Trumped Up "Nutritional" Products - A Cautionary Tale of Immediate Relevance

On Health Care Renewal, we frequently discuss deceptive marketing schemes designed to sell tests and treatments whose benefits for patients do not clearly outweigh their harms, and sometimes which are useless or dangerous.  In fact, we have to be selective about discussing such cases, because they are all too common.  Therefore, we tend to focus on cases involving the biggest and most powerful health care organizations, and/or the worst risks to patients.We have generally not discussed the myriad promotions of dubious "nutritional" tests and therapies, because there are just so many of them, the players involved are generally small, and these products were effectively deregulated in the US by the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act.  However, last year we discussed how the marketing of a "nutritional supplement" containing an amphetamine like substance was seemingly facilitated by the revolving door at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The Trump Network -BackgroundBut a story recently republished by Stat is now suddenly relevant because one of the players involved is now so influential.  It recounted the rise and fall of The Trump Network, a network marketing scheme to sell nutritional products.Actually, the most colorful version of the background of this story comes from a 2011 article in New York Magazine.  Here is how the network marketing worked, using an example centered around a Trump Network marketer-to-be named Izzo:He wou...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: complementary/ alternative medicine deception Donald Trump marketing Source Type: blogs