Gently Warning Friends about Kevin Trudeau

dudalb said:
BS. He is dangerous becuase people will not get real medical help because they buy into Trudeau's "Modern Medicine Is Out To Get You" crap and will rely on Trudeau's worthless remedies instead. If that is harmless I would like to see what your defination of harmful is.
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Oh please. You live in a country where people don't go for regular check ups until they get a pain that advil can't make go away. And then of course it may be too late. Oh, but this guy ius the devil for hawking his home remedies?

Dee
 
Leftus said:
There are parts of this world that are dirt poor and rich in diseases. Places where "big pharma" and corporate interests have no control whatsoever. Trudeau has been peddling his wares for years and has enough money to go to these places, set up shop, hire some private security, and become the hero of these nations. He could take these cures and prove he is right all over the world and force this issue.

Yet what he does is sell books. Where there is the best medical care in the world and all of the money, Trudeau is there. Where they have little to no medical care and no money, Trudeau is not to be found. If you could cure AIDS on the cheap, as he claims, and you couldn't do it in America because "big pharma" is blocking you, why wouldn't you go to Africa where AIDS is decimating the population and cure all of them? He could start in Egypt and work his way down. He would have no trouble with the FDA, FCC and even the IRS over there. They might even make him king. So why is he here selling books and not somewhere else doing what he claims?

Those would be the questions I would ask of someone supporting Trudeau. Essentially, where is his basic humanity in not taking these free cures to the people who need it the most.
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This is a great point.

Dee
 
TheDeeMan said:
Oh please. You live in a country where people don't go for regular check ups until they get a pain that advil can't make go away. And then of course it may be too late. Oh, but this guy ius the devil for hawking his home remedies?
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Dee, he's doing a whole lot more than "hawking his home remedies". He's actively discouraging people from seeking legitimate medical help by claiming that it's the doctors that are making them sick. What's more, while he's doing this, he's fleecing them for everything he can get. He's been censured by the FDA and convicted of fraud, but he still keeps on doing it by whatever method he thinks won't get him imprisoned.

You're failing to recognise what a monster this man is.
 
See. I've never heard him say "don't go to the doctor". If he does, then that's a different story. But no different then the preacher who tells you not to go to the doctor because God will heal you.

Dee
 
TheDeeMan said:
See. I've never heard him say "don't go to the doctor". If he does, then that's a different story. But no different then the preacher who tells you not to go to the doctor because God will heal you.

Dee
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I've never heard him say anything at all. But a little research turns up this annotated transcript of his inofrmercial for his first book.

http://www.infomercialwatch.org/tran/trudeau.shtml

Whilst the exact phrase "don't go to the doctor" is not used there's certainly an overall impression being created that doctors are part of a conspiracy to keep you ill to sell you ineffective drugs. Hardly a ringing endorsement of medical science.
 
arthwollipot said:
Dee, he's doing a whole lot more than "hawking his home remedies". He's actively discouraging people from seeking legitimate medical help by claiming that it's the doctors that are making them sick. What's more, while he's doing this, he's fleecing them for everything he can get. He's been censured by the FDA and convicted of fraud, but he still keeps on doing it by whatever method he thinks won't get him imprisoned.
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I think it's important to point out that the FDA has not been very involved in Trudeau's legal problems: he has run afoul of the FTC. The primary complaint is that his infomercial selling a book of cures was fraud because the book does not contain the cures advertised. Additional complaints were that he was fabricating endorsements, reselling customer information to database marketers after promising he would not, and adding undisclosed additional charges to the booksale transactions.

Unfortunately, as long as a book has the boilerplate disclaimer "not to be used to diagnose or treat," it is probably untouchable under DHSEA and First Amendment.
 
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Ocelot said:
I've never heard him say anything at all. But a little research turns up this annotated transcript of his inofrmercial for his first book.

http://www.infomercialwatch.org/tran/trudeau.shtml

Whilst the exact phrase "don't go to the doctor" is not used there's certainly an overall impression being created that doctors are part of a conspiracy to keep you ill to sell you ineffective drugs. Hardly a ringing endorsement of medical science.
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The best example I could locate of specifically telling people to stop their meds is in the book on page 226 where he tells people that certain mental illnesses are best treated with Dianetics. Dianetics exclusively forbids the use of medications.
 
TheDeeMan said:
See. I've never heard him say "don't go to the doctor". If he does, then that's a different story. But no different then the preacher who tells you not to go to the doctor because God will heal you.
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This is debatable. Especially since in many jurisdictions, if clergy tell people to go off their medications they are liable for damages.

Consider the case in Russia where the exorcism of a mentally ill woman went wrong and the subject died. The priest is in prison now.

In most jurisdictions, commercial speech is regulated differently than personal speech. As soon as somebody's charging for something, there are basic requirements that the product match the representation. (Truehope employed some attempts to circumvent this, such as pointing out that adverse side effects to their product were during a free trial, so there was no 'sale' involved, and the victim had no right to seek damages.)

Also, in most jurisdictions, diagnosis and treatment requires a medical license. Where Trudeau's book would normally cross the line is that it is filled with diagnosis and treatment, which strongly resembles practicing medicine without a license. But at the same time, it explicitly disclaims it is not to be used to diagnose or treat illness. This does technically meet the requirements to skirt FDA oversight, and means it probably falls under the "HE" part of DSHEA.
 
Point out to your friend that in the opening chapter of his book he recommends wearing white clothes all the time. It does... er, something for your health, according to Trudeau.

And then point out the picture of Trudeau on the cover... wearing a black suit.
 
streetsmart1980 said:
I thought about mentioning Trudeaus criminal past, but that didn't really work. My friend has been to jail himself and he knows many people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and falsely accused etc. The fact that Trudeau has had problems with the law, merely shows that he is a brave man who is willing to stand up to a corrupt system. That is how my friend sees it. I was at a loss when it came to undermining Trudeaus credibility because of his criminal record.
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Fair enough about his criminal past, but how about his criminal present? http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/10/trudeau.shtm is a link to the FTC ruling against him for violating court orders about misrepresenting claims in his infomercials, just a couple of weeks ago. Although, like you said, a true believer will just say that it's the corrupt system trying to get him. *sigh*

I'm not sure what this ruling means, though. If he's banned from infomercials for three years, does that mean just banned from any new ones, or do all of his infomercials have to be pulled (I'm hoping it's the latter)?
 
streetsmart1980 said:
I thought about mentioning Trudeaus criminal past, but that didn't really work. My friend has been to jail himself and he knows many people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and falsely accused etc. The fact that Trudeau has had problems with the law, merely shows that he is a brave man who is willing to stand up to a corrupt system. That is how my friend sees it. I was at a loss when it came to undermining Trudeaus credibility because of his criminal record.
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Ah, the "brave maverick battling a corrupt system" narrative. People eat that up. Probably why it's such a popular stance among frauds and charlatans, not just in health care, but in every area of science, culture, and politics where charlatans can be found. Maybe it's worth taking the time to look a little more closely at that narrative, and how easy it is to exploit. There's nothing wrong with admiring a brave maverick, but is there any evidence at all to support Trudeau's claims that he actually is one? Or is he just putting on the role the better to exploit the people he's claiming to help?

(We all know the answer to that question ... but still, it's a good idea to frame it as a question and not a foregone conclusion.)
 
Hi Blutoski,

Are you sure that Trudeau mentions dianetics on page 226? I could not find it. I read the page twice.
 
streetsmart1980 said:
My friend has been to jail himself and he knows many people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and falsely accused etc.
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And as we all know, 99% of the persons in jail are really wrongfully imprisoned and/or falsely accused. The judges are just out to get them...
Sorry, neither the place or the time to be sarcastic, but I couldn't help myself.
 
from the Infomercialwatch site Ocelot linked to:
In 2006, he published a third book called More Natural "Cures" Revealed in which he claims to have gotten his inside information from a "secret society" that gave him "health secrets, access to the inner circles of the rich and powerful, and the ability to live a life of luxury." On page 11, he states:

As a member of this secret society I have sat in private meetings with the heads of state from countries around the world. I have attended secret international business meetings where business leaders, politicians, and media moguls coerce together to create the new world order with global control over individual people everywhere. I have been shown and have seen with my own eyes secret government and corporate documents. I have heard with my own ears how BigPharma, the food industry, and the oil industry are working together with governments and media outlets around the world. I have been in over sixty countries, yet there are no stamps of evidence in any of my passports. I have been to Area 51 in Nevada. (This top secret military installation is still denied to exist by the U.S. government.) This is where much of our technology has been developed. Area 51 houses most extraterrestrial artifacts, including a working spacecraft and dead alien bodies. I've seen these things with my own two eyes. As a member of this secret society I was used in covert operations around the world.
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So all this stuff is supposed to be secret, yet Trudeau is permitted to reveal it all, reap all the profits from it, and even reveal the existence of this "secret society" and their taking him into their confidence, and they don't care that he's doing this (whoever "they" are). Right. He is either a pathological liar or a complete wacko, or both. My money is on him just being a pathological liar.
 
streetsmart1980 said:
Hi Blutoski,

Are you sure that Trudeau mentions dianetics on page 226? I could not find it. I read the page twice.
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I'll recheck the edition and page when I get home. It's possible that he's revised the copy between editions.
 
Psi Baba said:
from the Infomercialwatch site Ocelot linked to:

So all this stuff is supposed to be secret, yet Trudeau is permitted to reveal it all, reap all the profits from it, and even reveal the existence of this "secret society" and their taking him into their confidence, and they don't care that he's doing this (whoever "they" are). Right. He is either a pathological liar or a complete wacko, or both. My money is on him just being a pathological liar.
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Or the third possibility: He knows what he is pushing is complete garbage but figures the suckers will eat it up.
 
TheDeeMan said:
Like I mentioned in the other thread about this, his "natural cures" are more or less just old fashioned home remedies with a new shine on them. Relatively harmless, except to the suckers who paid the price of his book to find this out.
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It all depends on your definition of "relatively harmless". As far as I know, he doesn't give out remedies that cause harm in and of themselves, however following his advice can definately cause harm.

Trudeau claims that sunscreen causes cancer, not the sun. This is about as harmless as claiming that condoms don't help prevent aids, or obesity doesn't lead to diabetes.
 
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