U.S. Attorney: Pittsburgh ‘Wellness’ Clinic Operator Gave Patients Animal Drug for Weight Loss

Federal authorities in Pennsylvania have charged a wellness counselor with fraudulently branding a medication formulated for cattle and horses and giving it to her patients for weight loss.

The U.S Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania brought the case this week against Nicole Millen, who operated Renu Medical and Weight Loss and Choice Restorative Medicine, both in Pittsburgh — also alleging she was not a licensed medical professional, multiple area news outlet reported.

Millen allegedly was giving her patients a drug called Chorulon, which veterinarians primarily use to treat cystic ovaries in cows.

The animal formulation did contain the hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). The human prescription of hCG has been used as a controversial weight loss injection. Legitimate physicians also prescribe it to some men to boost testosterone.

Millen allegedly told her clients that they were taking hCG, federal investigators said.

They allege that Millen and her employees were getting the drug from a veterinary retailer in Illinois, mixing it with a diluting agent and putting it in unlabeled syringes.

According to the charging document, per abc27:

On or about Febuary 3, 2022, in the Western District of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, the defendant, Nicole Millen, did acts with respect to drugs while those drugs were held for sale after shipment in interstate commerce that resulted in drugs being misbranded, that is she caused ‘Chorulon,’ which had been shipped in interstate commerce, to be drawn into an unlabeled syringe that did not bear a label providing the name or quantity or proportion of each active ingredient.

CBS in Pittsburgh reported:

Paperwork filed in the case states, “While it contained the same active ingredient as certain FDA-approved prescription drugs for humans, Chorulon was never approved for humans and its labeling, when purchased from a licensed distributor, said, “‘For animal use only’ and ‘Federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the order of a licensed veterinarian.'”

Millen faces a charge of causing a drug to be misbranded after shipment in interstate commerce, which can carry a penalty of a one-year prison term and a $100,000 fine.

She is due in federal court later this month for arraignment.

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.