Natural Balance is not in violation of any laws in its dealing with the retailers. In the opinion, they are violating any acts such as the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, or the Robinson-Patman Act.
It would be legal if Natural Balance get the proper licenses to sell their products with government approval, but it is unethical for the company to bribe an official of the government to distribute their product outside the proper channels.
The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can help Rachel. The FDA will help Rachel because the FDA deals with protecting the public health and the FTC regulates false and misleading adverting.
The first process is to research the problem to determine if they have legislative authority to deal with the problem itself. Secondly, find out where there is jurisdiction over the product, and lastly, Rachel would have studies to study the problem to see if any action that needs to be taken and if new regulations need to be proposed. After which it is determined there is a problem, then a statute will be enacted by congress (Twomey & Jennings, 2013). The possible challenges would be to defend and prove that the product is safe and does not cause leg cramps and/or headaches. The possible outcomes would be Natural Balance is found to be a safe product if used correctly or the second outcome would be it is found to be misleading information in advertising and the company may need to add warning about possible misuse of their products which may lead to side effects of Force Fit.
After researching, there were several cases of 5-hour and Monster Energy drink cases. Monster and 5-hour’s energy drink linked to