Also, I found a good opinion article about it (several pages long).The Chicago Tribune wrote:'Weight cure' ads mislead, FTC says
Book's infomercials taken to U.S. court
By Michael Higgins | Tribune staff reporter
October 22, 2007
The television ads touting author Kevin Trudeau's supposed "weight loss cure" got a free showing last week in Chicago, but the man viewing them wasn't looking to drop a few pounds.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman was studying instead whether the controversial TV pitchman has used misleading ads to promote his best-selling book "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."
In one excerpt played Friday in Gettleman's courtroom, Trudeau described being virtually immune to weight gain despite a diet that he said includes prime rib, gravy, butter, hot fudge sundaes, wine and beer.
"No hunger, no deprivation, no exercise," Trudeau says in the ad. "I can eat whatever I want now, anything, and as much as I want, any time I want. No restrictions now."
Federal Trade Commission officials allege that Trudeau, 44, who grew his business from a base in Elk Grove Village, has violated a 2004 court order that bars him from using misleading infomercials to sell such books as "The Weight Loss Cure," which ranked ninth last week on Publisher Weekly's list of best-selling non-fiction hardcover books.
FTC officials want Gettleman to hold Trudeau in contempt of court, a penalty that could ultimately force him to reimburse book buyers, disgorge profits or pay other penalties.
But that's not all that's at stake for FTC officials as they battle with Trudeau, a convicted felon-turned-author whom they view as a repeat false advertiser. The case tests their ability to enforce federal regulations against a determined and well-funded adversary, legal experts said.
"It's important symbolically," said Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University. "Most people don't push the line this much."
FTC officials have sued Trudeau repeatedly over the last decade, forcing him to stop selling products such as "pain-relief" adhesive tape, an "addiction-breaking" system and a cancer "cure" involving coral calcium.
But instead of backing down, Tushnet said, Trudeau "manages to parlay that into some kind of cachet -- that there's this 'they' out there that is trying to suppress his message. It's a very clever technique."
In court Friday, Trudeau's lawyers called the FTC's action a "truly unprecedented" attack on advertising for a book and warned that it treads dangerously on the right to free speech.
"I know that he is their favorite whipping boy," Trudeau's attorney, David Bradford, argued Friday in court. But "I really urge you not to go where no other court has gone."
The issue before Gettleman is not whether Trudeau's diet plan works. As Trudeau's lawyers point out, bookstore shelves are replete with how-to authors spouting unproven or unfounded opinions. Instead, both sides agree, the judge must decide whether Trudeau's infomercials mislead customers about what is actually in the book.
The lies are obvious, FTC lawyers allege. In the infomercials, Trudeau contends that his book contains an "easy" weight-loss program. In fact, during various phases of the protocol, dieters are told to eat no more than 500 calories a day, consult a therapist to cleanse their colon with water or inject themselves in the buttocks with a prescription drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved for weight loss.
"We expect him not to lie about what's in the book," Laureen Kapin, an FTC attorney, said in court.
Contrary to what Trudeau says on TV about a "cure," the book also saddles dieters with lifelong restrictions on what they can eat, including bans on non-organic food and food produced by "large publicly traded corporations," the FTC alleged.
But Bradford, Trudeau's lawyer, argued that not every step in the diet is mandatory and that, in any event, Trudeau cannot be punished for stating his opinions -- even if the FTC and "999 out of 1,000 people" were to disagree.
"It's his opinion that this is easy," Bradford said. "He has a right to that opinion. And he has a right to say [on television] that that opinion is presented in the book. That's all he's done here."
Some buyers of Trudeau's previous book complained that it didn't contain the "natural cures" for disease touted in that book's infomercial, Bradford said. But he said the FTC did not try to halt those TV ads.
Trudeau is not commenting on the pending litigation, Bradford said.
In an interview with the Tribune in 2005, Trudeau acknowledged that he had made some mistakes, including convictions for larceny in 1990 and credit card fraud in 1991, which sent him to prison for 2 years. But Trudeau argued that it was his criticism of the medical and regulatory establishment that has made him a target.
"They want to shut me up more than anything in the world," Trudeau said of the FTC.
To settle the FTC's suit over his coral calcium product in 2004, Trudeau agreed to pay about $2 million -- $500,000 in cash, a home in California valued at $1.5 million and a 2003 Mercedes.
The weight-loss case is unusual because the FTC usually regulates infomercials for weight-loss products -- pills or exercise equipment, for example -- rather than a book, said Sheldon Nahmod, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. But he said that does not mean the 1st Amendment would necessarily sink the FTC's case.
"The key is that this is all about the infomercial and not about the book," Nahmod said. "If it's misleading, it's not protected."
In court Friday, Gettleman suggested that a TV viewer who listened to Trudeau's upbeat infomercial might be surprised to open the book and learn about such steps as injections and colonics.
Bradford countered that no advertiser reveals everything in an ad. He compared an infomercial to a trailer for a Hollywood movie, saying, "Of course, people pick out the best parts."
At times the hearing sounded like a debate among logicians about truth. When Trudeau contends that dieters who complete his program can then eat all they "want," what he means is that the diet will condition them not to "want" to overeat with bad food, Trudeau's lawyers explained.
What's more, the FTC cannot prove that Trudeau's statement is false because it concerns how people will act in the future, Bradford said.
"It's a prediction," Bradford said. "At the time it's made, it's not susceptible to verifiable determination."
Kevin Trudeau gets his ass sued by FTC
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Kevin Trudeau gets his ass sued by FTC
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He's already doing some about a new book about financial scams. (cannibalism??)Vendetta wrote:It'll take more than this to stop Trudeau. This is, after all, about him violating the last FTC order to stop lying in adverts, he'll just start using even more vague and leading language in his next advert.PainRack wrote:Still, another crackpot hits the dust and its all good
