The Health Jerk

Part Twelve:  More Government Interventions Into the American Health Industry

OK, I'm back, here are some personal statements.

With the nutritional supplement market out of control I do not know what is going to happen.  Maybe overregulation, unbridled demand and questionable marketing are fixin' to be a train wreck, maybe not, but I do know this.

It is immoral and unethical to sell a nutritional product by offering your prospect false expectations:  “I have diabetes, I took XXXX, I recovered.  You have diabetes, if you take XXXX, then you will recover from diabetes.”  This is total BS.  There are dozens if not hundreds of variables. Just because I have diabetes, it is not true that our bodies are the same age, the same condition, the same genetic history, the same environment, the same blood type, the same metabolic rate and so on and so on.  Accordingly, one cannot draw the conclusion, it cured me therefore it will cure you.  Yet how many times have you heard that presentation?   Worse yet, how many times have you used it?

If we cannot use case study parallel examples, then what is left for the marketers of nutritional products?

The other main marketing tactic out there involves the concept of a secret discovery and exclusivity.  The natives from the Amazon jungles have used this herb from centuries and they never get warts etc. etc. etc.  The same invalidation applies as is the early discussion of I have it, you have it…

What’s left?

Greed is a marketing tactic which is often used in MLM businesses which many times turn out to be well camouflaged pyramid schemes.   Sign up your family and friends and everyone will get rich, who cares about the product. Some presenters love to use the old gold mine story.

  “If you found a gold mine which was loaded with gold bars, more than you could possibly carry away, more wealth than you could possibly use. Who would you call to help you?  Would you call strangers or would you call your family and friends?  I think you would call your ‘warm market’ and allow them to participate and share in your good fortune.  So this MLM opportunity is your gold mine.  You know it's just about to explode.  Look at me, I am already making $25,000 per month.   So get your ‘warm market’ on board.   Invite them to collect their bars of gold before everyone else discovers the gold mine.”

 I thought that this BS had run its course.  But someone recently retold the story with great enthusiasm.  If you are not providing a solid product, then there can be no sustainable business model.  If you are not providing true value to your customers, then there can be no sustainable business model.  Period.  No maybes, no exceptions.  There is actually a group of ‘marketers’, I put that in quotes because I personally do not consider them marketers, who only operate pre-launches.  They had done hundreds.  They have a template.  They just collect all the upfront deposits from the wannabee greedies and then disappear without launching anything.  Then they reappear to do it all over again with another project next month.  The amazing thing to me is that often the same wannabees  greedies bite, time after time after time.  Greed is a tremendous motivator.

OK, I am getting off of a rant here.

Back to the subject at hand. How can a valid effective nutritional product be exposed to the marketplace.  And better yet, how can the marketplace recognize the valid products from the scams?

Before I address those issues, let me say this.  The marketplace loves to investigate scientific facts about products.  They love to hear stories about the Amazon natives.  They listen carefully to presentations about patents and exclusivity.  That's great when you are just collecting information.  The big question from the selling side is “When do you stop providing information?'  There are a whole niche of people out there who will listen to the cows come home but never pull out their credit card without a notarized statement from their doctor.  Then the question becomes, why provide more than a very brief summary if endless information in not effective?  Finally, here may be a forced solution and here is a my prediction.

It is my personal opinion that the following statement is going to become a requirement on all advertisements of nutritional products.   It will become a vigorously enforced law.   If you do not clearly provide this statement, then you will be punished legally.  Here it is:

“This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Furthermore, much to the chagrin of the secret ingredient marketers, I predict that ingredient disclosure on labels, similar to foods and pharmaceuticals, will be required and vigorously enforced in the near future.  There is that magic word disease again.  Remember what was stated early in this report, the FDA is busily trying to define every ache and pain as a disease so that only DRUGS can be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent ANYTHING.  OK, that's it for this part.  Next we will talk about guarantor reliability, remember Enron, Eastern...

Later sheep.