Summertime, and the scams are still sleazy...

Oh, good Goddess, it's hot, and probably growing hotter all the time. But the intensifying heat hasn't stopped the scammers from scamming, and once again I've been negligent about even trying to keep up with all of it on this blog. But I feel that I have to make a stab at it and so, despite the torpor imposed by the brutal Texas summer, I have heroically dragged myself to the keyboard to natter on about just a few of the scammers and scams. Understand that I would much rather be sitting on my breezeway sipping lemonade or a peach smoothie and re-reading The Wind in the Willows (the 1980 Michael Hague illustrated edition is my current favorite), or Christopher Moore's Sacre Bleu or some other delicious bit of escape literature that is far removed from the roiling scams and political scandals, but I have a responsibility to the three or four people who read this blog. I am doing this for y'all. You're welcome. And I apologize for redundancy if you've read any of this on my recent Facebook posts.

Little Hitler strikes again
For a guy who is constantly whining about his own free speech being censored, Mike "the Health Ranger" Adams, disingenuous alt-right conspiracy peddler, frauduct pusher and Donald Trump a$$-kisser, sounds disturbingly like a dedicated enemy of free speech -- almost Nazi-like -- when he advises his readers, in a July 5, 2017 post on Natural News, to "burn the leftist-scripted newspapers."

But he may just be playing the part of rabble-rouser, as he has a gleeful tendency to do. More importantly, in the above-linked post he paints #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump as some sort of hero who will save all of us from the evil machinations of Big Pharma. Adams predicts, without offering any real substantiation, that Trump is poised to order the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on TV. And he gleefully speculates that without Big Pharma ad revenue, "fake news" outlet CNN will collapse and go bankrupt, which of course will be a triumph for Trump and for all good people who are tired of fake news and seek the truth from reliable sources such as Adams, Alex Jones, Breitbart et al.

Several things are wrong with Adams' reasoning, apart from the obvious fact that he fails to acknowledge that numerous other TV news outlets such as Fox News -- not to mention a wide variety of print media, including conservative print media -- also benefit from Big Pharma ad revenue. First, let's imagine that CNN or any of the other outlets were to suddenly be deprived of those creepy ads in which hapless consumers move in slow motion through surreal worlds, while being stalked and harassed by their upset stomachs, overactive bladders, or irritated bowels, whilst also battling their plaque psoriasis and/or new or worsening depression. Would these media outlets collapse? It's highly doubtful. Absent Big Pharma ad revenue, the outlets would no doubt sell more ad time to other big spenders, such as car manufacturers, beer brewers, big food companies, and so forth. It's not as if Big Pharma is the only industry that buys ad time on TV.

Second, and perhaps even more important, Adams' insinuation that Trump will do much of anything to rein in Big Pharma is absurd. Even though Trump has made derogatory comments -- during the campaign and since the election -- about the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in regard to exorbitant drug prices, he has demonstrated time and again that overall he is a friend to big business and industry, with his main agenda being to get rid of "onerous" regulations that he apparently believes prevent companies from realizing their full profit potential. As a March 2017 piece on the USA Today site points out:

...while President Donald Trump said he wants to reduce the high costs of prescription medicines, he is also expected to encourage fewer government restrictions on the development and marketing of drugs.

Third, Adams seems to be insinuating that this is a left-vs-right, liberal-vs-conservative issue, with the leftists/liberals being on the side of the wicked, greedy Pharma monsters, and the rightists -- particularly the alt-rightists like Adams -- being the heroes who, with the help and support of their superhero Trump, are fighting to protect the people from those monsters. In reality, the "leftist, liberal" press has been on Big Pharma's case for years and years, probably since Adams was in elementary school. Certainly, liberal-leaning outlets such as NPR are addressing the issue. Here's a doctor (yes, a real medical doctor), writing on NPR.org about the true dangers of direct-to-consumer Rx advertising.

Moreover, pro-bidness conservative types are far more likely to be tolerant of drug manufacturers' (or any other business's) obsession with profits over people. And left-of-center politicians such as Bernie Sanders have been very outspoken about the greed and bad practices of Big Pharma. Granted, politicians on both sides of the aisle have accepted Big Pharma money, with Hillary Clinton having received millions in contributions. But overall, the big drug companies have poured more into GOP coffers. In an article published on STAT just before the 2016 U.S. election, back when most people still believed that Clinton would win the presidency, Dylan Scott wrote:

The drug industry has traditionally leaned Republican, and this year more Republican members are at risk than sitting Democrats. Even so, 2016 appears notably lopsided. Drug makers this election cycle have supported Republicans in those closest campaigns by a 6-to-1 margin, while giving the vast majority of their dollars in competitive open seats with no incumbents to Republican candidates...

...The dangers that a Democratic wave would pose to the drug industry are no secret. Biotech stocks are already stagnating over fears of such a sweep; one stock analyst called it the “worst-case scenario” in a note to investors last week.

Among other proposals, Clinton has raised the possibility of setting up a government panel to penalize companies for egregious price hikes. She wants Medicare to directly negotiate the drug prices it pays, a now-standard stump line for Democrats, and to limit tax breaks for drug makers...

...The drug lobby “is pretty scared of what a Clinton [presidency] could do to the industry,” one source said, “and relies heavily on lobbying power with Republicans to block damaging legislation.”

The STAT analysis shows that, even in competitive House races with no incumbent, if the industry has donated any money, almost all of the dollars have gone to Republican candidates.

Left-leaning media outlets and politicians aren't the only entities who have groused about the industry, including about the ubiquitous drug ads. Numerous consumer groups -- not to mention mainstream medical organizations such as the AMA -- have been complaining for years about direct-to-consumer Rx drug advertising. All things considered, Adams, in his railing against the business practices of -- and aggressive marketing by -- the big drug companies, can neither claim originality, nor can he or Donald Trump lay claim to the moral or political high ground regarding any legitimate complaints against the pharmaceutical industry. The operative word here is "legitimate." Trump's complaints about the industry are clumsy and half-hearted attempts at demagoguery. He'll say what he thinks his base wants to hear, whether it's griping about high prices (a legitimate complaint) or waxing alarmist about the dangers of vaccines (a mostly bogus issue). And Adams' protests are tainted with his own agenda and histrionic extremism; he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that pharmaceutical drugs have also been lifesavers for millions of people.

Finally, Adams' insinuation that Trump's critics are the real enemies, and Trump fans are the only decent, civilized folks remaining in America, is worse than ludicrous. But it's typical of the spin you'll find on his many web sites.

One devout anti-Semite eulogizes another: LoonyC mourns Ryke Geerd Hamer
Speaking of little Hitlers: Longtime Mike Adams ally Leonard Coldwell -- phony doctor, cancer quack, and the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld -- recently used his German-language Facebook page to post a eulogy (or "Epilogue," as he would have it) for Ryke Geerd Hamer, founder of "German New Medicine." Hamer died at the age of 82 on July 2, 2017 in Sandefjord, Norway, where he had been more or less in exile during the latter part of his life.

I've really not written anything substantial about Hamer to date, though I did mention him in passing in this August 2014 post, after a reader and defender of Coldwell mentioned Hamer in a comment to a previous Whirled post about "heroes" and martyrs of the alt-health movement.

And now the good ex-doctor is gone. Here's a snippet from the Bing-enabled translation, helpfully offered by Facebook, of LoonyC's tribute:

My Epilogue:
Dr. Hamer as the founder of the "New Germanic medicine"
Thank you very much, he was a very big one.
The real cause of cancer and its treatment on
Psychological Base. The pharmaceutical industry is concerned with
Know the fraud base, and this is people's murder!
His persecution by purchased pharma idiots
And the European authorities spoke volumes. Already alone the
Tracking Dr. Hamer at the instigation of them exposed them
As a liar and a murderer! Would an honest act like that?
This really happened as in the case of Bruno gröning.

His more armored letters to the courts,
Authorities and Jewish-khazar intrigues that he put him in prison
Brought. He really went through the wall with his head!
... and did this for us too! Beware of a lot of courage!
He only spoke the truth and who the truth
Says he needs a damn fast horse!
His demise, I find a great loss for all people,
The chemotherapy as a lie and alternative medicine as
You know the truth. For everyone else you can see how
Seduced and brainwash they are - often from comfortable own
Blame.... the responsibility to the doctors....
And the pharmaceutical industry is stuffing your pockets!
Deserves to be paid to the sick and dying billions - and to the
Healthy Nothing! So?

We miss him and his letters and comments against the lobby and
Conspiracy about genocide by chemotherapy!
He had world class! .... Real theater ripe!
He went on the roofs and cried out the truth.... no matter
To his own person, the as he was!
De mortuis nil nisi bene !
About the dead only good....
About these dead - understand! ....

It reads like really, really bad poetry ("He had world class!...Real theater ripe!"), and is nearly impossible to understand without knowing a bit about Coldwell's shtick and, more importantly, about Hamer's. Actually, it's pretty difficult to understand anyway, which is no big surprise, considering who the writer is, and as I've mentioned here before, a couple of my pals who are fluent in German tell me that Coldwell's writing is nearly as incoherent in his native language. And I can vouch for the fact that his English-language offerings are similarly amusing. So we can't totally blame the clumsy machine translation.

But an understanding of Hamer's bigotry, as well as Coldwell's, is also necessary. The phrase that really sticks out for me in the above passage is "genocide by chemotherapy." Pair that with the mention of "Jewish-khazar intrigues," and the picture becomes clearer. He's not talking about genocide of Jews or of any other ethnic, racial, or religious minority group. Rather, he is referring to an imagined genocide of non-Jews... by Jews.

That Coldwell is anti-Semitic (and he's a racist as well) is no secret, for he proudly displays his hatred on Facebook whenever he can, which is the primary reason his account is repeatedly suspended. While Lenny has at times protested that he is not a hater, even going so far as to unsuccessfully sue me a couple of years ago for insinuating that he is (much more about that matter can be found here), I don't think that even the lawyers who took and then dropped that ill-fated flawsuit would now deny their former client's anti-Semitism and racism.

And the departed Hamer was clearly no fan of Jews either. From RationalWiki:

Hamer purported that his method is a "Germanic" alternative to mainstream clinical medicine which he claimed is part of a Jewish conspiracy to decimate non-Jews. In this Hamer follows the antisemitic "Neue Deutsche Heilkunde" propagated in Nazi Germany. More precisely, he asserted that chemotherapy and morphine are used to "mass murder" Western Civilisation, while such treatment is not used in Israel where nearly no people die of cancer, according to him.^[9][10][15] He promoted the idea that most oncologists in Germany are Jewish and that "no Jew is treated with chemotherapy in Germany". According to him, hypodermic needles are used during chemotherapy to implant "chips" containing "chambers of poison" that can be activated by satellite to specifically kill patients.^[16] He proposeed that the swine flu vaccination campaign of 2009 was also used to mark people with those "chips" and denies the existence of HIV.^[17] Hamer also believed that the denial of recognition of his theories and the revocation of his practitioner's licence is due to a Jewish conspiracy.^[15]

In 2008, Hamer presented a document where one "Chief Rabbi" "Esra" Iwan Götz confirmed the existence of a conspiracy among Jewish oncologists to use the "torture" of chemotherapy on all non-Jewish patients, while Jewish patients were to receive the "correct" treatment of GNM. Iwan Götz is a German holocaust denialist active in the German Reich revivalism scene who has been repeatedly convicted by German courts on counts of holocaust denial,^[18] fraud, defamation, misuse of academic titles (the title "Chief Rabbi" is not legally protected in Germany), falsification of documents, among others.^[19]

Apart from his prejudices, however, was there any validity to Hamer's work? It would seem not. Here's more from RationalWiki:

Following the death of his son in a shooting incident in 1978, Ryke Geerd Hamer developed testicular cancer. His wife also developed breast cancer at around the same time. Hamer came to believe that both cancers had been directly caused by shock at their son's death, and that they could be treated by resolving this emotional conflict. Despite that, he received a conventional operation for his testicular cancer in 1979, while his wife was treated by Hamer himself, as the first patient of his New Medicine, and died in 1985. [Sort of reminds me of another much-loved (including by Lenny) alt-cancer quack, the late Hulda Clark, who, as I mentioned in passing on an October 2016 Whirled post, died of cancer. ~ CC]

Hamer announced the creation of his "New Medicine" in 1981. Despite his theories being rejected by the scientific establishment, he opened a series of cancer clinics between 1982 and 1985, all of which were closed down by the authorities for illegal practices. The vast majority of his patients died at these clinics, although Hamer continued to publicly present his treatment methods as successful.

In 1986, Hamer's medical licence was revoked. He has continued to practice illegally in various European countries ever since, in between prosecutions and stints of jail time. Unsurprisingly, courts have found him to be mentally unstable, and thus unfit to practice medicine. Alarmingly, he has been supported and defended by some of those to whom he has been peddling his false treatments.

And for good measure, here's a July 2009 post from a blog that takes a critical look at "alternative" cancer treatments.

Undaunted, in the following years Hamer opened various illegal clinics in Germany. He treated large groups of patients, including his own wife Birgit who suffered from breast cancer.

Birgit died in 1985. Hamer claimed this was because she was sceptical about his GNM. Later he would maintain that he ‘cured’ her of breast cancer no less than five times.

By the end of 1985 charges were brought against Hamer because of the scandalous goings on in his private clinic in Katzenelnbogen. Less than a year later his medical licence ws revoked. However, to this day this hasn’t stopped Hamer from continuing to ‘treat’ patients and the number of victims of the GNM has reached frightening proportions.

And here's another 2009 post on the Science Based Medicine blog, written by my favorite physician blogger, Dr. David Gorski (who currently blogs under the name Orac on the Respectful Insolence blog).

You get the idea.

"But, Cosmic Connie," some of you might be saying, "in order to be fair and balanced, you should also post some positive stuff about Dr. Hamer!" To which I will say that you can find plenty of that stuff on the Internet. Believe it at your own peril.

Lest you wonder, as I initially did, whether Coldwell believes that Hamer was murdered, and his death another chapter in the ongoing "dead holistic doctors" conspiracy narrative -- which I initially wrote about in this August 2015 post, and then again in July 2016 (under "Dead holistic docs conspiracy rages on") -- he does not seem to be making that claim outright in his long, rambling "Epilogue." On the other hand -- and again, I'm going by the awkward translation -- Coldwell does appear to insinuate that the stress Hamer experienced from years of "persecution" may have hastened his death. He also leaves open the possibility of murder, suggesting that Hamer might have been poisoned.

For Clarification:
Dr. I don't think hamer was killed, he was 82 years old, too.
But the trouble, in which he, unfortunately, has always increased emotionally too much, has
5 years of his life....
Subject to the fact that you have not poisoned him yet - who knows?
I don't trust them!
However, I do not know the details now, so subject to....
Diagnosis of poison I can now ask myself without celebrated doctor
To be, so much experience I have in it.... (if the body becomes black, then it's poison)

LoonyC never met a conspiracy tale that he didn't like. Especially if it centers around a Brave Maverick Doctor, as Loony fancies himself to be.

Mother Russia revisited
Finally, I'd like to remind you that this week Stephen Colbert, who has helped many of us maintain our sanity in Drumpf's Amerika, will be presenting his much-awaited "Russia Week," highlighting his recent trip to Mother Russia.

Due to the whole Trussia thing, there's a lot of serious talk about Russia these days, but I think we should never forget that Russia has its silly side too, which I celebrated extensively here years ago. Here's a link to some Russia-themed posts from the Whirled archives.

I think I used to be a lot funnier than I am now.

That's it for now. I'll be back soon to celebrate this blog's eleventh (!) birthday, which rolls around on July 27. For now, I'm going back to spend some quality time on the riverbank with the Mole and Ratty and Mr. Toad, or perhaps with Toulouse-Lautrec and gang in nineteenth-century Paris. And who knows, in between all of that, I might even get some real work done. If more of you would donate to this blog, I might not have to work, but it is what it is, and it isn't what it isn't, and as you know I don't spend a whole lot of time begging, except when I do. Anyway, I'll see you next time.

The Health Ranger: another phony hero in the fight against Scamworld?

While we're breathlessly awaiting the next non-developments in serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's ongoing court battle with the Federal Trade Commission -- his latest hearing began on June 26 and will continue on Monday, July 1 -- there's yet another Johnny-come-lately, or, more accurately, a Mikey-come-lately, to the growing chorus of voices against True-dough.

On Tuesday, June 25, Mike Adams, aka "The Health Ranger," owner of the popular NaturalNews.com web site, came out with an article that was marginally critical, in a lame, hedging sort of way, about his buddy and ally in the fight for "natural" health and against government malfeasance, Kevin Trudeau. He wanted to share the news that Katie had had to surrender his passports. He wanted to show off that he too knows how to shop at PACER.gov and get legal documents so he can share them on his site and make it look like he's breaking a big story. So far so good.

But Health Ranger just couldn't miss an opportunity to politicize the piece and turn it into an anti-Obama rant.

But every time I look at the criticism of Trudeau -- ABC News says he's a "dream seller" who "sells hope" -- I can't help but think that Obama is engaged in all the same schemes on a far larger scale. Who sells the most B.S. under the label of "hope?" It's not Trudeau; it's Obama, the President who broke his promises on GMO labeling, shutting down secret military prisons, making government more transparent, lowering health care costs, raising the minimum wage, holding government accountable (ROFL!) and respecting the Second Amendment.

In fact the main point of the piece seems to be to declare, as so many other Scamworld players have declared, that True-dough is small potatoes in comparison to the really big and really bad guys.

...Again, I'm not excusing anything Trudeau has done, but if the FTC is going to go after "con artists" who are ripping people off and taking their money, they need look no further than the White House, where the biggest con artist in American history is busy dreaming up "hope and change" schemes to defraud ALL Americans.

Precious investigative resources being wasted on small-time operators
I think it's also suspicious how the feds have deeply investigated Trudeau's past but have never investigate [sic] Obama's past. I can tell you as a simple matter of fact that the birth certificate document released by the White House was a juvenile attempt at document forgery. It had multiple layers in Adobe Acrobat, and each layer was obviously cut-and-pasted into place in order to forge a fraudulent birth certificate.

Why doesn't ABC News examine this fraud?

Here's your answer, Health Ranger: that "birther" crap has long since been debunked. That's prolly why ABC News doesn't examine that "fraud."

I'll say once again, as I have so many times before, that yes, the US government has done many dodgy and even criminal things. And Obama, for whom I voted twice, has done some things that have truly dismayed me. I harbor no delusions in that regard, though I don't regret voting for him either time. But the existence of all of that government crap doesn't exonerate the Scamworld players like True-dough. Can you say "red herring," boys and girls?

Apart from Adams' politicization/conspiracy rants, there's a huge inaccuracy in that article, beginning with the headline:

Kevin Trudeau ordered to surrender his passports as feds try to force $37 million in GIN refunds

Early on in the piece we see this:

...The FTC has spent untold millions of dollars going after Trudeau over his involvement with GIN, and they want him to pay back $37 million they claim he defrauded from 800,000 GIN members.

Totally WRONG, Health Ranger! The FTC case is not about Trudeau's current major scam, the Global Information Network, or GIN, though GIN has become a focus in the past year or so as the FTC looks for possible hidden assets. This case began years before GIN even existed.

Instead, the $37.6 million fine is about claims Trudeau made in his book, The Weight-Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About. Whether that is a fair fine or not is a matter that is open to reasonable debate. Katie says he can't pay it. But he's also said in the past that he won't pay it because it's unjust. But the point is that the fine is not related to GIN refunds, and there were never anything even close to 800,000 members in GIN. The number 800,000 is the FTC's estimate of the number of customers who were cheated and deceived by the claims in Katie's weight-loss book. At least do a little rudimentary homework before you join the fray, Health Ranger.

As it happens, though, some of Adams' fans who are ex-Trudeau fans, and who also happen to not like Obama, and who are also conspiracy fans, don't even care that he got that bit so majorly wrong. They're just glad he is on "their" side on various issues. Ex-GIN member and passionate Obama hater Abe Husein wrote that he doesn't care about the incorrect details; he's just glad Mikey nailed that "Tyrant Obama." Later on when he realized how big NaturalNews.com is he was really pumped.

Another guy who questioned Mike's possible alliance with KT indicated that it probably doesn't matter because Mike is "definitely on our side as to unveiling corruption and doing the right thing."

Um, I don't think so. I think it's more like Adams is hedging: wanting to appear that he is "doing the right thing" and participating in the fight against fraud, but glossing over the fact that he has benefited from his association with GIN and KT (and may very well be benefiting in some way even now).

What seems particularly disingenuous to me is that he appears to be implying that he has only recently found out all of this disturbing information about KT. But he clearly knew there were problems even back in 2005, when he wrote a favorable review about the first "Natural Cures" book. He has now removed that review from his site. As as he put it:

As more information has come to light about Kevin Trudeau in the seven years since this article was first published (including details on GIN), we have decided to remove this article.

But heck, I wanted to read the review, and a little bit of Googling led me to this post on a discussion forum. Just in case that review ever gets removed, here it is in full:

Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book review
by Mike Adams
August 24, 2005

As Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book has suddenly become the top-selling self-published book in history, a lot of readers are emailing and asking what I think about Trudeau, his book, and his commercial success. A few people are even asking whether I feel like Trudeau is stealing the spotlight and getting all the attention on the very same issues and advice I've been writing about for years.

Are they kidding me? Why on earth would I be unhappy to see someone spearhead a successful public education campaign that challenges Big Pharma and the FDA? I think Kevin Trudeau's success is outstanding. He's opening the eyes of millions of people, exposing the horrifying truth about the drug companies, the FDA and even the FTC. He's turning people on to genuine cures and remedies that work better than drugs, with zero side effects, and at very little cost. I'm thrilled with his success, and I hope he sells another ten million books.

Frankly, I'm thrilled any time a natural health author makes the bestseller list. Every time Dr. Gary Null publishes a new book, I cheer. Any time a natural health author grabs the attention of the public and teaches people the truth about this miserable system of symptom masking called organized medicine, I'm ecstatic.

It doesn't mean I agree 100% with everything in Trudeau's book (although most of it is right on). And it is true that the FTC, AMA and the FDA have been after Trudeau for years with various lawsuits and condemnations, but as I see it, nearly all these actions are rooted in our modern-day system of outright oppression of anything that competes with the profits of drugs and surgical procedures. In fact, I believe Trudeau is relentlessly attacked by the U.S. government precisely because he's exposing the lies of modern medicine and Big Pharma. They attack him for the same reason they attack me: because we open peoples' eyes to the truth of what's going on out there.

Now, I've never met Trudeau, and I don't personally vouch for anyone I've never met. I have no idea what his ethics are, nor his true passions, nor his long-term plans for achieving such commercial success. Personally, if I were making that much money on a bestselling book, I'd be founding a major non-profit organization and launching a national effort to get direct-to-consumer drug advertising outlawed. I'd use the money to affect lasting social change. What Trudeau does with his money is his own business, but in my view, if he's really passionate about this natural health issue, he would designate at least some portion of his proceeds (15% or so) to fight the drug companies head-on through public service announcements, grassroots campaigns and other similar endeavors.

But that's his decision, not mine. And frankly, I think I'm doing a decent job spreading the word about natural health (and the truth about Big Pharma) on what is essentially a shoestring budget. For the number of people we're reaching, and the volume of content we produce around here, you'd be absolutely stunned to find out how little we actually earn. Since we don't sell vitamins supplements, and we don't have national television campaigns, we basically just survive off minimal ads and our own self-published book sales.

Relentless assaults
What really amazes me about Trudeau's Natural Cures book is just how utterly ridiculous and outrageous the criticism has been towards this book. In one section of the book, Trudeau explains how sunscreen actually causes cancer -- a fact that's absolutely true! (click here to read my own articles on sunscreen) -- and yet critics charge him with "fraud" for daring to say such a thing.

I've been called everything under the sun for claiming that sunlight is actually good for you, too. And guess what? The research supports the fact that sunlight PREVENTS cancers: prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer and many other ailments. And yet the defenders of organized medicine are going after Trudeau for daring to tell the truth here. They can't stand the fact that somebody would actually dare to question the legitimacy of the billion-dollar sunscreen industry.

Other critics say the Natural Cures book is misleading, and that is distracts people from seeking "real treatment" for serious disease. Would that real treatment be... let's see... high-profit prescription drugs? Of course! Talk about misleading people, how about the whole Vioxx scandal where Merck sold deadly prescription drugs to people for years after knowing the drug doubled the risk of heart attacks and stroke. If you want deception, look at the psychiatric community, doling out powerful narcotics and antidepressants that make people psychotic and suicidal -- all while calling it "treatment" for mental illness. Did you know the Columbine massacre students were both on antidepressant drugs when they blew away their classmates?

Let's face it: you can't trust the mainstream press to provide an honest review of Trudeau's Natural Cures book. For one thing, the entire mainstream press is heavily influenced by billions in drug advertising dollars. Some people describe the mainstream news outlets as "drug whores," which is hilariously accurate. You can't seriously expect the major media outlets to offer fair and balanced coverage to a book that's threatening the profit centers of their primary advertisers, can you? Of course not. Trudeau will never get a fair shake in the eyes of the drug-supported press.

A milestone in changing times
There's a more important issue here than just Kevin Trudeau's success with his Natural Cures book, however. Trudeau knows, as much as anybody, that half the recipe for success is being at the right place at the right time... with the right product. Five years ago, his Natural Cures book would have flopped. But today, the environment is just right. And why? Because organized medicine is losing this war.

Historically, I think the runaway success of Trudeau's book, combined with the recent $253 million jury verdict against Merck over the Vioxx trial, will be seen as milestone events that heralded the demise of Big Pharma and the collapse of the highly corrupt U.S. drug racket. I think the tide has turned. The public is no longer asleep at the wheel. They realize they're being outright killed by prescription drugs.

People now recognize that antidepressant drugs will make you psychotic. Cholesterol-lowering drugs will destroy your hormones and nervous system. Diabetes drugs will destroy your liver. And anti-inflammatory drugs will kill you with a heart attack or stroke. The drug companies are no longer able to hide the truth about these dangerous drugs (although they've certainly tried), and the lies of the FDA have been blatantly exposed by its own senior drug research Dr. David Graham, who testified before Congress that, "The FDA is incapable of protecting Americans."

The game is up. Big Pharma has exploited the public health so much, for so long, that the backlash has begun. The lawsuits are in full swing. Congress is contemplating restricting drug advertising, and talk of FDA reform is everywhere. The only thing holding the drug racket in place, in my opinion, is the Bush Administration, which remains strongly pro-drug and continues to enact legislation that amounts to little more than handouts to Big Pharma.

Exposing the lies of Big Pharma
The earthquake has begun, and the success of Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book is simply a sign that the public is ready to hear this message. People have been exploited and financially ransacked by Big Pharma for so long that they're desperate for alternatives. The big lies of Big Pharma are finally hitting the mainstream. Which lies? Lies, for example, like, "every new drug takes $800 million in research to develop, and that's why we have to keep charging ripoff drug prices to all Americans."

Hogwash. In reality, each new drug requires less than $100 million to bring to market: that's less than 1/8th what Big Pharma claims. They exaggerate the numbers to justify profiteering, pure and simple.

There are all sorts of other lies by Big Pharma. I've covered most of them right here over the last 18 months or so. One of the biggest lies, I think, is well covered in my article, If prescription drugs are so good, where are all the healthy drug takers?

Big Pharma is an outright evil industry, preying upon the pain and suffering of human beings in order to pad its own profits. That's why the CEOs of Big Pharma giants walk away with $134 million in annual salaries, with $115+ million in annual stock option bonuses on top of that. Meanwhile, these drug companies are claiming they're investing all their drug revenues into research and development to, "find tomorrow's cures." Give me a break. Drug companies spend far more on marketing and advertising than research. And technically, the vast majority of drug company research is funded by taxpayer dollars through NIH grants to research universities. And by, "tomorrow's cures," what they really mean is, "tomorrow's blockbuster seller drug that may technically be no better than yesterday's generic drug."

The whole system is a giant con, folks. And if Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book helps wake people up to that reality, then I'm thrilled that it's a top seller.

Where is the spotlight for Dr. Gary Null?
In terms of sheer recognition for fighting this health information battle, though, there are individuals far more deserving of the national spotlight, in my opinion. And my list starts with Dr. Gary Null -- a genuine champion of natural health and health freedom. Dr. Null is so consistently right about health, nutrition and medicine that I personally believe if Dr. Null were in charge of the health of our nation, and could have free reign to change public policy to enact genuine health reforms, he'd have this country out of its health care crisis in less than ten years.

If there's anyone who deserves the national spotlight on health, it's Dr. Null. But he's not the only one who deserves a little recognition. Guys like Dr. Julian Whitaker, Dr. Sidney Wolfe (of Public Citizen), Dr. David Williams, Dr. Bruce West, Dr. Jonathan Wright, Dr. Elson Haas and many others have been fighting this battle for decades. Heck, even I'm a relative newcomer to this arena. My own knowledge about natural health is dwarfed by what these health authorities know.

All of us, and especially Kevin Trudeau, are rebels. In a less civilized time, we would all be rounded up and shot for daring to challenge the authority and wisdom of the "King" -- in this case, the AMA, the FDA, Big Pharma, and the rest of the evil bunch. The FTC and FDA have attacked all of us at one time or another. Heck, Dr. Jonathan Wright even got raided at gunpoint by FDA thugs who shut down his healing clinic. (Read a full list of FDA raids here. Dr. Gary Null has fielded decades of assaults by his critics. Dr. Julian Whitaker has long been targeted by various government agencies because of his support for breakthrough cancer treatment therapies (among other brave endeavors) that actually reverse cancer.

We're ALL enemies of the status quo. And that's because we show people a better way to be healthy. We teach people alternatives that don't require financial servitude to the drug companies. We challenge the FDA. Some of us call for criminal prosecution of the CEOs and top manager at drug companies. And each of us, at some level, just cannot sit back and watch the public be lied to. We have the deep desire to stand up and shout, "The Emperor has no clothes!"

Should health information come from people who are healthy?
Tell you what. Try this for a health contest. Grab Dr. Gary Null, Dr. David Williams and myself, and put us three up against any three FDA bureaucrats, drug company executives, or old school M.D.s you can find, and compare health statistics.

It would be no contest. We'd blow those guys off the charts. Between my own publicly-posted blood chemistry, Gary Null's pulse and endurance (he's an amazing distance runner), we'd be unbeatable. You know what the three of us have in common? We don't take prescription drugs. On top of that, we all take supplemental nutrition and, of course, we all exercise regularly. Pretty simple, huh? Good nutrition + exercise + avoiding drugs = great health!

If prescription drugs made people healthy -- if Big Pharma was right about anything -- then they should be able to dig up people who are super healthy, right? Drug-prescribing doctors should be the healthiest people on the planet, right? After all, they get all the free drug samples they could ever want. If they're taking those drugs, and if those drugs actually made people healthier, then these should be icons of perfect health, right?

But they aren't. People who take drugs are SICK. Or they're DEAD. They're certainly not healthy. And doctors are the least healthy bunch of professionals you can find, in my experience. Organized medicine is a con. It's a cruel hoax. It doesn't work. And finally, the public is starting to wake up to this fact.

The great disease / profit con
You see, here's how the con works: the food companies make you sick, nutritionally deficient, and diseased. Then the pharmaceutical giants convince you to take $500 / month in pills for the rest of your life to mask the symptoms of disease caused by the foods you bought in the first place. And then some pharmaceutical giants launch vitamin companies (or buy existing ones) and sell you crap vitamins loaded with antifreeze chemicals (I'm not kidding), hydrogenated oils, coal-tar artificial colors and other chemical toxins just to make sure you never really get well from taking those cheap vitamins.

The result? You end up hooked on drugs for life. That's how the con works. And, of course, your doctor fully supports it and the FDA rubber-stamps the whole thing, going the extra mile to make sure that herbs are outlawed and deadly drugs remain perfectly legal.

I'm pretty sure Kevin Trudeau would agree with everything I've said here. His talent is that he's really, really good at getting the message out to people. If our country had ten more people with that kind of talent who could fight the propaganda of organized medicine, we'd be better for it.

Some people even say I'm one of those people. Maybe, but I'm just a regular, hardworking, everyday guy who happens to have a very low tolerance for evil in the world. If I lived in the South during the 19th century, I'm the kind of guy who would be running the Underground Railroad, shuttling slaves to freedom in the Northern states. If I lived in Germany in 1933, I'd be running an underground printing press, producing material that challenged the racial cleansing policies of the newly-elected head of state, Adolf Hitler. If I were an Indian citizen living under British occupation in the 1930's, I'd be mirroring the actions of Ghandi through peaceful non-compliance as a form of public protest. I'm just a rebel who can't stand to see evil having power and control over the people.

When I see lies, exploitation, and outright evil running amok in the free world, I just feel obliged to point it out. And frankly, except for the Nazi Germany concentration camps, I have seen no greater evil at work in this world in the last hundred years than what is happening today with our pharmaceutical companies and our corrupt system of organized medicine. Even the atrocities of Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao do not compare with the scope and depth of deception now practiced by organized medicine. It is a corrupt system that promises cures, yet delivers destitution and death. All in the name of profits, of course.

And to think that the whole thing hides behind the facade of "scientific thinking" or "evidence-based medicine" is, truly, an insult to the history of science.

The bottom line: the raging success of Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures book is a milestone that signals the approaching demise of today's system of organized crime / organized medicine. Watch for the FTC, AMA, FDA, the mainstream press and others to do everything in their power to silence Trudeau to prevent him from doubling his success with a second book that reaches even more readers.

In the end, though, they can't silence us all. In the end, truth will prevail, and like the downfall of Nazi Germany in 1945, Big Pharma will soon find itself stretched too thin, hated by all for the pain and suffering it caused, and clinging to a desperate, discredited existence.

It will be a glorious day, indeed, when people can walk this earth with true freedom: freedom to choose the healing method they desire for themselves and their children, freedom to learn about herbs, vitamins or prayer, and freedom to access all the relevant information they need in order to make their own private health decisions.

It is the vision of that day that keeps me writing. 

Cue heroic music. It's the same old "us few rebels against the big bad corrupt powers-that-be" anthem that we've heard from Kevin, from Loony Coldwell, and from numerous others. And of course, Nazi Germany had to be brought into the mix. Apart from the fact that this was not really a review of the content of Trudeau's book as much as another chance for Adams to hold forth on the issues dear to his heart, the point is that he acknowledged Kevin's "problems" even back then. But instead of looking at them as red flags, he heralded those challenges as a badge of honor, and welcomed Kevin to the noble war against evil.

At some point, Mike Adams did apparently meet Kevin Trudeau, and over the years was a guest on his radio show a few times. A Facebook friend of mine who is an ex-GIN member also said that Adams did at least one GIN audio regarding prepping for the coming changes (gold, silver, storable food, etc.).

Lenny Coldwell even recently claimed that Adams actually ghostwrote Natural Cure's sequel, More Natural Cures Revealed, for Kevin, but that seems kind of... well, loony. Nevertheless, here are some screen shots of a Facebook conversation where Lenny makes some claims in his usual loose-cannon fashion. This convo took place on May 21, during Kevin's court hearing.

Of course you have to consider the source, and the fact that it is in the context of Loony's declaration that Kevin had just "pleated" the 5th and "now he is DONE!" -- as well as Loony's claim that he wrote most of Kevin's other books. Since Loony Coldwell can barely cobble together a coherent sentence of written English prose (I don't know how his written German is), I seriously doubt that he "wrote" any of Kevin's books. Lenny himself uses ghostwriters for his English language books (again, I can't say one way or the other about his German books). Kelly Wallace is the ghostwriter he has used most frequently. The two have had a working relationship for years. Kelly is also into all kinds of alt-health and New-Agey type things. Anyway, here's Lenny holding forth on the authorship of Kevin Trudeau's books.




Ghostwriting or not, it is clear that True-dough and The Health Ranger have been allies.

The Health Ranger also seems to be a fan of Loony Coldwell, and vice versa. Here's a 2011 endorsement of Lenny on Mike Adams' site, though Adams does not appear to have written the blurb himself.  It describes Lenny as "one of the greatest physicians of our time."

A Coldwell vid is also included in the vast library on Adams' Natural News "TV channel." http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=50343BD01BCD514656AF5D71811E1689

And of course the two have hung around together, at least for photo ops, at various health expos.

They were both repeat speakers at the Health Freedom Expo, at least until Loony threw the HFE under the bus earlier this year (quite possibly because they threw him under the bus first. Just guessing...). This is from February 19, 2013:

Speaking of which, Loony and Mikey also righteously banded together last year when they and a few other alt-health heroes got bamboozled by a couple of scammy expo masterminds, Josh and Anna Scurry, regarding a proposed celebrity-infested health event, Alive New York. Mike had a whole host of articles about the little scandal on Natural News. He was justifiably outraged by the Scurrys' criminal records. And apparently Mike and Loony, who were both scheduled to be speakers at the doomed event, were being harassed by the Scurrys' attorneys for a while. But Loony was up to the challenge.

Dr. Coldwell was also contacted by [the organizers of ALIVE New York's] attorney and characterized the call as "criminal harassment." His Facebook post reads, "Their lawyer just called me - looks like criminal harassment to me if she calls again I have her answering to the Bar and the Court since I have an in house lawyer now it does not cost me anything."

I wonder if that "in house lawyer" is Bill Hanahan, the guy who later kind of became buddies with Salty Droid.

In the process of slamming Alive New York and the Scurrys, Adams managed to endorse Loony and the "American Anti-Cancer Institute," or AACI.

Unlike ALIVE New York, the AACI actually is a tax-exempt non-profit with a legitimate 501(c)3 designation by the IRS. They associate with some of the top people in the industry who understand cutting-edge cancer therapies, including Dr. Leonard Coldwell, Dr. Thomas Lodi, Dr. Nicholas Gonzales, and many others.

Loony just happens to be on the Advisory Board of the AACI, and that fact alone seriously compromises the organization's credibility. Another thing that seriously compromises their credibility, besides the dubious creds of various principals, is the fact that the site very much exists to sell select alt-health products.

In regard to the Alive New York debacle, don't get me wrong: I'm not excusing the Scurrys for anything. But I hope you will forgive me for being a little amused -- just a little, mind you! -- when scammers get scammed.

But back to Mikey. I'm not even going to try to get into all of the ways Mike Adams distorts, overstates, cherry-picks, and allies himself with other hucksters and nut cases -- mostly with those in the alt-med field but also with those in the booming conspiracy-nut/paranoia-porn (I call it Pornoia) industry. Like Alex Jones, for instance (who is also a favorite of Loony Coldwell). Mike is a big Alex fan, and vice versa. (And Alex, as y'all probably know, is a big Kevin Trudeau fan.)

Anyway, other writers who are much more qualified and knowledgeable than I am have already deconstructed Adams. I'll get to them in a few moments.

I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to insert another one of my customary qualifiers. I don't disagree with Mike Adams' broad points that government, Big Pharma, the medical profession, the food industry, big agribusiness, and big corporations of all types have done a great deal of harm in the name of profits. I don't disagree with the notion that people should be able to have a wide variety of choices in health care regimens and protocols. And, contrary to certain Loony claims, I am not a paid shill of Big Pharma and/or the medical establishment.

I will also say again, as I've said before, that I too am concerned about how our quality of life has been compromised as much as enhanced by so many "modern" developments in medicine and the food industry. I am not blind to that stuff. I would simply rather get my information from better-researched, less agenda-driven, and less shrill sources, such as Mother Jones, for starters. I'll take Mother Jones over Alex Jones any day.

My big point is that Mike Adams is no selfless soldier for truth. Far from it. He clearly has no problem aligning himself with all sorts of hucksters and loud-mouthed fame whores, and he clearly has no particular allegiance to truth, either -- recent evidence of the latter being that he suggested Coldwell protege and business partner Abe Husein's YouTube channel as a source for more details on the ways that "members of GIN have been defrauded, scammed, lied to or financially exploited by Trudeau."

Granted, Abe has the basic points right: i.e., GIN is a scam and KT is a scammer. And I used to be quite the Abe supporter because of that. But it doesn't take much reading or listening to figure out that he is far from an unimpeachable source, particularly when you consider that according to many reports he tried to game the GIN system, which was already on shaky ethical and legal ground anyway. More recently, his predictions about GIN and KT, like his buddy Lenny's, have repeatedly failed to come true. Those predictions are based in large part on wishful thinking and on Abe's own imaginary role of the big hero who has almost single-handedly brought down GIN and Katie. And did I mention that Abe is in business with Loony Coldwell?



So yes, watch the videos, but consider the source, and if you want more insight into what's really going on with the court cases, read the court documents yourself and don't take either Abe's or Lenny's word for it. If you are in the US, you can avail yourself of PACER.gov. (This May 2013 blog post of mine has more details about how you can use PACER to access the available court documents in the Trudeau cases.)

And a much better source for information on GIN (and a few related) scams is Bernie O'Mahony's GINtruth.com. Omri Shabat has a few things to say about Trudeau on Glancingweb. So does Salty Droid. And you can probably poke around on this Whirled too and find a few useful things.

As for the Health Ranger, if you want some additional insight into Mike Adams' body of work from a more scientific point of view, Orac's Respectful Insolence blog is a good place to start. I am fully aware that those of you who automatically reject any utterance by an actual M.D. will not be convinced. This is for the rest of you.

Mikey also rates his own page on RationalWiki -- which is, as I am also fully aware, part online "encyclopedia" and part skeptics' editorializing, so you have to take the obvious bias into consideration. I find it mildly annoying myself at times. However, the statements about Adams are sourced so that readers can make up their own minds. Here is that link: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews

There is, as you might imagine, an ongoing battle between Mikey and "the skeptics." In January 2010 he wrote a conspiracy-infused piece on what he imagines "skeptics" to believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe.

The next day Steven Novella at the Neurologica blog had an excellent point-by-point response, which is well worth reading.I have to say that unlike some of the hardcore skeptics and critical thinkers, I don't consider Mike Adams "dangerous." I think that's overstating, and frankly, skeptical overstating isn't any more attractive to me than believer or conspiracy-nut overstating. Besides, Adams just eats that kind of thing up, and so do his most ardent admirers. The Health Ranger has his own martyr/hero shtick going, after all, as he has for years.

Bottom line for all of you anti-GIN, anti-KT folks: Don't be fooled by The Health Ranger weakly waving the anti-scam banner on his blog. He is just as much a part of the Big Sick Machine that is Scamworld as any others I've written about. As Orac noted on a recent blog post:

When it comes to One Crank To Rule Them All, there’s only one right now that I can think of, and it’s Mike Adams... Adams has mastered every form of quackery and crankery.

And I am willing to bet that at heart, Mike Adams is still pretty much rooting for his buddy Kevin Trudeau.


More True-dough on this Whirled:

• June 2013: Kevin Trudeau in court again: Something big... something really big!... or maybe not
• June 2013: Kevin Trudeau and justice: muddy waters
• May 2013: ABC has fun with Kevin Trudeau, and life goes on
• May 2013: ABC tackles Kevin Trudeau -- again!
• May 2013: Kevie goes a-courtin': pleading the Fifth
• May 2013: Kevin Trudeau: Justice...or just more paper shuffling?
• May 2013: Kevin Trudeau: Countdown to court date (or not)
• May 2013: Kevin Trudeau + Mark Hamilton = GIN with a twist of Neo-stink
• April 2013: Bankruptcy: GIN members await Level 7 while Kevin Trudeau files Chapter 7
• March 2013: Ryan Kath at KSHB-TV does Trudeau/GIN update, Coldwell & Wink continue to scam with cheap imitation of GIN
• February 2013: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: The sky is falling (again)...yawn
• February 2013: Loony Coldwell: Cheesy video and bad spelling
• February 2013: IBMS Master's Society Supreme Loony Coldwell strikes again
• February 2013: Faux heroes and hypocrisy in action
• February 2013: Meet the new scam, same as the old scam, Part 2
• January 2013: Vital signs: "Immortal" (former) breatharian Mony Vital dies on GIN cruise
• January 2013: Meet the new scam, same as the old scam, Part 1
• December 2012: 2012 ~ The Whirled goes on
• November 2012: Kevin Trudeau: justice delayed...again
• November 2012: Kevin Trudeau exposé on KSHB-TV: buzz, backlash, and big beginnings
• November 2012: Alien nation: just how crazy is Kevin Trudeau (not to mention his sheeple)?
• November 2012: Kevin Trudeau: KSHB-TV undercover investigation
• November 2012: Kevin Trudeau gets some more mainstream lovin'
• October 2012: Evil has not won
• October 2012: Kevin Trudeau: Rats in our heads, GIN down the toilet...and life goes on
• October 2012: Kevin Trudeau: The shape of things to come?
• September 2012: Leonard Coldwell and Fred Van Liew: Pot, meet kettle
• August 2012: Truth is better than GIN any day
• July 2012: Drunk on GIN, and you can too!
• July 2012: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine
• July 2012: Independence Daze
• May 2012 (updated September 2012): Paging Dr. C: Bernd bridges in Deutschland?
• May 2012: Can alien DNA save Kevin Trudeau's GIN?
• May 2012: Does a canary with a GIN hangover sing as sweetly?
• April 2012: Viva Lost Wages: Sin City Become GIN City for a weekend
• February 2012: A. Rose by any other name would shill as sweet
• December 2011: True-dough updates: Bad poetry for KT, hate mail for CC
• November 2011: A jumpsuit for Jimmy
• August 2011: First Amendment Stuporhero
• August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name) -- Part 2 of 2
• August 2011: Calling all lazy men: let's build a pyramid together!
• August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name), Part 1 of 2
• June 2011: Holy Guacamole! True-dough's racist rants
• June 2011: For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray
• December 2009 (amended several times in 2010): Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
• November 2009: How to take over the world
• July 2009: Horse farts and related matters
• January 2009: Mr. Fire meets up with true dough

* * * * *

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