Bayer pays $3.3 million to settle misleading cancer claims

German multinational corporation Bayer Healthcare has settled charges by three states that it exploited the fear of prostate cancer to market its One-A-Day men's multivitamins, despite the lack of any supporting evidence that the vitamins decreased the cancer risk.

Under the $3.3 million settlement reached with the attorneys general of California, Oregon, and Illinois, Bayer will be barred from marketing its drugs with assertions not based on sound and reliable scientific evidence.

"Bayer sought to increase the sale of OAD [One-a-Day] Men's Products by deceptively leveraging fear of prostate cancer," the complaint charged. "Bayer made both express and implied promotional claims that misrepresented that OAD Men's Products reduce a man's risk of developing prostate cancer."