Suppress Your Appetite For Herbalife

Always a curious company, Herbalife just gets curiouser. The direct-sales marketer of dietary supplements grew like crazy from its founding in 1980 by high school dropout Mark Hughes. Today its Web site still features paeans to Hughes, plus a gallery of his photos. Yet it avoids mentioning the fact that he is long dead.

Strange, unless you sell such items as Relax Now, a jujube, ashwagandha, and passion flower combo that Herbalife says eases anxiety and stress. Especially strange since Hughes died at 44 in May, 2000, after a four-day alcoholic binge. The coroner found the booze didn't mix well with Doxepin, a prescription antidepressant Hughes had been taking. Nor did Hughes' death fit with the healthful image he nurtured as Herbalife's salesman-in-chief. When I asked why Herbalife's site features Hughes yet makes no mention of his passing, a spokeswoman told me the company is staying quiet while regulators review its plan for an initial public offering of stock. Its prospectus does note Hughes' death, but skips over how he died.