ENTREPRENEUR GOES ON TRIAL FOR SELLING DEPRENYL

The government's allegations have all the trappings of a big-league drug
conspiracy: An illicit substance being sold for a hefty profit, dealers
slipping it into the country across the Mexican border, even the discovery
of a secret stash behind a hidden door in a local laboratory.

But the product at the heart of a trial unfolding in U.S. District Court in
Tampa this week isn't cocaine, heroin or marijuana.

It's deprenyl, a substance advocates describe as a modern-day Fountain of
Youth.

Federal prosecutors opened their case Monday against a Wesley Chapel
entrepreneur accused of manufacturing and distributing deprenyl without the
permission of a doctor or the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Rubinstein contends that James T. Kimball,
61, has thumbed his nose at government regulators for nine years,
continuing to make a product that he knows is illegal and dangerous.

Deprenyl is related chemically to methamphetamine, Rubinstein said. The FDA
currently allows only one company, Somerset Pharmaceutical Co., to produce
it domestically under the trade name Eldepryl. The drug is used to treat
some forms of Parkinson's disease and is available only by prescription.
The FDA says it can cause side effects when taken excessively or with some
foods and medicines.

"This is not a harmless substance," Rubinstein told jurors Monday. "It is a
powerful prescription drug."

But Kimball, who runs Discovery Experimental and Development Inc. on State
Road 54, insists that the FDA is attempting to interfere with the sale of a
life-saving nutrient.

Kimball, who is representing himself, wasn't to deliver his opening
statement until today. But in an interview last August, he said deprenyl,
which he uses in a liquid form, is not a drug and therefore doesn't fall
under government control.

He calls the FDA the Federal Death Administration and claims to be on a
mission to give Americans who are battling senility and old age a new lease
on life.

Prosecutors say Kimball, who has no formal scientific training, began
marketing deprenyl in 1990. The government alleges that he made most of his
sales through an elaborate mail-order scheme involving a Mexican warehouse
and a Californian shipping company linked to Kimball.

Last summer, agents intercepted a package that allegedly contained 108
bottles of deprenyl bound for England.

Kimball sought FDA approval for his product several times, but Rubinstein
said he submitted incomplete applications, then printed the rejection
letters in his marketing pamphlets.

"Essentially, Mr. Kimball has tapped into a certain niche market, a
subsection of the population that hates the FDA," Rubinstein said.

Kimball faces eight counts of conspiracy, distribution of a misbranded drug
and lying to federal authorities. Also charged is one of his former
employees, Gaylord Hughes of Phoenix, indicted on a single count of conspiracy.

Two other former employees are expected to testify for the prosecution
later this week.