CRYSTAL, Nevada—In the wake of Lamar Odom's slip into a state of unconsciousness Tuesday during a visit to Dennis Hof's Love Ranch, one of the details that has emerged is that Odom took 10 male enhancement pills known as Reload over the three days prior to being found in his current condition.
TMZ posted the 911 call from a Love Ranch employee after Odom was found, during which the employee makes several mentions of Odom having ingested Reload. AVN reported in late 2012 that industry entrepreneur and publicist Mike Kulich owned and was peddling a male enhancement product called Reload, which TMZ identified as the pills Odom took, though it noted that the company behind them appeared to be out of business.
Reload was the subject of an FDA advisory to consumers in June 2013 that revealed the pills contained sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, but failed to list the agent on its packaging. The advisory notified consumers to "stop using this product immediately and throw it away." No further news about Reload has appeared since that time.
AVN reached out to Kulich Wednesday for comment about Reload, and while he had not replied as of post time, he did issue the following statement Thursday morning on his Facebook page, which he has subsequently removed:
"I was never the owner of Reload, just a salesman. Our company also did not manufacture the pill ourselves. We bought the pills already capsulized from another company. We would then package them up with our packaging and the list of ingredients provided to us by the manufacturer. In other words we were a white label distributor as were dozens of other brands on the market at the time.
"Upon receiving notification from the FDA that there was an undeclared ingredient, we immediately contacted every customer and did a recall.
"The company was then closed down and all product that was returned to us was refunded and subsequently destroyed.
"Since the company closed and even while we were operating, there were a number of issues with counterfeiters. Companies selling product with identical packaging which operated while we were in business and long after we closed our doors. There were also a number of other companies using the name Reload.
"According to statements made by the Working Girls who were with Odom, he had taken 10 Reload Pills from a bottle. Our pills never came in a bottle, only blister packaging. Another company unaffiliated with ours operating under the name Reload packaged their product in bottle containing 10 Pills."
