A recent article entitled “Can Plaintiffs Sue a ‘Celebrity Spokesperson’?” (see the below link) got me thinking about the interplay between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding celebrity endorsements.

From the FTC (false and misleading advertising) perspective, a celebrity endorsement generally does not provide a basis for plaintiffs in a medical product liability litigation to sue the celebrity endorser – unless the endorser was “recklessly indifferent to the truth of his statements or was aware that fraud was highly probable and intentionally avoided the truth” – see the article for further details.

However, take the scenario where a celebrity ventures onto social media to tout the benefits of a particular drug – and voilà – the FDA may issue a warning letter. This is what happened when Kim Kardashian promoted the benefits of the morning sickness drug Diclegis on Instagram. Her post received over 450,000 “likes” and she received a formal FDA warning letter stating that the post is “misleading because it presents various efficacy claims for Diclegis, but fails to communicate any risk information.”

When it comes to celebrity endorsements, the moral of the story (besides “just say ‘no’” in the case of celebrities and drugs …) seems to be that the product risks as well as the fact that the celebrity is merely expressing his or her personal opinion must be clearly disclosed and the endorsement as a whole must be fair and balanced.

Legal Disclaimer: Yes, this is the first time that the Kardashian name was used in one of my posts …

Link to Article: Can Plaintiffs Sue a “Celebrity Spokesperson”?

https://www.druganddevicelawblog.com/2016/06/can-plaintiffs-sue-a-celebrity-spokesperson.html?utm_source=Drug+and+Device+Law&utm_campaign=7dedfacaf4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_148a635382-7dedfacaf4-72403349