Banning Repeat Offenders?
FTC Repeat Offenders Banned From Claiming Products Treat or Cure Diseases, according to a recent press release:
"An operation selling Chinese herbal supplements is banned from claiming its products treat or cure diseases, to settle Federal Trade Commission charges it violated a previous court order. The FTC alleged the sellers of Dia-Cope, a pill claimed to prevent, treat, and cure diabetes, violated the order by misrepresenting the health benefits of their product and misrepresenting that clinical trials proved their claims. The defendants will give up their ill-gotten gains – all of the assets they received from the sale of Dia-Cope.
The defendants originally sold “Sagee,” a Chinese herbal supplement that they claimed could improve memory and concentration, repair damaged brain cells, slow the aging of the brain, increase the learning ability of people with mental handicaps, and treat various diseases and conditions related to brain function, including Alzheimer’s disease, senile dementia, schizophrenia, autism, cerebral hemorrhage, stroke, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease. They advertised Sagee mainly in Chinese-language media; some ads also appeared in Vietnamese and English. The supplements were sold by distributors on the Internet and in some stores.
The FTC charged that the claims about Sagee were false and unsubstantiated and an order entered in January 2005 prohibited the defendants from making unsubstantiated health benefit, performance, or efficacy claims for any dietary supplement, food, drug, device, or service. The order also barred them from misrepresenting the existence, results, validity or conclusions of any scientific study." (my emphasis)
This demonstrates why due diligence is difficult for the ordinary person: it is hard to track the background of the individuals because even individuals who are banned by the FTC from making false misrepresentations can and will do so very shortly after, even consenting to the FTC order. Scoundrels like this have no place in modern civilized economies. But since cheating is easy and brings lucrative rewards, the cheaters remain. Whether they will be outed by the various social networks is unclear at the moment.
Technorati Tags: cure diseases, chinese herbal supplements, brain cells, brain function, trade commission charges, mental handicaps, ftc, violated, cope, dia, sagee, cure diabetes, herbal supplement, alzheimer, improve memory, ill gotten gains, learning ability
