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Another product, Gero-Vita GH3, was said to be an anti-aging formula based on the work of Anna Aslan, a Rumanian physician who developed Gerovital H3, an injectable product she claimed was "the secret of eternal vigor and youth." Its principal ingredient was procaine, a local anesthetic. Although many uncontrolled studies have reported great benefits from the use of GH3, controlled trials have failed to demonstrate any improvement in elderly patients. Noting that para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) and diethylaminoethanol (DMAE) appear in the urine of people receiving procaine injections, a few American manufacturers have been selling procaine tablets containing PABA and/or DMAE with false claims similar to those made for GH3. The FDA has taken regulatory action against several companies marketing "GH3" products, but other brands still are marketed.

Braswell's Gero-Vita GH3 formula contained PABA, DMAE, and several vitamins and minerals. A Gero Vita brochure—"Stop the Clock! Scientists Say: You Can Live 20% Longer and Healthier!"—contained 35 testimonials that Gero-Vita GH3 relieved arthritis, caused leg swelling to disappear, improved sex life, lowered blood pressure, turned hair darker, improved memory, softened skin, sped healing, relieved back pain, improved endurance, stabilized growth of a cataract, and made people look much younger. However, there is no reason to believe that any ingredient in the product could produce any of these effects.

For several years, Braswell's Vita Industries sent solicitations for Gero-Vita GH3 that resembled an ordinary large, two-sided newspaper page with a "handwritten" note addressing the recipient by first name and "signed" with someone's initial. (One in my files, for example, states: "Dear Dorothy, You've got to try this. It works! J.") Ads of this type are designed to make the recipient think they come from someone they know. However, recipients might also be upset by the thought that the sender thinks they look too old.

In 1992, the Iowa Attorney General obtained a consent decree and injunction barring Vita Industries from promoting, selling, or advertising any drug or nutritional product that had not been shown to be safe and effective by at least two well-designed scientific studies and is generally recognized as safe and effective for its intended purpose. The company was also assessed $25,000 and ordered to make full refunds to any consumer who complained within 30 days after the order was issued. It was also barred from marketing its products in Iowa [2]. Later that year, after it sent solicitations to an investigator from the Attorney General's office, the company signed a second consent agreement to pay $6,000 to the state's Elderly Fund [3]

In 1995, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. announced that Gero Vita International had failed to substantiate advertising for a GH3 Anti-Aging Pill, which had claimed:

* "New Anti-Aging Pill Stops Aches, Pains, Fatigue, Depression, Improves Memory, Skin Tone and Sex Drive!"
* "Grey Hair Gone!"
* "Reduces Chance of Heart Attack by 83%!"
* "People Taking Gero H3 Lived 29% Longer!" [4]

In 1995, the FDA banned the importation of all of Gero Vita's products marketed with claims that they can prevent or treat disease. In 1997, the ban was extended to cover Life Force Laboratories [5]. The ban was set up because many of the mailings used a Canadian ordering address for Gero Vita Laboratories, which suggested that the company was located in Canada. The ban has not been effective, however, because the Canadian locations simply forward the orders, which are filled from within the United States.

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Krishna Basin.

Below Wai, the valley widens out, and on the right bank, is joined by the leading tributaries Kudali, Vena, Urmodi and Tarli. The valley floors are well-cultivated and well-populated, the streams draining in the valleys have carved out small amphitheatres into the sides of the intermediate ridges. The sides of these ridges are generally bare but carry poor grass and scrub, and are usually given to grazing, and some of the tops carry the ancient fortified sites like Vairatgad. Each of these valleys is connected by good roads to the Poona-Kolhapur highway running along the main Krishna valley and every valley has one or two local market centres like Kudal and Humgaon in the Kudali valley and Medha in the Vena valley. The Medha Ghat route to Mahabaleshwar also passes through the Vena valley. The historic town of Satara (population 41,070) is situated in the Vena valley nestling below the Ajimtara Fort. The old city occupies an amphitheatre of a tributary stream. The old cantonment area spreads out eastwards to healthier open lands, and the intermediate belt is getting filled up by new urban development. Satara ever since the days of the early Chhatrapati rulers has had a changing fortune. Chosen as a capital in the early period of the Maratha rule, it lost its importance to Poona; after the annexation of the State to the Bombay Presidency, it prospered for some time as a cantonment station, but declined when the British troops were shifted from there. It now retains its urban importance as the headquarters of the district and is gradually making progress through educational institutions, banking and small industry.

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Chioggia: an excursion from Venice | Italy HeavenParallel to this, a block to the east, is a picturesque canal called the Vena. Side-streets run neatly off at right angles,