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GNC to drop ephedra products
Retailer says that it will pull products with controversial supplement by end of June.
May 2, 2003: 7:27 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - General Nutrition Centers said Friday it will stop selling any products that contain the ingredient ephedra.

The company will halt the sale of those products at the end of June. Products containing ephedra have been suspected of contributing to deaths by users, including Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler in February. Suffolk County, N.Y. has already banned products containing ephedra and other jurisdictions, including New York City, are considering such bans.

"We believe that ephedra-based products are safe when used as directed," said a statement from GNC, which with 5,300 stores is the largest specialty retailer in the nutritional supplement segment. "Nonetheless, the current business climate dictates that we move in a different direction."

The store said that it will take a one-time charge due to the cost of pulling products from its inventory. It said it should still be profitable for 2003. It said success of its new ephedra-free product, "showed us that the consumer trend towards e-free products is on the rise."

GNC is based in Pittsburgh and owned by Dutch retailer Royal Numico N.V.  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.