HAARETZ.com:
An Israeli woman filed a NIS 2.5 million lawsuit yesterday against Herbalife International and its Israeli affiliate, Herbalife Israel, claiming that the companies’ products had caused her chronic liver disease, with the risk of future liver failure necessitating a transplant.
In her suit, submitted to district court, Mali Nir, 54, alleged that products marketed by the California-based nutritional-supplements and weight-control company and its Israel affiliate as natural and promoting “health for life” destroyed her health.
The suit claims that she “was never advised that consuming the companies’ products could cause irreversible liver damage, and that they could even be poisonous to the body.”
Nir said she began taking Herbalife supplements in 1998 and even signed on as an Herbalife distributor. She says that the first sign of a problem surfaced in 2001, when she began to experience fatigue and weakness. She then discovered that she had serious liver damage.
When she stopped taking the supplements, her liver function reportedly returned to normal, but with indications of cirrhosis of the liver, along with problems that included pain, chronic fatigue, weakness and insomnia.
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