritional supplements over the Internet by making bogus claims about their ability to treat diseases.
Tony Pham, 40, and his company, Techmedica Health Inc., are charged with multiple felony counts that could result in prison time and millions of dollars in fines and seizures.
Pham and Techmedica were among eight charged in the indictment released Thursday from a U.S. District Court in Missouri. The indictment said Techmedica sold nearly $12 million worth of unapproved drugs between February 2005 and September 2006.
The Kentwood office of the company's distributor, True Value Media, 3854 Broadmoor Ave. SE, was visited by Food and Drug Administration officials Thursday. A True Value employee named Vicky, declined to give her last name to a Press reporter or provide a company executive to be interviewed. She also said True Value and Techmedica are different companies with separate ownership, but declined to elaborate.
Techmedica's name appears on a mailbox outside the True Value office in Airport Industrial Park.
True Value is the distributor for at least some of Pham's companies, which marketed products under names like Glucolex, Diabeticine, Cholestasys, Diamaxol and others with claims that the products had high success rates in treating diabetes, high cholesterol, gout, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome and high blood pressure.
At least some products were the same pills repackaged under different names to treat different conditions, according to the indictment.
The government case said no clinical testing had been performed to substantiate those claims, making the dietary supplements unapproved and misbranded drugs. FDA regulations prohibit advertising medical benefits of drugs without such testing.
Also charged are Charles C. Thao, his wife, Mai Lor; Tong B. Vang, Shua G. Vang, Nutrapha Research LLC and Bio Nutrasource LLC.
Thao, Lor and Shua Vang owned or worked at companies known as Medicynex and Nutrapha Research in Springfield, Mo., that supplied Pham's Techmedica with the products, according to the indictment. Pham allegedly packaged and resold the products via Techmedica's Web site and several other sites.
The FDA began warning Techmedica about violations of federal drug law in August 2005, but nothing changed, according to the indictment.
Techmedica's Web site featured Charles Thao as a board certified naturopathic physician and chief cellular researcher for Techmedica. The indictment said Thao's credentials were bogus.
In May 2006, FDA performed an on-site inspection of Techmedica's Grand Rapids operations, at which point Pham said he would comply with the FDA's regulations.
Shortly after that, the FDA found Techmedica had begun offering "sanitized" versions of its Web sites, removing claims about its supposed medications when the pages were accessed from FDA computers, the indictment said.
Computers outside of the FDA's network were fed a site that continued to offer the misleading claims, the indictment said.
The FDA also linked several other sites to Pham and Techmedica, including faithmeds.com, livingremedies.com and micronutra.com, which it alleged were designed to direct traffic to Techmedica.
Kentwood supplement firm, owner indicted
by By Chris Knape | The Grand Rapids Press Friday February 29, 2008, 1:47 PM
GRAND RAPIDS -- A federal grand jury has indicted a former West Michigan man and his Kentwood-based company, alleging he was part of an illegal ring that sold nutritional supplements over the Internet by making bogus claims about their ability to treat diseases.
Tony Pham, 40, and his company, Techmedica Health Inc., are charged with multiple felony counts that could result in prison time and millions of dollars in fines and seizures.
Pham and Techmedica were among eight charged in the indictment released Thursday from a U.S. District Court in Missouri. The indictment said Techmedica sold nearly $12 million worth of unapproved drugs between February 2005 and September 2006.
The Kentwood office of the company's distributor, True Value Media, 3854 Broadmoor Ave. SE, was visited by Food and Drug Administration officials Thursday. A True Value employee named Vicky, declined to give her last name to a Press reporter or provide a company executive to be interviewed. She also said True Value and Techmedica are different companies with separate ownership, but declined to elaborate.
Techmedica's name appears on a mailbox outside the True Value office in Airport Industrial Park.
True Value is the distributor for at least some of Pham's companies, which marketed products under names like Glucolex, Diabeticine, Cholestasys, Diamaxol and others with claims that the products had high success rates in treating diabetes, high cholesterol, gout, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome and high blood pressure.
At least some products were the same pills repackaged under different names to treat different conditions, according to the indictment.
The government case said no clinical testing had been performed to substantiate those claims, making the dietary supplements unapproved and misbranded drugs. FDA regulations prohibit advertising medical benefits of drugs without such testing.
Also charged are Charles C. Thao, his wife, Mai Lor; Tong B. Vang, Shua G. Vang, Nutrapha Research LLC and Bio Nutrasource LLC.
Thao, Lor and Shua Vang owned or worked at companies known as Medicynex and Nutrapha Research in Springfield, Mo., that supplied Pham's Techmedica with the products, according to the indictment. Pham allegedly packaged and resold the products via Techmedica's Web site and several other sites.
The FDA began warning Techmedica about violations of federal drug law in August 2005, but nothing changed, according to the indictment.
Techmedica's Web site featured Charles Thao as a board certified naturopathic physician and chief cellular researcher for Techmedica. The indictment said Thao's credentials were bogus.
In May 2006, FDA performed an on-site inspection of Techmedica's Grand Rapids operations, at which point Pham said he would comply with the FDA's regulations.
Shortly after that, the FDA found Techmedica had begun offering "sanitized" versions of its Web sites, removing claims about its supposed medications when the pages were accessed from FDA computers, the indictment said.
Computers outside of the FDA's network were fed a site that continued to offer the misleading claims, the indictment said.
The FDA also linked several other sites to Pham and Techmedica, including faithmeds.com, livingremedies.com and micronutra.com, which it alleged were designed to direct traffic to Techmedica.
