It is important to recognize that these are paid endorsements. Most often the payment isn’t disclosed. This is a violation of the FTC endorsement guidelines, but nonetheless it happens.

Many distributors who lack critical thinking skills often use statements like, “Jonathan Papelbon using MonaVie, so it can’t be a scam.” Well if MonaVie is paying Jonathan Papelbon to pose with a bottle of MonaVie, what does that tell you. Here’s a quick test to see if the athlete is really interested in the MLM product: Are they are distributor and are they willing to set up a face-to-face meeting with you for an hour to try the product and go over the compensation plan? Let me know how that works for you.

Another thing that distributors seem to forget is that these athletes often make millions of dollars. They are not concerned about the cost of the product. What’s the $45 per bottle price to Jonathan Papelbon who signed a 4-year, $50 million dollar deal recently. He’s certainly not looking to make more money selling product or recruiting others. Ironically, MonaVie likely gave Jonathan Papelbon a lifetime supply of the product for the endorsement… it costs MonaVie less than a dollar to make a bottle, so it’s a drop in the bucket for them.

The other thing that people often forget is celebrity athletes aren’t often paid for their intelligent decision making. It’s not too hard to find an athlete with 4 kids from 4 different mothers before they reach age 25. Rather than just give a generic case like that, let’s look at who MLM JuicePlus paid to endorse the product: O.J. Simpson. They probably hoped to capitalize on his nickname, “The Juice”, but that didn’t work out, did it?

Bottom Line: If a distributor is suggesting that product has value due to a celebrity athlete, he/she is likely trying to use the name to buy your trust in the company/product. Your decision should not be influenced on a business relationship between the MLM company and an athlete. Furthermore, it might wise to distance yourself from organizations that employ such tactics to trick you into giving them your business.

As a potential consumer, you don’t want to waste your hard-earned money on quackery. There’s no reason to support snake-oil marketers. The question then becomes, how do you determine what is quackery?

Here’s are a few resources to keep in mind:

1. Real science vs. fake science: How can you tell them apart?

2. More Ploys That Can Fool You – This list of items from Quackwatch details a number of tactics that quacks will use to get you to buy their product. Here are a couple of highlighted phrases that quacks will use:

• “time-tested” / “used for centuries” – They point out that this advice would also apply to practices such as astrology, which are clearly not scientific in nature.
• “Think for yourself” – This is used to “urge people to disregard scientific evidence in favor of personal experience. But personal experience is not the best way to determine whether a method works.”

3. This poster from Sci-ence:

Have more resources to suggest? Let me know in the comments.

… but it doesn’t make logical sense with Health-based MLM Scams

Why? There are a number of reasons why this fails. Let’s cover them in bullet format:

1. The MLM Product is not Approved by the FDA to Help with any Medical Condition – No MLM product, to my knowledge, has gotten approved by the FDA for helping with any medical condition. I don’t believe that any have even tried. A company that has a product that could help with a medical condition would make billions. Companies are in business to make money, so if they had a product that actually worked, they would get it approved by the FDA for the medical condition. The fact that they do not is tacit admission from the MLM company that the product doesn’t work for helping with any medical condition.
2. The Placebo Effect – Health products are susceptible to the placebo effect. To read one example of an MLM product and the placebo effect see: MonaVie and the Placebo Effect. We know that a simple sugar pill that has no medicinal properties at all will help 30% of people on average. So if you got everyone in the United States to try it, you’d have over 100 million people swearing that sugar pills are the answer for all that ails them.
3. Testimonies are Unverified and Anonymous- Much of the time, a testimonial will be written in the comment on a blog by an unknown person only identified by a first name. In almost every case, they don’t provide and evidence that their claim is true and they usually disappear or refuse to give their doctor’s information to back up the claim.
4. Testimonies could be biased – The aforementioned anonymous testimonials could be from someone at the company or from a distributor of the product. These people have financial incentives to make the product appear to others as if it actually helps with a medical condition.

When you combine #3 and #4 above you get a picture of why when just about any health product, MonaVie, Xango, Zrii, Protandim, etc. goes MLM, it is clear why there overwhelmingly positive testimonials appear for the product. In the case of Protandim, there are very few reports of it doing anything from the years it was sold over the counter at GNC, but when it went MLM, the illegal health claims skyrocketed all over the internet. If there were a financial incentive for negative experiences to be shared, you can bet they would be more common.

In the end, insist that the product has FDA approval that it helps with that medical condition before spending your hard-earned money on the product. Remember that if it does not, the company doesn’t believe in its own product enough to prove itself. And if the company doesn’t believe in its product, why should you?

It’s all about developing the necessary critical thinking skills to avoid getting scammed.

A reader sent me a story that caught his eye Salt wars: New study says a dash or two is OK. One of the things you’ll notice about this study is that it had 30,000 participants over 4 years. When the results showed that adding salt to one’s diet may be okay in moderation a doctor cautioned:

“In a commentary in the same journal, Dr Paul Whelton of Tulane University in New Orleans says the study results should be read with caution, noting problems with the way the researchers estimated salt intake based on a single morning sample of urine.”

What I wanted to point out here is that even independent researchers who have tremendously large scale trials of 30,000 people over years can yield results that the public should be cautious with.

It is interesting to compare that to the MLM studies where they have at most 30 people over a couple of months… and every one that I’ve seen has been done with some kind of biased connection to the MLM company, which is anything but independent. No logical person could trust such a study.

]]> http://www.healthmlmscam.com/clinical-study-sample-sizes-that-matter/feed/ 0 http://www.healthmlmscam.com/pubmed-impact-factor-peer-review-journals-and-fraud/ http://www.healthmlmscam.com/pubmed-impact-factor-peer-review-journals-and-fraud/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:41:29 +0000 healthmlmscam http://www.healthmlmscam.com/?p=43 Continue reading →]]> Many MLMs attempt to use scientific literature to push their product. Often times, they’ll present some kind of research or study. The goal of these companies is to try to get research published with their brand in it, so that their MLM distributors can use it for marketing purposes.

For example, LifeVantage has told its distributor to go to www.pubmed.gov and just type “Protandim” in the search box. They suggest that you don’t really need to understand the study, but that these are researchers doing peer-reviewed studies. The implication is that the product is so innovative that researchers are actively interested in how it can help people be more healthy. It’s a convincing argument if you don’t know better. However, those with critical thinking skills who are willing to do a little more research will find that it isn’t so simple.

Understanding PubMed

It is important to understand what PubMed is. Wikipedia describes PubMed as:

“PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system.”

The MEDLINE database is essentially a group of around 5,000 journals and has 21 million articles.

The appearance of an article in PubMed does not mean it is a reputable article. It simply means that one of the 5,000 journals found the worthy of publishing.

PubMed is a repository of articles. It is important to note that PubMed doesn’t review the articles for inclusion. It is also important to note that the National Institute of Health does not review articles in any way. In the case of Protandim, LifeVantage is hoping that its customers will rely on the reputations of the “.gov” and “National Institute of Health.”

The inclusion of an article in PubMed doesn’t mean anything more than the inclusion of the article in a journal.

All Journals are Not Equal: Understanding Impact Factor

When reviewing a journal article it always worth looking at the quality of the journal publishing the article. Not all journals are considered equal. In the journal industry there are a couple of ranking systems. One of the most popular is the Impact Factor. According to Wikipedia, “[Impact Factor] is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.” Getting published in the New England Journal of Medicine is much more important than getting published in a small journal that few people read.

When you simply search for a product on PubMed, the value of the journal isn’t being represented. This is a distinct advantage for a company that is simply relying on the reputation of the PubMed repository.

Understanding What the Article Means

In a lot of cases it is important to understand what the research means. Does the research reflect what scientists refer to as POEMS: Patient Oriented Evidence that Matters? In the case of LifeVantage Protandim Dr. Harriet Hall says it doesn’t have POEMs and she’s right. Only one of the studies was actually done on humans. That study used TBARS: an unreliable test of oxidative stress. It also used LifeVantage company insiders and investors. Oh and there is clear evidence of data rigging in that study.

Here’s an example of an MLM creating research for the purpose of marketing. The following article about MonaVie fruit juice was published “In vitro and in vivo antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacities of an antioxidant-rich fruit and berry juice blend. Results of a pilot and randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study.”

That sounds really impressive, but when you read the study you find out that it was a waste of time. The study looked at five people and came to the conclusion drinking MonaVie fruit juice gives some antioxidants in a similar way that fruit does. This research has no value to the scientific community, but MonaVie’s lead scientist has created a marketing tool where distributors can tell their prospective victims that a fancy scientific article proves that MonaVie has antioxidants in it. (If you want to read more about this see: The Multitude of Problems with Schauss’ “Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Study” on MonaVie)

Peer Review and Fraud

Many have suggested that because the journals are peer reviewed the articles are definitive proof of the product’s value and/or effectiveness. This is false. Wikipedia says the following about peer review failure:

“Peer review, in scientific journals, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust. It is not usually practical for the reviewer to reproduce the author’s work, unless the paper deals with purely theoretical problems which the reviewer can follow in a step-by-step manner.”

Nature (one of the journals with a high Impact Factor) has a great article, Can peer review police fraud?. The article cites a case where a researcher was found to have falsified his stem cell research. One of the points that the article makes is, like WikiPedia mentioned, peer review isn’t designed to deal with fraud:

“Although it is understandable to conclude that, by accepting a paper, a journal’s editors confer their authority to the findings and that, therefore, a portion of the responsibility for the work shifts from the author to the editor, we do not agree that the peer review system can or should detect deliberate fraud.

Science is a communal enterprise built on trust. Referees and editors generally take data at face value and assume that the authors have honestly reported and analyzed their results. Reviewers are asked to judge whether a report’s conclusions are solid based on the data and not whether the data themselves are fraudulent. The system is not set up to work any other way; if editors and referees distrusted all authors and assumed that every result was potentially fake, few papers would be published.”

In the case of stem cell research or any other general area of study, any noteworthy breakthroughs will be retested by other scientists. This is how fraud was caught in the case of the stem cell research. However, in the case of an MLM creating research for marketing purposes (such as when LifeVantage admits science is for marketing) other scientists don’t retest the results. The products haven’t proven themselves to the scientific community and the marketing aspect of the “research” makes a mockery of their profession.

Bottom Line

When it comes to MLM health companies, it is always important to use critical thinking skills and be extremely skeptical about any and every claim that they make. Many of them are going to try to do anything they can to subvert the system. Insist on large-scale, clinical trials aimed at garnering FDA approval for the product in helping with any health condition.

]]> http://www.healthmlmscam.com/pubmed-impact-factor-peer-review-journals-and-fraud/feed/ 11 http://www.healthmlmscam.com/mlm-distributors-asking-for-credentials/ http://www.healthmlmscam.com/mlm-distributors-asking-for-credentials/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:22:52 +0000 healthmlmscam http://www.healthmlmscam.com/?p=39 Continue reading →]]> Many distributors of an MLM will ask about my credentials. It sounds like a logical question on the face of it. However, upon further examination it really isn’t. I thought I’d break down a few of the reasons why so we can finally put this debate tactic out of commission.

What are the Credentials of the MLM inventors

I’ve looked at MonaVie and Protandim in detail. In the case of MonaVie, it was developed by Ralph Carson, who had and extremely questionable interview on CBS Radio. In it he violates the FTC guidelines when he talks about the “testimonials” of MonaVie.

Protandim’s inventor, Paul Myhill has no medical background at all.

Some People Ask Why they should Trust an Anonymous Person like Me

I would first like to address why I am anonymous. I have written more than 1300 posts about personal finance over at Lazy Man and Money dating back to 2006. It is quite common (as you tell from this article) for personal finance bloggers to blog anonymously as they mention details about their income and net worth that they might not want to attach to their name. It doesn’t make sense for me to leave my name with much of my financial information present in that blog, so that someone could use the information to steal my identity. Furthermore this allows me to be open and honest with readers about contract negotiations for a new job. If I wasn’t anonymous, the potential employer could “Google” my name, find my blog, steal my negotiating “play book.”

When I started blogging, I wasn’t introduced to the evil that exists in these MLM scams. While I am happy with the number of people who thank me for helping them understand that MonaVie is a scam, when a MonaVie distributor like Glenn Siesser threatens to kill me and another monavie distributor tries to blackmail me, it’s clear that remaining anonymous is the best course of action. From the comments on my original MonaVie post and my Protandim post it is quite clear that many of the distributors leaving comments are not logical, sensible people looking to engage in a productive debate. I’m trying to help consumers and I ask for nothing in return. I’d rather do my job without having to deal with a mentally imbalanced person overreacting about 35 cents worth juice (in the case of MonaVie) or 12 cents of commonly found supplements (in the case of Protandim). These companies don’t need that kind of lawsuit on their hands either as it would easily bankrupt them (and yes we know that MonaVie would be held responsible for the actions of their distributors, just like Napster was).

Why Would You Want Credentials Anyway?

I don’t make any medical claims, not do I claim to have any medical training. I only show you what unbiased information from reputable third parties and point out logical inferences that require no more than your typical 5th grade education to understand. I would never tell you to simply take my opinion for it – as a debate tactic it is an epic fail. Because of this, medical credentials are not necessary – just simple critical thinking skills.

The Purpose of Asking for Credentials in a Debate is Logical Fallacy

Asking for credentials is a classic Appeal to Accomplishment logical fallacy. In case you are too busy to click that link here’s what Wikipedia says:

“Appeal to accomplishment is a genetic fallacy wherein Person A challenges a thesis put forward by Person B which criticizes Person C (or A) a due to the fact that Person B has not accomplished similar feats or accomplished as many feats as Person C or Person A.

Rebutting this appeal has been popularly called ‘Ebert’s Law’, referring to Roger Ebert’s ability to critique films irrespective of his accomplishments as a filmmaker.”

The person asking for credentials is simply trying to debunk what I’ve proven with a logical fallacy. Since the debater can find no logical fault with the arguments I’ve made, the debater resorts to fallacies. (For those who don’t know what “fallacy” means dictionary.com’s defines it as “a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy.”)

Finally, while we are on the topic of fallacies about credentials, I should note Alexander Schauss and Appeals to Authority. This is exactly the same as Joe McCord’s Role at LifeVantage.

]]> http://www.healthmlmscam.com/mlm-distributors-asking-for-credentials/feed/ 0 http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-scam-the-fda-doesnt-allow-for-natural-products-to-make-health-claims/ http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-scam-the-fda-doesnt-allow-for-natural-products-to-make-health-claims/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:51:46 +0000 healthmlmscam http://www.healthmlmscam.com/?p=29 Continue reading →]]> This title is false. The FDA does allow for Natural Products to Make Health Claims.

Many in the MLM industry say that their product can’t make legal claims because the FDA won’t let them. This simply is not true. The FDA will let any product make a claim as long as there is enough proof that the product works. For example there are many natural claims listed on the FDA’s website. You can find ones about vitamin D, calcium, and osteoporosis (bone loss). Clearly vitamin D and calcium are natural products. You can find claims that folic acid manufacturers can make about birth defects.

So when you hear that a product can’t make such claims, it’s for one of two reasons:

1) They don’t have the money to do the necessary research. (If they believed in their product, they could get a loan or work an agreement with an investor who does have the money. This is a poor excuse for a product if it actually “works.”)

2) They don’t want to have their product tested. In many cases these products are just common juices and spices and there’s no reason to expect them to do anything medically different than your orange juice or your Cinnamon Toast Crunch. However, as long as they are able to make a reasonable case to a gullible person that their product works, it is to their advantage to never formally test the product as they would be proven wrong. Such a move would end their business instantly.

This disappointing part is that there are gullible consumers who don’t realize that if the company truly believed its product worked for any medical condition it would likely make billions of dollars. The company should be extremely interested in doing these formal clinical tests as it would mean so much more money for them. Yet, I have never seen an MLM company perform these large scale tests with the goal of getting on the FDA list. It seems that these companies have very low confidence in their product.

Bottom line: If someone tries to pitch you a conspiracy about the FDA and pharmaceutical companies and they don’t have a paper trail of who took what money for which service – and they are trying to sell you on an alternative, untested, natural remedy, you should turn the tables and tell them about the bridge that you have for sale at a bargain price.

]]> http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-scam-the-fda-doesnt-allow-for-natural-products-to-make-health-claims/feed/ 0 http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-mind-game-the-fda-approves-drugs-with-side-effects-that-kill-people/ http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-mind-game-the-fda-approves-drugs-with-side-effects-that-kill-people/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:41:13 +0000 healthmlmscam http://www.healthmlmscam.com/?p=25 Continue reading →]]> I’ve seen many MLM distributors try to make a claim that their product is better than medicine on the basis that the FDA approves drugs with side effects which kill people. A gullible person will take this statement on the face of it and decide that the health MLM product is a better choice for them. These people fail to execute simple pro vs. con reasoning.

For example, one can point out that the risk of driving in a car is death. While it is rare, it is a risk that most everyone in the United States takes without thinking. Why are people willing to take the risk? The benefits in many cases are enormous. It opens up the freedom for many to get to their employment, earn an income, and make a living. Plus I see many MLM advocates advertising their products on their cars – so we know at least some agree that it is a fair trade-off.

On the other hand, a living room couch is very safe compared to cars. I bet a few people die each year in a freak accident when there they were jumping on the couch, fell and hurt themselves, but in general, it is fairly safe. The problem is that living room couches are an absolutely terrible form of transportation. You could sit on one for hours and not get any closer to your place your place of employment. You may have even experienced this.

If you haven’t followed the analogy by now, allow me to make it a little more clear. The car, despite the rare risks, has been shown to be effective. The couch, although very safe, has not demonstrated any particular effectiveness. The approved medicine from the FDA, despite the rare risks, has been shown to be effective for a particular malady via clinical tests and earned FDA approval. The health MLM product, although possibly very safe, in most cases has not demonstrated any particular effectiveness for any malady.

(Note: In the rare cases where the MLM product has been shown to be effective such as MonaVie Pulse, competing products such as CholestOff can make the same claims and can sometimes be 100 times cheaper.)

Update: Commenter Mackwiz brings some great insight:

“To me people who use the pharma conspiracy argument is like saying that because cars crash a lot the true objective of auto manufacturers is to keep you crashing so you have to buy more cars.

It’s like common sense goes out the window and they expect far more from pharma than what it can actually provide.

‘Don’t you get it? Architects build houses out of wood that CATCH ON FIRE so you have to buy a new house! That’s why living in a cave is a much better option!’”

Bottom Line: Bringing up FDA side effects is often a red herring designed to get the person to focus on fear, uncertainty, and doubt and not the proven effectiveness of a product.

]]> http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-mind-game-the-fda-approves-drugs-with-side-effects-that-kill-people/feed/ 0 http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-scam-big-pharma-drug-companies-are-partnered-with-the-fda/ http://www.healthmlmscam.com/health-mlm-scam-big-pharma-drug-companies-are-partnered-with-the-fda/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:07:49 +0000 healthmlmscam http://www.healthmlmscam.com/?p=23 Continue reading →]]> One of the common lies that exist in the MLM industry is that the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies work together to keep natural cures out of the hands of consumers.

The FDA is not motivated by pharmaceutical company money

It’s often billed as if the FDA is getting rich from the pharmaceutical companies offering kickbacks. There is simply no evidence of this happening. No one has shown FDA employees are opening up Swiss Bank accounts or anything of that nature with the money from the FDA.

Some will point out that the FDA is indeed paid by drug companies. It is true that the FDA collects user fees from drug companies. These fees are used to review prescription drugs, which is very important for public safety. Those who are selling more medications should have their medications reviewed more because more people are impacted by it.

This MSNBC article is a good read on user fees and how they are set by Congress not by the FDA. If you have a problem with the user fees, talk to your congress representatives.

Bottom line: If someone tries to pitch you a conspiracy about the FDA and pharmaceutical companies and they don’t have a paper trail of who took what money for which service – and they are trying to sell you on an alternative, untested, natural remedy, you should turn the tables and tell them about the bridge that you have for sale at a bargain price.

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