CT, I’m not defending the folks using the name improperly. They were slapped with the monetary judgement because they earned a bundle by misrepresenting the studied VSL formula as 1) their property, and 2) the product they were selling. Whether the differences between the products are big or small isn’t material to the point, and I don’t think influenced the award. The differences may well be clinically insignificant (or perhaps not), and the liability would (and should) be the same in any case - the point in the case wasn’t that the knockoff didn’t work as well.
The reason to *hope* (not assert) that they may work about the same is that they have identical bacterial species, though I expect that there are differences in the strains. Such differences can be very important of course - only a few strains of E. Coli are lethal. The plaintiff might have a secret sauce that really is the key to efficacy, or his formula might only be “better” because of the extensive research behind it. Neither of us knows, and more importantly the folks selling the knockoff don’t know, and they pretended that they did.
A class action is an interesting idea, if they have any money left, but I think it might be hard to demonstrate clinical harm.