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Slim Down!! - just another chitosan scam    Joan Van Ark leads all scammers in Slim Down!! Affair WKBW TV, Channel 7 in Buffalo makes money by selling airtime to companies that market fraudulent diet products. The one I heard today, Sunday February 3, 2002, was for a company that is selling a product called: SLIM DOWN!! or Slim Down Solution. Joan Van Ark, looked absolutely awful in her gray business suit. I think she must have needed the money, because it's certain she didn't need to lose the weight. She looked like she had just been victimized by a liposuctionist, and needed bifocals to just read the teleprompter. It looked like she had just been part of the TV production of "Shakedown on Sunset Strip", but it's too hard for me to tell if she was the one who had been the one shaken down, or she was on of the muggers. Slim Down Solutions says that their ingredient d-glucoseamine is 16 times more powerful than chitosan. Well, I'll be dammed. Why isn't it just 15 or maybe even 17 times as powerful? Another company that sells it, claims that they can't sell it in Canada because Jamieson Laboratories makes a similar sounding product. What makes this junk infomercial so confusing is that on the same weekend that Slim Down Solutions appeared on TV, there were major promotions in Canada for another product called SlimDown Fast, which is another totally bogus product and is run out of the usual scam locations, a Mailboxes Etc. address in Toronto which leads to another one in Plattsburgh, New York, just a stone's throw away from another link in Montreal. I have filed a complaint with the FTC, and they should be contacting WKBW about this advertisement. Why does WKBW carry these fraudulent products? Check out the other chitosan scams and the lawsuits and Federal investigations that will undoubtedly bring on more lawsuits against the marketers of products that stations like WKBW broadcasts on a regular basis. Fat Trapper You will notice that one of the worst offenders that marketed chitosan products has just been cited again by the FTC for violation of their agreement that previously had cost the company $10 million in fines. Enforma press release 2000 they are in contempt Jan. 2002 My final thoughts about WKBW is that they can not escape responsibility for running these ads. Their disclaimer before the show does not absolve them from having responsibility for helping to market a fraudulent product. I am greatly dissappointed in WKBW for allowing this program to air. I will do everything possible to bring to the attention of the public the news about diet fraud, especially when it comes to chitosan and its spinoff products. Terry Polevoy, MD www.dietfraud.com The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that Enforma, a dietary supplement manufacturer of weight loss products, has not followed the agency's orders to stop using false and misleading references. Natural Product Insider WASHINGTON--The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Jan. 10 that it asked the courts to order Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Enforma Natural Products Inc., its president and chief executive officer Andrew Grey and its executive vice president of sales and marketing Michael Ehrman to show cause as to why they should not be held in civil contempt. FTC charges that, despite agreeing not to, the company continued to advertise two purported weight loss supplements--Fat Trapper Plus and Exercise in a Bottle--using unsubstantiated and misleading representations. Dietfraud wants to hear from anyone who has been ripped off by these folks.

"Do Nothing" Policies    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.

Office of Natural Health Products    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?

We Demand that Action be Taken Now!    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 Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2G 1G4 519-725-4953 fax. Click to subscribe to dietfraud on Yahoo 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.