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FDA Yanks Kim Kardashian's Sponsored Instagram Post

Photo: Getty Images

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Remember that bonkers moment a while ago where Kim Kardashian plugged a morning sickness drug in a paid Instagram post? According to The Washington Post, the US Food and Drug Administration is stepping in to police that promotional tactic. Last Friday, the FDA officially ordered that all references of the drug (Diclegis) must be removed immediately from Kim Kardashian's social media feeds due to the fact that none of the sponsored posts have any references to the drug's side effects.

"The social media post is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for DICLEGIS, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts," the FDA's letter to the drug company reads. "Thus, the social media post misbrands DICLEGIS within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and makes its distribution violative."

As it turns out, if the post wasn't sponsored, the FDA wouldn't have touched it. "Outside of a promotional context, Kim Kardashian, if she jumped on Twitter and made these statements, and had absolutely no relationship to the company, that would be fine," Kevin Madagan, a lawyer specializing in health care, told The Washington Post. "You need to be careful about how you go about doing it. Certainly, in my opinion, doing it in this manner [is risky] -- have a paid spokesperson take the leap in doing something like this. There's really no attempt at all to provide risk information in this post."