But Flint is far from being the only location in the U.S. threatened by lead contamination from various sources – in fact, there are nearly 3,000 communities across the country where children were found to have levels of lead in their blood measuring more than twice that of those in Flint, and in more than 1,100 of those communities children showed lead blood levels at least four times higher.
That’s according to a newly-released study by Reuters, which examined lead testing results throughout the country. The Reuters study is more far-reaching than previous ones, in that it looked at results at the neighborhood level, which provided a more accurate “granular” view of which areas were particularly at risk for lead poisoning.
From Reuters:
“Most U.S. states disclose data on the percentage of child blood tests that show elevated levels of lead. Yet this data, often for statewide or county-wide populations, is too broad to identify neighborhoods where children face the greatest risk.
“Instead, Reuters sought testing data at the neighborhood level, in census tracts or zip code areas, submitting records requests to all 50 states.”
For the U.S. census, counties are subdivided into tracts containing about 4,000 residents apiece, while each zip code contains an average of around 7,500 residents. In each area, a small number of children are tested yearly for lead poisoning.
Pinpointing neighborhoods where lead poisoning risk is highest
Using this highly-localized data, Reuters was able to pinpoint neighborhoods with lead contamination problems that might otherwise go undetected in the results of studies based on larger samples:
“For example: Across Maryland, 2 percent of childhood lead tests were high in recent years, just a small fraction of the rate in the worst-affected Baltimore tracts. In Flint, while 5 percent of children citywide recently tested with high blood lead levels, the highest rate has been in the downtown zip code, where about 11 percent tested high from 2005 to 2015.”
Since the use of lead in paint and gasoline was discontinued in the 1970s, average lead levels in children’s blood has dropped more than 90 percent, but there are many communities in which “legacy lead” is an issue – places where lead abatement has failed and lead-containing paint, plumbing and industrial waste has not yet been removed.
These lead-tainted communities are found scattered throughout the country – in rural mining areas where the water supplies have been contaminated, for example, and in inner cities where older houses expose children to lead through crumbling paint and pipes. The CDC says there are more than four million American homes in which children are exposed to high levels of lead.
Lack of federal funding to address lead contamination issues
The Reuters study should help to call attention to the issue, but unfortunately there‘s not much federal funding available to address the problem.
To provide some perspective, Congress has allocated $170 million in aid towards cleaning the lead up in Flint, Michigan – an amount ten times that of the CDC’s yearly budget for assisting states with their lead poisoning problems.
Small children are vulnerable to lead exposure through items they touch or put into their mouth. Even slightly elevated lead blood levels are associated with learning disabilities, lower IQ scores, behavioral problems and growth delays. Severe lead poisoning can be fatal.
Chelation therapy can remove heavy metals from the body, but once a child has been poisoned by lead, the effects can be “irreversible.”
Children should be screened for elevated blood lead levels around the age of one or two years.
Sources:
]]>(Article by Shaun Bradley, republished from TheAntiMedia.org)
Budgetary shortfalls that have plagued Detroit for years are now spreading to other municipalities. Since 2008, six local governments have been forced to renegotiate their debts in bankruptcy court, with many others on the same trajectory. The scale of the problem has been repeatedly understated by the media, but across the nation, a somber reality is beginning to set in. [1, 2 3]
States with large populations, like California, often find themselves in the spotlight when it comes to deficits, but there are several others that are in even worse shape. Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut are among those facing the biggest hurdles to meet their obligations to retirees. Instead of maintaining a surplus, politicians have continuously prioritized spending today on things like sports stadiums, for example, to ensure re-election. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have echoed solutions that involve either massive cuts to benefits or shifting the financial burden onto the taxpayer. The price to prop up these insolvent funds will come in the form of higher property taxes, income taxes, and other stealth forms of subsidization. [4, 5]
The ongoing exodus of people from the Northeast to states that offer better opportunities and a lower cost of living is putting even more stress on the already fragile system. Pension payouts depend on the contributions of current workers, and as the labor force dwindles, so does the money available.
Pushing through substantial reforms is counter-intuitive for our representatives. If they do the responsible thing and defer excess spending in the present, it will undoubtedly have a negative impact on their voter base. America’s political pastime of kicking the can down the road continues, but the options to keep this shell game going are running out.
Read more at: TheAntiMedia.org
Sources:
[2] Governing.com
[3] WSJ.com
[4] Fortune.com
[5] Mercatus.org
]]>Not so fast.
A report posted on the Anonymous website states that for two decades scientists have been studying subjects in China who appear to have superhuman powers, with the results of said studies having been published in a number of books and journals.
The report said that it is believed that these “gifted” individuals may have figured out how to tap into a quantum reality that is not observable to the human eye.
To understand that correctly, the report goes on, it is necessary to be aware of a relationship between our consciousness and our physical realities. Both are very real, and they share a complicated relationship. Indeed, the creator of the quantum theory, Max Planck – a German theoretical physicist whose work on the theory won him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 – said that we should regard consciousness as “fundamental,” and matter as “derivative from consciousness.”
CIA documents reveal Chinese have studied and documented quantum powers
A second physicist, Eugene Wigner, further stated that “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”
A document that allegedly contains information about events in China is called “Chronology of Recent Interest in Exceptional Functions of The Human Body in the People’s Republic of China.” It discusses the work the Chinese government has done in the field of parapsychology – remote viewing, telepathy and psychokinesis.
Recently, the document became available via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. In it are some surprising details of individuals who are purported to possess superhuman capabilities – abilities that have been studied several times by scientists the world over. The Anonymous report says that the document is on the CIA’s website, but can only be accessed by the “Internet Archives.”
The report contains a link to the CIA’s site where the Chinese document can supposedly be read, but there is nothing on the page except references to the actual document, said to be five pages long.
Moving objects with the mind only
Nevertheless, the Anonymous report claims:
— In 1979 , a major Chinese science journal, Ziran Zachi, published a report on “non-visual pattern recognition” where a number of accounts of exceptional human body function were confirmed.
— The following year, the journal, along with the Chinese Human Body Science Association, held a parapsychology conference in Shanghai with participants from more than 20 research institutes and universities from around the globe.
— In 1981, China created more than 100 special places to study children with exceptional capabilities, with over 100 formally trained scholars.
— In 1982, the Chinese Academy of Sciences sponsored a public meeting in Beijing for the sole purpose of discussing humans who possessed parapsychological abilities, and more than 400 scholars attended.
— In April 1982, the report says, the Party’s National Committee of Science at Beijing Teacher’s College staged a trial to examine the capabilities of certain students. Most of the results of those analyses came back negative, with the exception of Zhang Baosheng. The following year, Zhang was examined by 19 researchers led by a scholar named Prof. Lin Shuhang, of the Beijing Teacher’s College physics department. Again, there were positive results regarding his superhuman powers.
According to the CIA report, as stated by Anonymous, Zhang was able to move objects into and out of a sealed container using just his mind.
Read the complete report here.
Sources:
]]>(Article by Alex Pfeiffer and Peter Hasson, republished from DailyCaller.com)
Facebook announced Thursday that mythbusting website Snopes will be one of a few fact-checking organizations allowed to label stories as “fake news.”
Almost all of the writers churning out fact checks for Snopes have a liberal background, and many of them have expressed contempt for Republican voters. The Daily Caller could not identify a single Snopes fact-checker who comes from a conservative background. Snopes did not respond to a list of questions from TheDC regarding the site’s ideological leaning.
At least two of the site’s fact-checkers joined Snopes after writing for Raw Story, a far-left publication that describes itself as a “progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media.” Several others have demonstrated liberal partisanship.
Snopes managing editor Brooke Binkowski said on Twitter that Brexit supporters were “pandering to racist mouth-breather ‘Britain First’ types.”
Snopes fact-checker Arturo Garcia is an editor-at-large for Raw Story. Garcia is also a managing editor of Racialicious, a pro-Black Lives Matter blog. One of Garcia’s most recent stories at Raw Story was titled “The next time your right-wing uncle tries to ruin the holidays with ‘proof’ of creationism, show him these videos.”
Back when Trump was reportedly considering launching his own media network, Garcia implied that it would be a TV channel for white people, calling it “White Entertainment Television.”
After Boston University professor Saida Grundy was criticized for racist tweets in which she called white, college-aged males a “problem population,” Palmo Markus suggested Grundy’s tweets weren’t actually racist because they were directed at white people.
Facebook routinely buried conservative news and topics from trending on the site and artificially made liberal topics part of the national discussion, former Facebook employees admitted last May. TheDC previously reported that the former Facebook trending news team was filled by liberals. It has since automated the Trending Topics section of its page.
Facebook announced Thursday it will use fact-checking organizations that have signed the Poynter Institute’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles. The Associated Press reports that Facebook is currently working with Snopes, ABC News, Factcheck.org and PolitiFact, and that the list could grow.
Read more at: DailyCaller.com
]]>The FBI is widening its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while she was U.S. secretary of state to determine whether any public corruption laws were violated, Fox News reported on Monday.
(Article by Natasha Bertrand, republished from http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-hillary-clinton-email-investigation-2016-1)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether classified material was mishandled during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department from 2009-2013.
It will expand its probe by examining possible overlap of the Clinton Foundation charity with State Department business, Fox reported, citing three unidentified intelligence officials.
“The [FBI] agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” Fox quoted one of its unidentified sources as saying.
The FBI and the State Department had no immediate comment on the report. The Clinton campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus issued a statement calling the Fox News report “a very troubling development.”
The FBI last expanded its probe into the server in November to examine whether “materially false statements” were ever provided to agents throughout the course of the case.
Thomson ReutersU.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign stop in Reno, Nevada
Facing criticism last year for exclusively using a private server during her time as US secretary of state, Clinton handed over about 30,000 work-related emails for the State Department to make public. She deleted about 31,000 more emails she says were personal in nature.
The FBI launched its investigation into Clinton’s server in August in an effort to determine whether any classified information ever passed onto the server while she served as secretary of state.
After months of negative headlines that battered her campaign, the Democratic presidential front-runner apologized in September for her email arrangement. But she has insisted that she didn’t violate protocol — noting that she used communication practices that were widespread across the federal government — or pass along material marked classified.
More than 1,200 emails in Clinton’s server have been retroactively marked “classified” since the investigation began in August, according to Politico.
Watch the clip here:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=94051052ECB937…
Or on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyrjwXoIqA
(Update: YouTube has already pulled the video!)
In this video, you’ll see bimbo reporter Bridget Brown explain, in her own struggling words, why the U.S. dollar is a far safer financial instrument than gold. As she confidently articulates to whatever hapless Canadian viewers are dumb enough to watch the mainstream news channel this aired on, gold is “backed by nothing!”
Lest you think that comment deserves some sort of award in its own right, the genius actually continues. The dollar, she says, is backed by what she calls the “American government.” Should we remind her that the Americas includes Central America and South America, too, and that the phrase “American government” could mean the government of Peru, or Panama or even Mexico? Naw, that might confuse her even more…
Her brilliance continues when she says “…so no matter what is happening to the American economy, something like the U.S. dollar is backed by the Federal Reserve. That’s gonna be around a year from now.”
Oh wow. You mean the same Federal Reserve that has devalued the dollar by more than 95% since its inception in 1913? See the chart at: http://www.aier.org/images/stories/charts_la…
Or see another fascinating chart here: http://www.whatamimissinghere.com/archives/2…
And seriously, does Bridget think gold might vanish in the next year or something? Saying that the dollar is “gonna be around a year from now” implies that gold might not be. Is this some sort of Jedi mind trick she’s pulling, because I don’t get it…
Because I hate to break it to Bridget, but gold has been around for a few billion years on our planet, while the Federal Reserve is but a temporary blip of monetary insanity that will soon cease to exist at all. The dollar, too, will soon be little more than a short-lived piece of historical curiosity, while gold will still be here long after the planet’s modern civilizations have collapsed into ruin.
Her conclusion in all this is that — swallow before you read this — dollars are therefore far safer than gold because they’re backed by government!
This is one dizzy reporter who apparently spent her college years partying at the sorority rather than attending economics 101. By this same logic, you could argue that social security is more reliable than gold because it, too, is backed by “American government.” Or heck, even Medicare is more reliable than gold!
Well gee, who needs precious metals at all if we can just take the government’s word on everything? Next, this reporter will probably tell us that governments never lie, never collapse and never go bankrupt, either. I can’t wait for part two in this amazing saga of journalistic fiction. Perhaps Bridget should write children’s fantasy books instead of attempting to report the news, eh?
We are living out Idiocracy
In witnessing all this, I can’t help but remember my favorite satire movie Idiocracy, in which society has devolved into a clumsy cabal of low-IQ degenerates who believe everything they see on TV. (http://www.naturalnews.com/021558_Idiocracy_…)
But what really makes this latest example so relevant to our modern times is that mainstream journalists are almost universally complete morons when it comes to economics, gold, the Federal Reserve and fiat currencies. I’ve watched mainstream media journalists argue against gold for at least the last decade, during which the value of gold compared to dollars has skyrocketed beyond what any of them thought possible.
And yet, somehow, gold is just never good enough for these teleprompter-reading dizzy-headed reporters who probably couldn’t even tell you what year the Federal Reserve was even created (or why). Heck, they probably think the Federal Reserve is a branch of the federal government. And Federal Express, too, for that matter.
These reporters need to watch my video called Freetopia, which exposes the economic fallacies that ultimately lead free nations into economic collapse:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=16899B46FEB0BB…
That’s actually a bit of fiction that says more about modern-day reality than all the mainstream media economic news reports put together.
The full faith and credit of paper!
But getting back to the bimbo’s report on gold, I am curious to know what she thinks gold should be backed with if it’s not “backed by anything” at the moment, as she explains. Ivory? Silver? The words of politicians? I wonder what she thinks has more intrinsic value, ounce for ounce, than gold?
Paper?
It makes me shudder to think that this passes for news delivery these days. I especially love the fact that the main news desk host didn’t even bother to correct her when she began spouting total economic nonsense on live television. Huh? What? Back to you, Brenda!
It all reminds me of that satisfying quote from Mark Twain who said “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
That quote applies to most of mainstream journalism today, which is widely infected by the “stupid” virus when it comes to economics, the rule of law and liberty in general. Is it any wonder the mainstream media is losing viewers in record numbers as people turn to alternative media for intelligent analysis of the world around them?
Along those lines, check out our newest site www.AlternativeNews.com which aggregates important alternative news headlines from across the ‘web, including intelligent news about gold and the coming collapse of fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.
]]>Mainstream reporters aren’t supposed to make inferences from facts. They’re supposed to solicit comments from “experts” on both sides of an issue and then slant the story toward the favored side.
This is especially true in the medical arena, which is a sacred cow. When editors want to restrain wandering medical reporters, they take them off hot stories and assign them something pedestrian.
In the summer of 2009, Sharyl Atkisson of CBS exposed the fact that the CDC, responsible for counting the number of Swine Flu cases in America, had stopped counting. This was a blockbuster revelation. On the heels of Atkisson’s discovery, the CDC announced a lie so absurd it produced gasps of shock even within the mainstream medical-reporting community: suddenly, the several thousand cases of Swine Flu in the US were TEN MILLION.
Anyone with a grain of common sense could connect the dots: the CDC was lying to cover up the fact that Swine Flu, at best, was a very light non-epidemic, and all the fear-based hype was empty. The push for everyone to get vaccinated was venal and stupid.
In a reasonable world, CBS and other networks, to say nothing of the NY Times and other major papers, would have gone after the CDC with hammer and tongs. They would have attacked until the CDC was a smoking wreck.
But these media outlets backed off and pretended there was nothing to see, nothing to infer, nothing to connect.
At CBS, Atkisson was sent off to cover other stories. That’s the way it works.
Here is the interesting part. If these dying networks and newspapers had actually pursued the CDC story, they would have attracted huge audiences. The public wants this kind of information. The public is hungry for it.
So you could say major media are digging their own graves. They’re not so much being phased out by the Internet; they’re committing suicide.
They insist on remaining part of the problem, at their own peril.
Here is another example:
Glaxo, the drug giant, was recently fined $3 billion for bribery, fabricating drug-safety data, and fraud.
Only a fool, however, would assume this legal attack against Glaxo would stop them from lying, cheating, and endangering the public in the future.
The $3 billion Glaxo fine covered scheming, lying, and cheating in connection with three of its drugs: Paxil; Wellbutrin; and Avandia. Total sales of those drugs during the period of time in question? 27.9 billion dollars. Three billion dollars is a drop in the bucket. And Glaxo was comfortably prepared to pay the fine. It had money set aside for that day.
So the fine was just the beginning of the story. An outlet like the NY Times could have set their hounds loose and dug up inside information on how Glaxo managed their crime and their anticipated fine, from the get-go. That would have been, in time, a hurricane of a story. It would have exposed Glaxo as an ongoing RICO operation.
And then the question of why no Glaxo executives were prosecuted by the Dept. of Justice and sent to prison would have had teeth.
Day by day, week by week, the media story would have gained legs. The public would have been transfixed as Glaxo executives came out and made confessions to reporters.
This is what connecting the dots means. This makes stories grow and expand, and nets more criminals. This is what reporting is supposed to do.
So why don’t major media outlets become relentless in their coverage? Why don’t they multiply their readership and viewership by millions of people? Why don’t they succeed?
The answer to those questions has layers. First, there is the obvious advertising revenue at stake from drug companies. A former reporter for a Los Angeles daily paper told me that, on the heels of publishing a story critical of vaccines, the editor of the paper received a visit in his office from pharmaceutical executives of a company that was buying ads in the paper. These execs didn’t stand on ceremony. They read the editor the riot act.
On another layer, all major media outlets understand that stories highly critical of the medical cartel—when pursued to full exposure—are a taboo. They’re not allowed, because the cartel deeply involves the federal government as an active partner. The cartel is one of those too-big-to-fail institutions. The money at issue is enormous.
On a third layer, we have the ever-popular “national security” dictum. That’s right. The interlock among medical schools, the FDA, doctors, drug companies, and researchers is considered “vital to the interests of the nation.” If the NY Times went up against that, they would pay a big price. They would find themselves on the receiving end of FBI investigations and IRS investigations and bank foreclosures on their debts and union work stoppages. It would be a pitched battle.
I’ll tell you something, though. If the NY Times had the balls and the commitment, the outcome would be a toss-up. If the paper didn’t blink and kept turning out copy on deepening medical investigations—including copy on how the paper was being attacked for speaking the truth—they could print three editions a day and they would have readers knocking each other down to snatch a copy off a newsstand.
But this is just a fantasy, because finally, it turns out that the Times, and every other major media operation in America, is inextricably linked with top-level globalist criminals. These media giants are engaged in an ongoing pysop of programming their audiences to accept official authority without questioning it. The medical cartel is a key player in the Globalist takeover of nations:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com
In medical circles, it’s known that the American medical system kills 225,000 people a year. That’s 2.25 million killings per decade. (See: Starfield, JAMA, July 26, 2000, “Is US health really the best in the world?”)
Even an idiot can see that, as a story, this has gigantic staying power. The NY Times and the Washington Post could attack it from so many angles and chase so many rats out of the woodwork, they would make Watergate look like a biddies’ embroidery club in Kansas.
You would have front-page revelations for months on end. Just for starters, the FDA, which approves as safe all the drugs that cause these deaths, would be exposed as the Gambino or Gotti of the medical universe.
Obamacare, which will drag millions of new unwary customers into the system, exposing them to death and destruction, would be crushed underfoot like an old beer can in the street.
But the operating strategy of media megaliths is limited hangout. They squeeze out a few facts like toothpaste from a tube, and then they back away. They don’t make the connections they know are there. Reporters, their foot soldiers, acquiesce and whiten their teeth and buy new suits and visit psychiatrists, where they’re diagnosed with clinical depression and given drugs.
On January 15, 2009, the NY Review of Books published a devastating quote from a woman who, for 20 years, edited the most prestigious medical journal in the world:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.
For any ambitious medical reporter, the quote could have been the jumping-off point for an investigation aimed at taking down medical journals and the whole peer-review system that underpins medical publishing.
But nothing happened. No dots were connected. The quote was left hanging in mid-air like a Hindenburg whose explosion had been indefinitely postponed.
Here is another Hindenburg quote of a similar nature, also published in the NY Review of Books (May 12, 2001, Helen Epstein, “Flu Warning: Beware of Drug Companies”):
“Six years ago, John Ioannidis, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, found that nearly half of published articles in scientific journals contained findings that were false.”
Here’s another quote from the same article:
“Last year, GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia was linked to thousands of heart attacks, and earlier in the decade, the company’s antidepressant Paxil was discovered to exacerbate the risk of suicide in young people. Merck’s painkiller Vioxx was also linked to thousands of heart disease deaths. In each case, the scientific literature gave little hint of these dangers.”
And finally, here is yet another statement from Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine:
“A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies [that praised the drugs] were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome.”
It turns out that the informational pipeline that feeds the entire perception of pharmaceutical medicine is a rank fraud.
Could any major newspaper add up these quotes and launch an all-out attack on the massive crimes surrounding published medical studies? Of course. And that attack, if carried out long enough, would shake the pillars of the Church of Modern Medicine. But it doesn’t happen.
And when it doesn’t happen, even bright readers tend to think they haven’t read those quotes correctly, because if they had, surely some investigation would have been mounted; surely somebody would have been indicted and prosecuted; surely the whole medical system would have undergone a revolution.
No. Instead, by failing to connect the dots, the major media are killing themselves off; they are faking it day by day; they are putting on mask after mask and pretending to be wise and cognizant of the latest developments. It’s all a con. It’s a con of cons, and it’s going bankrupt, as Internet reporters now carry the real freight.
Jon Rappoport
The author of an explosive new collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
www.nomorefakenews.com
[email protected]
This scientist is one of hundreds, if not thousands, who is paid to make ANYTHING which will help the food industry executives spend less money trying to make cheap and high-profit food TASTE good and LOOK appetizing. That’s the key, looks and taste, because quality does not matter at all. In fact, bad quality food, like what is so prominent in America, makes the food industry gurus money later on, especially when additives are used as fillers to “beef up” the processed product. Take a look:
Pink slime – The smoking gun of murderous food
Surprise ripped across America in April, just four months ago, as a mass wave of consumers discovered that hamburger meat often contains ammonia-treated beef, a.k.a. “pink slime.” This is a food industry strategy to use cheap animal connective tissue instead of meat. It’s still being served in schools across America as part of a plan to save lots of money. It should be called “The U.S. Public School MEAT AND DISEASE BILL.” Defenders of pink slime say it’s okay to eat it once cooked, just never touch it when it’s raw with your bare hands (E-coli). (http://yourlife.usatoday.com)
Parents wonder how their kids come down with so many “throwing up” viruses and random infections, but that’s no big deal, because the local and state governments have a solution: just bring the kids up to the school or Walmart for that swine flu, HPV, and MMR booster vaccine from Merck (or some other fraudulent Big Pharma “distributor”) and they’ll be JUST FINE! (http://www.naturalnews.com)
This treating of food with ammonia is nothing new, in fact, it was cleared by U.S. health officials 40 years ago (http://www.healthyeatingadvisor.com/food-additives.html). Worse yet, just 55 years ago, the “Delaney Clause of the Food Additives Amendment” states that “any additives shown to cause cancer in humans or animals are not permitted to be added to our food.” The FDA, paid off by Big Pharma, relaxed this standard to allow small amounts, which are now in three out of four common food products, fueling the lucrative cancer business. It’s enough to make you afraid to eat non-organic foods of any kind.
The ultimate food “poison” in America
Worse than pink slime, the ultimate food poison would be an artificial sweetener combined with genetically modified bacteria. But there’s no way America would do that to its people, because that would cause disease and cancer, and wouldn’t really benefit anyone in any way, right? Too late, it’s already done. This is not a conspiracy theory either, this is reality. A 1999 investigation found out aspartame is made with genetically modified bacteria. An article by The Independent titled “World’s top sweetener is made with GM bacteria” revealed that two of the largest health threats, artificial sweeteners and genetically modified organisms, were joining forces. (http://naturalsociety.com)
What makes aspartame so lethal? Artificial sweeteners TRICK THE BODY into using them like food, because they taste sweet, so the genetically modified bacteria enters the blood “Trojan horse style,” and can thoroughly infect the system, much the same way that a virus you download by accident would rip apart your computer. This GMO sweet bacteria invasion does collateral damage to the immune system, assisting cancer cell development and total cell annihilation, like nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, only this war is going on inside your blood and is attacking your vital organs.
The 70-year lie
Most forms of cancer generate from the mutation of (formerly) healthy cells, which were bombarded with artificial food agents, synthetics, hormones from animals, chemical food ingredients, and genetically modified organisms. Scientists knew seven decades ago artificial food agents caused cell mutation, and they also knew that chemotherapy was a pseudo-fix. Chemotherapy was first discovered by Nazi scientists to cause cancer to recede, including tumors, but they watched as the cancer came back within just a few years, and usually with quite a vengeance. Scientists and the U.S. government knew 70 years ago that chemotherapy was basically useless for helping cancer victims over the long term. This is well documented. (http://www.naturalnews.com/036034_history_medicine_investigation.html)
That’s right, back in the 1950s, German and American scientists got together and watched chemotherapy do its little SUPERNOVA trick, where it “shined” real bright at first, making them believe that it worked, and then the chemicals in the chemo itself caused so much acid and immune cell destruction in the body, that even if the targeted area was healed, the toxic blood disabled the immune system and the remaining “suffocated” cells simply mutated and multiplied uncontrollably, and subsequently found a new home, a new place to attack the body. (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dying-to-have-known/).
Put it this way, would you walk into a scientific laboratory, where they make chemical food agents and process food with bleach and ammonia, and start drinking samples to see what happens? Would you drink chemo test samples at a medical lab that didn’t test for results, because they already knew the results back in the 1950s? (http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/cancer/to-the-cancer-patient/)
In the United States, food additives are not approved or denied based on whether or not they cause disease, but rather whether or not they have positive economic and financial implications. You probably had no idea that “Big Pharma” executives and their cohorts invest in the “bad food” and “chemotherapy and radiation” business, ensuring dividends from the latter by increasing chemical consumption on the front end. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028602_health_insurance_fast_food.html). The fact is that there are more than 3,000 different food additives that are purposefully added to our food supply today.
What is the moral to this story? Artificial food is just the front end of chemotherapy. If you are currently seeking prevention, and this article is enough to put the artificial food and cancer scam into perspective for you, there is a remedy available. It’s out there ready and waiting for you, so it’s time to do a little homework. (http://www.truthpublishing.com)
Sources for this article include:
http://articles.businessinsider.com
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ricksimpsoncancercure16dec07.shtml
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9453&page=13
http://www.burzynskiclinic.com/
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5081.html
http://www.burzynskiclinic.com/what-are-antineoplastons.html
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/cancer/to-the-cancer-patient/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/hoxsey-how-healing-becomes-a-crime/
]]>- Pure Hoodia, Inc. is selling counterfeit hoodia as verified by independent lab testing (actual documents revealed below).
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. is failing to fill their capsules with the promised quantity of powder. Our tests on a digital scale showed that capsules from the PureHoodia.com company contained only 290mg of powder, not 400mg. (Actual digital scale results and photos shown below.)
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. has sought to steal intellectual property from a competing hoodia company by attempting to preemptively register / steal its trademark and product name. (Documents shown below.)
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. has stolen Truth Publishing content, modified the text, and posted a distorted version on their own website in an attempt to mislead readers into believing that NaturalNews.com solely and exclusively recommends their product, which is absolutely not the case.
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. operates out of a Nevada corporation set up and run by individuals who operate hundreds of small Nevada corporations, most likely for lawsuit protection reasons.
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. operates several companies and brands of Hoodia, including the Hoodonii and Slimtron product lines, which are advertised and promoted as separate companies, but are actually owned and controlled by the same people.
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. operates a series of fake “consumer comparison” websites that deceive consumers into purchasing their “top-rated” products, which are always products owned or controlled by the Pure Hoodia, Inc. operators.
Revealing the scam…
This story begins in mid-2004, when hoodia was appearing on the scene as an appetite suppressant. At that time, Truth Publishing purchased several hoodia products, conducted interviews, and began listing hoodia suppliers known to offer honest products. At the time, we were convinced this included Pure Hoodia, Inc. To further verify this, Truth Publishing attempted to locate laboratories in the U.S. that could conduct specimen authentication testing, but no such labs could be found (we called dozens).
As the popularity of hoodia skyrocketed since mid-2004, the bulk materials hoodia suppliers in South Africa were getting squeezed. Demand was skyrocketing, but the supply of hoodia couldn’t be ramped up overnight. In fact, the hoodia gordonii plant requires 5 – 7 years to reach maturity, so there was a sudden shortage of raw material.
Selling sawdust and calling it hoodia
As Truth Publishing has now learned from a variety of interviews with the chief scientific officers at two different laboratories, the South African suppliers responded to this heightened demand by doing three things:
- Blending plant roots into the bulk materials as filler. Roots, unfortunately, have none of the active chemical constituents that give hoodia gordonii its appetite suppressant qualities.
- Wild harvesting species that appear similar to hoodia, but are not hoodia. While this may allow the bulk ingredients to pass a simple microscopy test (because it all looks like succulent material under the microscope), it will not pass HPLC and TLC testing (chromatographic tests) that reveal the active chemical constituents of the sample.
- Cutting their bulk materials with silica, leaves, sawdust and other filler products that provide bulk, but no active ingredients.
Many commercial buyers in the U.S. were duped by South African hoodia suppliers who used these tactics.
Bait and switch
Another favorite tactic of the suppliers was a “bait and switch” strategy: when a U.S. buyer wanted to test a sample, the South African companies provided a genuine sample of hoodia gordonii. But once a large-volume order was placed, the bulk ingredients turned out to be counterfeit. Truth Publishing can confirm that at least one U.S. hoodia supplement company is now engaged in legal action against a South African hoodia supplier who used this bait-and-switch tactic.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., hoodia supplement companies were raking in astronomical sales as demand for hoodia weight loss pills skyrocketed. With all the money flowing, some companies decided that using authentic hoodia was irrelevant. As long as people were buying the product, they apparently thought, it didn’t really matter what was in the capsules.
Truth Publishing can reveal that Pure Hoodia, Inc. is a company now selling counterfeit hoodia. While we believe that Pure Hoodia originally sold genuine hoodia in 2004, we have now completed (and paid for) independent lab testing that shows the Pure Hoodia product to be counterfeit.
The Microscopy test
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The microscopy test shows the sample has no physical resemblance to hoodia gordonii. (Click image to see full-size.) |
The first test conducted by Alkemist Pharmaceuticals (the lab) on the Pure Hoodia sample was a microscopy test. This is essentially a visual inspection of the microscopic structure of the material. Families of plants show unique structures under the microscope. For example, flowering perennials look very different from succulents. Similarly, leaves, stems, roots and rhizomes all have unique structural characteristics that are readily identifiable by a trained botanist.
The microscopy test conducted on the Pure Hoodia sample had no resemblance to hoodia gordonii. As the lab report states, “The characteristic cellular structures above cannot confirm the identity of Hoodia gordonii.”
I spoke with the lab about this, and was told that the sample was definitely not hoodia, although it was, as they explained, “A common adulteration of hoodia seen in many samples submitted by various companies.” In other words, it’s not only counterfeit, it’s also a “common” counterfeit recipe.
Even though the microscopy test is, by itself, conclusive, we wanted to conduct more testing to make certain that our investigation was covering all the bases. What test did we look at next? TLC.
Thin-Layer Chromatography
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The TLC (chromatographic) test reveals no chemical constituents resembling hoodia gordonii. (Click image to see full-size.) |
This test reveals the chromatographic profile of the sample substance. In layman’s terms, each chemical in a sample resonates with certain frequencies of electromagnetic energy. As this energy is directed towards the sample in a progression algorithm that sweeps from short wavelengths to longer wavelengths, chemicals in the sample will resonate, giving off peaks of energy that are detectable by the TLC sensors. It is this combination of peaks and valleys in the chromatographic chart that reveals a pattern (a “fingerprint”) for each species of plant.
In the TLC testing, the Pure Hoodia sample turned out to have no resemblance to hoodia gordonii powder. As the report states, “The chromatographic profile demonstrated above cannot confirm the identity of Hoodia gordonii.” (Translation: the sample isn’t hoodia.)
High Performance Liquid Chromatography
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The HPLC test also reveals no chemical constituents resembling hoodia gordonii. (Click image to see full-size.) |
Truth Publishing also paid for one final test: HPLC. Without getting too technical, this test is similar to the TLC test, but helps confirm the test findings from another angle. The results of this test confirm, for a third time, that the sample is not hoodia gordonii: “The chromatographic profile demonstrated above cannot confirm the identity of Hoodia Gordonii.”
These were three separate tests all confirming that the sample was not hoodia gordonii. The only two possible conclusions to draw from this are that either the lab has no idea how to conduct tests (highly unlikely) or that the sample isn’t genuine hoodia. Truth Publishing believes that the test results are accurate and that the Pure Hoodia product is counterfeit.
But this is only the beginning of the investigation. Once you take a closer look at the business practices of Pure Hoodia, Inc., plus the deceptive labeling and online marketing techniques used by the company, you will not be surprised at all by the counterfeit findings revealed above. What you are about to read may shock you. And if you were a customer of Pure Hoodia, it may in fact enrage you.
Unscrupulous business practices exposed
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Pure Hoodia, Inc. tried to register the trademark of a competitor’s product name. (Click image to see full-size.) |
After receiving the test results described above, Truth Publishing began to look further into the business practices of Pure Hoodia, Inc. One of the first interesting things we found was a trademark application filed by Pure Hoodia, Inc. in 2004 for the phrase, “Hoodoba.” Sounds like a hoodia product name, right? It is… except that it’s the product name of a competitor (the StrictlyHealth company at http://www.hoodia-dietpills.com) who had been using the Hoodoba name for a considerable period of time, long before Pure Hoodia, Inc. filed for it.
The likely strategy here? It seems likely that the Pure Hoodia company was trying to register trademarks for the names of competitors’ products. The only purpose for a tactic such as this would be to gain ownership of competitors’ intellectual property, then sue them in order to take over their domain names or product branding reputation. It’s a dirty tactic, and would only be pursued by someone with a very low standard of ethics.
Click on the image shown here, and you’ll see the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing by Pure Hoodia, Inc. for the “Hoodoba” trademark on July 15, 2004. You’ll also that the trademark application reveals a link to a Nevada corporation.
Seeing this, we decided to follow the Nevada lead and check with Nevada’s Secretary of State…
A corporate front for illicit operations
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Nevada Secretary of State documents reveal a corporation mill and the name of an operator. (Click image to see full-size.) |
At Nevada’s Secretary of State website (http://sos.state.nv.us/), I ran a search for the Pure Hoodia, Inc. company. This turned up the record shown at right, which reveals that the company is operated by a corporation front organization named Budget Corporate Renewals, Inc.
From this document, we also learned that the officer of the corporation was Darrell M. Carriger, a person who has a more substantial role in this investigation, as you will see below. It’s important to note that Carriger is not the owner of Pure Hoodia, Carriger is basically a front-man for corporations set up in Nevada. For those who don’t know, there are basically two reasons to set up a Nevada corporation like this: 1) for legitimate asset protection reasons, in case you happen to be a lawsuit target from unscrupulous ambulance chasers and the like, and 2) for con artists, scammers and criminals who want to be able to conduct business while making it nearly impossible for them to be sued. You can guess which category Pure Hoodia probably belongs to.
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The Nevada Secretary of State reveals a web of corporations for which Carriger serves as officers. (Click image to see full-size.) |
Running a search on Carriger, we discovered 510 records with the State of Nevada, representing potentially hundreds of corporations (see right). This indicates Carriger is most likely an individual who will register and operate Nevada corporations for anyone willing to pay filing fees and annual maintenance. Although Nevada corporations certainly have legitimate uses, this pattern is simultaneously indicative of a corporate shell game played by con artists.
There’s more to the corporate shell game, as you’ll see below. But now let’s shift gears and take a look at the marketing tactics of Pure Hoodia, Inc.
Deceiving consumers with rigged comparison charts
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This rigged comparison chart deceives consumers by only recommending companies operated by the same guy. (Click image to see full-size.) |
One way many companies use search engines and websites to deceive customers is to construct bogus comparison charts that imply a fair comparison among hoodia products, but that actually place self-serving product recommendations at the top of the list. You can see one such chart in the image shown here.
This originally appeared at http://www.thehoodiafactor.com/, but may have been changed by the time you read this.
This chart purports to show a collection of various independent hoodia products along with rankings from five stars down to one star. The top three products on this chart are Hoodonii, Pure Hoodia and SlimTron.
Sounds like three different products, right? Think again:
- Pure Hoodia, Inc. is registered as a Nevada corporation, formed by Budget Corporate Renewals, Inc., with officers as follows: President: Darrell M. Carriger. Secretary: Darrell M. Carriger. Treasurer: Darrell M. Carriger.
- Hoodonii is sold by a company called Globebix, which is registered as a Nevada corporation, formed by Budget Corporate Renewals, Inc., with officers as follows: President: Darrell M. Carriger. Secretary: Darrell M. Carriger. Treasurer: Darrell M. Carriger.
- SlimTron is sold by a company called Lugan Technologies, Inc., which is registered as a Nevada corporation, formed by Budget Corporate Renewals, Inc., with officers as follows: President: Darrell M. Carriger. Secretary: Darrell M. Carriger. Treasurer: Darrell M. Carriger.
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This Nevada document also shows the Globebix company being operated by the same outfit. (Click image to see full-size.) |
Starting to get the picture here? What this con artist does is sets up shell corporations in Nevada, pumps counterfeit hoodia powder into capsules, then slaps three (or more) different labels on the products, making it look like it all comes from three different companies. Then he sets up a rigged consumer comparison website and, coincidentally, happens to list his three hoodia companies all as five-star, top-rated recommendations.
Whatever company the consumer chooses, this guy wins. And he wins big, because buying counterfeit hoodia is a lot cheaper than buying the real thing. The consumer, meanwhile, gets screwed by paying retail prices for fake products.
Stealing even more intellectual property
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This screen shot shows theft of a NaturalNews.com article along with editing designed to mislead readers. (Click image to see full-size.) |
When Truth Publishing started to uncover this information in our investigations, we of course removed our original link to the Pure Hoodia company which had appeared in earlier hoodia articles. The Pure Hoodia company didn’t like that, so they decided to steal entire pages of content from NaturalNews.com, edit those pages to make it seem like we were exclusively recommending their product, and then post those edited pages on their own website(s) such as www.TheHoodiaFactor.com.
This was not only a blatant theft of Truth Publishing’s intellectual property, it is also causing untold damage to the Truth Publishing reputation due to Pure Hoodia’s editing of the content page, making it misrepresent Truth Publishing’s position on their products.
Sending a warning email to Pure Hoodia accomplished nothing. It was completely ignored, and the intellectual property theft continues to this day.
But this part of the investigation is by no means over, because by stealing content from NaturalNews.com, the Pure Hoodia con artist has, in effect, motivated us to further pursue investigations and, potentially, support criminal charges against the Pure Hoodia owner / operator (who we will not name here, but whose identity is well known to us). You’ll read more about this below. We are now fully aware of this con artist’s multiple products, corporate fronts, and even his criminal history, all of which we are currently holding off on making public until we can put together a more complete investigation.
New information: Pure Hoodia rips off content from yet another hoodia website
After this article was first published in March, 2005, we received hundreds of emails thanking us for pursuing this investigation and reporting our findings. We also found out that Pure Hoodia has been busy stealing content from other websites as well. Virtually all content from the Australian website Hoodiaman.com was ripped off by Pure Hoodia and posted at the Pure Hoodia website.
Naturally, the original author of the content (Hoodiaman.com) was appalled and has been trying to get Pure Hoodia to take their content down, but it has been no use. The Pure Hoodia con artists believe they can freely steal content and scam the public without repercussions. And so far, that’s exactly what they’ve been able to get away with.
Pure Hoodia, Inc. violates federal labeling laws
Thinking that a con artist who would sell counterfeit hoodia, steal feature articles, play nasty trademark games with competitors, deceive consumers with bogus product comparison charts and use Nevada shell corporations might also be up to other questionable activity, we decided to find out if the Pure Hoodia product was possibly violating federal labeling laws. As it turns out, we were right: the Pure Hoodia product is deceptively labeled and is right now being sold in violation of federal laws and FDA regulations.
To find this out, we purchased a high-end digital scale called the i2600. It is accurate to .1 grams (1/10th of a gram) and is calibrated with a 1kg weight (1000 grams).
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Ten empty capsules weighs .9 grams. (Click image to see full-size.) |
To do the math on Pure Hoodia’s capsules, we first needed the weight of empty capsules. We purchased and weighed 10 gelatin capsules on the scale, which gave us a reading of .9 grams (900mg).
Then we read the Pure Hoodia product label, which claims 400mg of hoodia powder per capsule. Using that figure, the total weight of 10 capsules should be, of course, 4g, plus the weight of the empty capsules (.9). This means that if the capsules were properly filled with 400mg of hoodia powder each, the resulting total weight of capsules plus powder should be 4900mg, or 4.9 grams.
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The Pure Hoodia capsules weighed only 3.8 grams, indicating a 25% shortage of hoodia powder. (Click image to see full-size.) |
However, as you can see from this photo, the actual weight of ten Pure Hoodia capsules was only 3.8 grams. Subtracting the .9 grams for empty capsules, this leaves only 2.9 grams of actual hoodia powder. This is less than 75% of the promised amount of hoodia according to the product label and website (which should be 400mg per capsule).
The bottom line? Pure Hoodia capsules only contain 290mg of powder each, not 400mg. Of course, even if they were to contain 400mg of powder, the powder is counterfeit hoodia to begin with. But what this indicates is a double scam: the powder is counterfeit, and customers are being short-changed on the dosage.
Pure Hoodia uses the wrong capsules
A closer look at the capsules used by Pure Hoodia reveals the problem: the company is using capsules that are too small to hold 400mg of powder. The capsules themselves are simply too tiny.
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Pure Hoodia capsules are too small to hold 400mg of powder while a competing product, Hoodoba, uses larger capsules and genuine hoodia powder. (Click image to see full-size.) |
Take a look at this comparison photo on the right. You’ll see that both of these products, Pure Hoodia and Hoodoba (a product from another company that actually sells genuine hoodia powder) claim 400mg per capsule, but the actual size of the capsules is quite different. The Pure Hoodia capsules are tiny compared to the Hoodoba capsules.
This is why a careful weighing of these products reveals the Pure Hoodia capsules to only contain 290mg of powder, far short of the 400mg claimed on the label. This puts Pure Hoodia in violation of product labeling laws.
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Hoodoba, a genuine hoodia product, provides 6.1 grams in ten capsules. (Click image to see full-size.) |
In contrast, take a look at the actual weight of the Hoodoba capsules from an honest company selling genuine hoodia (see photo on right).
Here, we see the Hoodoba company’s capsules weighing 6.1 grams. Subtracting the weight of the empty capsules (.9), that leaves us with 5.2 grams (5200mg) of powder in 10 capsules, or 520mg in each capsule. This means the Hoodoba company is actually over-delivering, giving customers MORE hoodia than required.
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Hoodia Products “Powerslim” product provides an honest weight of 5000mg for ten capsules. (Click image to see full-size.) |
Another company offering genuine, lab-certified hoodia powder is Powerslim from the Hoodia Products company (www.HoodiaProducts.com). Subtracting the .9 grams of capsules leaves 4100mg of powder in ten capsules, or 410mg each (slightly above the promised amount per capsule).
As you can see then, other (honest) hoodia companies are delivering 400mg or higher per capsule.
The bottom line
As you can clearly see from this report, the assertions made about Pure Hoodia, Inc. at the beginning of this report are well documented and fully backed by hard evidence. Truth Publishing believes that the Pure Hoodia company is operating a hoodia scam, deceiving customers on multiple levels, and flouting the law in order to make a fast buck by riding the wave of popularity for a weight loss product.
They are, in effect, preying upon the desperation of people who are trying to lose weight with hoodia gordonii as an appetite suppressant, and in doing so, they are discrediting the entire hoodia industry.
Furthermore, until Truth Publishing initiated this investigation, no consumer safety organization, nor the FTC, nor the FDA were working on putting a stop to this. Pure Hoodia likely could have continued selling bogus products to unsuspecting consumers for many months or years.
It’s almost as bad as the pharmaceutical industry, except for the fact that bogus hoodia powder probably doesn’t kill people like prescription drugs do (prescription drugs kill at least 100,000 Americans each year, and that study was conducted before the truth came out about COX-2 inhibitor drugs that may have killed tens of thousands more). But many of the marketing tactics are the same: distort the truth, deceive customers, and disseminate propaganda masquerading as “public educational materials” such as the hoodia comparison chart shown earlier. Certainly, the lack of ethics shown here by Pure Hoodia, Inc. mirrors the dishonesty at large pharmaceutical companies who push hard to sell dangerous products to customers in order to maximize shareholder value and annual profits. If you think this hoodia scam is bad, you should learn more about the drug racket in this country and how the FDA rubber stamps dangerous (even deadly) drugs in order to prop up the profits of Big Pharma.
Action item: What you can do
If you have purchase products from Pure Hoodia, Truth Publishing strongly urges you to take the following steps:
- DO NOT consume capsules labeled as Pure Hoodia, Hoodonii, or SlimTron. Truth Publishing does not know what powder is actually contained in these capsules, but the lab results are telling us it is definitely not hoodia gordonii powder. Do not throw out bottles of Pure Hoodia. Keep them. Law enforcement officials may want to contact you in the future in order to obtain samples of the counterfeit capsules.
- Call your credit card company and dispute the charges, citing this new report showing the Pure Hoodia products to be made with counterfeit hoodia powder.
- Spread the word: forward the URL for this report to your friends, family, or anyone who may have purchased hoodia products on the internet. Help protect them from this hoodia scam by inviting them to read this Truth Publishing investigative report.
- Contact your local state Attorney General and file a complaint. You may include a copy of this report, if you wish (full permission granted to copy this). If you are in California, strongly consider this option, as the operator of Pure Hoodia resides in California.
- If you purchased Pure Hoodia products by clicking on a search engine advertising link, complain to that search engine about the fact that they are unknowingly promoting a company with a fraudulent product. Help these search engines purge their pages of fraudulent products and promoters.
- Consider contacting the FTC or other law enforcement officials on this matter. Only through law enforcement efforts can we get con artists shut down.
- If you were harmed by the Pure Hoodia company, financially or otherwise, please email Truth Publishing at the email addresses listed on this site, so that we may compile a list of complaints for law enforcement authorities. We may also publish those complaints in an update to this investigation (we will not publish your name or email address, rest assured).
- Help us track down other unscrupulous activities by the Pure Hoodia scam artists. Have you been scammed by another product that you think may be operated by the same con artist? Let us know via email, and we’ll do our best to continue this investigation and bring this man to justice.
And finally, subscribe to the NaturalNews Insider email alert (see form at top left of this site) so that you can stay informed about new events in this ongoing investigation. What we’ve covered here is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more to this story, because the operator of Pure Hoodia, it turns out, is involved in a whole series of other products and companies.
NaturalNews receives threatening email from Pure Hoodia
Following the first publication of this report, we received a threatening email signed by Pure Hoodia, Inc. The subject was, “You have been dooped! [sic]” The email went on to say, “I sure hope that you have deep pockets because our lawyers are going to take you and your stupid little website down! …you will be bought to justice for slander reguardless [sic] of your intent!”
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it indicates that the Pure Hoodia people can’t spell. Secondly, it’s a good demonstration of the operating tactics of this con artist: steal from everybody you can, rip off the public with counterfeit products, then threaten those who shed light on your scam. They obviously hold some faint hope that by sending threatening emails that look like they were typed by a high school dropout, they can frighten Truth Publishing into retracting this story.
It would be rather hilarious to see Pure Hoodia attempt to take all of this to court, because then there would be a public record of all the evidence presented here, plus more that we haven’t yet published. And that’s the last thing they want. They don’t want any of this to come to light. They want to keep it buried and uninvestigated. As long as nobody knows the truth, they can keep running the scam.
Take notice of a couple of things about Pure Hoodia: 1) They never reveal actual names of people running the company. Even the email we received wasn’t signed by a person’s name. 2) It’s run out of a PO Box and they never print a physical street address. 3) Emails from Pure Hoodia come from “freebie” email accounts. Basically, these people (person, actually) don’t want to be tracked down. Everything’s a front, starting with the Nevada corporations (all three, plus more, actually).
All of a sudden, Pure Hoodia welcomes your refund request!
Also following the publication of this investigation, Pure Hoodia has posted a message on their website reading, “It has come to our attention that our competition along with a so called Independent Consumer Guide and a Consumer News Alert website is trying to discredit the contents of our Pure Hoodia capsules so let it be know that if for any reason you are unsatisfied with our Pure Hoodia or Pure Hoodia Plus product feel free to return the unused portion along with your original invoice within 60 days from the time your paypal payment was received for a full refund!”
Why are they making this offer? Because, of course, they don’t want the merchant account chargebacks. You see, they know that the only way they can keep scamming people is to keep their ecommerce merchant account up and running. If enough people request chargebacks, then their ecommerce chargeback rate goes through the roof and, eventually, gets yanked. And if they don’t have ecommerce running, then they can’t keep scamming people online. So now all of a sudden, they’re welcoming product returns.
What’s really interesting about this statement on their website, however, is that they’re calling us a “so-called” independent consumer guide, and yet they are the ones operating their own rigged comparison websites as exposed in sections above. Interesting, huh? The fact is, we really are independent. And Pure Hoodia or anybody else can look all they want, there is absolutely no payola, no funny business, no kickbacks, etc., between Truth Publishing, myself, or any company or product we recommend. We’re 100% clean, 100% independent. Which is, of course, why we tell it like it is. And that infuriates those who are used to calling the shots just because they’re writing the checks.
What Hoodia products can you trust?
As this investigation reveals, not all products in the hoodia industry can be trusted. Truth Publishing is currently in the process of testing other hoodia products, and we hope to be able to bring that information to the public as quickly as possible (although, keep in mind, it is rather expensive for us to continue to do product testing, given that we receive no financial benefit whatsoever from sales of hoodia products, and we do not accept payments from hoodia companies).
In the mean time, here are the three hoodia supplement companies we have verified are using genuine hoodia gordonii:
- Strictly Health / Hoodoba. This is the company that actually over-delivers on the hoodia powder. Their capsules contain an abundance of genuine, verified hoodia gordonii powder.
- HoodiaProducts.com / Powerslim. This is also a 100% verified authentic hoodia product, sold with high ethical standards, with honest and accurate filling of capsules.
There certainly may be other companies who are also selling honest hoodia products. As of this writing, however, Truth Publishing has only been able to verify the three companies listed above. None of these companies pay to be listed here, nor has Truth Publishing received any funds whatsoever from these companies or the sale of their products. Our research results are NOT for sale (unlike some other so-called “consumer” supplement testing companies on the Internet).
Absolutely no payola
Just to reiterate, this investigation was conducted at considerable cost and effort to Truth Publishing. We spent well over $1,200 on lab tests, equipment and hoodia samples. We also spent countless hours conducting this investigation, interviewing various people, writing this report, and so on. Yet we have not been compensated in any way. No person or company has paid us to create this report. We receive no financial benefit whatsoever from the sale of any products mentioned here.
Permission to reprint is granted
You may freely reprint this report, along with the images and documents, as long as full credit and a link is given to http://www.NaturalNews.com. Please spread the word about this hoodia scam to prevent others from being scammed.
A message from Mike Adams
If you found this investigation and report to be valuable, you may be very interested in the Health Intelligence Files. In the Health Intelligence Files, I use the same hard-nosed investigative know-how you’ve seen demonstrated here to find little-known strategies for preventing and even reversing chronic disease.
What kind of diseases am I talking about? Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, asthma and many more. Even though these diseases are now rampant in our nation, the good news is that every one of them is preventable, if not outright beatable by using cutting-edge health strategies that very few people know about, and almost no one is willing to talk about publicly for fear of FDA censorship.
I used many of these strategies to transform my own health from a state of chronic pain, borderline obesity and diabetes to a state of “perfect health” according to my naturopathic physician. I’ve posted my own blood chemistry statistics to prove it: click here to see my HDL cholesterol of 62 and LDL cholesterol of 67.
I’ve invested thousands of hours, done the hard research, and uncovered the most potent health transformation strategies published anywhere in the world. And through Truth Publishing, these are now available to a handful of people each month who truly desire to achieve outstanding human health. Access to this information is strictly limited to a small number of people each month, and as of this writing, there are only a few access privileges remaining.
To learn more, visit the Health Intelligence Files.
This entire report is copyright(c) 2005 by Truth Publishing, Inc. Permission is granted to reprint. DISCLAIMER: While the information presented here is deemed accurate at the time of publication, Truth Publishing is not responsible for accuracy errors. Nothing in this report is intended as medical advice of any kind. This information is provided as-is, with no warranty of any kind. Your use of this information is subject to the Terms and conditions of the NaturalNews Network.
]]>The condition known as Morgellons disease is characterized primarily by skin lesions that do not heal, as well as unexplained sensations of crawling, biting or stinging on the skin; the presence of foreign materials, such as fibers, on or under the skin; fatigue; joint pain; memory loss; mental confusion and vision changes.
Because doctors do not know what causes the symptoms, some have questioned whether it is a real physical condition. According to the Morgellons Research Foundation, many Morgellons patients are falsely “diagnosed with a common medical label, Delusions of Parasitosis, the basic tenet being this is a psychiatric illness with the presumption of a purely delusional ‘parasite infestation.'”
The CDC investigation will involve patients enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Health Plan who saw medical attention for Morgellons-like symptoms within an 18-month time period. It will also involve cooperation from the Armed Forces Pathology Institute, and is expected to last for at least one year.
Patients involved in the study will undergo thorough examinations of both mental and physical health.
When asked if she believes that Morgellons disease is a real medical condition, lead researcher Michele Pearson said, “What I can tell you is real is the suffering that these patients are experiencing. I cannot characterize this as a syndrome, as a disease. I can tell you it’s an unexplained illness.”
The Morgellons Research Foundation says that it has identified at least 11,000 families around the world that have at least one member who suffers from Morgellons disease. Executive Director Mary Leitao said that the CDC investigation is an important step toward finding out more about the condition, which she believes is “an infectious disease.”
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