Washington wants 5-Hour energy recipe

5-Hour Energy has been claiming – on its bottle, in TV ads, etc. – that its energizing elixir doesn’t cause the dreaded “crash.” According to seattlepi.com, Washington State’s attorney general has joined attorneys general from 32 other states in asking whether those crash-free claims are actually true. The drink-maker has already handed over 59,000 pages of records in response to 18 subpoenas and civil demands from state attorneys, but so far no detailed recipe has been forthcoming. The 5-Hour label says only that the drink contains “B-vitamins, amino acids and essential nutrients” that create a “liquid energy shot” equivalent to a cup of coffee.The drink-maker sued King County Superior Court earlier in June in an effort to block release of its proprietary formula. Previous attempts to retrieve the ingredient list have failed in Maryland and Oregon. There is some urgency to determining exactly what’s in the concoction; since 2008, 5-Hour Energy has been linked to 13 deaths and more than 90 reports to the FDAs of heart attacks, convulsions and even a spontaneous abortion among drink consumers. — J.B.