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Terry Polevoy
DietFraud.com
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CortiSlim™ attacked by FTC and Class Action Lawsuits |
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Three Cortislim™ Defendants to Give up $4.5 Million in Cash and Other Assets
FTC’s Litigation Continues Against Four Remaining Defendants - September 21, 2005
Three defendants will give up $4.5 million in cash and other assets to settle Federal Trade Commission charges stemming from their roles in the marketing of CortiSlim and CortiStress, dietary supplements promoted for weight loss and disease prevention, respectively. The surrendered assets will include an investment partnership and related charitable foundation, a speedboat, a truck, and a variety of real estate interests. As part of the settlement, the defendants cannot seek a cash refund of state or federal taxes for 2003, 2004, or 2005 that were paid prior to the settlement. In its complaint, the FTC alleged that the defendants made false or unsubstantiated product claims and used deceptively formatted infomercials in pitching the dietary supplements.
Flashy infomercials could not hide the fact that there was no science in the claims for CortiSlim™
FTC Targets Products Claiming to Affect the Stress Hormone Cortisol October 5, 2004- The Federal Trade Commission has charged marketers of two dietary supplements with claiming, falsely and without substantiation, that their products can cause weight loss and reduce the risk of, or prevent, serious health conditions. According to the FTC’s complaint, Los Angeles-area marketers Window Rock Enterprises, Inc. and Infinity Advertising, Inc., their principals, Stephen Cheng and Gregory Cynaumon, and business partner and product formulator Shawn Talbott have sold “CortiSlim” and “CortiStress” through a number of widely aired infomercials and short TV commercials, as well as radio and print advertisements and Internet Web sites.
FDA Warning Letter - August 19, 2004
Class action web site where you can sign up if you have been ripped off. Just remember to tell them that you heard about it on Dietfraud.com
Click here to download the 22 page Adobe .pdf file - Orange County California - Superior Court Case - Defendants - Window Rock Health Laboratories, Inc., Window Rock Enterprises, Inc., Infinity Advertising, Inc. Shawn Talbott, and Greg Cynaumon
CortiSlim™ associated web sites
CortiSlim™ home page uses As Seen on TV, CBS and ABC logos to promote their stuff. Did they have permission to use them?
"CortiSlim™ is manufactured in certified laboratories with the strictest standards of quality assurance. Each ingredient is carefully screened and selected by Dr. Shawn Talbott for highest quality and absorption factor for optimum cortisol control. Beware of copycats and imitators. When it comes to your health, we always make quality our #1 priority."
"Dr." Greg's web site
Greg Cynaumon's Blog
PR Web press releases about Dr. Greg - these are nothing more that puff pieces about "Dr." Greg Cynaumon and his Inifinity Advertising empire. Here is what he had to say in just one of the interviews:
Most recently associated with the national diet supplement, CortiSlim, Dr. Greg states,
"What I like most about the CortiSlim message is that it comes through without puffery
and inflated claims like 99% of all other diet supplements on the market. I believe the
reason CortiSlim is so popular with consumers is that the message my agency created
simply tells the honest story."
Book Store
Consumer Groups opinion
- Quackwatch
CortiSlim is an alleged weight-loss product that contains vitamin C, calcium, chromium, "Cortiplex Blend" (magnolia bark extract, beta-sitosterol, theanine), "Leptiplex Blend" (green tea extract, bitter orange peel extract), and "Insutrol Blend" (banana leaf extract, vanadium). Its developer, Shawn Talbot, Ph.D, claims that by adjusting cortisol levels, CortiSlim removes a key physiological signal for weight gain and that the supplement also may help balance blood-sugar to reduce cravings and maximize metabolism to boost energy expenditure and fat-burning. During the program, a woman said she had been on CortiSlim for about three weeks and lost 14 pounds. It is not possible to do this.
- Phil Kaplan
As far as Cortislim being a great aid in reducing fat . . . I am not convinced of its efficacy. In regard to the product's marketing, it is 100% accurate that the hormone cortisol leads to increased accumulation of midsection fat, but that doesn't mean that a supplement can reverse the process. Fat loss is a two step process. It must first be released into the bloodstream from an adipose cell, and then it must be transported into the mitochondria of a muscle cell where it can be burned as fuel. Even if stress induced cortisol elevation contributed to the problem, the solution is in all likelihood going to lie in alterations in nutrition and exercise, even if you're already training intensely and "eating right." I don't see anything magical in Cortislim. It's ingredients include a relatively tiny dose of Vitamin C, a small dose of calcium, and an almost insignificant dose of chromium. It also contains magnolia bark, which according the Chinese Herbal medicine has application in treating some digestive issues (not related to cortisol) and gastric bloating. Despite clever marketing, the most prominent ingredients appear to be green tea extract (caffeine) and bitter orange (synephrine). I think there is virtue in reducing the negative physical impact of stress, but I don't see this being the solution.
- Million dollar challenge to Greg Cynaunom
Here is an easy way for Greg Cynaumon to earn $1,000,000 ($200,000 per claim), if he is telling the truth. All that he has to do is show proof of what he has said. However, it is a challenge. If he can’t prove each of his claims, he must pay me $1,000,000, which I will donate to the Better Business Bureau. The task for him is simple: all he has to do is prove his following five claims to collect his money.
- Cortislim will cause a 15-50 pound weight loss that will last a lifetime (as he says in his Cortislim commercial).
- Greg Cynaumon is a licensed psychologist.
- Greg Cynaumon conducted the family observation study described in his book Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor (published by Integrity Publishers).
- Greg Cynaumon is a licensed school psychologist as he claimed when he appeared on the Montel Williams Show with a top-level U.S. Department of Education administrator
- Greg Cynaumon is a certified marriage and family therapist and nationally syndicated radio show host whose experiences were the basis for his book God Still Speaks through Dreams (published by Thomas Nelson).
- EAS evaluates Greg Cynaumon's claims for Hooked on Phonics
- EAS - report on original Phonics Game
- NotDrGreg.com web site
Window Rock Enterprises legal actions
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"Do Nothing" Policies |
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OUR GOVERNMENTS' "DO NOTHING" POLICIES ENCOURAGE REPEAT FLIM-FLAMS
When is the government of Canada going to take action against the
newspapers and the companies who market this junk on unsuspecting
consumers.
We demand a complete investigation why the government has failed to take
action against any of these companies. The diet and weight loss scam industry
is worth billions in North America, and much of it comes from Canada. In other
words our country is a safe-haven for hundreds of scam artists who use the
internet and advertise freely in newspapers without fear of investigation by
our governement. Someone right now stands to make millions operating from the
safety of Toronto, right under the noses of Health Canada and the Ontario
government consumer protection branch.
We appeal to the ASC, the government, both Provincial and Federal to take control
of the fraud artists that are preying on the public. Right now, Canada is the
laughing stock of the world when it comes to the control of health quackery.
We will continue to do everything possible to educate the Canadian public about scam
artists and rogue health care providers on our web sites. But, it seems clear from
where I sit, that our governments just doesn't care about false advertising, health
scams and the dangerous products that come into our country. They also don't care
about mailorder scams that originate here, but are often part of an underground
cash-filled pipeline to some island in the Lesser Antilles.
The world of health fraud on the internet includes dozens of other stories, some
of them are very serious and involve doctors who are try to ship quack cancer drugs
out of Canada into the U.S. That's another story, one that we will cover later on.
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Office of Natural Health Products |
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What did the government do about diet and health fraud? Late last year, they
decided to form a new office, a spin-off of Health Canada. They appointed a
dozen or so people to a transition team, the overwhelming majority supposedly
represented the cream of the crop who work in companies that supply Canada with
vitamins, herbs, and other alternative health products. These are the very people
who can't prove that their products work, who can't prove that there products are
safe, and yet the government appoints them to a transition team to set up standards
in the natural and herbal product industry.
While the company that sells this particular product featured in this article is unknown, it is a prime
example of what the government has failed to do. Having an Office of Natural
Health Products is like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Why hasn't Health Canada or the police visited the vendors, and their associates to see what is really going on. Where is the money going from their profits? Is it being laundered overseas?
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We Demand that Action be Taken Now! |
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Our web sites will cover the story of government failure to control the
false claims made in major publications, on the internet, on the radio
and televison info-mercials until something is done.
Terry Polevoy, M.D.
Dietfraud.com
938 King St. West
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
N2G 1G4
519-725-4953 fax.
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SEND US YOUR ADVERTISEMENTS:
Please send any questionable diet ads in your local paper or magazines
from this company. Include the date, the name of the publication, and we
will scan them in and forward them to the proper department at the Bureau
of Competition of Industry Canada. Please send them even if the ads were
in non-Canadian publications. American and other foreign magazines are
everywhere. If we don't know that the scams are out there, we won't be
able to complain.
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