Metabolife Founder Pleads Guilty

SAN DIEGO - Michael Ellis, founder of Metabolife International, pleaded guilty Monday to lying to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: withholding from the FDA more than 10,000 reports of people being injured by ephedrine, when claiming in 1999 that Metabolife had a "claims free history." Ellis, 54, and Metabolife, whose drugs put the public at risk of "heart attack, stroke, seizure or death," face up to 5 years in prison and fines at the Jan. 28 sentencing.

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