Here is the research I have been able to gather on the recent escapades of Dr. Connelly:
Connelly has misrepresented himself for years in publications, in connection with his products, where court documents prove, evidenced by FTC rulings that Connelly was more a drug dealer than a credentialed formulator, having been found guilty of spiking his products with illegal substances and steroidal compounds.
In the 1990’s Connelly defrauded the public before being caught on the promised science of this then Metabolic Prescription aka MET-Rx. Back then he claimed to be a Harvard trained nutritionist and that MET-Rx took him 20 years to develop. This formula (MET-Rx) he claimed literally brought critically ill patients back to life, and that over 20 hospitals used it for standard nutritional protocol, but over a period of 5 years he never substantiated the marketing claims. That is when Lisa M. Kreiger the Medical Writer to an expose Miracle food or fad? detailing Connelly’s lied in the MET-Rx marketing materials claiming he graduated from Harvard and that the 20 years of work, amounted to zero published scientific studies on Metamyosyn.
So how did Connelly do it? - By aggressively spinning pseudo-science advertorials. In 1990 Connelly came up with MET-Rx, and joined forces with a great marketer named Bill Phillips (EAS). Bill had the trust of the consumers at the time because of his Anabolic Reference Guide, Natural Supplement Review, and then Muscle Media 2000. The ARG earned Bill trust in the sports nutrition space as he wrote about how to spot counterfeit steroids and even how to smuggle them into the country. In the 1990’s steroids were prevalent in society and sports. The NSR was a book which provided lab analysis of all the supplements in the space and again the first issue was legit, the 2nd issue low and behold spoke about MET-Rx. MET-Rx was claimed to cause nutrient partitioning so that calories went to building muscle instead of putting on fat, and MET-Rx was anabolic and anticatabolic … just like a steroid.
This time, instead of MET-Rx and the magical ingredient, Metamyosyn (which he paid someone to formulate both), he now has Body-Rx and Whey Growth Factor Extract (WGFE), an ingredient that the foreign manufacturer he’s in bed with, Murry Goulburn Nutritionals, is dumping in the trash by the metric ton.
In the book Muscles, Speed and Lies they did a whole subchapter on MET-Rx and even detail how Connelly tried to fabricate the science.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XWDMbj-dNrAC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=muscles,+speed+and+lies+MET-Rx&source=bl&ots=Oq0TINmCHi&sig=ntIM9cHkIc-2fJaxZjKqWTQPgE8&hl=en&ei=-9-rTLfmGYr2tgPW3YjvAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the 1990’s Connelly also tried to launch Cafe-MET-Rx which was to sell healthy pizzas, waffles, pancakes and it went broke. And today here he is again trying to package that idea as new and novel under the Body-Rx banner.
He has defrauded the public, the Federal Trade Commission, and has been sued by his business partners for fraud and breach of contract more than 21 times, and was actually found to enter into agreements without any intent to perform.
Connelly has recently taken to the airwaves on hoax radio shows like “Heavy Muscle Radio” hosted by Dave Palumbo and John Romano, ironically both convicted Felons (more below) to rant over his “shock” in discovering that he was in business with a criminal??
The irony here is that for a man who is so concerned that he’s been consorting with a "criminal,"whom does he choose to surround himself with to bolster his credibility? None other than John Romano, Dave Palumbo, Vince Andrich, and Anthony Roberts - all criminals!
A Band of Bandits
John Romano and Dave Palumbo were both formerly employed by Muscular Development Magazine. In a statement issued by Steve Blechman the following was said about the termination of Romano and Palumbo from Muscular Development:
"In light of recent circumstances, I feel it is my responsibility to clear the air and explain one of the many reasons why both Dave Palumbo and John Romano were terminated.
Dave was hired two years ago to be Editor-in-Chief of the Muscular Development website. During the first year, he was instrumental in helping to grow it. During this past year, Dave’s interests were focused increasingly on his side businesses of training athletes and launching his supplement line. John was hired by Dave as a paid employee to endorse and promote this supplement line. Because of this, John’s position as Senior Editor was compromised."
John Romano also the founder of RxMuscle, went to prison for wire fraud. In his own word, “I was a commodities and stock broker. It was a complicated scheme, but suffice it to say there was a lot of money involved.”
Palumbo, the editor of RxMuscle, was sentenced to five months in prison and five months house arrest in 2004 after selling counterfeit HGH. He pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court in to illegally selling 90 boxes of the fake hormone for about $63,000. He is currently being sued for causing liver failure in a young woman with his Species supplement line, where apparently Palumbo used an FDA banned substance in the formula.
Andrich, who is knee-deep in the PDB drama was also one of the co-defendants ordered to jointly pay $10 million restitution when he was found responsible for conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering. But what’s more interesting it that this cast of players are all a part of the new Muscle Insider, where apparently your credentials for publishing rights are limited to how many terms in prison you served.
Anthony Roberts (or Anthony Connors, depending on who you ask) has been defending Connelly all over the bodybuilding forums as well as his own blog. Not exactly a pillar of society, Anthony has a seen a few legal issues in his past – the sale of fake steroids, committing fraud, criminal convictions and a recent $6M judgment against him.
So the doctor who pretends he is a scientist after being caught by the FTC for essentially selling steroids to children, while trying to bankrupt his own company, partners with a guy whose been convicted of selling fake steroids, Dave Palumbo, who then moves on to start a supplement line that causes a customers liver to fail, and hires Vince Andrich, another FTC violator to spin his story, while they all hide under the banner of Muscle Insider hoping to relive their glory days in the 1990’s.
And Sports Illustrated glorifies him the Pillar of the community rather than the father of fraud. Now that is some story.
