If a cancer cure sounds too good to be true...

Maybe some companies honestly believe their products work; maybe some know that they're preying on the scared. Regardless, the Federal Trade Commission has told 11 of them that enough's enough. The agency has charged five companies with making "unsupported claims" in the marketing of products to treat cancer and gotten assurances from six others to cool it.

"Many of these products are scams," Lydia Parnes, the director of the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement, "and let's face it, when you're battling cancer, the last thing you need is a scam."

The five companies sued are Omega Supply, Native Essence Herb Co., Daniel Chapter One, Gemtronics and Herbs for Cancer.

Native Essence, for one, was not pleased. An attorney for the company said in an Associated Press article: "In our view it's a battle between the right to speak and the government's censorship."

The six companies with which the agency reached proposed settlements are Nu-Gen Nutrition, Westberry Enterprises, Jim Clark's All Natural Cancer Therapy, Bioque Technologies, Cleansing Time Pro and Premium-essiac-tea-4less.

The statement from the FTC includes details about the products each company produces. It also announces the creation of a website designed to educate consumers on how to spot -- and report -- bogus cancer-cure claims. That site, www.ftc.gov/curious, stresses that those tempted by such products should talk to their physician about them but not, repeat not, stop their more traditional treatments.

In Life and death on fringes of medicine, Shari Roan tells the story of one couple's hope, and eventual disappointment, in alternative cancer cures.

-- Tami Dennis

Comments

[Tara Mandura]

At least these 'bogus' cures don't chemically poison or burn the patients taking them, as do chemotherapy and radiation. Patients with cancer deserve to be able to choose their own treatment, whether or not the government agrees with their decision. Over 30,000 people die each year due to prescription drug poisoning. If the FTC really wanted to protect the public, they would censor the advertising of prescription drugs!

[Jennifer]

If the FTC is successful in silencing Daniel Chapter One, individual consumers seeking to improve their health and the health of American society as a whole will suffer important losses.

The American consumer has rights to information, choice, safety and redress (the right to be heard). Presented to Congress as the Consumer Bill of Rights by President Kennedy in March of 1962, these rights form the backbone of wellbeing for individual consumers and for success of the American market economy.

In terms of free-flowing information, the FTC mandates that consumers may only receive health information from producers and sellers that the FTC has determined is proven by the 'science' it selects. No historical knowledge, consumer experience, or traditional practice satisfies FTC demands. The FTC recognizes only expensive double blind 'studies' as support for health claims. Daniel Chapter One has asked its lawyers, and its lawyers have agreed, to challenge this policy as violating Daniel Chapter One's rights under the U.S. Constitution.

By depriving consumer choice and the right to hear sellers' knowledge about health aspects of their products, the one-size-fits-all FTC health information standard deprives consumer access to alternative health approaches. If the FTC had enforced this standard against Daniel Chapter One over the past thirty years, hundreds of people who provide testimony that Daniel Chapter One products improved or even saved their lives may not have survived.

With regard to safety, the FTC standard forces individual consumers to use highly toxic chemical products whose benefits, according to its 'science,' outweigh their toxicity. The FTC sets this standard despite the fact that regulators acknowledge they routinely reverse approvals for many of these dangerous products. The FTC, with no staff scientists or science capability, relies on old, selective science. From both old and new science, including genetics, the truth is that biochemical individuality makes one person's potential poison another's possible cure.

The Constitution allows individuals to make potentially risky choices for themselves. The FTC does not. Instead, the FTC makes highly risky choices for consumers who have no way to object. Government and business fight the consumer rights battle between themselves. Consumers have no voice. Most businesses sign an agreement to say only what the FTC permits because their overriding goal is to sell products. Daniel Chapter One's goal is to help people honestly and the help of consumers will be crucial to take this historic stand.

If the FTC has its way with Daniel Chapter One, consumers will be denied useful information, blocked from possibly lifesaving choices, forced to use dangerous products and have nowhere to complain about their treatment. This outcome stems from well intentioned regulators attempting a Herculean job – making people's decisions for them – with minuscule resources. It is time to bring the government back into line with the Constitution and the Consumer Bill of Rights.

[deloris]

It's inconcievable that the FTC is allowed to allowed to operate as a cocky little ingnorant dictator in this land of the free.
I say NO THANK YOU to the toxic poison known as chemotherapy and To HECK with radiation.
Much of what I believe about cancer stems from research done by Doug Kaufmann, knowthecause.com.
I defy the FTC, and for that matter, the FDA from standing between me and what I percieve as truth.
I had never heard of Daniel Chapter One before tonight, but long live the Consumer Bill of Rights! Thanks for the information, Jennifer.

[John Minotti]

Sorry to say I am no fan of Daniel Chapter One. Using religion to peddle their wares. They don't manufacture anything and leech their customers by the fact that most of their products are double the price of similar or identical products elsewhere.

I am in the supplement industry and found this out a few years back when a customer came in our store with an empty bottle of Odorless Garlic from Daniel Chapter One. At first I told the customer I did not sell their products but upon looking more closely at the bottle I could see that it reminded me of a product that I was selling from another company. After checking the UPC code it was identical to the product I had on the shelves. Only difference -- the Daniel Chapter One bottle had a price that was 3 times of the one I had on the shelf. They were having the product made (contract manufacturing is the term used in the industry) and having their label slapped on the bottle.

Now they are using testimonials claiming that they advised people to take certain products to cure cancer. They give all those honest people in the industry a bad name.