The bullshit magnate that is Kevin Trudeau

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Baron Scarpia
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The bullshit magnate that is Kevin Trudeau

Post by Baron Scarpia »

Recently, I've taken note in an upsurge in the number of airings of the informercial by this asshole, and I must say I'm astonished at how many intelligent people I know who are willing to listen to his incredibly awful schtick. I mean, if there is any better example of a snake oil salesman other than an actual snake oil salesman, I can't think of one.

For those who don't know, Trudeau is the author of the book, "Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About." In his infomercial that hawks the book, he claims readers will be clued in on 100% natural cures for everything from obesity to cancer. That's right, he claims there is a totally natural cure for cancer. The book starts off by defining the "they" of the title as a massive list of pretty much every organization on the planet that has a connection to health, be it the FDA, drug companies, medical associations, doctors, non-profit health orgs, etc. It's a conspiracy that dwarfs the evilutionist plot to make us believe we're all monkeys.

On top of that, the book actual offers almost ZERO "cures" for the maladies he describes. The only thing he really comes close to saying anything concrete about is weight loss, wherein he gives the oh-so-brilliant advice to eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Thanks, Kevin. But other than that, he claims that he is prohibited from mentioning the actual cures, but if people will just log onto his web site (which, astonishingly enough, costs a monthly fee to access), he will provide the full remedies.

About that prohibition: A short while back, the FDA and FTC issues Trudeau a stern warning that he was setting off their bullshit meters hardcore, and he was on the verge of getting slapped with serious penalties. Despite his assertions to have evidence for all his little cures, Trudeau didn't offer even a modicum of resistance and voluntarily signed an agreement to refrain from promoting products he is actually selling. Now, this doesn't prohibit him from recommending the natural cures he claims he knows, so he's lying about being banned from discussing them by the FTC (Hell, any thinking person would realize that if such a ban were genuine, merely dispensing them on his website instead of in a book would still land him in trouble, now wouldn't it?).

The FTC ban is detailed here: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/09/trudeaucoral.htm

But, of course, the biggest steaming pile of crud are the outrageous and completely unsupported claims he makes in his infomercial and book. He often delves into the most tortuously bad pseudoscience you could imagine, stuff that a high school student should be able to tell is vacuous crap. Some examples for your pleasure:

-granulated lecithin makes you lose fat
-Vitamin E is just as good as Heparin, an anticaogulent
-there is a natural remedy you can simply apply to your skin to eliminate pain forever, but he can't say what
-An herbal supplement can cure diabetes, but he can't say what
-There is a natural cure for cancer, but he can't say what
-There is a natural cure for herpes, but he can't say what
-There is a natural cure for muscular dystrophy, but he can't say what
-the food industry deliberately adds chemicals to food to make people fatter because they know fat people eat more food
-your body is either alkalinic or acidic, and if it's alkalinic you can't ever get cancer or even sick
-Acid is an enzyme, and antacids eliminate all acids in your stomach and then make the body churn out much more
-Heartburn is caused by acid turning into a gas and floating up into the esophagus
-MS is caused by something you eat, and if you change your diet, it will go away in a matter of days

Source: http://www.hsu.com/natural.cure.book.htm

And more:

-Breast milk has been poisoned by exhaust fumes from jets
-People should not use antiperspirant or deodorant
-All tap water is poisonous
-Microwave cooking poisons food --and causes cancer
-Baby food is “poisonous;”
- “Vaccines are some of the most toxic things you can put into your body”
-Avoid hot tubs, saunas and swimming pools
-Wear white (“The closer you get to white, the more positive energy you bring into your energetic field.”)
-Driving in traffic causes stress and stress causes cancer;
-Sunscreens cause cancer
-Eat only organic food and “do not eat any food produced or sold by a publicly traded company
-Don’t take prescription or nonprescription drugs

Source: http://www.infomercialwatch.org/reports/nycpb.shtml

Now, what about his credentials? Well, he has none. That's right, zero. Except perhaps"
During the early 1990s, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Trudeau served nearly two years in prison. In 1990, he pled guilty to larceny in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, state court in connection with $80,000 in worthless checks he had deposited at a bank. The sentencing memorandum said that he had posed as a doctor to increase his credibility with bank officials. In 1991, he pled guilty to credit-card fraud in Boston federal district court. Among his misdeeds in the federal case, he misappropriated for his own use the credit-card numbers of customers of the memory-improvement courses that he offered at the time.
(http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRel ... coral.html)

Yet, this man is now on TV, flaunting the FTC ban and raking in millions of dollars from stupid dupes who believe this claptrap. It does indeed pay to be an asshole these days...
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Re: The bullshit magnate that is Kevin Trudeau

Post by Sriad »

Okay, this guy is a douche, but some of his claims are pretty funny, and a couple are quasi-accurate.
Baron Scarpia wrote: -the food industry deliberately adds chemicals to food to make people fatter because they know fat people eat more food
rofl.
-People should not use antiperspirant or deodorant
There actually WAS some OCD British kid who poisoned himself with antipersperants... IIRC he covered himself in the stuff several times a day.
-All tap water is poisonous
Well obviously, or else how could ravers kill themselves with it? :lol:
- “Vaccines are some of the most toxic things you can put into your body"
...
-Driving in traffic causes stress and stress causes cancer;
Since many vaccines are gimped versions of the real disease, that's sorta true. And yes, driving in traffic causes stress, which can be bad for you. Congratulations, masteroftheobvious.jpg.
-Sunscreens cause cancer
-Eat only organic food and “do not eat any food produced or sold by a publicly traded company
That's right, buy everything from Wild Oats... oh, shit.

This guy is to hypocondriacs as Anne Coulter is to conservatives. Funny to read, but soul hurting to think that people genuinely believe him...
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

The ironic thing about the vaccine statement is that, in a different section, Trudeau gives effusive praise to Salk for the polio vaccine. WTF?
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Post by Darth Wong »

Food companies do put chemicals in food that will make you fat; these chemicals are called "sugar". The massive over-use of sugar in commercial food products is no secret; it hooks consumers and ensures a steady income stream for the food companies. Sugar has been referred to in some dietitian circles as the world's most popular legalized drug.
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Post by Metatwaddle »

Alternative Medicine Shit-Spewing Douche wrote:-Breast milk has been poisoned by exhaust fumes from jets
I think I speak for all of us when I say:

WHAT?

Seriously, where the fuck does he get this stuff?

As an aside, there's a great program about "alternative medicine" on the Point of Inquiry podcast, with a guy called Wallace Sampson from Stanford. He debunks a lot of this bullshit. Kevin Trudeau was mentioned in there, briefly.
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Post by Macunaima »

Darth Wong wrote:Food companies do put chemicals in food that will make you fat; these chemicals are called "sugar". The massive over-use of sugar in commercial food products is no secret; it hooks consumers and ensures a steady income stream for the food companies. Sugar has been referred to in some dietitian circles as the world's most popular legalized drug.
For some specific kinds of product that are too much sugar-based, companies are trying to reduce the amount of sugar present, to reduce costs. As an example, the company where I work produces powdered soft drinks, and we're reducing the amount of sugar on it and using other sweeteners instead, like saccharin, cyclamate or aspartame, although there's a limit in the use of those artificial sweeteners, due to healthy reasons.

That's because sugar is the most expensive of the ingredients in the mixture, and as it's a commodity, the local sugarcane producers have us by the balls: "So, you want sugar, but you think we're charging an unfair price? Ha! Too bad! No sugar for you!" it's their attitude if we complain against any increase in price.

Five years ago, the total weight of the pack to make 1 liter of drink was 4.23oz, almost all of it as pure sugar; then, it was reduced to 3.52, then to 1.76, and just last month, to 1.58. The low-fat/diet line actually has better profit margin, as pure sugar is not present, but its market share is smaller than the sugar-based soft drink mix... the consumer is hooked to sugar, after all.
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

Darth Wong wrote:Food companies do put chemicals in food that will make you fat; these chemicals are called "sugar". The massive over-use of sugar in commercial food products is no secret; it hooks consumers and ensures a steady income stream for the food companies. Sugar has been referred to in some dietitian circles as the world's most popular legalized drug.
Very true, but I don't think they put sugar in food for the reasons he claims, which are to manufacture an army of fat people that they believe will eat more food that other people. They do it because sugar makes things taste better, and people tend to buy things that taste better.

The scientific jury is still very much out on whether or not sugar is indeed a physically addictive substance akin to a drug. At the moment, there is no hard evidence for such.
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

Macunaima wrote:As an example, the company where I work produces powdered soft drinks, and we're reducing the amount of sugar on it and using other sweeteners instead, like saccharin, cyclamate or aspartame, although there's a limit in the use of those artificial sweeteners, due to healthy reasons.
What health reasons? AFAIK, none of those substances have been shown to pose any real health risk to people, except in ridiculously high dosages (i.e. the cyclamate rat study).
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Re: The bullshit magnate that is Kevin Trudeau

Post by Jalinth »

My understanding is that Trudeau is banned from selling these health gimmicks because they are 99.999% bullshit (the science part might be good or bad, but it is small). But because of the First Amendment, they can't stop him writing about this junk as long as he doesn't actually sell it to you.

More generally, dealing with people who've been hammered by the SEC or the FTC is generally not a smart idea. (Personal experience talking - almost got sucked into taking on a spammer and minor porn guy as a client. Yikes, did he talk a good line before I googled him.)
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Post by Macunaima »

Baron Scarpia wrote:What health reasons? AFAIK, none of those substances have been shown to pose any real health risk to people, except in ridiculously high dosages (i.e. the cyclamate rat study).
Oh, sure, when I refer to that, I mean things like, for instance, the composition of your soft drink mix intended for the US market has to use aspartame instead of cyclamate because the FDA forbids the use of cyclamate in the US, although is legal in several other countries. Also, I've heard about some restrictions about the aspartame itself, and a lot of studies about if it's really dangerous or not, but I could not elaborate more as my chemistry-fu is weak.
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

Macunaima wrote:
Baron Scarpia wrote:What health reasons? AFAIK, none of those substances have been shown to pose any real health risk to people, except in ridiculously high dosages (i.e. the cyclamate rat study).
Oh, sure, when I refer to that, I mean things like, for instance, the composition of your soft drink mix intended for the US market has to use aspartame instead of cyclamate because the FDA forbids the use of cyclamate in the US, although is legal in several other countries. Also, I've heard about some restrictions about the aspartame itself, and a lot of studies about if it's really dangerous or not, but I could not elaborate more as my chemistry-fu is weak.
It's interesting to note that the FDA itself has stated that a review of all the evidence shows nothing to support cyclamates as a carcinogen, yet it is still banned. This is probably because Abbott Labs isn't pushing the issue, as they've moved onto other things.

As for aspartame, so far numerous official studies have found no evidence of it posing any significant health risk. All of the evidence I've seen against it is purely anecdotal. At this point, I'm fairly certain it's not as unhealthy for people as comparable amount of sugar.
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Post by Dennis Toy »

you know Fox-5 in DC plays his shit everynight at 3 A.M. Why can't they get something better, lets say Andy Griffith.

To tell you all the truth i think all infomercials are B.S. anyway.
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Post by Dennis Toy »

“Vaccines are some of the most toxic things you can put into your body”
ohh so why am i still here from all the childhood vaccinations. Maybe i am a cylon or a replicant :lol:

-Avoid hot tubs, saunas and swimming pools
been going for years and fell no ill effects, maybe i am a replicant or you are plain full of shit

-Wear white (“The closer you get to white, the more positive energy you bring into your energetic field.”)
You been getting into Chakotays weed havent you. Maybe the newt you have a spirit guide will help you get a brain and get a life.
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Post by Oddysseus »

Wow, it is amazing how easy it is for a con man (convicted and everything) to play ythe masses so easy by playing on there fears and paranoia.

...
Wait, that's old news isn't it.


People actually have to hear that he has been caught running cons in the past and they still buy in? The government the FDA, the scientist are out to get you, but hte con man's the real deal. No wonder Nigerian banks love us.
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Post by salm »

The funniest thing in this direction i´ve heard of is what a friend of mine does. He´s scared of soap. He thinks that soap is bad for you so he normally showers only with water and once a week rubs himself with ashes from a volcano which he gets from the local quack. I´m not shitting you. Ashes from a volcano...
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Post by Dennis Toy »

The funniest thing in this direction i´ve heard of is what a friend of mine does. He´s scared of soap. He thinks that soap is bad for you so he normally showers only with water and once a week rubs himself with ashes from a volcano which he gets from the local quack. I´m not shitting you. Ashes from a volcano...
Ashes from a Volcano!! :lol: :lol:
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Post by wolveraptor »

You could totally throw soap bars at him to make him miserable. Slip soap into his bathtub, at his doorstep -- anywhere. It's sure to piss the hell out of him.
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Post by Stile »

salm wrote:The funniest thing in this direction i´ve heard of is what a friend of mine does. He´s scared of soap. He thinks that soap is bad for you so he normally showers only with water and once a week rubs himself with ashes from a volcano which he gets from the local quack. I´m not shitting you. Ashes from a volcano...
Tell him that ancient soap was made from ashes with a binder of tallow(fat). :D
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

i wonder what trudeau would think of the vicodin im taking since i broke my collar bone yesterday...
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Post by Flagg »

He would probably tell you that it's not actually broken, it's just a scam by the medical industry to get you to pay for X-Rays, and that you should go outside and stare into the sun to recharge your solar battery like a plant.
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Post by Baron Scarpia »

Flagg wrote:He would probably tell you that it's not actually broken, it's just a scam by the medical industry to get you to pay for X-Rays, and that you should go outside and stare into the sun to recharge your solar battery like a plant.
this may be the drugs, but lol!
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