ABSTRACT - House subcommittee holds hearing to assess whether diet pills containing stimulant ephedra should be banned; hears testimony on complaints of dangerous side effects received by Metabolife International by users of the pills; company holds products are safe but executives do not testify, invoking Fifth Amendment; Nutraquest Inc, formerly Cytodyne Technologies, expresses similar confidence in its ephedra products, one of which was linked to death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler earlier this year (M)

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