FTC sues Kevin Trudeau over weight loss claims while ignoring Big Pharma monopoly pricing

Friday, September 21, 2007 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Kevin Trudeau, free speech, the FTC

Kevin Trudeau, author of the super popular "Natural Cures" books, has once again been sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This time, it's not about coral calcium and cancer; it's about weight loss claims made in the marketing of his book, "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."

According to the FTC, Trudeau's false statements include ones like this:

"I can eat whatever I want now, anything and as much as I want any time I want. No restrictions now. And the weight's not coming back. You don't gain the weight back."

Depending on what came before this statement, it might be serious exaggeration or solid truth. For example, I know that if you switch to a diet of unprocessed foods, get lots of sunlight, engage in regular exercise and take lots of trace minerals, most cravings for carbohydrates and processed foods disappear within 30 days. From that point forward, it's true that a person can essentially eat whatever they want, any time they want, because they're not craving the unhealthful, fat-producing processed foods in the first place. Plus, their metabolism is normalized and they're not getting wild blood sugar swings that cause cravings.

On the other hand, if by this statement, Trudeau means that you can eat all the ice cream, fried foods, cookies, sodas and desserts you want without gaining weight then of course that's nonsense. The weight will definitely come back for any person consuming primarily processed foods.

A favorite FTC target

But the real story is not whether Trudeau is wrong or right about weight loss, it's about the selective enforcement of weight loss claims by the FTC. Trudeau is a favorite target of the FTC, and he's been sued before over health claims for his coral calcium products. The FTC even forced him into a settlement where he could no longer sell nutritional products. That's what eventually led Trudeau to write his Natural Cures books, which are now probably the most commercially successful books ever sold via infomercials.

The FTC, it seems, wants to keep targeting Trudeau regardless of what he sells. And while Trudeau's weight loss claims may or may not hold water (I haven't seen the infomercial myself, so I don't know what other statements he may have made), I'm far more interested in the fact that the FTC seems to be uninterested in stopping many other weight loss scams.

For example, what's up with the Slim Fast products at the grocery store? They're positioned as weight loss meal replacement shakes, and yet the No. 1 ingredient in the powder product is none other than refined table sugar! If you believe that sugar promotes weight loss, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Why isn't the FTC able to sue the SlimFast manufacturer and get these apparently deceptive products off the shelves?

And how about those Weight Watchers products? I'm actually doing a photo series on some Weight Watchers desserts to show how incredibly unhealthful they are. Many are made primarily with sugar and hydrogenated oils. To imply that they actually promote weight loss seems ridiculous to me, if not downright fraudulent. Where is the FTC when it comes to protecting consumers from these popular (but in my opinion deceptive) weight loss products?

Even worse, take a look at pharmaceutical advertisements that run on television these days. Without explicitly stating it, these ads imply that taking Big Pharma's overpriced, dangerous medications will transform your disorganized, painful and depressed life into a life of happiness, abundance and clarity. It's the same story that's shown in virtually every ad: Somebody has a terrible life that's turned around by a magic pill, and then by the end of the ad, they're walking off into the sunset with some sexy supermodel and life is perfect!

Why won't the FTC investigate these blatant exaggerations found in direct-to-consumer drug advertisements?

Will no one investigate the pharmaceutical pricing monopoly?

Here's another big question: Isn't the FTC supposed to protect consumers by investigating and breaking up corporate monopolies? They sued Microsoft over the inclusion of a web browser in Windows (the horror of it!), and they've broken up monopoly phone companies in the past. Why are they doing nothing over the monopoly pricing and distribution practices of the drug companies?

Americans currently pay monopoly prices for pharmaceuticals, and the FDA even goes out of its way to protect this drug racket, working to block competing imports from Canada and other countries, even going so far as to imply that people who bring drugs into the U.S. from other countries are criminals. If the FTC believes in fair trade and protecting consumers from monopolistic, predatory pricing practices by greedy U.S. corporations, why isn't the FTC taking a good, hard look at the downright fraudulent pricing practices and monopolistic marketing tactics of drug companies?

You probably already know the answer to that one. Big Pharma is apparently beyond justice in this country. No federal agency attempts to hold the industry accountable for the harm it has caused the American people (100,000+ people killed each year by FDA-approved drugs), and nobody questions the pricing monopoly that now exists in the U.S. Technically, Big Pharma executives should be brought up under RICO Act criminal charges for racketeering, but that assumes there is actually a system of justice that works in this country, and there isn't.

So instead of going after the real criminals who are literally killing over 100,000 Americans each year with dangerous prescription drugs (while bankrupting families, corporations, cities and states with monopolistic pricing schemes), the FTC has chosen to target author Kevin Trudeau over his claims in a weight loss book.

Wow. I'm glad to know my tax dollars are being put to such an important investigative project, huh? I feel safer now that I'm protected against a "dangerous book" even while half my neighbors will probably be killed by pharmaceuticals over the next few years. What's next? Organized book burnings of "dangerous" materials? (The FDA already ordered the destruction of recipe books that mentioned the natural herbal sweetener stevia, by the way...)

Will the FTC now order the destruction of Trudeau's Natural Cures weight loss book? If so, I can't wait to cover this one. They'll turn Trudeau into a martyr and find themselves under attack by a mob of raging librarians (I'm not kidding. Librarians don't tolerate book burnings...).

I'm not saying Trudeau's marketing of his Natural Cures weight loss book is one hundred percent honest. I haven't read the book, and I haven't watched the infomercial. It may potentially be even more dishonest than the labeling of Slim Fast or Weight Watchers products (in my opinion). But even if Trudeau got on camera and told the most blatant lies in the world about weight loss, they would pale in comparison to the massive lies being told to the American public today about everything from breast cancer screening (a massive cancer recruiting scam) to high cholesterol (another huge scam designed to sell statin drugs that can kill people). ADHD is a scam to sell drugs to children, antidepressant drugs are extremely dangerous (and cause massive weight gain), and type-2 diabetes is, in fact, readily curable.

The lies now seem normal

The American public is being lied to by the modern medical system on such a regular basis that apparently no one notices the lies anymore. The people have been brainwashed into thinking anything approved by the FDA is safe, and that anything "alternative" should not be trusted. Heck, the FDA is even trying to outlaw red yeast rice extract now, since it naturally contains a molecule (lovastatin) that the drug companies ripped off from nature and used to patent statin drugs. Now, the FDA says the red yeast rice contains "a drug" and is therefore dangerous! Incredible, huh? The only "drug" it contains is the molecule found in the yeast in the first place by drug researchers who biopirated it!

I'm sure the FTC has done plenty of good work over the last few decades, but this targeting of Kevin Trudeau over a weight loss book is such a silly exercise in selective enforcement over weight loss claims that it frankly makes the agency look childish and misguided. It's acting like a schoolyard bully throwing a fit rather than a genuine protector of the rights and interests of U.S. consumers.

The FTC could look like a hero if it went after the monopolistic pricing practices of Big Pharma, but you know that project would be halted right away by a phone call from the White House. Big Pharma remains untouchable, and the American consumers remain deceived, injured and even killed by what drug companies are doing in the U.S. today. I hope the FTC someday recognizes the important role it might play in bringing down the criminal Big Pharma racket now masquerading as modern medicine, but until then, the agency appears as little more than yet another misguided group of government paper shufflers who have no real interest in protecting American consumers from anything that matters.

Oh, and by the way, if you really want to lose weight, stay away from so-called weight loss products made of sugar. Hopefully, that fact should be obvious to anyone with an IQ over 70, but then again, SlimFast products keep on selling, so I have no idea what's wrong with the brains of the consumers who keep buying this stuff.

Eat unprocessed, unrefined foods, and avoid anything manufactured in a factory. Exercise regularly, stop drinking high-fructose corn syrup, stop eating cheese and dairy products, and get some sunshine. Download my Honest Food Guide for free and find out which foods actually help you stay health vs. which foods harm your health. It's the replacement guide for the USDA's food guide pyramid, and it's been downloaded by over 800,000 people.

And find a way to get off antidepressant drugs. They imbalance blood sugar metabolism and lead to weight gain (20 pounds in the first year, on average). This is all stuff the FTC, FDA and USDA probably haven't bothered to mention because they're too busy chasing down outspoken book authors and discrediting nutritional supplements to actually do anything useful for America.

That's Big Government watching out for ya, as usual! I'll bet you feel really, really safe now that Trudeau is being investigated for promoting a weight loss book.