PharmaPlus - Hollywood Celebrity Fast
and Dr. Martin's Nature Slim

Newspaper flyer - Kitchener-Waterloo Record

When I wanted to complain to one of North America's largest drug store conglomerates about several bogus weight loss products, I was surprised to learn that after doing business for decades, this company has yet to learn how to deal with public relations. They must pour all of their hard earned cash into the erection of barriers to communications. It's really hard to understand how a publicly traded company could be so irresponsible. When the bottom line is profits, I guess the buck stops there. To hell with doctors, and consumers who feel that they are being ripped off every time they walk in the store.

PharmaPlus Drug Mart is part of the Katz Group, based in Edmonton, Alberta.

PharmaPlus hides any line of communications with the public:

• No web site anywhere
• No e-mail or contact information on flyers
• No fax number or phone number on flyers or advertisements
• No real response to consumer complaints. They just ignore them
• No pharmacists are allowed to speak out against fraudulent diet and health products sold in their stores. They do what the marketing people tell them to do.

Earlier last year we found the totally worthless EZEE Slimming Patches, which looked to me like nothing more than bandaids, without the absorbant pad. Bell Distributors, better known for waging a personal attack on me, was now into something more lucrative than marketing shark cartilage to relieve their customers of their hard earned money. And, by the way, the EZEE Slimming Patches were right at the pharmacy counter, with a little shelf-talker to help convince the dumb customers that diet patches really work.

Also noticeable in the flyer and in PharmaPlus stores are products made by "Dr. Martin, PhD". Is there something to this "PhD" that one needs to explore further? Or shall we take it literally that a chiropractor really knows nutrition, regardless of whether his nutrition PhD was earned from a discredited correspondence school in Lousiana in 1997? In fact, this school was raided by the FBI in 1996. If Dr. Martin who claimed to be a "former associate professor of nutrition" at that school, and said he "graduated" in 1997, how could that be?

This school has produced an untold number of people who claim to have a PhD, including one of the folks who was classified as a nutritionist to the U.S. Women's Olympic swimming team.

Dr. Martin has even advertised its Nature Slim and Pine of Life on cable TV. There are a number of interesting links with European companies and it has a number of non-academic MDs on its advisory board. The company is publicly traded. It is also featured on the IBOC web site.

What really fascinates me is the fact that Dr. Martin has a newsletter called Dr. Martin's HealthWatch. When this web site was formerly called www.healthwatch.org, I was challenged by PharmaPlus's arch rival Shoppers Drug Mart who didn't like the fact that my web site even existed. So, how come they don't go after Tony Martin for using the word HealthWatch on his newsletter? Is it because his products may also be found on their shelves as well?

• Glucomannan it doesn't work
• Garcinia cambogia - ditto here