It seems like a scene straight out of “Space Jam.” But for Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson it’s very real.

Photo Credit: WEBN-TV  cc
Photo Credit: WEBN-TV cc

Wilson has been making a lot of publicity on and off the field lately, but his comments about healing water have caused an Internet frenzy. And if he’s lucky, the FDA won’t pile on.

Wilson is profiled in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, and mentions Recovery Water, a concoction he believes helped him prevent (or shake off) a concussion in last year’s NFC Championship Game:

Wilson is an investor in Reliant Recovery Water, a $3-per-bottle concoction with nanobubbles and electrolytes that purportedly helps people recover quickly from workouts and, according to Wilson, injury. He mentions a teammate whose knee healed miraculously, and then he shares his own testimonial.

“I banged my head during the Packers game in the playoffs, and the next day I was fine,” says Wilson. “It was the water.”

[Wilson’s agent Mark] Rodgers offers a hasty interjection. “Well, we’re not saying we have real medical proof.”

But Wilson shakes his head, energized by the subject. He speaks with an evangelist’s zeal.

“I know it works.” His eyes brighten. “Soon you’re going to be able to order it straight from Amazon.”

While it’s irresponsible to use his celebrity to make claims that don’t have medical proof, you can’t deny that the guy is throwing his weight behind a product he sincerely believes—and invests—in. But for the FDA, and now the FTC, that’s probably not going to be enough.

For now the agreement is that the FDA will handle the regulation of homeopathics, and earlier this year they showed an intent to do just that, announcing a workshop to reevaluate. The FTC followed suit quickly thereafter by starting a workshop to evaluate advertising on over-the-counter homeopathic products, which led the FTC to encourage the FDA to reevaluate its current approach to regulating such products, as Donnelly McDowell writes for Food and Drug Law Access:

In encouraging FDA to reconsider this framework, FTC staff suggested that FDA’s requirement that homeopathic drugs display an indication for use “even when the product has not been demonstrated to be efficacious for that indication” is inconsistent with the FTC’s requirement that health claims be substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence.  FTC staff further noted that the potential conflict does not exist for other products such as dietary supplements and non-homeopathic drugs because both FTC and FDA law require substantiation to support efficacy claims for non-homeopathic products.

Though such an innocuous comment may not prick the ears of either agency, if Wilson continues making very public claims about the efficacy of products like this without evidence are exactly what land celebrities like him and Kim Kardashian, who raised the ire of the FDA herself last week with an Instagram post, in hot water. As an investor (and de facto celebrity endorser) Wilson might want to double check with Recovery Water about how to best represent the brand. Otherwise he might find himself outkicking his coverage, and even nano-bubbles can’t help you then.