The man behind Bioletics, Richard Cohen, portrays himself as a medical physician, going so far as to write physician orders for lab tests.

In fact, he’s not licensed to practice medicine in Oregon, and in the only state in which he is licensed, he is limited to practicing on his family.

That discrepancy is the latest in a past that includes citations by the federal government for selling products that make unsupported health claims and associations with companies promoting dubious medical techniques.

Cohen moved to Bend with his wife and two children in 2008, and soon started Bioletics, a company that sells nutritional supplements geared toward athletes. The company promises to boost athletic performance, but experts who analyzed the products being sold said the claims were questionable at best (see accompanying report).

Bioletics is the latest in Cohen’s line of businesses. People who have worked with Cohen describe him as “entrepreneurial,” and indeed, he has eschewed the practice of medicine to promote health products, often with little clinical evidence.

His current ventures suggest he continues to do that and may be misrepresenting himself in selling those products.

Signed blank Rx forms

Cohen’s early life was marked by success. Born in 1960 and raised near Philadelphia, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Duke University and a medical degree at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia (now called Drexel University College of Medicine).

After a one-year medical residency in Reading, Pa., he set up a private primary care practice in Hanover, Mass., a small town about 25 miles southeast of Boston.

Cohen quickly gravitated toward medicine that pushed the boundaries.

In an article in The Boston Herald in 1994, Cohen is quoted as saying he is going to live to be 100 years old, largely thanks to hormone replacement therapies.

In that article and in other profiles, he is listed as a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, an organization started by physicians but not recognized by mainstream medical societies. Several physicians who study aging have been critics of the organization, charging it is too cozy with commercial interests and advocates scientifically dubious anti-aging products. Though the academy said it has no record of Cohen ever being a member, Cohen said he was a past member of the academy and has promoted its ideas.

In Massachusetts, Cohen also became medical director for a local chain of clinics called the Medical Weight Loss Center, which news reports said promoted “Hot New Diet Pills!” that promised to help people lose 20 pounds in four weeks.

The center prescribed Fen-Phen, a weight-loss drug that was pulled from the market in 1997 because of dangerous cardiac effects. Cohen worked at the center for only a few months, according to Andrew Rudnick, the center’s owner, who now owns a large chain of medical spas based in Boca Raton, Fla. But it was long enough to run afoul of the Massachusetts board that regulates physician licensing.

Cohen was cited for signing numerous blank prescriptions for Fen-Phen and Redux, another weight-loss drug. Both Massachusetts and federal law prohibit doctors from pre-signing prescriptions.

Rudnick said the citation was not Cohen’s fault. “We probably put him in that position because we had different locations,” and Cohen was required to supervise nurse practitioners without their own prescribing privileges at each of them.

“The board needed to find someone to go down, and I got screwed,” Cohen said. He said he didn’t know writing blank prescriptions was wrong and learned when a reporter asked him about it.

Cohen was fined $5,000 and had his medical license briefly suspended in the fall of 1997.

That disciplinary action led to the suspension of his license in Pennsylvania in August 1998.

Hormone boosters

By 1998, Cohen was trying to establish himself as an expert in male hormonal imbalances. That year he started MedLean, which sold products primarily to boost testosterone in men.

A press release put out by MedLean in 2000 asked: “Low Testosterone: The New Modern-Day Male Epidemic?”

Another release touted the benefits of checking testosterone levels and replenishing low levels. In addition to a better libido, Cohen said, boosting testosterone levels would address fatigue, depression, insomnia and obesity. MedLean’s website, which has since been taken down, touted the benefits of a testosterone precursor to confer “significant improvements in (users’) health.”

It was claims like those that ran afoul of the Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with enforcing federal laws relating to prescription drugs and approving drugs for use.

In December 2000, the FDA sent MedLean a warning letter that cited the company for making unsubstantiated health claims and presenting misleading labels.

The agency said Cohen needed to go through a formal drug approval process to make health claims, or stop saying his products improved health.

Cohen told The Bulletin recently that the FDA had changed its rules about topical hormone creams during that period. In fact, the FDA changed the rule, declaring topical hormonal creams a drug, in 1993, five years before he started MedLean.

The company discontinued the products in question but continued selling other products, Cohen said, including hormone testing and herbal hormonal boosters.

It wasn’t the last time Cohen found himself in trouble with the FDA.

By 2005, the Cohens were living in Asheville, N.C. There, Cohen started OcuZyme, a company that marketed eye drops that promised to preserve vision.

According to website archives, Cohen touted the drops as “a definitive breakthrough in eye care.” The website claimed people with cataracts, glaucoma, diabetes and dry eye could all benefit.

In February 2005, the FDA issued a warning letter to OcuZyme for selling eye drops without agency approval, and again for making health claims without evidence. The letter also said the products contained ingredients that had not been approved in over-the-counter eye products.

“It wasn’t even my product,” Cohen said. “I was just selling it for a European company.”

An FDA inspector, however, found that Cohen was attaching his own labels to the product at his home, according to inspection reports received from the FDA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Website archives suggest the company ceased shortly after this inspection.

Sexual stamina pill

After his failed eye drop venture, Cohen continued to boost his credentials in the field of male hormones.

According to the OcuZyme inspection report, Cohen told the FDA he was a spokesman for Maxtrol, a pill used to “control male climax,” or, as the advertising information put it, provide “greater stamina for greater pleasure.”

In a recent interview, Cohen denied that he was a spokesman for Maxtrol but said he was a spokesman for another product, Testosterol, made by the same company.

Around this time, the Cohens lived in Washington state. While there, Cohen said he was “doing nutritional research, writing, doing at-home lab product development and at-home research.”

“I’ve had the opportunity to read and read and read,” he said.

He also said he consulted for a few nutritional companies while living in Washington — “no one anyone would know.”

Marketing manhood

In 2008, the family moved to Bend, settling in a house near Harmon Park on the city’s west side.

Shortly after coming to Central Oregon, Cohen’s wife, Jackie Cohen, was working at Rebound Sports Performance when she met Tim Monaco, according to Monaco. Both were doing massage and body work, he said.

Jackie began talking to Monaco about her husband’s interest in nutritional consulting, Monaco said.

“I was doing similar parallel work as Dr. Cohen,” he said. “We just kind of brainstormed and came up with this whole idea.”

Cohen and Monaco formed Bioletics three years ago, according to Monaco, and put up Bioletics’ website two years ago.

Since moving to Bend, Cohen started several other ventures, mostly relating to male hormonal problems.

CheckMyTestosterone.com sells Testosterone Health Check, an assessment, and OptiMale Rx, an herbal supplement that claims it “boosts your testosterone and restores balance to your male hormones.” (OptiMale is also available through Bioletics.)

The site also offers customers a free e-book, “Be All The Man You Can Be.”

One of Cohen’s blogs, Fix My Testosterone, features a section with “testosterone tips,” in which customers submit their e-mail addresses in exchange for a series of e-mails that discuss why many men have low testosterone levels and why endurance activities may make the problem worse. The site also contains entries detailing, for example, why soda could make you a “bedroom flop.”

Most recently, Cohen has been associated with RestoredMale.com, which sells a supplement that “supports optimal synergistic male hormonal health.”

Cohen, according to the website, is the product’s medical adviser, and some of his products are sold on the website. Cohen told The Bulletin that he had nothing to do with RestoredMale.

He said he recently began work as a patient educator for Cenegenics, which describes itself as an “age management practice” that “encourages healthy aging” through nutrition, exercise, supplements and hormones.

Not a practicing doc

In these ventures and at Bioletics, Cohen promotes himself as a medical doctor. In a recent interview with The Bulletin, he referred to himself as a physician.

At CheckMyTestosterone, the description of Cohen said he “practices medicine in Bend.”

At RestoredMale, his description says he “currently lives and practices medicine in Oregon.”

On the Bioletics website, Cohen sold a 30-minute consultation with “Dr. Richard Cohen” for $150. Each additional 15 minutes was $75. As of Saturday afternoon, the website also referred to him as a “medical physician.”

He wrote physician orders for Summit High School students who wanted lab tests, said a spokeswoman from Bend Memorial Clinic, although Cohen said in a recent interview that he does not recall whether he wrote those orders. BMC said he provided a physician license number when he ordered the tests and that, when they get that number on a prescription or order, they routinely do not do further background checks.

Cohen is not licensed to practice medicine in Oregon. He is licensed in Pennsylvania using a Philadelphia address. There, his license is in “active-retired” status, which the board explained in an e-mail meant he could treat only his family.

Anyone in Oregon who uses “Dr.” in front of his or her name, according to state law, must be licensed by the state.

When a person in Oregon portrays himself as a physician without having a license, “you may potentially have an issue,” said Eric Brown, chief investigator for the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners. “Practicing medicine without a license is a crime.”

Even if a person is not actually practicing but is portraying himself as such, he could be subject to investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice or local police department, Brown said.

It depends, Brown said, on “what’s he doing, how’s he advertising it.”

Within three hours after The Bulletin asked about it, the reference to him practicing medicine was gone from the CheckMyTestosterone site.

Last week his consultation service on the Bioletics’ website was also removed.